J.M.Coetzee, The Lives of Animals, 125 pp., Profile Books, London,
2000.
A female novelist is invited to give a lecture in a US university and she uses the occasion to attack philosophers views on animals and the supremacy of reason: judging animals by how well they match our criteria of rationality or linguistic competence. This is the subject of the first half of the book entitled 'The Philosophers and the Animals'. In particular there is a fine discussion of the limited nature of Nagel's answer to the question, 'what is it like to be a bat?'. There are some philosophers however who accept her criticisms and it is a pity that they are ignored. See for instance, Feminism and the
Mastery of Nature by Val Plumwood,1 Beyond Boundaries: H um ans
and Animals, by Barbara Noske2 and Beyond Animal Rights: A
feminist caring ethic for the treatment o f animals edited by Josephine
Donovan and Carol Adams.3
The lecture also contains a discussion of the evils of confinement of animals and its devastating effects in zoos4, laboratories and institutions and the moral wrong in the 'places of slaughter' which surround us. There is a plea to use sympathetic imagination to think our way into the existence of an animal, just like we may do with a character in a novel.
The dinner afterwards is framed by a crisp, ironic discussion of vegetarianism with reflections on what makes animals different from humans. One dinner guest suggests that animals have no 1 (Routledge, London, 1993).
2 (Black Rose Books, Montreal, 1997). 3 (Continuum, New York, 1996).
4 Janet Frame evokes this well in the novel, Daughter Buffalo (Flamingo, London, 1993), p.112: 'We walked throught the cat house, stopping at each cage to admire die grace and courage evident in spite of the habitual attitude of imprisonment that replaced brightness in the eyes with bewilderment and a perpetual leaking from the tucts that looked very much like real tears for real reasons, and the sleek coat with dull dry tufts of fur'.
shame. They don't hide their excretions and they perform sex in the open. Another announces that animals are creatures we don't have sex with.
The second half of The Lives of Anim als, 'The Poets and the Animals', centres on a seminar to the English faculty. Ted Hughes is praised for writing poems which 'ask us to imagine our way into [the jaguar's] way of moving, to inhabit that body'(p.85) in contrast to inhabiting another mind. Such poetry is a 'record of an engagement'with an animal (p.86).
In the ensuing discussion the woman misses some obvious responses eg when accused of trying to impose a western ethic, she fails to point out that concern for animals and vegetarianism has been an important part of major eastern religions such as Buddhism. This is a challenging book, exposing the immorality of common attitudes towards animals held by 'kind' people. It aptly points out the weakness of much philosophy. The way forward, the poet's way is explored with tantilizing brevity and some might find Hughes an odd choice. I do.
Denise Russell
INDEX
Vol. 1 No. 11997 articles:
Freya Mathews: 'Living with Animals' Val Plumwood: 'Babe: The Tale of the Speaking Meat Part V
Lynda Birke: 'Science and Animals, or, Why Cyril Won't Win the Nobel Prize'
Emma Munro: 'Speciesism and Sexism' interview with Peter Singer
reviews of
Feral Children and Clever Animals: Reflections on Human Nature
The Frankenstein Syndrome: Ethical and Social Issues in the Genetic Engineering o f Animals
Vol. 1. No. 2 1997 articles:
Andrew Brennan: 'Ethics, Conflict and Animal Research'
Birgitta Forsman: 'Two Different Approaches to Gene Technology in Animals'
Val Plumwood: 'Babe: The Tale of the Speaking Meat Part 11'
Lynda Birke and Mike Michael: 'Hybrids, Rights and Their Proliferation'
interview with Julia Bell reviews of
Dog Love
Taking Animals Seriously: Mental Life and Moral Status
Vol. 2. No. 11998 articles:
Annie O-Rourke: 'Caring-About Virtual Pets: An Ethical Interpretation of Tamagotchi'
Glenn Albrecht: 'Thinking like an ecosystem: the ethics of the relocation, rehabilitation and release of wildlife'
Simone Poirer-Bures: 'He's the one'
Denis Mahony: 'Toward a better press for animals'
review essay: Felicity Sutcliffe: Good natured: the origins o f right and wrong in humans and other anim als
review of
Minds o f their Own: Thinking and Awareness in A nim as
Vol. 2. No. 2 1998 articles:
Henk Verhoog: 'Morality and the "Naturalness" of Transgenic Animals'
Anne Quain: 'Is there a problem in attributing beliefs and intentionality to animals?'
Frans W.A. Brom and Egbert Schroten: 'Ethics and Animal Biotechnology'
Gurch Randhawa: 'Xenotransplantation: Do we have an alternative?'
review essay: Andrew Asquith: Nature Wars: People vs. Pests
reviews of 100
Animal Consciousness and Animal Ethics: Perspectives from the Netherlands
The Intrinsic Value o f Nature Transgenic Animals. Why
Vol. 3 No 11999 articles:
Gisela Kaplan: 'An exercise in the practice of biodiversity and a tool for conservation'
Nicola Taylor: 'Whither rights? Animal rights and the rise of new welfarism to animals?' Simone Poirier-Bures: 'One crow, sorrow' Elizabeth Murphy: 'In what respects, if any, should the primates be equal?'
revews of
Ethical approaches to animal-based science Hearts and Minds
Not Only Roars and Rituals
Animals and their Moral Standing
Vol. 3 No 2 1999 articles:
Michael W. Fox: India's Sacred Cow: Her Plight and Future
Simone Poirier-Bures: Garden
Will Kort and Medard Hilhorst: The Death
Penalty or Lifelong Encagement: Moral dilemmas about animals-without-further-destination
review essay: Paul Redding: Species of Mind: The Philosophy and Biology of Cognitive Ethology
reviews of
Beyond Boundaries: Humans and Animals Rain without Thunder: The Ideology o f the Animl Rights Movement
Vol. 4 No 1 2000 articles:
Barry Kew: 'It's a (Two-) Culture Thing: The Lateral Shift to Liberation'
Val Plumwood: 'A Wombat Wake: In Memoriam Birubi'
Consuelo Rivera-Fuentes: 'Gender and hybridity: the significance of human/animal characters in magic realist fiction'
Simone Poirier-Bures: 'The Face in the Tree' review essays:
Anne Quain: Ethics into Action: Henry Spira andthe Animal Rights M ov e m e n t
Ralph Acampora: Reading Zoos:
Representations o f Animals and Captivity
Suzanne Fraser: Brute Science: Dilemmas o f Animal Experimentation
Alison M. Turtle: The Pact for Survival: Humans and their Animal Companions
review of
Understanding Dogs: Living and Working with Canine Companions