Foucauldians–or anyone studying biopolitics or biopower in general–likely don’t spend enough time talking about bioethics. I’m not sure why this is the case. There are, of course, a few notable exceptions to this. For instance, Lorna Weir’s excellent Pregnancy, Risk and Biopolitics: On the Threshold of the Living Subject (Routledge, 2006). When Foucauldians take up ethics, they tend to take up ethics in the ancient sense of “ethos,” an interest largely derived from Foucault’s last lectures at the Collège de France and the final two volumes of “The History of Sexuality.” Another important exception is Giorgio Agamben’s Homo Sacer: Sovereign Power and Bare Life, especially the chapter on the coma dépassé. But, like many Foucauldians, Agambian immediately attempts to connect such concepts to politics and sovereign power (“in modern democracies it is possible to state in public what the Nazi biopoliticians did not dare to say”). Perhaps Agamben is correct that bioethics is inherently political, but what I don’t think he is able to account for is why bioethicists insist that their discourse is inherently non-political and that it is only politicized by their opponents.

There’s a nice passage in an essay, “The Nature of Bioethics,” by Peter Singer pointing to the importance of looking at bioethics critically. Indeed, he sounds almost exactly like Agamben, but comes to the complete opposite conclusion:

New developments in medicine have made it possible, on the one hand, to keep alive extremely premature infants, even when they have no functioning cortex. This forces us to ask what it is that makes a life worth preserving, and how we may treat a human being once we have decided that the life of that being is not worth preserving. At the same time, other new developments offer the possibility of using organs to save lives. Of which of these possibilities should we make use? To which should we say: `no, we do not want that done’? A bioethicist approaching these questions will consider all the relevant issues and principles. By our present definition of death, a cortically dead infant is still alive, and to remove the heart is to kill the baby. Therefore if we apply conventional principles which absolutely forbid the intentional killing of an innocent human being, it seems that we cannot help Mary. Or could we perhaps argue that in removing Paul’s heart, we are not directly intending Paul’s death, but only obtaining an organ that will save Mary’s life? Is this a legitimate application of the distinction between intention and foresight, as embodied in the doctrine of double effect? Is the distinction itself a morally significant one? Alternatively, should we revise our definition of death so that the cortically dead may also be counted as dead, and used as organ donors, as we now use those whose entire brain is dead? Or should we consider the even more radical step of accepting that the cortically dead infant is not dead, but may nevertheless be used as a source of organs, because a life without consciousness is of no intrinsic value? What of the more remote consequences? Will the removal of Paul’s heart prove to be a step onto a slippery slope that makes us think of all humans as disposable sources of organs for others, and so cheapens respect for human life in general?

Anyway, as far as I can tell, there is no satisfactory history or sociology of bioethics and it is a topic that not only should be taken up seriously, but needs to be taken up seriously.

Critical Animal Studies Beyond Humanism and Anthropocentrism
Using Steven Best’s recent article, “The Rise of Critical Animal Studies: Putting Theory into Action and Animal Liberation into Higher Education” as a foil, I argue that much–albeit certainly not all–scholarship and activism falling under the rubric of “critical animal studies” remains committed to humanism and anthropocentrism despite its overt claims to the opposite. Best, for instance, defends his conception of critical animal studies through the Marxist concept of praxis, citing the work of Max Horkheimer. Strangely, Best overlooks Horkheimer’s own anthropocentrism and humanism. For instance, in the essay “Traditional and Critical Theory,” where Horkheimer develops the concept of praxis, he writes: “[critical theory] has for its object men as producers of their own historical way of life in its totality,” “[critical theory is an] essential element in the historical effort [by men] to create a world which satisfies the needs and powers of men” and “the good is man’s emancipation from slavery.” The thorough humanism and anthropocentrism cannot be escaped simply by adding “and animals” after occurrence of “men”!

Despite these strong critical remarks, I argue that all hope is not lost. Generally speaking, the conclusion is sound while the premises are not: critical animals studies comes to the right conclusion, but for the wrong reasons. That is, critical animal studies must orient itself, theoretically and practically, towards developing a conception of living that completely rejects anthropocentrism. As a result, both deontological and utilitarian moral theories must be rejected as inadequate, being humanist and anthropocentrist.

I conclude the presentation with some thoughts as to where foundations for such an anti-anthropocentric ethics may be found

What Happened and Why When the Ontario Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (OSPCA) Raided the Toronto Humane Society (THS)
On November 26, 2009, following a previous exposé in Toronto’s Globe & Mail, the Ontario Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (OSPCA) undertook a raid of the Toronto Humane Society (THS), the largest non-profit, non-government run animal shelter in Canada. The raid resulted in numerous charges being laid against Tim Trow, the president of the THS, Gary McCracken, the general manager, Dr. Steve Sheridan, head veterinarian, and two staff members. Additionally, all members of the board of directors were each charged with five counts of animal cruelty. Unlike any other animal welfare issue in recent memory, the raid was covered in most major Canadian daily newspapers and was picked up by a number of media outlets outside the country. Every piece of evidence collected, every statement made, and every court appearance was documented in great detail. The mood of the public was firmly in support of the OSPCA and various factions within the THS, who were opposed to Tim Trow’s management style and his allies.

