L’auteur présente le statut juridique de l’animal, les normes juridiques visant la protection de l’animal domestique, l’animal de compagnie et plus particulièrement les décisions de justice concernant le chien « dangereux ».

Bertrand Cassegrain | : Les injustices dont sont victimes aujourd’hui les animaux domestiques ont mené certains partisans des droits des animaux à défendre l’idée selon laquelle la relation entre humains et animaux domestiques était intrinsèquement injuste et qu’il ne fallait pas permettre à ces derniers de se reproduire. Tout en s’inscrivant dans une théorie des droits des animaux « abolitionniste », cet article entend montrer que, sous réserve du respect de certaines conditions, il n’est pas nécessairement condamnable sur le plan (...) moral d’autoriser la perpétuation des animaux domestiques – en particulier des animaux de compagnie. Ainsi, je tenterai de montrer que s’il est vrai, toutes choses égales par ailleurs, qu’il est moralement acceptable de mettre au monde des enfants sur la base d’un désir égoïste, alors il l’est aussi de laisser venir au monde des animaux de compagnie pour une raison semblable. Le fait d’avoir un enfant ou un animal de compagnie ne mobilisent pas nécessairement les mêmes enjeux éthiques. Je ferai valoir que malgré certaines contraintes, la vie des animaux de compagnie peut tout à fait être enviable. Enfin, j’indiquerai en quoi le premier argument fournit des pistes pour penser le statut légal des animaux de compagnie. | : Because of the injustices domestic animals suffer today, some animal rights theorists claim that the relationship between humans and domestic animals is intrinsically unjust, and that therefore we should not allow domestic animals to breed. I try to show in this paper that, provided that some specific conditions are respected, it is possible to allow the perpetuation of domestic animals—especially pets—while being consistent with an “abolitionist” animal rights theory. Thus, I will try to show that if, all other things being equal, it is morally acceptable to have a child based on a selfish desire, then it is morally acceptable to have a pet for the same reason. Having a child does not lead to the same ethical issues as having a pet. I will show that, despite some constraints, a pet’s life can be perfectly enjoyable. Finally, I will show how the first argument can help us to think about the legal status of pets. (shrink)

Matthew Taylor | : Contrary to critics and advocates of contractarianism alike, I argue that mutual advantage contractarianism entails rights and protections for animals. In section one I outline the criteria that must be met in order for an individual to qualify for moral rights on the contractarian view. I then introduce an alternative form of ‘rights,’ which I call ‘protectorate status,’ from which an individual can receive protections indirectly. In section two I suggest guidelines for assigning animal rights (...) based on two ways of categorizing animals. On the basis of the categorization according to benefit derived, I argue that animals used for companionship, security, hunting assistance, transportation, entertainment, medical service, nourishment, or clothing will tend to qualify for basic rights against starvation, predation, and disease. On the basis of the categorization according to species, I argue that, on top of the basic rights above, dogs tend to qualify for rights against abuse, and against frivolous medical experimentation, as well as further negotiated rights. Cows have the basic rights against starvation, predation, and disease, but squirrels and bears have no rights. In section three I argue that some animals qualify for protectorate status, which would establish various protections for different animals, but would also generally prohibit cruelty towards animals. | : Contrairement à certains critiques ou défenseurs du contractualisme, j’affirme que le contractualisme à avantages réciproques peut assurer droits et protections aux animaux. Dans la première section, je décris les critères que, d’un point de vue contractualiste, un individu doit satisfaire pour pouvoir bénéficier de droits moraux. J’introduis ensuite une autre forme de « droits », que j’appelle « protectorat », qui permet à un individu de bénéficier indirectement de certaines protections. Dans la deuxième section, je propose des directives pour accorder des droits aux animaux en fonction d’un double mode de catégorisation. La première catégorisation serait établie d’après les avantages procurés par l’animal; ainsi les animaux de compagnie, de garde, de chasse, de transport, de divertissement, ou assurant des services de santé, d’alimentation ou d’habillement devraient se voir accorder des droits fondamentaux contre la famine, la prédation et la maladie. Selon la seconde catégorisation, établie d’après l’espèce, les chiens devraient bénéficier de droits les protégeant des mauvais traitements et des expérimentations médicales inutiles, ainsi que d’autres droits négociés. Les vaches jouissent ainsi des droits fondamentaux qui les protègent de la famine, de la prédation et de la maladie, mais les écureuils et les ours n’ont pas de droits. Dans la troisième section, j’explique que certains animaux devraient bénéficier d’un statut de protectorat, qui accorderait des protections diverses à différents animaux, mais qui défendrait de façon générale toute cruauté envers les animaux. (shrink)

