and the political community are defined in relation to each other in Aristotle’s work (Derrida 2008, 84; Melehy 2006). In one movement, Descartes draws a line between humans and other animals, and between reaction and response, in which “response” is understood as responding to questions asked by humans in such a way as to demonstrate one’s capacity to think. He does so not by providing an answer to the question of whether or not non-human animals actually think, but by rephrasing the question, which reformulates the discourse surrounding animals (Derrida 2008, 83). This becomes clear when we compare his views to those of Montaigne concerning non-human animals. Montaigne ([1595] 1958) argues that different species of animal have their own language, and that communication is possible between members of different species.4 Humans cannot see or understand the internal motions and secrets of other animals; this is, however, not a defect on the part of the animals, it is mutual, and it would be vanity for humans to think otherwise. Different species have different (complex) languages, as do different groups of humans. The fact that humans might not be able to speak with other animals as they can speak with other humans does not mean that humans are incapable of understanding what they mean, and vice versa. In response, Descartes ([1646] 1991) argues that humans cannot attribute thought or understanding to animals, because they imitate humans only in those actions that are not guided by human thoughts, thereby introducing skepticism as regards their minds, and presenting their minds as closed off from humans because they do not speak in human language. According to Descartes, humans only demonstrate that they are not machines, but have souls and think, by speaking.
The difference between Montaigne and Descartes is not simply a difference in perception or observation, but rather a difference in method and in understanding of the underlying concepts (Melehy 2006). Montaigne writes about other animals as subjects, and compares human groups to groups of non-human animals; for example, he points to the similarities in difficulties in understanding non-human animals, Basques, and the indigenous inhabitants of Brazil. This inability to completely understand others is, furthermore, not just a problem when we encounter other communities: because of the ambiguities in human language, we also cannot have certainty in understanding humans from our own communities. Montaigne twice remarks there is more difference between two humans than between a human and any given beast (1958, 332, 334). In contrast to this phenomenological approach, Descartes searches for an unambiguous truth. He proposes a new method for doing philosophy, by which he aims to find a fundamental set of principles that are true beyond doubt. He shifts the focus from perception to deduction and puts the thinking I—the cogito—at the center of truth and knowledge, separated from the body and expressed in an idealized view of human language. The cogito is immaterial and eternal and is contrasted with the body, which functions as a machine. Other animals are simply bodies that function as machines, without language, thought, or soul. The truth can only be found through reason, expressed in human language, presuming a fixed subject (spirit). In all of these aspects, Descartes sees a clear line between humans and other animals (Derrida 2008; Melehy 2006).
Traces of Descartes’s ideas are found in many existing practices and discourses concerning animal sentience, cognition, and language. Here I will focus on two: the concept of “instinct” and the practice of animal experimentation, both of which I will discuss in more detail in the next chapter. It is commonplace to accept the distinction between instinct and intelligence, and to associate “animal” with “instinct” and “human” with “intelligence” (Brentari 2016).5 So-called “lower desires” are seen as instinctual and as an expression of the animal side of mankind, and instinct is considered a kind of automatic, mechanical drive that is built in to various animals. As with other concepts, however, this concept has a history, and it expresses and has shaped how we view humans and other animals. Seneca wrote about complex animal acts that took place without reflection (Beach 1955), and in early Christian theological work the concept of instinct began to play a role in developing a normative distinction between body and soul (ibid.). We find an early example of this in the work of Thomas Aquinas (Brentari 2016), where the concept was, however, not used exclusively to understand animal behavior, but rather as a motivational term, pointing to an external source of motivation that might range from heavenly inspiration to the influence of the stars. This meaning changed under the influence of Descartes, who as we have seen made a distinction between body and soul, and saw other animals as mechanical beings. This model of two functional systems (Brentari 2016) has led to the view of instinct that we have today, and has also contributed to our view of other animals as automata, who lack thought and act only on passions. This has led not only to privileging humans, and to a too-sharp distinction between human and animal; it has also led to spontaneous behavior being seen as less valuable—in both humans and other animals—while current studies in moral psychology show that much of our moral behavior is habitual and instinctive (see also Donaldson and Kymlicka 2015b). Philosopher Brian Massumi (2014) further nuances the concept of “instinct” by arguing that all so-called “instinctive” behaviors also necessarily have an element of creativity; for example, flight behavior must have an element of improvisation, because if every animal of a certain species were to flee in exactly the same way, predators could learn this and would be able to anticipate it. Expression, or the power of variation and improvisation, is in this view equiprimordial with instinct.
Viewing other animals as mechanical objects has also led humans to develop practices in which using them as such for human goals is acceptable. According to Descartes, non-human animals have no reason and no soul, and are not therefore able to experience pain. He compares them to clockwork: when one sticks a knife into a living dog, the dog will scream, but this is simply a mechanical response. Descartes thus saw no harm in dissecting living non-human animals for the sake of science, and was a proponent of vivisection. Furthermore, his views on non-human animal sentience legitimized certain experiments by scientists of his time (Adams and Donovan 1995, 221; Guerrini 2003). Laboratory animals are still seen and used today as objects that can provide humans with information about human subjects, even though few currently doubt that they are sentient. While scientists need to become attuned to their objects of study and pay close attention to their behavior in order to obtain meaningful results (Haraway 2008), it is the results that primarily matter to humans, and the animals studied are not formally recognized as subjects, so the interaction is asymmetrical (chapter 6). The non-human animals studied are treated as resources, not as co-beings. Viewing other animals as objects whose bodies and minds can be used to answer questions about human subjects also has an effect on the research questions formulated, which in turn has an effect on how we view them, because these questions set the scope for the space in which the other animals can answer. An illustration of this can be found in language research, which I will discuss in more detail in the next chapter. Because humans are taken as the standard, and human language seen as the one authentic language, the capacity for language use in other animals has long been investigated by trying to establish how well the non-human animals in question can learn to speak or understand human language. This served only to reinforce stereotypical views about their ability to speak and think, because many of them obviously did not do well. It also closed off possibilities of finding out about their languages, cultures, and inner lives.
In order to adequately challenge these practices and the views of non-human animals that underpin them, we need to do more than simply argue that other animals are sentient, or similar to humans in significant respects. We must also critically review existing ideas about non-human animal cognition, languages, and cultures, and the role that anthropocentrism has played in how they were constructed. This also implies reconsidering our view of “the human” and exploring the differences and similarities between humans and other animals, a project begun by writers such as Montaigne.
Language and World
One of the things that human and non-human animals have in common is that we share a world—a real world, the planet Earth on which we all live. Other things that we have in common are that we have bodies, are vulnerable, were all born, and that we will all die. In The Beast and the Sovereign II, Derrida writes that no one will seriously deny animals the possibility of inhabiting the world, or of co-inhabiting