Ultimately, it would appear that the guilt or innocence of the entire organization rested upon an evaluation of Tim Trow’s personality: was he a meddling, incompetent micromanager? Did he have a temper? Was he irrational in his human resource decisions? Did he offend employees, volunteers, and supporters of the organization? And, perhaps most germane, did he care too much for animals such that he was unwilling to “do the right thing” and engage in a policy of population control via what was mistakenly labeled in the media as “euthanasia”?

Despite strong public and media support, the OSPCA take-over of the THS ultimately failed: the Crown Attorney dropped all charges agains the THS. Further, the OSPCA, in order to come out ahead with some semblance of a victory, was already engaged in negotiations with the accused at the THS to drop charges in exchange for their permanent departure from the organization. At the time of the arrests, OSPCA Chief Executive Officer Kate MacDonald said, “This is a difficult day for the Ontario SPCA and the Toronto Humane Society, but it is necessary to protect the lives of animals.” By the time the Crown had dropped all charges, it was about fundraising dollars, a clash of personalities, and winning. The OSPCA had squandered all of its goodwill.

Finally, in May 2010, it was revealed that the OSPCA was planning to “euthanize” all of the animals in its care at its headquarters in Newmarket due to an outbreak of an easily preventable and treatable disease; namely, ringworm (more commonly known as athlete’s foot in humans). After considerable public outcry, including the intervention of several politicians from the Progressive Conservative and New Democratic Party (a potentially unique event in Ontario politics) and daily protests at the OSPCA facility, the plan to kill all of the animals was halted. Shortly thereafter, there were calls in the media to have the Attorney General assume the police powers of the OSPCA and to pass legislation separating the sheltering and enforcement functions of the OSPCA (including some who insisted that the enforcement function should be taken on by the state permanently).

In this presentation, I will outline the major issues at play in this controversy over the welfare of pets in Ontario and how various views or theories on human duties to animals played out.

For myself, unlike some of the others pursuing these sorts of posts, I wouldn’t say that there have been particular texts that have been especially influential for me in the sense of either being “life changing” or which pervasively influence my work. As I see it, much of my education came through something comparable unfashionable in post-secondary education these days–the slow and careful reading of important texts. During the first year of my PhD, I read (in chronological order of first publication) Spinoza’s Ethics, Montesquieu’s Spirit of the Laws, Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason, Tocqueville’s Democracy in America and Foucault’s The Order of Things. During my M.A. I read all three volumes of Marx’s Capital. Lastly, during the final year of my undergraduate degree, I read Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit rather closely (supplemented by the commentaries of Alexandre Kojeve,  Jean Hyppolite and H.S. Harris). While I cannot claim that they were read with any particular method in mind, Althusser’s comments in Reading Capital are appropriate: “But some day it is essential to read Capital to the letter. To read the text itself, complete, all four volumes, line by line.” Since then, I have read (for my dissertation) among other works, Thomas Hobbes’s Elemenents of Natural Law, De Cive, and Leviathan and John Locke’s Two Treatises of Government and Essay Concerning Human Understanding in this fashion. I suspect this is how I’ll continue to read well into the future.

Given my interest in the history of social and political thought as well as my interest in writing such a history, it goes without saying that I’ve found a number of texts to be particularly important in this genre: both volumes of Quentin Skinner’s The Foundations of Modern Political Thought, J.G.A. Pocock’s The Machiavellian Moment, Sheldon Wolin’s Politics and Vision, and Foucault’s lectures from the late seventies. I have also found great value in more idiosyncratic works, such as Ernst Kantorowicz’s The King’s Two Bodies, Leo Strauss’s Natural Right and History, and, perhaps more obscurely, Marc Bloch’s The Royal Touch: Sacred Monarchy and Scrofula in England and France.

Given that I am a sociologist by training, I should mention that many works of classical sociology have been important for me, especially Emile Durkheim’s Elementary Forms of Religious Life and Marcel Mauss’s Essay on the Gift. The sociological and anthropological tradition that has come out of this has likewise been important: Claude Levi-Strauss, Pierre Clastres, and Marshall Sahlins. More recently, I have found Bruno Latour’s work quite compelling (his pseudonymous “Sociology of a Door-Closer” paper remains a classic).