Certains en possèdent déjà : les animaux de compagnie, les espèces protégées et les animaux d'élevage. Mais les droits que nous leur avons consentis sont minimaux et incohérents. Nous traitons différemment les chiens, que nous considérons comme des membres de la famille, et les cochons, réduits au rang d'objets produits en masse et abattus dans d'indignes conditions. Pourtant cochons et chiens présentent une sensibilité et une intelligence similaires. Comment en sommes-nous venus à les classer dans des catégories si différentes? (...) C'est que nous sommes spécistes. Le terme, peu connu en France, fera bientôt partie de notre vocabulaire. A l'instar du racisme et du sexisme, dont il poursuit la logique. Le spécisme consiste à traiter différemment, et sans la moindre raison valable, deux espèces qui présentent les mêmes caractéristiques. Tout comme nous avons longtemps dénié aux femmes les mêmes droits que les hommes. L'affirmation de l'antispécisme sera celle de l'animalisme, un mouvement philosophique qui promeut la nécessité d'accorder des droits à tous les animaux, en raison de leur capacité à souffrir. Loin d'être anecdotique, l'animalisme incarne le mouvement idéologique le plus révolutionnaire ; pour la première fois depuis 2000 ans, il entend sortir nos systèmes de pensée occidentaux de leur logique anthropocentriste et reconnaître que nous, qui sommes des animaux, avons des obligations morales à l'égard de nos cousins. Surtout, l'animalisme s'inscrit dans une logique d'écologie politique, éloignée de celle incarnée dans les élections. Non plus une écologie superficielle, qui se soucie seulement de préserver les écosystèmes, les ressources et quelques espèces en péril, mais une écologie profonde, qui repense complètement la place de l'homme dans le monde. Pour que ce dernier ne vive plus en parasite, mais en symbiose avec toutes les formes de vivant. Cela oblige à une refonte de nos institutions et à briser la vision à court-terme du temps politique. Cela nous oblige aussi à une réforme intellectuelle qui remette en question la notion de " profit ". Le capitalisme, le socialisme, le communisme, le néo-libéralisme sont aujourd'hui discrédités, si ce n'est dépassés. (shrink)

Quelque chose a changé dans notre rapport aux animaux. La " cause animale " est à l'ordre du jour, et le vivant humain est désormais plus essentiellement animal qu'humain. Cela s'appelle un zoocentrisme : au centre de notre humanité, l'animalité. En apparence, nous avons tout à gagner à cette nouvelle image de l'homme. Elle nous vient de la biologie de l'évolution, qui nous a situés, quelque part dans l'ordre des primates, en bonne compagnie avec nos cousins les grands (...) singes. Elle est aussi un appel à réformer et à moraliser nos relations avec les animaux que nous exploitons : on respecte d'autant mieux qui nous ressemble. Enfin l'animalité humaine fait de nous des esprits forts, qui ont su en finir avec les dualismes et les grands partages métaphysiques d'antan. Bref : c'est à tous égards une pensée progressiste, car ouverte à la science, généreuse envers les animaux, et philosophiquement éclairée. Il se pourrait pourtant que ces raisons d'en finir avec la différence homme-animal ne soient qu'un ensemble de pensées bancales qui, entre oubli des sciences humaines, réduction de la vie humaine à sa seule vulnérabilité et déni de ce que nous vivons en première personne, composent finalement le portrait idéologique d'un progressisme stérile. Pouvons-nous échapper au " complexe des trois singes ", ces trois façons de méconnaître ce que nous vivons et faisons comme vivants humains? Et pouvons-nous imaginer un progressisme de vérité conscient de tout ce que nous devons aux animaux sans pour autant renier ce que nous sommes? Etienne Bimbenet est professeur de philosophie contemporaine à l'université Bordeaux Montaigne. Il est notamment l'auteur de L'Animal que je ne suis plus (Gallimard, 2011), et de L'Invention du réalisme (Cerf, 2015). (shrink)

