Abstract
The conceptual link between anthropocentrism and ethnocentrism is only one way in which the latter idea has become connected with moral discourses around non-human animals. The idea of ethnocentrism has, in relation to animals, become associated with two strikingly different trends, with cultural relativism on the one hand and with cultural hegemony on the other. This chapter aims to expose the shortcomings not only of ethnocentrism in both its forms but also of the arguments that gave rise to this differential association, in relation to other-than-human animals. Against both so-called folkways and an ecological multiculturalism, I propose a culturally sensitive ethical individualism. What is at stake here is nothing less than the very basis of morality.
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Notes
- 1.
See Boris Bizumic, “Who Coined the Concept of Ethnocentrism? A Brief Report”, Journal of Social and Political Psychology 2: 1 (2014), 3–10; Boris Bizumic and John Duckitt, “What Is and Is Not Ethnocentrism? A Conceptual Analysis and Political Implications”, Political Psychology 33: 6 (2012), 887–909.
- 2.
Bizumic (2014) 6.
- 3.
William Graham Sumner, Folkways (Boston: Ginn & Company, 1906), 2.
- 4.
Sumner, 2–3.
- 5.
Sumner, 13.
- 6.
Ibid.
- 7.
Sumner, 521.
- 8.
Sumner, 418.
- 9.
Ibid.
- 10.
Ibid.
- 11.
John Samuel Mbiti, African Religions and Philosophy (Nairobi & London: Heinemann, 1969), 178.
- 12.
Jele Manganyi and Johan Buitendag, “A critical analysis on African traditional religion and the trinity”, HTS Teologiese Studies/ Theological Studies 69: 1 (2013), 3.
- 13.
Zibuse Mlaba; quoted in Tom Cohen, “Zulu King Revives Traditional Ceremonies to Build Support”, Associated Press, 11 December 1995, http://www.apnewsarchive.com/1995/Zulu-King-Revives-Traditional-Ceremonies-to-Build-Support/id-9d733c636dbfa01ca11408e76769f7d4 (Accessed).
- 14.
Cohen 1995.
- 15.
Mlaba; ibid.; emphasis added.
- 16.
Wesley Mabuza, CRL Rights Commission (Commission for the Promotion and Protection of the Rights of Cultural, Religious & Linguistic Communities), “Guidelines Report On the African Ritual of Animal Slaughter” (2009), 4, emphasis added. http://www.crlcommission.org.za/docs/rpd/Report%20Slaughter%20Guides%20reprint.pdf (Accessed).
- 17.
Sonwabile Mancotywa quoted in Matthew Burbidge, “The Big Beef: Tony Yengeni Stabbing a Bull Has Reignited the Debate Around the Sacrificial Slaughtering of Animals”, Mail & Guardian (26 January—1 February 2009), 10, emphasis added.
- 18.
How is “love of one’s animals” to be squared with eagerness to slaughter them? This seemingly paradoxical relationship is also illustrated in Godfrey Tangwa’s description of his own culture, the Nso in Cameroon: “Because the Nso attitude towards nature and the rest of creation is that of respectful co-existence, conciliation, and containment, there are frequent offerings of sacrifices to God, to the divine spirits, both benevolent and malevolent, to the departed ancestors and to the sundry visible and invisible forces of nature”. Godfrey Tangwa, “Some African Reflections on Biomedical and Environmental Ethics”, in Kwasi Wiredu (ed.) A Companion to African Philosophy (Oxford: Blackwell), 390. Tangwa seems to imply that ritual slaughter is an expression, if not the logical conclusion, of “respectful co-existence”, and the like. Reginald Oduor’s response to the question whether caring for animals (like companion animals) is a Eurocentric phenomenon, or whether it also exists in African cultures, is remarkable for the fact that it squarely contradicts Mancotywa’s assertion and for its blunt articulation of the fundamentals of an anthropocentric orientation:
It is difficult to find an indigenous African who keeps an animal simply for companionship: cows, sheep and goats are kept for their milk and meat, and various domestic birds for their meat and eggs. Dogs are kept for security, not for stroking or playing with. I have heard that ancient Egyptians were the first people to keep domestic cats, and that they believed that the cats had divine power. They would therefore have kept cats for the benefits they believed to accrue from keeping them, rather than simply as companion animals. In sum, indigenous Africans are keen to care for animals because of the benefits that accrue from keeping them. (Reginald Oduor, “African Philosophy and Non-Human Animals: Reginald M.J. Oduor Talks to Anteneh Roba and Rainer Ebert”, 2012. https://www.uta.edu/philosophy/faculty/burgess-jackson/Interview.pdf (Accessed)).
- 19.
Burbidge, 10.
- 20.
Fainos Mangena, “Towards a Hunhu/Ubuntu Dialogical Moral Theory”, Phronimon 13: 2 (2012), 7.
- 21.
Ibid.; see Andrew Oldenquist, “Loyalties”, Journal of Philosophy 79: 4 (1982), 179.
- 22.
