Abstract
When I was invited to participate in the tribute book to our dear friend Lester Embree, I immediately thought of submitting an essay on a subject highly valued by him. I will later provide more than one explanation concerning the relationship between this phenomenologist and the issue of non-human animals. But, prior to that, it seems to me an obligation to begin by acknowledging reaction which is very frequent whenever one sees a phenomenological analysis as the one I here propose. The reaction among phenomenologists is frequently of bafflement, followed by questions more or less such as these: Why speak about non-human animals from phenomenology? Can phenomenology really contribute to the debate about this matter? The debate on non-human animals – which mainly develops within the field of ethics – is already several years of age and has thus achieved to gather a good amount of specialized literature from the most diverse positions. Well, if phenomenology could contribute to this debate, which would be its contribution? And, in this case, if we place ourselves within phenomenology, and, more precisely, within the thought of Edmund Husserl, is it really justified to address this subject? That is to say, is there any element in Husserlian theory, or its concrete procedure, that can support us here and that can justify an attempt to make a phenomenological contribution to this debate? In other terms, does the analysis of a subject such as that of non-human animals form part of the phenomenological tradition? And, how can this be justified?
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- 1.
I deal further with this idea in: María-Luz Pintos “La recuperación de la animalidad. Utilidad y aplicabilidad de la fenomenología a los cien años de su surgimiento,” in César Moreno Márquez/ Alicia M. de Mingo (eds.) Signo. Intencionalidad. Verdad. Estudios de Fenomenología, Sevilla: Sociedad Española de Fenomenología / Universidad de Sevilla, 2005, pp. 369–388.
- 2.
As far as the human species is concerned, it is said that droughts and icecap melting will leave over a billion men and women without drinkable water. To this should be added other effects that we will suffer from, such as floods, hurricanes in greater number and more destructive, fires and loss of fertile soil, etc. Evidently, all of the factors that will increasingly affect us will also affect the remaining living species; and even much more than us, since they lack the technology to face or counter some of these catastrophes and, therefore, they are theoretically more vulnerable than we are. Experts warn us of that, if global warming continues at the current pace, climate change will cause that 20–30% of all animal and vegetable species in the planet will go extinct without a remedy in what they describe as “massive extinction.” In fact, while I write this, a harsh story is appearing in the press: up to this date, there are 41,415 endangered species, out of which 16,306 are in danger of extinction; almost 200 more than last year. Statistically, “one mammal out of four, one bird out of eight, one amphibian out of three, and 70% of all plants,” according to a study of the ecologist organization UICN-The World Conservation Union (http://www.iucn.org/en/news/archive/2007/09/12_pr_redlist_es.htm).
- 3.
I discard to lay down a synthesis which conjoins all positions, authors and dialectic history of the debate on non-human animals. Besides the fact that this would exceed the space I would be able to grant it here, doing this would be unnecessary to fulfil the purpose which conducts this essay. I will confine myself, thus, to point out what, in my opinion, is the most meaningful to connect with the phenomenological perspective.
- 4.
In regard to this latter point, see María-Luz Pintos “Los derechos de todos los seres vivos a la luz de la fenomenología,” in Investigaciones Fenomenológicas. Revista de la Sociedad Española de Fenomenología 4 (2005) 99–115: http:www.UNED.esdpto_fim/invFen4/portadaInvFen_4.html
- 5.
About this matter, I have stated my point of view in the essay: “Los derechos de todos los seres vivos a la luz de la fenomenología.”
- 6.
London: Fourth Estate Publishing, 1993.
- 7.
Evidently, the prejudice that in non-human animals – making no distinction among them – there is only “instinct,” preset behaviour, underlies this argument.
- 8.
With regard to this line of argument, which has had Fernando Savater as one of its spokesmen in my country, in controversy with Jesús Mosterín and Riechmann, see María-Luz Pintos “Los derechos de todos los seres vivos a la luz de la fenomenología.”