This historiographical survey examines the new concept of sex emerging during the Age of Enlightenment and its links to a different type of relationship developing between humans and animals in both metropolitan France and the colonies. For the past thirty years or so, the history of emotions and the history of social science have shed light on the historical circumstances in which the anthropological paradigm of the Enlightenment was constituted. This article will identify a number of themes – domestication, the (...) presence of animals as household pets, the practice of selective breeding – which can be studied in such a way as to reconfigure approaches via gender. By paying fresh attention to the relations between gender and animality, these studies have made a decisive contribution to our understanding of the learned and political debates of the Enlightenment about the frontiers of the human and the nature-culture binary. (shrink)

The study of Agrippa's works confirms his constant interest in the theory and practice of alchemy. The apparent contradiction between De occulta philosophia, which uses alchemical doctrines, and De vanitate scientiarum, where alchemy is harshly criticized, is to be resolved in the light of a moral and cultural reform founded on a Hermetic-Christian perspective on the relationship between faith and reason. The analysis of the alchemic passages in De occulta philosophia proves that Agrippa's transmutatory operations have no secondary role in (...) his 'restored' magic. Furthermore, these operations are oriented towards a utopia, where original unity is to be regained. (shrink)

English summary: Now that it has managed to become a science, history must remain the symposium theatre which allows us to converse with the dead. Our "connected" world delivers us up, defenceless, to the tyranny of every instant. History could be the antidote, inasmuch as it is a depository of people's collective experience. It lifts shadows up from the depth of the ages to make us share what we have learned from being who we are. We have undertaken a boundless (...) dialogue with the living. This book proposes to restore the dialogue with the dead by revisiting, through a succession of brief texts in the form of short essays and short stories, a number of episodes of universal history in an attempt to cull some lessons from it. At a time when history's progress has led to an excessive specialisation which has caused many scholars to withdraw into their ivory towers to enjoy, among experts, the fruit of their research, Michel De Jaeghere wants us to resume meditating on examples that have nourished human thought since ancient times. French description: Ils ont ete pharaons, empereurs romains, rois de France, croises, missionnaires, conquerants, batisseurs de palais et de cathedrales, decouvreurs de mondes nouveaux. Ils ont connu l'ivresse de la gloire, l'amertume de la defaite, ils ont peine dans les travaux. Ils ont incarne l'aventure de l'Occident jusqu'aux extremites de la terre, ils ont du faire face a la barbarie, a la guerre, a la terreur et a la tyrannie totalitaires. De la profondeur de l'Egypte ancienne aux conflits qui ont ouvert le XXIe siecle, ils offrent la plus etonnante des galeries de portraits. Marc Aurele y croise Christophe Colomb, Louis XVI, Honore d'Estienne d'Orves ou Helie de Saint Marc. Ils forment la compagnie des ombres, surgie du passe pour nous offrir un tete a tete. Un dialogue singulier avec les morts.L'histoire est trop souvent traitee comme un cadavre par des medecins legistes si attentifs aux organes qu'ils prelevent sur le corps dont ils font l'autopsie que leur echappe son mystere, ce qui lui donnait sa vie meme. Elle est, ailleurs, consideree comme le divertissement d'un jour, l'occasion d'une promenade sans enjeu. Les textes reunis ici comme en un recueil de nouvelles voudraient s'inscrire dans une autre tradition, celle d'une histoire meditative: une histoire tournee vers la recherche de ce qu'elle a a nous dire d'essentiel, de vital sur nous-meme. Ils se proposent de convoquer les ombres du passe pour nous donner a contempler ce qui n'est pas mort avec elles. Nous doutons aujourd'hui que l'histoire puisse etre maitresse de vie: magistra vitae, disait Ciceron. Nous voulons croire que nous n'avons plus rien a apprendre d'elle. Il nous manque d'avoir les yeux ouverts sur ce qui fait echapper ses protagonistes a leur condition mortelle; ce qui leur donne leur part d'eternite. (shrink)

Giordano Bruno’s interest in magic was not a marginal aspect of his philosophy. In the magical works written in 1589 and 1591, Bruno carried out his project of a cultural reform, which he also conceived as a pratical renovatio. In De magia naturali Bruno undertook a careful theoretical reexamination of Renaissance magic in order to ground its "experimental data" on physical foundation. Some traditional notions , which Bruno found in his sources and made use of, are analyzed in his paper (...) to show the deep change they underwent in the light of Bruno’s new ontology and cosmology. (shrink)