CRL (2009), 11, emphasis added.
- 23.
William Gumede and Leslie Dikeni, “Introduction”, in William Gumede and Leslie Dikeni (eds.) The Poverty of Ideas: South African Democracy and the Retreat of Intellectuals (Auckland Park: Jacana, 2009), 5, emphasis added.
- 24.
Theresa Coetzer and Dean Goldring, “Animal Rights and Animal Welfare”, in Anton Van Niekerk (ed.) Ethics in Agriculture: An African Perspective (Dordrecht: Springer, 2005).
- 25.
Amelia Chizwala Peterson, “Articulating Moral Bases for Regional Responses to Deforestation and Climate Change: Africa”, William & Mary Environmental Law and Policy Review 38: 1 (2013), 102.
- 26.
It appears to be plausible that the particular historical, geographic and socio-cultural experiences of Africans give rise to particular priorities that shape African moral philosophy and practice.
- 27.
See James Rachels, The Elements of Moral Philosophy (2nd edition; New York: McGraw-Hill, 1995), 18–20.
- 28.
See James Rachels, “Some Basic Points About Arguments”, in James Rachels (ed.) The Right Thing to Do: Basic Readings in Moral Philosophy (2nd edition; Boston: McGraw-Hill, 1999), 25.
- 29.
Burbidge, 10, emphasis added.
- 30.
See Horsthemke, 61.
- 31.
Quoted in Cohen.
- 32.
Kevin Behrens, K.G. 2008. “Tony Yengeni’s Ritual Slaughter: Animal Anti-Cruelty vs. Culture”, MA Research Report/University of the Witwatersrand (2008), 47. http://wiredspace.wits.ac.za/jspui/bitstream/10539/6087/1/BehrensMAEPReportFeb08.pdf (Accessed 29/10/2014).
- 33.
This characterisation is misleading because the theory in question goes beyond veganism (which, after all, might be pursued for purely health-related reasons). The choice of the qualifying adjective, too, is never adequately explained. One could argue, of course, that it is the use and advocacy of the term by philosophers like Francione (who considers veganism the baseline in the fight against animal abuse and exploitation; see Francione 2010, 2011) that has occasioned Plumwood’s characterisation. In what follows, I retain Plumwood’s terminology, in order to avoid any unnecessary accumulation of names or designations.
- 34.
Val Plumwood, “Animals and Ecology: Towards a Better Integration”, in Lorraine Shannon (ed.) The Eye of the Crocodile (Canberra: Australian National University E Press, 2012), 78. http://press.anu.edu.au/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/ch062.pdf. (Retrieved 27/08/2015)
- 35.
Ibid.
- 36.
Plumwood, 78–79, emphasis added.
- 37.
Plumwood, 82, 90.
- 38.
Plumwood, 86.
- 39.
Plumwood, 78.
- 40.
Plumwood, 84.
- 41.
Ibid.
- 42.
Plumwood, 85.
- 43.
Plumwood, 87–88.
- 44.
Plumwood, 78.
- 45.
Ibid.
- 46.
Plumwood, 79, emphasis added.
- 47.
Francis Cook, Hua-Yen Buddhism: The Jewel Net of Indra (Philadelphia: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1977), no page number given; cited in Plumwood, 81, emphasis added.
- 48.
Plumwood, 82; emphasis added.
- 49.
Plumwood, 83; emphasis added.
- 50.
Ibid.; emphasis added.
- 51.
Plumwood, 89.
- 52.
Kai Horsthemke, The Moral Status and Rights of Animals (Pinegowrie: Porcupine Press, 2010).
- 53.
From the perspective of ethical individualism, all morally considerable individuals have the same basic rights, although their non-basic rights may differ. Second, basic rights are “basic” in the sense of being “irreducible” or “underived”. That is, they are not reducible to or based on duties, obligations, responsibilities etc., as they would be in duty-based theories—insofar as these theories permit talk of rights. Basic rights generate duties, responsibilities, non-rights, and indeed other rights. These rights, then, will be “non-basic”, in the sense of being “derived”, or dependent on basic rights. They are instances of “core rights”. Non-basic or derivative rights, it should be noted, are not generated by or derived from duties, obligations, responsibilities or non-rights. There exists an intimate relationship between non-basic rights and all of these but it is not one of direct derivation. (See Horsthemke 2010, especially Chap. 8. Towards the end of Chap. 9 in the same book, I discuss the possible contention that the view ethical individualism takes is too narrow to do justice to the multifarious moral textures of all life and, indeed, the natural world).
- 54.
Gary Francione, “The Abolitionist Approach to Animal Rights” (2012). https://www.facebook.com/abolitionistapproach/posts/530170923669333 (Accessed).
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Horsthemke, K. (2017). Animals and the Challenges of Ethnocentrism. In: Cordeiro-Rodrigues, L., Mitchell, L. (eds) Animals, Race, and Multiculturalism . The Palgrave Macmillan Animal Ethics Series. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-66568-9_6
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