- 9.
See Gary L. Francione Animals, Property and the Law, Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1995; Rain Without Thunder: The Ideology of the Animal Rights Movements, Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1996; Introduction to Animal Rights: Your Chile or the Dog? Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2000; “Animals-Property or Persons?,” in Cass R. Sunstein & Martha C. Nussbaum (eds.) Animals Rights: Current Debates and New Directions, New Cork: Oxford University Press, 2004.
- 10.
In “Los derechos de todos los seres vivos a la luz de la fenomenología” I mentioned yet another problem: since it is the sensibility of an individual that determines its capacity to appreciate suffering and well-being, the position of the utilitarianists implies that vegetables, which are beings not sensitive as animals since they do not possess a central nervous system, and therefore allegedly experience neither pain nor pleasure, have no interests, and, consequently, no rights either.
- 11.
It is about doing with non-human animals what Lester Embree so accurately calls a “continued phenomenology.”
- 12.
In the Beilage X of Die Krisis der europäischen Wissenschaften und die Transzendentale Phänomenologie, Haag: Martinus Nijhoff, 1954, p. 426 <40–43>, Husserl points out that “the enthusiasm for [scientific-technological] progress, the ideal of a domination of knowledge over nature liable of fulfilment in an infinite progression and, hence, of an increasing technical domination up to infinity.” From now on, this text will be referred to as Die Krisis.
- 13.
Die Krisis, Beilage X, p. 427 <6–8>.
- 14.
About this Husserlian idea, see María-Luz Pintos “La gran aportación de la fenomenología husserliana para el mundo de hoy,” Escritos de Filosofía, Buenos Aires, 43 (2003) 125–156, and María-Luz Pintos “Los Anexos XXV–XXVI–XXVII–XXVIII al parágrafo 73 de La crisis de Husserl,” Investigaciones Fenomenológicas. Revista de la Sociedad Española de Fenomenología 5 (2007) 85–123: http://www.uned.es/dpto_fim/invfen/invFen5/3_Mluz.pdf
- 15.
Lester Embree. Reflective Analysis. A First Introduction into Phenomenological Investigation, Morelia, México: Jitanjáfora, 2003. See Introduction and Chapter IV: “Willing, Valuing, Believing.”
- 16.
Let us not forget the assertion by Husserl, in his maturity, that he, an alleged reactionary, was in fact “much more radical and much more revolutionary than those who presently express themselves verbally with such radicalism.” “Die Krisis des europäischen Menschentums und die Philosophie,” Ergänzend Texte in Die Krisis, p. 337 <16–18>.
- 17.
A new attitude which he initiates in philosophy at the beginning of the twentieth century, in convergence with that which was being initiated in many human and bio-social sciences of the time, such as Linguistics, History, Zoology, Psychology, Neuropsychiatry, Geography or Anthropology. See the essay by María-Luz Pintos “La Fenomenología y las ciencias humanas y bio-sociales. Su convergencia en un importante momento de cambio de paradigmas,” Revista Philosophica, Valparaíso-Chile, 27 (2004) 215–245.
- 18.
“Naturwissenschaftliche und Geisteswissenschatliche Einstellung. Naturalismus, Dualismus und Philosophysische Psychologie,” Ergänzend Texte in Die Krisis, p. 310 <22–23>.
- 19.
In his self-reflection, says Husserl, the philosopher must “develop a responsible critique.” “To think by oneself, to be an autonomous philosopher with the will to release oneself of all prejudices, this demands of one to bring the fact to consciousness that everything that is held to be objectivities is prejudice, that all prejudices are obscurities which come from a traditional sedimentation.” And this “is valid for the grand task, for the idea that is named philosophy” Die Krisis, § 15, p. 73 <16–20>.
- 20.
