Animal philosophy

The animal philosophy deals with questions that have the position, nature and behavior of animals as their subject. Essentially, animal philosophy deals with three questions: "What is the difference between humans and animals?" (Anthropological difference), "Can we ascribe a soul to animals?" And "How should we behave morally towards animals?" Currently, the most perceived area of ​​animal philosophy is animal ethics .

history

Antiquity

The difference between humans and animals and the handling of animals has been discussed in Western philosophy since ancient Greece. Pythagoras demanded respect for animals because the souls of humans and non-humans could be reborn in animals and humans alike.

Aristotle, on the other hand, denied reason (gr. Logos) to animals and put humans at the head of the natural world order. The anthropological difference lies in the formation of opinions and judgments as well as in the ability to speak and to establish complex social communities. He differentiated between a "reasonable faculty" and a "sensual faculty", whereby he ascribed only the sensual to the animals.

Theopahrastus , one of Aristotle's students, attributed the ability to deliberation to some animals (logismos) and criticized the consumption of animals as an unjust robbery of life.

Anthropological difference

Humans have always used animals as an instrument of definition in order to be able to determine the nature of humans by delimiting them from other animals: "It would be of little interest to know what animals are if it weren't for a means of knowing what we are." wrote the French philosopher Étienne Bonnot de Condillac in his work Traité des animaux. The anthropological difference is concerned with finding out what distinguishes humans from all other animals and what the difference is that makes this distinction possible.

literature

• Reinhard Brandt , Can Animals Think ?: A Contribution to Animal Philosophy. Suhrkamp 2009 ISBN 978-3-518-26017-3 .
• Markus Wild : Animal philosophy as an introduction . Junius, Hamburg 2008, ISBN 978-3-88506-651-4 .
• Gary Steiner , Anthropocentrism and its Discontents: The Moral Status of Animals in the History of Western Philosophy , Univ. of Pittsburgh Press 2010, ISBN 978-0-8229-6119-2 .
• Robert W. Lurz (Ed.): The Philosophy of Animal Minds . Cambridge University Press, 2009, ISBN 978-1-139-48102-1 .
• Hans Werner Ingensiep , Heiker Baranzke: The animal . Stuttgart: Reclam, 2008. ISBN 3-15-020320-1 .