‘Platonists’ and ‘Aristotelians’

Abstract

Thus Aristotle. Yet, even though he can say that all (other) animals are for the sake of man, Aristotle represents, or stands near the head of, that tradition in Western thought most sympathetic to the claims and to the standing of nonhuman animals. For Aristotle, as for Darwin, man is one animal among the others, different surely, primary perhaps, but animal certainly.

[P]lants exist for the sake of animals and the other animals for the good of man, the domestic species both for his service and for his good, and if not all at all events most of the wild ones for the sake of his good and of his supplies of other kinds, in order that they may furnish him both with clothing and with other appliances. If therefore nature makes nothing without purpose or in vain, it follows that nature has made all the animals for the sake of men. (Politics 1256b 16–23, Loeb translation [H. Rackham])