Those who have made it this far have no doubt noticed a complete lack of texts falling in the genre of “animal studies.” While it is an exciting field, I am not sure that any “classic” texts have emerged outside of applied ethics (e.g., Peter Singer, Tom Regan and Gary Francione). For instance, Derrida’s book is sufficiently obscure that it will not be as generally read as the applied ethics texts. Given the lack of a coherent theoretical position underlying animal studies, I can’t really name any particularly important works. However, there are a number of historical studies that are well worth reading: Harriet Ritvo’s The Animal Estate: The English and Other Creatures in the Victorian Age, Reviel Netz’s Barbed Wire: An Ecology of Modernity, and Keith Thomas’s Man and the Natural World: A History of the Modern Sensibility.

I. Writing

(1) Finish the damn dissertation. DissertationMaster.mellel is at 187 completed, formatted and mostly copy-edited pages. Two substantive chapters left (on Mandeville and Ferguson, roughly thirty pages formatted each), polish the introduction (mostly done except for the chapter summaries), and the short conclusion.

(2) Finish the paper on the meaning of “order” in seventeenth century English apiarist texts.

(3) Start and finish a “state of the field” paper on “animal studies.”

(4) Start and finish a paper on why vulgar, secular, materialist atheists who want to talk about political theology should take the concept of [Durkheimian] concept of the sacred seriously.

II. Course Preparation

(1) Figure out what I’m going to do with the new special topics first year course on animals and the law.

(2) Figure out how I’m going to teach novels and films in my first year course on violence and the law (which I’ve never done before).

III. Leisure Reading

(1) No such thing! Although catching up on realist epistemology (Bhaskar, speculative realism, etc) and, perhaps, some theology, might be nice.

Note: Appropriate, Private Property

The “means to appropriate” the common and thus transform it into private property is absolutely essential to Locke’s political theory and has significant consequences for the theory of political or civil society including the right of resistance to tyranny for “political power [is] a Right of making Laws [...] for the Regulation and Preserving of Property” (II, §3), “no Political Society can be, nor subsist without having in it self the Power to preserve the Property [...] of all those of that Society” (II, §87), “Government has no other end but the preservation of Property” (II, §94), “The only way whereby one devests himself of his Natural Liberty, and puts on the bonds of Civil Society is by agreeing with other Men to joyn and unite into a Community, for their comfortable, safe, and peaceable living one amongst the another, in a secure Enjoyment of their Properties, and a greater Security against any that are not of it” (II, §95), “And ’tis not without reason, that he seeks out, and is willing to joyn in Society with others who are already united, or have a mind to unit for the mutual Preservation of their Lives, Liberties and Estates, which I call by the general Name, Property” (II, §123), “The great and chief end therefore, of Mens uniting into Commonwealths, and putting themselves under Government, is the Preservation of their Property” (II, §124), “Men therefore in Society having Property, they have such a right to the goods, which by the Law of the Community are theirs, that no Body hath a right to take their substance, or any part of it from them, without their own consent; without this, they have no Property at all” (II, §138), “Political Power is that Power which every Man, having in the state of Nature, has given up into the hands of the Society, and therein to the Governours, whom the Society hath set over it self, with this express or tacit Trust, That it shall be employed for their good, and the preservation of their Property” (II, §171), “When the Governour, however intituled, makes not the Law, but his WIll, the Rule; and his Commands and Actions are not directed to the preservation of the Properties of hi People, but the satisfaction of his own Ambition, Revenge, Covetousness, or any other irregular Passion [is a tyrant]” (II, §199), “The Legislative acts against the Trust reposed in them, when they endeavour to invade the Property of the Subject” (II, §221), and “The Reason why Men enter into Society, is the preservation of their Property; and the end why they chuse and authorize a Legislative, is, that there may be Laws made, and Rules set as Guards and Fences to the Properties of all the Members of the Society, to limit the Power, and moderate the Dominion of every Part and Member of the Society” (II, §222). This is but a sampling of comments on the importance of property drawn from the entirety of the Second Treatise.

