RELI 226-601 Midterm

Lecture 4: Animal-Human Ethics

Lecture 9: Animality and Blackness

Lecture 13: Animals in Judaism

Lecture 7: Animals, Gender, and Sexuality

Lecture 5: Animal Humans: Ancient Origins

Lecture 12: Animals in Judaism

Lecture 6: The Descent of the Human Animal

Lecture 8: Animals, Colonialism, and Race

Lecture 3: Animal Studies and Religion

Lecture 11: Animals in Hebrew Scriptures

Lecture 10: Philosophies of the Human/Animal

Lecture 14: Animals in Christian Scriptures

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King

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Singer

Schaefer

Nussbaum

Name of Authors and Readings

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"All Animals Are Equal"

"Animal Others and Animal Studies"

Cavelieri, The Animal Debate: A Reexamination

Aristotle, History of Animals

Hebrew Bible: Genesis, Ch. 1-9: https://net.bible.org/#!bible/Genesis+1 (Focus on 1:20-1:30; 6:9-9:17)
• Stone, “Introduction,” Reading the Hebrew Bible with Animal Studies, p. 1-9

“Beyond ‘Compassion and Humanity’: Justice for Nonhuman Animals,” in Animal Rights: Current Debates and New Directions,

"Introduction"

Lecture 2: Animal Studies & Religion

Patton

Darwin, Comparison of the Mental Powers of Man and the Lower Animals

Vint, "The Female is Somewhat Duller': Gender and Animals," in Animal Alterity: Science Fiction and the Question of the Animal

"In Defense Of Animals: The Second Wave"

Dawkins, Scientific Basis for Assessing Suffering in Animals

Le Guin, “She Unnames Them,” The New Yorker

"Seeing Spirituality in Chimpanzees"

Adams, "The sexual politics of meat"

"Introduction: Species, Religious Studies, and the Affective Turn"

We should rethink religion alongside animals to prevent them from being an "absent presence"

Animals in Religion, Science, and Ethics

Important Takeaways: :

In Genesis: References animals multiple times

  • Discusses relationship between God, Man, and All other living creatures who move
  • Man is given “dominion” over animals, but this can translate to different things such as stewardship and responsibility
    -permission for humans to eat animals after Noah’s ark, but comes with limitations and conditions to make animals “fit for consumption”
  • emphasizes compassion for animals and the least amount of suffering, even placing higher value on helping a sick/hurt animal on the Sabbath than practicing it

Violations to the ethical treatment of animals parallels those of humans

Human/animal binary

Natural hierarchy in which humans dominate over animals

Linzey

This piece discussed that humans are not the only species that exhibit spiritual/religious behavior and rituals, suggesting that animals have a sense of spirituality.

Body vs. soul

Animals are body without soul and are naturally lower than humans

Hermeneutics

Key concepts: Feminism and vegetarianism are connected, we rename animals to help us cope with their death, there is an overlap between violence with animals and violence with women

"Jesus and Animals: A Different Perspective"

"critical lens like that offered by race of feminist theory"

Gilhus

"The new Testament and the Lamb of God"

Male over female

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Thesis: Difference in mind is in degree of abilities, not the kind

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Three ways animals become absent referents: literally, definitionally, and metaphorically.

Key Concepts: Western cultural construction of gender binaries, the control of animal sexuality: neutering, spaying, breeding, exploitation of animals and women

Jane Goodall: studied the chimpanzees "rain dances", explained this was their way of expressing their spirituality.

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Kalechofsky

"remains unstable, disputed, and negotiated"

religion is neither exclusively cognitive nor exclusively human

Cooper

Key Takeaways or themes: Power, an ecofeminist approach, everchanging reality.

Stone throwing = sacred activity or ritual

Male: human, rational, head..... Female: animal, emotional, body

Humans descended from "lower animals"

"...one cannot explore religious traditions adequately, nor really understand them well, without coming to terms with the diverse roles played out in their idea about animals

  • Australian moral philosopher
  • He argued for animal rights and against boundaries between humans and animals in ethical theory
  • Popularizes Speciesism

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Writing Humanimals: Critical Animal Studies and Jewish Studies

waterfall dance from chimpanzees is liked to religious rituals

Contrast to Cartesian ideas of animals being simply bodies

Patriarchal culture treats women and animals through objectification, fragmentation, and consumption.