Ideen zu einer reinen Phänomenologie und phänomenologischen Philosophie, Zweites Buch, Haag: Martinus Nijhoff, 1952, § 12, p. 27 <26–27>. From now on, this text will be referred to as Ideen II.
- 21.
Ibid., § 41, p. 158 <4–5>.
- 22.
Ibid., § 14.
- 23.
Ibid., § 33, p. 137.
- 24.
See Die Krisis, § 55, p. 191 <34>; § 66, p. 230 <8–10>; § 71, p. 250 <19>.
- 25.
“Die Krisis des europäischen Menschentums und die Philosophie,” Ergänzend Texte in Die Krisis, p. 340 <13>.
- 26.
This is certainly no “absolute” distance, but we can also find an “originary point in common” to both animals and vegetables prior to many and large differences – sometimes favouring ones and sometimes favouring others, no doubt – although this is not the space to unfold this matter and to do so in the phenomenological manner basing on the hints given by Husserl. I have an unpublished work on the subject, and I must confess that at the moment of preparing it I received great encouragement from Lester Embree himself, who does have an essay referred to vegetables: “The Problem of the Constitution of the vegetable,” published in German – “Die Konstitution des Pflanzlichen,” in Hans Rainer Sepp/Ichiro Yamaguchi (eds.) Leben als Phaenomen, Würzburg: Koenigshausen and Neumann, 2006, pp. 200–214 – and which is also part of his book Ambiente, Tecnología, Justificación, in process of publishing.
- 27.
II, § 32, pp. 134 <34–40>.
- 28.
The human subject as animal, says Husserl, is a concrete unit of body and soul. That is, Husserl is not saying this of the human subject as if it were its exclusive characteristic qua human: the possession of a soul intertwined with its body. A living animal being, qua animal, is by itself a bodiliness with a soul. See, Ibid., § 33, p. 139 <17–18>.
- 29.
Die Krisis, § 66, p. 230.
- 30.
“The animic subject … is referred to conscious life-experiences in such manner that it has them, lives them and lives in them.” Ideen II, § 30, p. 121 <24–30>. “The soul is not a “manifold” of life-experiences of consciousness, but the real unity which manifests itself in them,” Ideen zu reinen Phänomenologie uns phänomenologischen Philosophie, Drittes Buch, Haag: Martinus Nijhoff, 1952, § 3, p. 19 <15–17>.
- 31.
For example, at the beginning of § 39 of Ideen II, Husserl speaks of the pure or transcendental I and points out, that in it are to be distinguished, on the one hand, the soul or animic subject (which he will later distinguish from each other) and, on the other hand, the respective body, be it human or animal. The Husserlian idea that animals too have their transcendental, that is, constituent facet, has been analysed in Javier San Martín “La subjetividad trascendental animal,” Alter 3 (1995), in Javier San Martín, María-Luz Pintos “Animal Life and Phenomenology” en Steven Crowell, Lester Embree & Samuel J. Julian (eds.) The Reach of Reflection: Issues for Phenomenology’s Second Century, Center for Advanced Research in Phenomenology, www.electronpres.com, 2001, and in María-Luz Pintos “Humanos, inhumanos e non humanos. Fundamentación fenomenolóxica da conexión interespecies,” in Pedro M. S. Alves, José Manuel S. Santos & Alexandre Franco de Sá (eds) Humano e Inumano. A dignidade do homem e os novos desafios, Lisboa, Phainomenon, 2006, pp. 253–263.
- 32.
For example in the Beilage XXIII of Die Krisis, p. 482, footnote number 2: “… ein biologisches Apriori vom Menschen.”
- 33.
Die Krisis, § 51, p. 176 <22>: “Lebensweltlich invarianten Strukturen.”
- 34.
