Speciesism in Biology and Culture

Speciesism in Biology and Culture

Author: Brian Swartz

Publisher: Springer Nature

Published: 2022-12-16

Total Pages: 206

ISBN-13: 3030990311

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This open access book explores a wide-ranging discussion about the sociopolitical, cultural, and scientific ramifications of speciesism and world views that derive from it. In this light, it integrates subjects across the natural sciences, social sciences, and humanities. The 21st-century western world is anthropocentric to an extreme; we adopt unreasonably self-centered and self-serving ideas and lifestyles. Americans consume more energy resources per person than most other nations on Earth and have little concept of how human ecology and population biology interface with global sustainability. We draw upon religion, popular culture, politics, and technology to justify our views and actions, yet remain self-centered because our considerations rarely extend beyond our immediate interests. Stepping upward on the hierarchy from “racism,” “speciesism” likewise refers to the view that unique natural kinds (species) exist and are an important structural element of biodiversity. This ideology manifests in the cultural idea that humans are distinct from and intrinsically superior to other forms of life. It further carries a plurality of implications for how we perceive ourselves in relation to nature, how we view Judeo-Christian religions and their tenets, how we respond to scientific data about social problems such as climate change, and how willing we are to change our actions in the face of evidence.


Book Synopsis Speciesism in Biology and Culture by : Brian Swartz

Download or read book Speciesism in Biology and Culture written by Brian Swartz and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2022-12-16 with total page 206 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This open access book explores a wide-ranging discussion about the sociopolitical, cultural, and scientific ramifications of speciesism and world views that derive from it. In this light, it integrates subjects across the natural sciences, social sciences, and humanities. The 21st-century western world is anthropocentric to an extreme; we adopt unreasonably self-centered and self-serving ideas and lifestyles. Americans consume more energy resources per person than most other nations on Earth and have little concept of how human ecology and population biology interface with global sustainability. We draw upon religion, popular culture, politics, and technology to justify our views and actions, yet remain self-centered because our considerations rarely extend beyond our immediate interests. Stepping upward on the hierarchy from “racism,” “speciesism” likewise refers to the view that unique natural kinds (species) exist and are an important structural element of biodiversity. This ideology manifests in the cultural idea that humans are distinct from and intrinsically superior to other forms of life. It further carries a plurality of implications for how we perceive ourselves in relation to nature, how we view Judeo-Christian religions and their tenets, how we respond to scientific data about social problems such as climate change, and how willing we are to change our actions in the face of evidence.

The Evolution of Culture in Animals

The Evolution of Culture in Animals

Author: John Tyler Bonner

Publisher: Princeton University Press

Published: 2018-06-05

Total Pages: 215

ISBN-13: 0691186987

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Animals do have culture, maintains this delightfully illustrated and provocative book, which cites a number of fascinating instances of animal communication and learning. John Bonner traces the origins of culture back to the early biological evolution of animals and provides examples of five categories of behavior leading to nonhuman culture: physical dexterity, relations with other species, auditory communication within a species, geographic locations, and inventions or innovations. Defining culture as the transmission of information by behavioral rather than genetical means, he demonstrates the continuum between the traits we find in animals and those we often consider uniquely human.


Book Synopsis The Evolution of Culture in Animals by : John Tyler Bonner

Download or read book The Evolution of Culture in Animals written by John Tyler Bonner and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2018-06-05 with total page 215 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Animals do have culture, maintains this delightfully illustrated and provocative book, which cites a number of fascinating instances of animal communication and learning. John Bonner traces the origins of culture back to the early biological evolution of animals and provides examples of five categories of behavior leading to nonhuman culture: physical dexterity, relations with other species, auditory communication within a species, geographic locations, and inventions or innovations. Defining culture as the transmission of information by behavioral rather than genetical means, he demonstrates the continuum between the traits we find in animals and those we often consider uniquely human.

The Politics of Species

The Politics of Species

Author: Raymond Corbey

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2013-09-05

Total Pages: 311

ISBN-13: 1107032601

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Experts from a range of disciplines identify the key barriers to a definition of moral respect that includes nonhuman animals.


Book Synopsis The Politics of Species by : Raymond Corbey

Download or read book The Politics of Species written by Raymond Corbey and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2013-09-05 with total page 311 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Experts from a range of disciplines identify the key barriers to a definition of moral respect that includes nonhuman animals.

