Abstract
What does it mean to be “human”? The question, though it has occupied some of the greatest Western minds of philosophy, science, history, and political theory, could not have been answered with any plausibility until recently. For only in the last century or so have we begun to acquire enough knowledge through evolutionary theory, geology, ecology, anthropology, paleontology (the scientific study of prehistoric life), archaeology, and genetics to provide an informed response. At the same time, recent scientific and technological developments have produced radical and vertiginous change. The possibilities of artificial intelligence, robotics, cloning, pharmacology, stem-cell research, and genetic modification pose entirely new challenges for attempts to define “human” in fixed and essentialist, rather than fluid and plastic, terms. Ironically, just as we are beginning to acquire important knowledge of human nature, we have developed the means to begin altering ourselves in dramatic ways, yet as technological animals with malleable natures this itself is an important part of what it means to be human. 1
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Notes
Bruce Mazlish, The Fourth Discontinuity ( New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1993 ).
J. B. Bury, The Idea of Progress: An Inquiry into its Origin and Growth ( New York: Dover Publications, 1960 ), pp. 160 — 61.
See Ray Kurzweil, The Age of Spiritual Machines When Computers Exceed Human Intelligence ( Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1999 )
Hans Moravec, Mind Children: The Future of Robot and Human Intelligence ( Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1988 ).
Richard Ryder, Animal Revolution: Changing Attitudes toward Speciesism ( Oxford and New York: Berg, 2000 ), p. 247.
See Dale Peterson and Richard Wrangham, Demonic Males: Apes and the Origins of Human Violence ( New York: Mariner Books, 1997 ).
Jared Diamond, The Third Chimpanzee: The Evolution and Future ofthe Human Animal ( New York: HarperCollins, 1992 ).
To provide just some recent examples of this literature, see Roger Fouts, Next of Kin: What Chimpanzees Have Taught Me About Who We Are ( New York: William Morro, 1997 )
Frans de Waal, Chimpanzee Politics: Power and Sex Among Apes ( Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1989 )
Jeffrey Masson and Susan McCarthy, When Elephants Weep: The Emotional Lives of Animals ( New York: Delacorte Press, 1995 )
Frans de Waal, Good Natured: The Origins of Right and Wrong in Humans and Other Animals ( Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1996 )
Marc Bekoff, The Emotional Lives of Animals: A Leading Scientist Explores Animal Joy, Sorry, and Empathy—and Why They Matter (Novato, California: New World Library, 2007 )
Marc Bekoff, Animals Matter: A Biologist Explains Why We Should Treat Animals with Compassion and Respect ( Boston, MA: Shambhala Publications, 2007 )
Steve Wise, Rattling the Cage: Toward Legal Rights for Animals (Cambridge, MA: Perseus Books, 2000); and Drawing the Line: Science and the Case for Animal Rights (Cambridge, MA: Perseus Books, 2002). For evidence that the paradigm shift of cognitive ethology is indeed finally taking hold, see Marc Bekoff, “Scientists Finally Conclude Nonhuman Animals Are Conscious Beings,” Psychology Today, August 10, 2012, http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/animal-emotions/201208/scientists -finally-conclude-nonhuman-animals-are-conscious-beings.
See Donald Griffin, Animal Thinking (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1984), and Animal Minds: Beyond Cognition to Consciousness ( Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2001 ).
See David Whitehouse, “Monkeys Show Sense of Justice,” BBC News, September 17, 2003, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/3116678.stm; and Marc Bekoff and Jessica Pierce, Wild Justice: The Moral Lives of Animals (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2009).
Peter Kropotkin, Ethics: Origin and Development ( Montreal and New York: Black Rose Books, 1992 ).
See Sue Savage-Rumbaugh and Roger Lewin, Kanzi: The Ape at the Brink of the Human Mind ( New York: John Wiley, 1994 ).
See Claude Levi-Strauss, The Savage Mind (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1968); and Marc D. Hauser, Wild Minds: What Animals Really Think ( New York: Henry Holt and Company, 2000 ).
See George Page, Inside the Animal Mind: A Groundbreaking Exploration of Animal Intelligence ( New York: Doubleday, 1999 )
Michael Hanlon, “The Disturbing Question Posed by IQ Tests—are Chimps Cleverer Than Us?” Daily Mail, December 5, 2007, http:// www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-499989/The-disturbing-question -posed-IQ-tests-chimps-cleverer-us.html#; Christine Kenneally, “Animals and Us, Not So Far Apart,” Washington Post, April 13, 2008, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/04/11 /AR2008041103329_pf.html; and “Still Dumber Than a Chimpanzee,” New Scientist.com, February 13, 2009, http://www.newscientist.com /blogs/shortsharpscience/2009/02/still-dumber-than-a-chimpanzee-1.html#more.
Felipe Fernandez-Armesto, Humankind: A Brief History ( Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004 ), p. 12.
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© 2014 Steven Best
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Best, S. (2014). Minding the Animals: Cognitive Ethology and the Obsolescence of Left Humanism. In: The Politics of Total Liberation. Critical Political Theory and Radical Practice. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137440723_5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137440723_5
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