The similarity of ideas and concepts between Husserl in Philosophy, and J. von Uexküll in Biology and Zoology is evident. Von Uexküll proposes to abandon the positivist paradigm of the nineteenth century and recuperate the animal, human or non-human, as a bodily-perceptive-operating subject, connected to its Umwelt or vital world proper to the species to which it belongs. It is the animal that interprets, “from itself,” that is, subjectively, everything it perceives, thanks to a sort of “functional circle” between it and its perceived world which reminds us of Husserlian intentionality: the meaning of the world is only meaning for the subject that is perceiving it, and both subject and world form an aprioristic, living noetic-noematic correlation. For an exposition on this similarity between von Uexküll and Husserl, see María-Luz Pintos “La Fenomenología y las ciencias humanas y bio-sociales. Su convergencia en un importante momento de cambio de paradigmas.”
- 35.
As far as we know until now, this non-human vital world is a “cultural” world – in whatever measure – in species such as dolphins, killer whales, gorillas, chimpanzees, bonobos and orangutans.
- 36.
Only “sketch” or “announce” because I have no room for more. However, as I have addressed the features which compose this animal ontology throughout my essays, I will refer to them as I advance, in case a more detailed analysis is desired.
- 37.
Unlike plants, who only live in a vegetative manner, animals live “constantly in I-related acts,” says Husserl in Die Krisis, § 66, p. 230 <7–10>. Men and animals – he says – are “living beings of the I kind.” Cartesianische Meditationen, Haag: Martinus Nijhoff, 1950, § 44, p. 126 <37–39>.
- 38.
See Ideen II, § 22, p. 97; § 41, C, pp. 159f; § 53, p. 208; § 54, p. 212; § 62, p. 284. And see Cartesianische Meditationen, § 44, p. 128 <5–27>.
- 39.
See María-Luz Pintos “Fenomenología del objeto vivido frente al olvido del objeto-para-el-sujeto por parte del ‘objetivismo’ naturalista,” in Duererías. Revista de Filosofía, Zamora-Spain, 4 (2004)135–158. I analize all the aspects related to it here; they are all part of the animal ontology.
- 40.
See María-Luz Pintos “¡Espacializamos! Fenomenología del espacio vivido frente al ‘objetivismo’ naturalista,” Alfa. Revista de la Asociación Andaluza de Filosofía, Jaén-Spain, 15 (2004) 17–39. I further analyse this issue here.
- 41.
I analyse this issue in greater detail in “Fenomenología de la corporeidad emotiva como condición de la alteridad,” lecture presented at the VIII International Phenomenology Congress, University of Valencia-Spain, in October 2006 (in print).
- 42.
For a broader treatment of this subject, see María-Luz Pintos “La Fenomenología y las ciencias humanas y bio-sociales. Su convergencia en un importante momento de cambio de paradigmas,” pp. 229–236.
- 43.
For a broader treatment of this subject, see Lester Embree “Un comienzo para la teoría fenomenológica de la etología de los primates,” Escritos de Filosofía, Buenos Aires, 45 (2005) 145–160. See also Lester Embree “La constitución de la cultura básica,” in César Moreno Márquez & Alicia M. de Mingo (eds.) Signo. Intencionalidad. Verdad. Estudios de Fenomenología, mainly pp. 349–355.
- 44.
For a broader treatment of this subject, see María-Luz Pintos “Fenomenología del cuerpo como expresión e interpretación,” in Jorge V. Arregui / Juan A. García González (eds.) Significados corporales, Málaga-Spain: volumen monográfico de Contrastes, Revista Internacional de Filosofía, 2006, 127–145.
- 45.
If every animal is endowed with a body that is all expression, then it has to be endowed as well with an ability to interpret and understand (in an empathic way) what other bodies express in its presence. And naturally, if the living body (Leiblichkeit) always expresses itself, that is because it is not born to be alone in the world but to interact in a perceptive way with other living bodies, both belonging to its own species and others.