Édition du troisième sophisma « Omnis homo de necessitate est animal » du ms. Paris, BnF Lat. 16135. Le texte anonyme, contenu aux f. 99rb-103vb, appartient à la seconde collection de sophismata transmis dans ce codex légué à l’Université de Paris par Étienne de Genève socius du Collège de Sorbonne, après avoir été maître ès arts à Paris dans les années 1270. Il offre un panorama des principales positions soutenues au xiiie siècle par les Antiqui et les Moderni sur (...) la sémantique des termes vides, la distinction entre l’esse essentiae et l’esse existentiae, l’être effectif et l’être logique, le temps et la modalité. (shrink)

A study of the problem of animal souls as treated by Pierre Bayle in his article on Rorarius in the Dictionnaire. Early modern philosophers, if they rejected dualism, tended—as Bayle shows—to be driven either to materialism or to panpsychism.

The lives of non-human animals, their ways of being and seeing, their experiences and knowledge, and their relationships with each other, continue to be ignored, discounted, written over and destroyed by anthropocentric practices and endeavours. Within the vestiges of colonialism, this silence and occlusion co-opts and consumes animals, physically and culturally, into the servitude of human interests, and selective narratives of history and progress. Decolonising Animals brings together critical interrogations, case studies and creative explorations that identify and examine how non-human (...) animals are affected by and respond to colonial structures and processes. Included in this collection are the perspectives of Indigenous and non-Indigenous scholars, artists and activists and the ways in which they have questioned colonial ways of knowing, engaging with and representing animals. Importantly, the book presents suggestions for how humans can decolonise their relationships with non-human animals and with each other. (shrink)

Traditionally, in Spain bullfighting represents an ancient and well-respected tradition and a combined brand of sport, art and national identity. However, bullfighting has received considerable criticism from various segments of society, with the concomitant rise of the animal rights movement. The paper reports a survey of the Spanish citizens using a face-to-face survey during January 2016 with a total sample of 2522 citizens. The survey asked about degree of liking and approving; culture, art and national identity; socio-economic aspects; emotional (...) perception and animal welfare. The hypothesis proposed that the perception of bullfights may be affected by gender, age, occupation, origin and nationality of the persons surveyed. The hypothesis was confirmed. The majority of citizens surveyed do not like bullfights and great majorities do not attend or watch such events. Two extreme clusters were described: one representing favorable attitude towards bullfighting and other against bullfighting. The proportion of indifferent persons was important. Women and young people showed a more favorable attitude towards animal welfare issues associated with these events. Rural people were more accepting bullfights than urban people. Students were more anti-bullfight than those in other occupations. Additionally, technical economic factors made people favor more bullfights. The growth of claim against bullfights establishes an element of a far more multifaceted phenomenon that animal cruelty per se and support of a new paradigm called social change in countries as Spain. (shrink)

I begin with a rather unpromising dispute that Nozick once had with Ian Hacking in the pages of the London Review of Books, in which both vied with one another in their enthusiasm to repudiate the thesis that some human people or peoples are closer than others to animality. I shall attempt to show that one can build, on the basis of Nozick’s discussion of rationality, a defense of the view that the capacity tor language places human rationality out of (...) reach of a comparison with animals. The difference rests, paradoxically, on the human capacity tor irratianality. Irrationality depends on the capacity tor language, which allows the detachment of explicit thoughts from their underlying dynamic implementation; these, in turn, condition the essential disputability of principles of rationality. That is what places every human potentially -- if not actually -- on the other side of an unbridgeable gulf that separates us from other animals. (shrink)

