In order to morally disengage from taking responsibility for the harm we have done and continually do to animals, our societies often construct them as objects, lower beings, such as 'farmed animals' or 'experimental animals'. But, like us, animals just want to be safe and secure, to meet their needs and of their young and kin, to be well, and enjoy their lives. In understanding animals as having inner lives and experiencing the world as sentient individuals, as being 'somebody', causes this self-deception to erode.
MARC BEKOFF: Science clearly shows that numerous nonhuman animals (animals) are sentient, feeling beings who care about their own well-being and quality of life along with that of their family and friends. For decades we’ve known that numerous animals’ inner lives are complex, rich, and deep, and a new anthology called Animals as Experiencing Entities: Theories and Historical Narratives edited by Drs. Michael J. Glover and Les Mitchell makes the inarguable case that it’s high time to use what we know on their behalf and allow them to live safely and to flourish in a shared world. I couldn’t agree more with the important messages in this landmark book and here’s what Michael and Les had to say about this most valuable, wide-ranging, and inclusive collection of essays.
Marc Bekoff: Why did you edit Animals as Experiencing Entities?
Michael Glover and Les Mitchell: Animal history has been evolving for the last four decades, but with a few exceptions, animals’ subjective historical experiences have not been included in animal history1. In a way, the living, feeling, sentient animals are missing in animal history. We wanted to validate animals’ experiences and remember what really happened to them. Sometimes, capturing their experiences is fragmentary and even speculative, but in other cases, it’s quite clear what type of experiences they would have had. This is because we can credibly know the context of the historical situation and also the nature of animals’ experiential capacities…
MB: What are some of the major topics you consider?
MG/LM: When philosopher Jonathan Birch recently reviewed Peter Singer’s Animal Liberation, he noted that humanity’s maltreatment of animals is probably not so much about speciesism (a wrongful prejudice against animals based on their not being human) but “from failing to respect other animals as sentient beings with lives of their own.” So we really wanted to drive home the point that animals are sentient individuals with their own lives, emotions, experiences, and sensory systems, who, like us humans, are just trying to live well and want to flourish. It’s easier to respect animals’ lives if we become curious about and validate their lives as intrinsically valuable. So, in a way, it’s about giving content to the recognition that animals are sentient entities with their own lives.
It’s a diverse anthology, with two parts. The first theorises about the inner lives of animals. The second looks at historical narratives that include animals’ experiences. Our authors cover the formation of animals’ cultural and emotional selves, animal grief as an organismic response, the phenomenology of individual animal pain in context, animal standpoint theory, animals’ sensory histories, a poetic essay about cattle history according to cattle, the designation of great animal massacres in history with a focus on the 1920 crow massacre of colonial Rangoon, the lives of chimpanzees Rose and Kambi, captured in French Guinea and used as research objects, animals’ agency in colonial archives, a method for non-anthropocentric legal views of animal cases, and finally a critical account of the likely experiences British pit ponies endured from 1700 to mid-1960s…
MB: Are you hopeful that as people learn more about agency in animals they will be more open to allow them to be freer to make choices they prefer?
MG: The scale of harm animals suffer is normalised and queasy-making. It’s legal to kill animals in almost every single jurisdiction on Earth. But, like us, animals just want to be safe and secure, to meet their needs in many cases those of their young and kin, and to be well and enjoy their lives. The more curious and attuned one becomes to animals’ capabilities, sensory systems, and social lives, the more astonishing, enchanting, and miraculous they can appear in one’s consciousness and the more likely we’ll recognise and respect their will to flourish. The more we understand animals, the more empathetic we can become towards them.
LM: In order to morally disengage (Bandura) from taking responsibility for the harm we have done and continually do to animals, our societies often construct them as objects, lower beings, or at least as fulfilling a role for which they are “naturally” intended, such as “pack horses” or “experimental animals.” But understanding animals as having inner lives and experiencing the world as sentient individuals, as being somebody (Regan), causes this self-deception to erode. We hope our volume might make some contribution towards this process and support changes in attitudes and the actions which can follow. SOURCE…
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