In the essay “David Hume’s Treatise of Human Nature In Light of Phenomenological Hermeneutics” (Inaugural Conference of Archive for Phenomenology & Contemporary Philosophy, Chinese University of Hong Kong, January 2006), Lester Embree, with Elizabeth A. Behnke, makes reference to Thomas M. Seebohn’s statements on the animal understanding. It is that there is a bodily level of understanding, pre-linguistic, unreflective, in which all animal is when he carries out the practical activities. These activities are wrapped by him by an elementary understanding. In Hermeneutics: Method and Methodology (Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 2004 –HMM–) Seebohn states that in the animal understanding – human and non-human animal – there is a basic level of understanding based on “bodily life expressions.” Accordingly, in humans, “elementary understanding is one-sidedly founded in animal understanding for the simple reason that human beings are living bodies with immediate life expressions and with the ability to react to the immediate life expressions of other bodies” (HMM 106). Elementary understanding itself “can be characterized in general as unreflective understanding within … a cultural lifeworld” (HMM 106). In contrast, higher understanding – which in its turn is one-sidedly founded in elementary understanding – “can be characterized in general as the understanding of the cultural context as a whole or of certain aspects of its structure representing wholes in themselves,” and requires contemplation and reflection (HMM 106).
- 46.
The “person” is not only the operating subject (I move something, I move myself), and is not only the subject of will (“I can” do), but the free subject, bound to reason: it is the thinking subject and the subject that can represent everything that it can and everything that it cannot to itself. The “person is the conscious subject of the free “I can.” Therefore, the person is “responsible-for-itself.” There is no doubt then, that with the concept of “person,” Husserl means the attribute which distinguishes the human animal. As I explain in another essay, it is “responsible in the sense of being able to value and distinguish between true and false, between fair and unfair, between what ought and ought not to be done, etc.; and to be responsible also in the sense of not being exempt from making this kind of differentiating valuations.” The human being is fully able to perform valuational and committed differentiations at all times. Being rational entails the responsibility of becoming aware, and valuing and deciding in consequence. This characteristic forms part of its essence as a species. Reason enables and compels the human being to be the ethical being par excellence. Its intelligence burdens it with this ability which is, at the same time, a great responsibility. See “Los Anexos XXV–XXVI–XXVII–XXVIII al parágrafo 73 de La crisis de Husserl,” p. 102f.
- 47.
See Lester Embree “La continuación de la fenomenología, ¿un quinto período?,” in La fenomenología en América Latina, Bogotá: Universidad de San Buenaventura, 2000, pp. 13–24, y see Fenomenología Continuada. Contribuciones al análisis reflexivo de la cultura, Morelia-México: Jitanjáfora, 2007, pp. 14s.
- 48.
According to him, the practise of phenomenology is often mistaken by what he generically calls “scholarship” (taking the tasks of edition, interpretation, commentary and translation of texts as ends in themselves) or “argumentation” (taking position for or against certain theses). Embree insists that phenomenology is not about “scholarly” and “philologically” knowing texts of our phenomenological tradition, but about knowing “things,” that is, describing and analysing our intentional “encounter” with all that constitutes our surrounding world. See “Preface for Instructors,” in Reflective Análisis. A First Introduction into Phenomenological Investigation.
- 49.
See Fenomenología Continuada. Contribuciones al análisis reflexivo de la cultura, p. 178.
- 50.
Up to that moment, I had applied the Husserlian method in several essays to the subject of the woman and the topic of justice between humans, and during the years that passed since then I have applied it, among others, to the topic of vegetables (unpublished), to that of racism and immigration, and to bellicism.
- 51.
Fenomenología Continuada. Contribuciones al análisis reflexivo de la cultura, p. 15.
- 52.
I am very grateful to Marcos Guntín for having translated this text from Spanish.
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Pintos, ML. (2010). Phenomenological Overcoming of Western Prejudices against Nonhuman Animals. In: Nenon, T., Blosser, P. (eds) Advancing Phenomenology. Contributions To Phenomenology, vol 62. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-90-481-9286-1_19
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