Attention, reason, imagination, etc. are not solely human abilities

Descartes's ideas are being challenged now, animals have agency

Rene Descartes - Vivisection and the "beast-machine" theory - argues for Cartesian dualism in order to preform experiments on amimals

Cohn-Sherbok

Thesis: Le Guin uses the names of animals to portray the deception of association with an animal. In the reading, Eve feels close with an animal because of its existence rather than its name.

"Hope for the Animal Kingdom: A Jewish Vision"

Thinking about Aristotle's hierarchies and how they became so influential, author argues that they don't have to exist

humanitarian concerns are written in the Hebrew bible, animals are respected and treated kindly

Peacocks

scripture implies stewardship, not dominion

some parts of the scripture imply that animals are of equal standing with humans in relation to the divine

Traditional Views of
Animals in Religion

  • Principle of equal consideration of interests (suffering)
  • Philosophers typically do not take in to account other animal species as individual beings.

Suffering identified in animals mainly by physical health, physiological signs, and behavior

  • Bentham promotes utilitarianism
  • Decartes Claimed that animals "do not suffer"

"Asking the animals" by letting them choose options that are more desirable through moving towards or away from an environment or through a use of conditioning; shows problem with anthropomorphic understandings of suffering

Thesis

“‘Animality makes anthropocentrism visible by pointing to “the constructedness of species difference and to the violence done to other species and to some human beings by that construction.’ Animality can be linked to ‘a human exceptionalism that privileges not only human beings over other species but also some human beings over other ones,’ and animality thus forces us to pay attention to ‘the ideological deployment of species difference’”

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Multiple voices within Judaism

Takeaways

  • animal is there in absence (in meat)
  • reveals "taste" as being privileged over animal rights
  • Based on the assumption that all people have equal access to non-animal protein sources Not True

In the Hebrew bible, animals do not have a human voice except for two exceptions

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define themselves, their own characteristics, their values, their

laws, their immediate world and even their gods in terms of these

species that are so other –

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We find throughout world religions a tendency for humans to

In Stone’s reading: Discusses biblical interpretation of the Hebrew Bible and how many of the texts, especially Genesis, refer to animals in a compassionate way and emphasizes their importance - Discusses ideas taken from the text and the implications it has on human perception of our relationship with animals -

the serpent

image

the donkey

Anthropomorphism: The attribution of human characteristics or behavior to a god, animal, or object.

man is against others... especially animals

Quote: "animals are made absent through language that rename dead bodies before consumers participate in eating them" (pg. 72)

The universe was created for God, not for humanity

God loves all creation

Since God cares for all creation so much, human beings should care for all creation too

Human beings should care for animals, because they are part of God's creation

Doing wrong to an animal is wronging God by violating his right to have the whole of his creation respected.

Kosher eating is important to some people practicing Judaism

Creation exists for God, not for humanity

Kosher involves: not eating meat and dairy at the same time, Kosher slaughter, and only eating certain animals

"a liberation movement means being prepared to rethink fundamental attitudes"


"equal consideration for different beings may lead to different treatment/rights"


"equality is a moral idea, not a simple assertion of fact"

Key Terms

Key Concepts:

  • animals playing a prominent role in texts
  • interpretations of the Hebrew Bible can vary
    -clean vs. unclean animal
    -value of animal concerns in relation to human concerns
  • using relationships with animals and animals themselves as symbols to understand ourselves as humans and our relationships to others and God
    -modern interpretations of the Bible which justify the contribution of suffering on a mass scale

Certain animals are viewed as "unclean," you don't eat them because it would separate you further from the divine (make you more "unclean" like the animal)

Quote: Animals become part of human discourses of gender through language in the prevalent use of animal names as sexual appellations for women (fox, chick,bird) and also in the way domesticated animals are often differentiated by specific terms for the male versus the female of the species (bull/cow, dog/bitch, stallion/mare).