Animal Bodies, Renaissance Culture

Animal Bodies, Renaissance Culture

Author: Karen Raber

Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press

Published: 2013-09-24

Total Pages: 244

ISBN-13: 0812208595

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Animal Bodies, Renaissance Culture examines how the shared embodied existence of early modern human and nonhuman animals challenged the establishment of species distinctions. The material conditions of the early modern world brought humans and animals into complex interspecies relationships that have not been fully accounted for in critical readings of the period's philosophical, scientific, or literary representations of animals. Where such prior readings have focused on the role of reason in debates about human exceptionalism, this book turns instead to a series of cultural sites in which we find animal and human bodies sharing environments, mutually transforming and defining one another's lives. To uncover the animal body's role in anatomy, eroticism, architecture, labor, and consumption, Karen Raber analyzes canonical works including More's Utopia, Shakespeare's Hamlet and Romeo and Juliet, and Sidney's poetry, situating them among readings of human and equine anatomical texts, medical recipes, theories of architecture and urban design, husbandry manuals, and horsemanship treatises. Raber reconsiders interactions between environment, body, and consciousness that we find in early modern human-animal relations. Scholars of the Renaissance period recognized animals' fundamental role in fashioning what we call "culture," she demonstrates, providing historical narratives about embodiment and the cultural constructions of species difference that are often overlooked in ecocritical and posthumanist theory that attempts to address the "question of the animal."


Book Synopsis Animal Bodies, Renaissance Culture by : Karen Raber

Download or read book Animal Bodies, Renaissance Culture written by Karen Raber and published by University of Pennsylvania Press. This book was released on 2013-09-24 with total page 244 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Animal Bodies, Renaissance Culture examines how the shared embodied existence of early modern human and nonhuman animals challenged the establishment of species distinctions. The material conditions of the early modern world brought humans and animals into complex interspecies relationships that have not been fully accounted for in critical readings of the period's philosophical, scientific, or literary representations of animals. Where such prior readings have focused on the role of reason in debates about human exceptionalism, this book turns instead to a series of cultural sites in which we find animal and human bodies sharing environments, mutually transforming and defining one another's lives. To uncover the animal body's role in anatomy, eroticism, architecture, labor, and consumption, Karen Raber analyzes canonical works including More's Utopia, Shakespeare's Hamlet and Romeo and Juliet, and Sidney's poetry, situating them among readings of human and equine anatomical texts, medical recipes, theories of architecture and urban design, husbandry manuals, and horsemanship treatises. Raber reconsiders interactions between environment, body, and consciousness that we find in early modern human-animal relations. Scholars of the Renaissance period recognized animals' fundamental role in fashioning what we call "culture," she demonstrates, providing historical narratives about embodiment and the cultural constructions of species difference that are often overlooked in ecocritical and posthumanist theory that attempts to address the "question of the animal."

The Heart of the Wild

The Heart of the Wild

Author: Ben A. Minteer

Publisher: Princeton University Press

Published: 2024-08-13

Total Pages: 280

ISBN-13: 0691228612

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Timely and provocative reflections on the future of the wild in an increasingly human world The Heart of the Wild brings together some of today’s leading scientists, humanists, and nature writers to offer a thought-provoking meditation on the urgency of learning about and experiencing our wild places in an age of rapidly expanding human impacts. These engaging essays present nuanced and often surprising perspectives on the meaning and value of “wildness” amid the realities of the Anthropocene. They consider the trends and forces—from the cultural and conceptual to the ecological and technological—that are transforming our relationship with the natural world and sometimes seem only to be pulling us farther away from wild places and species with each passing day. The contributors make impassioned defenses of naturalism, natural history, and nature education in helping us to rediscover a love for the wild at a time when our connections with it have frayed or been lost altogether. Charting a new path forward in an era of ecological uncertainty, The Heart of the Wild reframes our understanding of nature and our responsibility to learn from and sustain it as the human footprint sinks ever deeper into the landscapes around us. With contributions by Bill Adams, Joel Berger, Susan Clayton, Eileen Crist, Martha L. Crump, Thomas Lowe Fleischner, Harry W. Greene, Hal Herzog, Jonathan B. Losos, Emma Marris, Ben A. Minteer, Kathleen Dean Moore, Gary Paul Nabhan, Peter H. Raven, Christopher J. Schell, Richard Shine, and Kyle Whyte.


Book Synopsis The Heart of the Wild by : Ben A. Minteer

Download or read book The Heart of the Wild written by Ben A. Minteer and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2024-08-13 with total page 280 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Timely and provocative reflections on the future of the wild in an increasingly human world The Heart of the Wild brings together some of today’s leading scientists, humanists, and nature writers to offer a thought-provoking meditation on the urgency of learning about and experiencing our wild places in an age of rapidly expanding human impacts. These engaging essays present nuanced and often surprising perspectives on the meaning and value of “wildness” amid the realities of the Anthropocene. They consider the trends and forces—from the cultural and conceptual to the ecological and technological—that are transforming our relationship with the natural world and sometimes seem only to be pulling us farther away from wild places and species with each passing day. The contributors make impassioned defenses of naturalism, natural history, and nature education in helping us to rediscover a love for the wild at a time when our connections with it have frayed or been lost altogether. Charting a new path forward in an era of ecological uncertainty, The Heart of the Wild reframes our understanding of nature and our responsibility to learn from and sustain it as the human footprint sinks ever deeper into the landscapes around us. With contributions by Bill Adams, Joel Berger, Susan Clayton, Eileen Crist, Martha L. Crump, Thomas Lowe Fleischner, Harry W. Greene, Hal Herzog, Jonathan B. Losos, Emma Marris, Ben A. Minteer, Kathleen Dean Moore, Gary Paul Nabhan, Peter H. Raven, Christopher J. Schell, Richard Shine, and Kyle Whyte.

