Vulnerability, Care, Power, and Virtue: Thinking Other Animals Anew by Stephen Thierman A thesis submitted in conformity with the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Graduate Department of Philosophy University of Toronto © Copyright by Stephen Thierman 2012 Vulnerability, Care, Power, and Virtue: Thinking Other Animals Anew Stephen Thierman Doctor of Philosophy Department of Philosophy University of Toronto 2012 Abstract This thesis is a work of practical philosophy situated at the intersection of bioethics, environmental ethics, and social and political thought. Broadly, its topic is the moral status of nonhuman animals. One of its pivotal aims is to encourage and foster the “sympathetic imaginative construction of another’s reality”1 and to determine how that construction might feed back on to understandings of ourselves and of our place in this world that we share with so many other creatures. In the three chapters that follow the introduction, I explore a concept (vulnerability), a tradition in moral philosophy (the ethic of care), and a philosopher (Wittgenstein) that are not often foregrounded in discussions of animal ethics. Taken together, these sections establish a picture of other animals (and of the kinship that humans share with them) that can stand as an alternative to the utilitarian and rights theories that have been dominant in this domain of philosophical inquiry. 1 Josephine Donovan, “Attention to Suffering: Sympathy as a Basis for the Ethical Treatment of Animals,” in The Feminist Care Tradition in Animal Ethics, ed. Josephine Donovan and Carol Adams (New York: Columbia University Press, 2007), 179. ii In my fifth and sixth chapters, I extend this conceptual framework by turning to the work of Michel Foucault. Here, I develop a two-pronged approach. The first direction – inspired by Foucault’s work on “technologies of power” – is a broad, top-down engagement that explores many of the social apparatuses that constitute the power-laden environments in which human beings and other animals interact. I focus on the slaughterhouse in particular and argue that it is a pernicious institution in which care and concern are rendered virtually impossible. The second direction – inspired by Foucault’s later work on “technologies of the self” – is a bottom-up approach that looks at the different ways that individuals care for, and fashion themselves, as ethical subjects. Here, I examine the dietary practice of vegetarianism, arguing that it is best understood as an ethical practice of self-care. One virtue of my investigation is that it enables a creative synthesis of disparate strands of philosophical thought (i.e. analytic, continental, and feminist traditions). Another is that it demonstrates the philosophical importance of attending to both the wider, institutional dimension of human-animal interactions and to the lived, embodied experiences of individuals who must orient themselves and live their lives within that broader domain. This more holistic approach enables concrete critical reflection that can be the impetus for social, and self-, transformation. iii Acknowledgments To all those individuals who read and/or sat through presentations of parts of this thesis – your comments and questions have been invaluable and have only served to make my work stronger. In this regard, I would like to especially thank Kathryn Morgan, Ingrid Stefanovic, Chloë Taylor, Mark Kingwell, Ralph Acampora, Brian Cantwell Smith, and Gillian Einstein. To Bubba – your inspiration and feline companionship are treasured. To Sareh – words cannot express the importance of your love and support. I could not have done this without you. iv Table of Contents Acknowledgments ........................................................................................................................ iv Table of Contents .......................................................................................................................... v Chapter 1 – Introduction.............................................................................................................. 1 I. Traditional Contemporary Approaches to Animal Ethics: Singer and Regan ...................... 6 II. Constructing an Alternative Approach ............................................................................... 11 III. Outline of Thesis Chapters ................................................................................................ 15 Chapter 2 – The Vulnerability of Other Animals .................................................................... 22 I. Vulnerability ........................................................................................................................ 24 II. Vulnerability as Conditio Humana (or, Other Animals are not Vulnerable) ...................... 30 III. Encounters with Vulnerability ........................................................................................... 41 IV. Vulnerability and Human Rights ....................................................................................... 46 V. A “Symphysics” of Transhuman Morality ......................................................................... 51 VI. Conclusion ......................................................................................................................... 55 Chapter 3 – The Ethic of Care and Other Animals: Reason vs. Emotion ............................. 58 I. Methodological Guidance .................................................................................................... 60 I.1 An Alternative Moral Epistemology ............................................................................. 61 I.1.1 Attention to Particular Others ............................................................................. 61 I.1.2 Relational and Concrete ...................................................................................... 64 I.1.3 Communication and Expression ......................................................................... 67 I.2 Moral Experience .......................................................................................................... 70 v II. Critical Reflections ............................................................................................................. 73 II.1 The Problem of Justification ........................................................................................ 74 II.2 Reason vs. Emotion...................................................................................................... 77 II.3 The “Rationalist Rejection of Emotion” Reappraised ................................................. 80 II.4 Hume – a revisiting ...................................................................................................... 84 II.5 Provisional Assessment................................................................................................ 89 III. Conclusion ......................................................................................................................... 91 Chapter 4 – Life and Death, Hope and Pain: Thinking (with Wittgenstein) about Humans and Other Animals ................................................................................................. 92 I. Wittgenstein’s Physiognomy ............................................................................................... 94 II. Humans and Other Animals ................................................................................................ 99 II.1 A Difference: Hope ................................................................................................... 100 II.2 A Similarity (with a Few Differences): Pain ............................................................. 102 II.3 Our attitude is not the same…All our reactions are different ................................... 107 III. Conclusion: Hesitation in the Face of Uncertainty.......................................................... 114 Chapter 5 – Apparatuses of Animality: Foucault Goes to a Slaughterhouse ...................... 117 I. “Apparatus” ........................................................................................................................ 118 II. Technologies ..................................................................................................................... 124 III. Power ............................................................................................................................... 126 III.1 Disciplinary Power ................................................................................................... 126 III.2 Productive Power ...................................................................................................... 129 III.3 Power/Freedom ......................................................................................................... 134 IV. The Slaughterhouse ......................................................................................................... 139 V. Conclusion ........................................................................................................................ 152 vi Chapter 6 – Vegetarianism as Technology of the Self: Thinking (with Foucault and Nietzsche) About Dietary Practice ...................................................................................... 155 I. Dining with Nietzsche ........................................................................................................ 158 II. From Nietzsche to Foucault .............................................................................................