What, then, does it mean “to appropriate”? And is Locke correct in claiming that appropriation makes something “be his, and so his, i.e., a part of him”? Read literally, Locke’s claim is that appropriation of a thing makes that thing “a part of him.” It is not simply that the common is “privatized,” but that the common is made “a part of him,” of a particular individual – “a part of him” not unlike an arm or a leg or a kidney.
Appropriation combines two words: ‘ap-’ and ‘propriation.’ The English prefix, ‘ap,’ derives from the Latin prefix ‘ad,’ meaning ‘to,’ especially associated with the idea of ‘rendering.’ Hence, the first meaning of ‘appropriation’ is ‘to propriate.’ The simple meaning of ‘propriate’ is “to make one’s own.” We’ll return to this idea of “to make one’s own” shortly. Propriation has two significant alternative meanings: first, “Annexed or attached to an estate as a piece of property” and “Assigned or attached to a particular person.” The OED suggests that this latter meaning is equivalent to appropriate. Looking at appropriate, there are four relevant meanings – all in use when Locke was writing: (1) “To make (a thing) that private property of any one, to make it over to him; to set apart”; (2) “To take possession of for one’s own, to take to oneself”; (3) “To allot, annex, or attach a thing to another as an appendage”; (4) “To devote, set apart, or assign to a special purpose or use.” Appropriate entered into English via the French word “appropre,” which, like appropriate, derives from the Latin words “ad-” and “propius” meaning literally, “to render to one’s own.” Again, we see a similar cluster of meanings: (1) “to assign as private property or possession to; to set apart for a special purpose”; (2) “to assign or attribute as proper to”; (3) “to make one’s own; to take possession of.” Propre, here, carries the same sense as “proper” as in “to act properly” or a “proper noun.” Proper has meanings of correctness, but also of self-hood. The same meanings are found in “property”: a particular characteristic (the property of being hard), of belonging to a particular proprium or self, and of propriety or correctness (especially in manners, dress, etc; how one carries and presents oneself). Etymologically, “appropriate” appears to carry a number of meanings relevant to Locke’s theory: an idea of self, an idea of annexing, an idea of attaching, and an idea of correctness.

But, what about “private”? The English word “private,” like its French equivalent, derives from the Latin word “privatus.” In Latin, something that is privatus is “restricted for the use of a particular person or persons”; a private person is someone “not holding public office,” but also an “individual.” In medieval Latin, privatus becomes privatum meaning both “privy” (as in “privy to secrets”) and, euphemistically, as a “latrine” (as in where one does one private business; that which no one else is privy to). Private, in Latin as in English, is opposed to the public, to the common, but is also opposed to openness (in the sense of secrecy) and associated with the genitals and defecation. Hence, to be private is to be de-prived from the public, from the common and from the open. We can see many of these meanings in the Latin words privare (to deprive, to rob, to debar from the use of, to prevent from having, to release, to relieve) and privus (separate, single, individual, private, peculiar, deprived). Hannah Arendt is instructive on this point, “To live an entirely private life means above all to be deprived of things essential to a truly human life: to be deprived of the reality that comes from being seen and heard by others, to be deprived of an ‘objective’ relationship with them that comes from being related to and separated from them through the intermediary of a common world of things, to be deprived of the possibility of achieving something more permanent than life itself.”

“The thing appropriated is a thing distinct from common property. Now this feature is also shared by all religious and sacred things.” Both proprius and privatus contain ideas of “setting apart.” This is quite significant because another set of Latin word carry associated meanings. Sacre refers to the gods and anything in their power; sacer refers to a priest; and sanctum refers to something that which is set apart. The sacred is something that is set aside or set apart, that can only accessed by particular people in accordance with particular rituals. That which the sacred is aside from is the profane – the common, the everyday. “The sacred thing is, par excellence, that which the profane must not and cannot touch with impunity. [...] Sacred things are things protected and isolated by prohibitions; profane things are those things to which the prohibitions are applied and that must keep at a distance from what is sacred.” But, at the same time as being characterized by this absolute heterogeneity, the sacred is also radically ambivalent: the sacred is just as liable to be accursed as not – the sacred is not necessarily ‘holy’ or ‘clean’; it can also be ‘dirty’ and ‘dangerous.’ Hence, it is not just the meanings of ‘setting apart’ that are common to sacred, property and appropriation, but also the meanings of correctness and dirtiness. Arendt again, “all civilizations have rested upon the sacredness of private property.”

Appropriation, then, as the removal of a thing from the common and the subsequent transformation of that thing into private property carries a number of contradictory elements: correctness, neatness, secrecy, theft, toilets, intimacy, genitals, individual, separate.

• Fern. Meth. “Id malva peculiare est, ut imposita istibusvesparum & apum dolores levet. Fern. Meth. 1.6.cap.4. Stercus vaccinum vesparum itus sanat, & indite aceto tumores digerit. Fern. Meth. 1.5.cap.27.” The next line cites Dodoens’s Stirpum historae pemptabes sex (1587), so, presumably, Fern. Meth. refers to another herbalist book.
• Fer. Ph. “Cerebrum commune sentiendis principium. Fer. Ph.l.5.c.14.” This appears directly before a citation from Pliny’s Natural History – he’s talking about sense-perception in bees.

They are not otherwise cited in the text and no name is associated with them. I can only assume that although the text in question was written in English that the references are in Latin.

Brian Singer and Lorna Weir “Sovereignty, Governance and the Political: The Problematic of Foucault” Thesis Eleven 94: 49-71. This is a companion article to their “Politics and Sovereign Power: Considerations on Foucault” European Journal of Social Theory 9(4): 443-65.

Philip Walsh “Hannah Arendt, Sociology and Political Modernity” Journal of Classical Sociology 8(3): 344-66.