Critical Ethology and Post-Anthropocentric Ethics

Critical Ethology and Post-Anthropocentric Ethics

Author: Roberto Marchesini

Publisher: Springer Nature

Published: 2021-05-22

Total Pages: 270

ISBN-13: 3030742032

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The primary purpose of this book is to contribute to an overcoming of the traditional separation between humanties and life sciences which, according to the authors, is required today both by the developments of these disciplines and by the social problems they have to face. The volume discusses the theoretical, epistemological and ethical repercussions of the main acquisitions obtained in the last decades from the behavioral sciences. Both the authors are inspired by the concept of a “critical ethology”, oriented to archive the nature/culture and human/animal dichotomies. The book proposes a theoretical and methodological restructuring of the comparative study of the animal behavior, learning, and cultures, focused on the fact that thought, culture and language are not exclusively human prerogatives. The proposed analysis includes a critique of speciesism and determinism in the ethical field, and converge with the Numanities, to which the series is dedicated, on a key point: it is necessary to arrive at an education system able to offer scientific, social and ethical skills that are trasversal and transcendent to the traditional humanities/life sciences bipartition. Skills that are indispensable for facing the complex challenges of the contemporary society and promoting a critical reflection of humanity on itself.


Book Synopsis Critical Ethology and Post-Anthropocentric Ethics by : Roberto Marchesini

Download or read book Critical Ethology and Post-Anthropocentric Ethics written by Roberto Marchesini and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2021-05-22 with total page 270 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The primary purpose of this book is to contribute to an overcoming of the traditional separation between humanties and life sciences which, according to the authors, is required today both by the developments of these disciplines and by the social problems they have to face. The volume discusses the theoretical, epistemological and ethical repercussions of the main acquisitions obtained in the last decades from the behavioral sciences. Both the authors are inspired by the concept of a “critical ethology”, oriented to archive the nature/culture and human/animal dichotomies. The book proposes a theoretical and methodological restructuring of the comparative study of the animal behavior, learning, and cultures, focused on the fact that thought, culture and language are not exclusively human prerogatives. The proposed analysis includes a critique of speciesism and determinism in the ethical field, and converge with the Numanities, to which the series is dedicated, on a key point: it is necessary to arrive at an education system able to offer scientific, social and ethical skills that are trasversal and transcendent to the traditional humanities/life sciences bipartition. Skills that are indispensable for facing the complex challenges of the contemporary society and promoting a critical reflection of humanity on itself.

Pets, People, and Pragmatism

Pets, People, and Pragmatism

Author: Erin McKenna

Publisher: Fordham Univ Press

Published: 2013-03

Total Pages: 265

ISBN-13: 0823251144

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This book examines human relationships with pets without assuming that such relations are either unnatural and to be avoided, or benign. We need to find ways to relate respectfully. For respectful relationships to be a real possibility, though, humans must make the effort to understand the beings with whom they live, work, and play.


Book Synopsis Pets, People, and Pragmatism by : Erin McKenna

Download or read book Pets, People, and Pragmatism written by Erin McKenna and published by Fordham Univ Press. This book was released on 2013-03 with total page 265 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book examines human relationships with pets without assuming that such relations are either unnatural and to be avoided, or benign. We need to find ways to relate respectfully. For respectful relationships to be a real possibility, though, humans must make the effort to understand the beings with whom they live, work, and play.

Speciesism, Painism and Happiness

Speciesism, Painism and Happiness

Author: Richard D. Ryder

Publisher: Andrews UK Limited

Published: 2017-01-16

Total Pages: 169

ISBN-13: 1845405064

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Richard Ryder created the term speciesism in early 1970 and shared the idea with Peter Singer, who popularised it in his classic work Animal Liberation (1975). A key figure in the modern animal rights revival Ryder appeared on the first-ever televised discussion of animal rights (The Lion's Share, Scottish Television) in December 1970. He further promoted the ideas around speciesism in recorded discussions with Bridget Brophy, for the Open University, and in his contribution to the seminal philosophical work Animals Men and Morals edited by the Oxford philosophers Stanley and Roslind Godlovitch and John Harris in 1971. From 1969 Ryder organised protests against animal experiments and bloodsports. He continued to promote his ideas about speciesism in leaflets and broadcasts, culminating in the publication of his Victims of Science in 1975 - a book that provoked debates in Parliament and on television and was described by The Spectator at the time as "a morally and historically important book". Dr Ryder was elected to the RSPCA Council in 1971, first becoming Chairman in 1977. In 1980 he was founding Chairman of the Liberal Democrat Animal Protection Group, and later ran for Parliament, was Director of the Political Animal Lobby and then Mellon Professor in the Department of Philosophy at Tulane University. Ryder coined the term painism to describe his wider moral theory in 1990. He has several times broadcast on the BBC's Moral Maze.