Public debate on acceptable farm animal husbandry suffers from a confusion of tongues. To clarify positions of various stakeholder groups in their joint search for acceptable solutions, the concept of animal welfare was split up into three notions: no suffering, respect for intrinsic value, and non-appalling appearance of animals. This strategy was based on the hypothesis that multi-stakeholder solutions should be based on shared values rather than on compromises. The usefulness of such an artificial value distinction strategy was (...) tested in a small series of experiments. The results demonstrate that the chosen concept to distinguish between values is effective in a stakeholder context. Farmers’ views on doing good to animals appeared to be largely based on their value to prevent suffering and predominantly focused on the provision of regular care. Their priority for this value is clearly shared with other stakeholders, providing a basis for joint solutions. The concept of intrinsic value does not play a discernable role in farmers’ considerations. Based on the varying views on welfare, it can be inferred that there is a gradual rather than a principal difference between government legislation and farmers’ values, whereas public perception and acceptance of farm practices remains complicated. Distinction between value groups and focusing on a selected notion (such as no suffering) proved to be effective in bringing representatives of stakeholder groups together, but is unlikely to bridge the emotional gap between commercial farm practices and public ideals. (shrink)

Movies can serve valuable didactic purposes teaching clinical ethics to medical students. However, using film sequences as means to develop critical thinking is not a straightforward task. There is a significant gap in the literature regarding how to analyse the ethical content embedded in these clips systematically, in a way that facilitates the students’ transition from anecdotal reflections to abstract thinking. This article offers a pedagogical proposal to approach the ethical analysis of film sequences in a systematic fashion. This structured (...) stepwise method encourages students to identify the main ethical problem of a selected scene and to reflect on the theoretical principles involved, emphasizing the application of these norms and values in a contextually situated analysis. We believe this method in film studies both reinforces the students’ comprehension of the theoretical framework of an ethical topic, and casts light on its pertinence and limitations under the circumstances of the scene, thus proving a constructive tool to strengthen the bridge between the theoretical teaching of clinical ethics and clinical practice. (shrink)

In this article we argue that it is reasonable to believe that normal vertebrate animals can feel pleasure, and that there is sufficient evidence for a capacity for pleasure in some invertebrates. It follows that the pleasures of animals are morally significant. We argue for that in a few steps. First, we explain why philosophers used to concentrate more on pain rather than pleasure in regard to animals. Second, we define the notion of pleasure and show how it implies to (...) non-human animals. Third we discuss whether animals are conscious beings and how they may feel pleasure. It is true that we do not know exactly how pain and pleasure feel to nonhumans, but this is also true for other humans. Even though we can give a detailed verbal description of what we feel, pains and pleasures are subjective and we do not have any certain insight into what another human is feeling. This limitation should not stop us from behaving in a way that takes into account the fact that both we and many nonhuman animals are beings who can suffer and enjoy. (shrink)

Este trabalho tem como objetivo analisar a reflexão de Hans Jonas acerca do estatuto ontológico do animal que está inserida, neste contexto, em uma análise mais geral sobre o fenômeno da vida e se apresenta como um momento importante na ontologia que pretende combater o dualismo e a ruptura entre animais humanos e não humanos. Ao reconhecer graus diferenciados de atividade espiritual entre os seres vivos, o autor, contudo, não partilha a ideia de uma igualdade plena entre os animais, (...) embora sua perspectiva parta de traços comuns que acentuam a transanimalidade do homem, ou seja, o seu pertencimento e, ao mesmo tempo, a sua diferença em relação às alimárias. Por isso, sua filosofia não se limita ao discurso sobre os direitos animais, mas, antes, pretende pensar uma nova ontologia animal e uma nova animalidade humana a partir da integridade psicofísica e da relação constitutiva dos animais humanos e não humanos no âmbito da natureza. (shrink)

Numbers of European hamsters in the Dutch Province of Limburg have been subject to much scrutiny and controversy. In the late nineteenth century, policymakers who considered them too numerous set up eradication programs. In the second half of the twentieth century, even when its domestic relative increasingly circulated as a pet in urban spaces, the numbers of European hamsters in the rural areas collapsed. Large-scale preservation campaigns and reintroduction programs ensued. According to some media, all this has turned the European (...) hamster into the most expensive undomesticated animal of the Netherlands. A whole network of institutions became involved to save the species – ranging from local activist organizations, over zoos and universities, to federal ministries and international organizations. The interactions between the Dutch and ‘their’ hamsters, this article argues, were inscribed in various forms of biopolitics. The article highlights the changing discursive framings and spatial practices that have shaped the management of Cricetus cricetus over time and calls attention to the diversity of living and non-living agents that produced the multispecies choreographies of the present-day Limburg landscape. Finally, it alerts us to the kinds of agency that reside in the numbers of non-human animals. (shrink)