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motivation = to make conscious, holy decisions and to achieve holiness

Derrida, The Animal That Therefore I am

sexualized names for women: chick, fox, bird

Deconstruction: critical analysis that emphasizes the internal workings of language and conceptual systems

Talmud: records wide ranging debates between different rabbis about Jewish law and practice

Kosher: satisfying the requirements of Jewish law; prepare (food) according to the requirements of Jewish law

Midrush: term in Hebrew for searching through the text

Anthropocentrism: regarding humankind as the central or most important element of existence, especially as opposed to God or animals

Suffering is subjective, animals do not have the same experience as humans just as humans do not have the same experience as others

  • radical approach to stop hunting of animals
  • Ethics - agreement that if I do not harm you, you do not harm me. Animals cannot reciprocate this, but neither can small children

Quote : "None were left now to uname, and yet how close I felt to them when I saw one of them swim or fly or trot or crawl across my way or over my skin, or stalk me in the night, or go along beside me for a while in the day."

terms

Nothing of essence that justifies animality as different from humanity

animals as entities and not just symbols or allegories

Language can perpetuate divisions between the animal and human

VERY VERY SELFISH

Canon Vs Apocryphal text

We can see this through Disney movies and many stuffed animals. It had started to become popular in the Genre of Children's literature, making it seem like this action itself results in the devaluing and mockery of the object being anthropomorphized

God put himself into creation, and died for it on the Cross

Maneesha Deckha, "Postcolonial"

Boisseron, "Is the Animal the New Black?"

Speciesism: the idea that it is justifiable to give preferences on beings simply on the grounds that they are members of our own species

  • argue there are morally relevant differences between human beings and other animals that entitle us to give more weight on them

Key concepts: binaries, veganism, Cartesian dualisms

"je suis" - means both I am and to follow so Derrida means that in saying “the animal that therefore I am” is the same thing as saying “the animal that therefore I follow”

Quote:

"ani-mot" - emphasize the individuality of the animal

Literary approaches can engage real-world ethical issues

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Representation of race and culture are deeply mediated by constructs of animality and species.

Critical animal studies interrogates how the human/animal binary has been constructed alongside other hierarchical and damaging boundaries such as male/female, civilized/primitive, body/mind”

Issues with logocentrism

the way we perceive ourselves depends on other animals, and often times othering the animal

binary opposition: a pair of related terms or concepts that are categorized as opposites

  • beings entitled to dignified existence
  • Kantian contractarianism: indirect duties, duties of compassion
    emphasis on rationality and capacity for moral choice
  • choose principles for themselves

problems with modern veganism: ignores rich history of plant based diets and makes it into a Western phenomenon.

Calls for an intersectional approach to address the way forms of oppression combine and interact to cause specific struggles

male vs female, subject vs object, active vs passive, living vs dead, power vs powerless, human vs machine, domesticated vs wild, civilized, noncivilized

challenge the unilateral view that Christianity has always been and is always bad for animals

The Mule that Jesus Healed

Challenges us to question how animal representations influences other binaries

Discusses issues with comparative approaches, cannot separate animal and racial conversations or use one as a means for an end of the other

THESIS: Animals were present in the New Testament, not for their own sake, but either directly or metaphorically for human purposes; there is a lack of focus on real animals and they are seen as slaves to the humans

Raven vs raven: one is seen as a trickster and another is a predator

Lamb of God: symbol pointing to the divine, not an actual animal

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State of momentum v. state of completion

Types of dignity and flourishing:

  • extending capabilities approach
    "there is a waste and tragedy when a living creature had the innate or basic capabilities for some function - but never gets the opportunity to perform those functions"

"Postcolonial"

Question: Should we think of veganism as a from of Western culture or of imperialism?

Consider individuals, not ideas in the abstract/absent referents

Animals play a diverse role in religion, so conversations about religion shouldn't be had without animals

ecofeminism addresses the various ways that sexism, heteronormativity, racism, colonialism, and ableism are informed by and

support speciesism and how analyzing the ways these forces

intersect can produce less violent, more just practices’

The Created Order and Jesus Birth

Avoid trivializing suffering of various oppressed groups

communication should not be limited to linguistic ability (actions speak louder than words anyways)

binaries: align with demarcation between animal and human

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Communion of subjects: animals should be seen as their own beings not as objects for use

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