Book Synopsis Speciesism, Painism and Happiness by : Richard D. Ryder

Download or read book Speciesism, Painism and Happiness written by Richard D. Ryder and published by Andrews UK Limited. This book was released on 2017-01-16 with total page 169 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Richard Ryder created the term speciesism in early 1970 and shared the idea with Peter Singer, who popularised it in his classic work Animal Liberation (1975). A key figure in the modern animal rights revival Ryder appeared on the first-ever televised discussion of animal rights (The Lion's Share, Scottish Television) in December 1970. He further promoted the ideas around speciesism in recorded discussions with Bridget Brophy, for the Open University, and in his contribution to the seminal philosophical work Animals Men and Morals edited by the Oxford philosophers Stanley and Roslind Godlovitch and John Harris in 1971. From 1969 Ryder organised protests against animal experiments and bloodsports. He continued to promote his ideas about speciesism in leaflets and broadcasts, culminating in the publication of his Victims of Science in 1975 - a book that provoked debates in Parliament and on television and was described by The Spectator at the time as "a morally and historically important book". Dr Ryder was elected to the RSPCA Council in 1971, first becoming Chairman in 1977. In 1980 he was founding Chairman of the Liberal Democrat Animal Protection Group, and later ran for Parliament, was Director of the Political Animal Lobby and then Mellon Professor in the Department of Philosophy at Tulane University. Ryder coined the term painism to describe his wider moral theory in 1990. He has several times broadcast on the BBC's Moral Maze.

Ecocriticism and the Idea of Culture

Ecocriticism and the Idea of Culture

Author: Helena Feder

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2016-04-29

Total Pages: 192

ISBN-13: 1317146417

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Ecocriticism and the Idea of Culture: Biology and the Bildungsroman draws on work by Kinji Imanishi, Frans de Waal, and other biologists to create an interdisciplinary, materialist notion of culture for ecocritical analysis. In this timely intervention, Feder examines the humanist idea of culture by taking a fresh look at the stories it explicitly tells about itself. These stories fall into the genre of the Bildungsroman, the tale of individual acculturation that participates in the myth of its complete separation from and opposition to nature which, Feder argues, is culture’s own origin story. Moving from Voltaire’s Candide to Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein and from Virginia Woolf’s Orlando to Jamaica Kincaid’s Lucy, the book dramatizes humanism’s own awareness of the fallacy of this foundational binary. In the final chapters, Feder examines the discourse of animality at work in this narrative as a humanist fantasy about empathy, one that paradoxically excludes other animals from the ethical community to justify the continued domination of both human and nonhuman others.


Book Synopsis Ecocriticism and the Idea of Culture by : Helena Feder

Download or read book Ecocriticism and the Idea of Culture written by Helena Feder and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-04-29 with total page 192 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Ecocriticism and the Idea of Culture: Biology and the Bildungsroman draws on work by Kinji Imanishi, Frans de Waal, and other biologists to create an interdisciplinary, materialist notion of culture for ecocritical analysis. In this timely intervention, Feder examines the humanist idea of culture by taking a fresh look at the stories it explicitly tells about itself. These stories fall into the genre of the Bildungsroman, the tale of individual acculturation that participates in the myth of its complete separation from and opposition to nature which, Feder argues, is culture’s own origin story. Moving from Voltaire’s Candide to Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein and from Virginia Woolf’s Orlando to Jamaica Kincaid’s Lucy, the book dramatizes humanism’s own awareness of the fallacy of this foundational binary. In the final chapters, Feder examines the discourse of animality at work in this narrative as a humanist fantasy about empathy, one that paradoxically excludes other animals from the ethical community to justify the continued domination of both human and nonhuman others.

Animal Rights

Animal Rights

Author: Paul Waldau

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2011

Total Pages: 257

ISBN-13: 019973996X

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A survey of animal rights issues addresses a variety of topics surrounding research animals, companion animals, wild animals, work animals, and animals used for food, as well as discussing the animal rights movement and its key figures and organizations.


Book Synopsis Animal Rights by : Paul Waldau

Download or read book Animal Rights written by Paul Waldau and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2011 with total page 257 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A survey of animal rights issues addresses a variety of topics surrounding research animals, companion animals, wild animals, work animals, and animals used for food, as well as discussing the animal rights movement and its key figures and organizations.