The Death of the Animal

While moral perfectionists rank conscious beings according to theircognitive abilities, Paola Cavalieri launches a more inclusive defense of all formsof subjectivity. In concert with Peter Singer, J. M. Coetzee, Harlan B. Miller, andother leading animal studies scholars, she expands our understanding of the nonhumanin such a way that the derogatory category of "the animal" becomes meaningless. Inso doing, she presents a nonhierachical approach to ethics that better respects thevalue of the conscious self.Cavalieri opens with a dialoguebetween two imagined philosophers, laying out her challenge to moral perfectionismand tracing its influence on our attitudes toward the "unworthy." She then followswith a roundtable "multilogue" which takes on the role of reason in ethics and theboundaries of moral status. Coetzee, Nobel Prize winner for Literature and author ofThe Lives of Animals, emphasizes the animality of human beings;Miller, a prominent analytic philosopher at Virginia Polytechnic Institute,dismantles the rationalizations of human bias; Cary Wolfe, professor of English atRice University, advocates an active exposure to other worlds and beings; andMatthew Calarco, author of Zoographies: The Question of the Animal fromHeidegger to Derrida, extends ethical consideration to entities thattraditionally have little or no moral status, such as plants and ecosystems.As Peter Singer writes in his foreword, the implications ofthis conversation extend far beyond the issue of the moral status of animals. They"get to the heart of some important differences about how we should do philosophy,and how philosophy can relate to our everyday life." From the divergences betweenanalytical and continental approaches to the relevance of posthumanist thinking incontemporary ethics, the psychology of speciesism, and the practical consequences ofan antiperfectionist stance, The Death of the Animal confrontsissues that will concern anyone interested in a serious study ofmorality.

Acknowledgments Foreword, by Peter Singer The Death of the Animal: A Dialogue on Perfectionism, by Paola Cavalieri Roundtable I Humanist and Posthumanist Antispeciesism, by Cary Wolfe No Escape, by Harlan B. Miller Toward an Agnostic Animal Ethics, by Matthew Calarco Comments on Paola Cavalieri, "A Dialogue on Perfectionism", by John M. Coetzee II Notes on Issues Raised by Matthew Calarco, by John M. Coetzee Pushing Things Forward, by Paola Cavalieri Distracting Difficulties, by Harlan B. Miller On Appetite, the Right to Life, and Rational Ethics, by John M. Coetzee "On a Certain Blindness in Human Beings", by Cary Wolfe Between Life and Rights, by Matthew Calarco Notes