Le progrès scientifique, économique et politique nous fait aujourd'hui rencontrer les limites matérielles du monde où nous vivons. L'urgence de la crise climatique nous pousse à anticiper les contraintes qu'imposent ces limites plutôt que de les subir, à infléchir délibérément la trajectoire du progrès plutôt que de poursuivre aveuglément une voie qui mène à un désastre sans précédent dans l'histoire. En compagnie des trois héros de la modernité que sont Descartes, Newton et Freud, nous cheminerons dans la culture dont (...) nous sommes issus. Nous y découvrirons les avatars du paradoxe de l'animal parlant qui peut se hisser par la pensée au-dessus de lui-même et, depuis cette position de surplomb, se penser comme un objet du monde tout en étant singulièrement incarné dans un corps sensible dont il ne peut s'évader. La philosophie, la théologie et l'épistémologie ont tour à tour tenté de trancher définitivement ce paradoxe, alors que nous devons inventer le moyen d'avancer au-dessus du vide qu'il creuse, de vivre et de faire avec lui en nous fondant sur des fictions si vraisemblables qu'elles semblent vraies. C'est dans cette avancée hasardeuse que notre cadre de pensée se construit, qu'il se partage, qu'il évolue en s'approchant de ses limites, qu'il se met en question en s'y heurtant - et c'est ce heurt qui provoque le renouvellement du cadre. Le voyage que propose ce livre nous conduira à la nécessaire refondation des Temps modernes, une question que l'actualité climatique nous interdit d'éluder. (shrink)

Bayle's article on Rorarius, author of a work purporting to demonstrate that animals reason better than humans, describes and rejects all but one of the current opinions concerning the souls of animals. That survivor is Leibniz's theory of monads, but Bayle cannot accept pre-established harmony, and so Leibniz goes by the wayside too. Bayle exhibits clearly the consequences of Cartesianism for attempts to distinguish us from the animals. The alternatives are reduced to two: either we do not have an immortal (...) soul, or animals do. Both are untenable on moral grounds. The result for Bayle is that no opinion on animal souls can be stably maintained. (shrink)

This article intends to analyze the relations between Nietzsche’s concept of herd animal and Arendt’s concept of mass man. It will be highlighted the parallels between both philosophers concepts in an attempt to answer why Arendt doesn’t mention Nietzsche regarding this specific subject.

The appearance, in 1967, of the name of Jacques Derrida on the scene of contemporary thought was indeed plural; given the number of books published under his signature in that year, but also, more intrinsically, because this appearance was declined under a contradictory aegis: since the beginning, the problem of writing had to struggle between ‘two interpretations of interpretation’, one affirmative, the other nostalgic, between a Nietzschean affirmation and a Rousseauist reverie. This internal debate carried on its labour, remarking itself (...) much later at the surface of the page, according to more or less conscious protocols. This contribution retraces the terms of this conflict starting from two problems, if not words, where this conflict finds a very economical condensation: ‘pity’ and ‘weak force’, the problems of compassion for the living and of the hyperbole of political interpellation, in the short-circuit that takes shape between the ‘economy of pity’ and the ‘question of the animal’. (shrink)

Waal shows how ethical behavior is as much a matter of evolution as any other trait.

Based on a reading of the opening of The Animal That Therefore I Am, this essay exposes the genealogy and structure of the articulation of two motifs of Jacques Derrida’s thought: the promise and animality. Following a confrontation between Heidegger’s and Nietzsche’s conceptions of the human, we will show that, for deconstruction, the possibility to promise, or the possibility of having an “avenir,” is characteristic of an “animal” structure of experience. The anthropological specificity is not pertinent in this (...) context: if animality names the structure of experience in general, and if humanity is reinscribed into it, then this reconfiguration is not a matter of classes, but of structure. Therefore, the promise of deconstruction is an implication of the structure of experience of finite living beings: experience is open, historic, insofar as it is animal. Finally, we will show why the affirmation of this articulation coincides with that of deconstruction’s “categorical imperative.”. (shrink)

La diminution rapide du nombre des prêtres en nos régions pose avec urgence la question du gouvernement des communautés chrétiennes, et en particulier celle de la présidence de l’eucharistie qui en fait normalement partie. Le retour aux sources effectué en ecclésiologie et en théologie des sacrements depuis Vatican II invite à reprendre à nouveaux frais la question d’un élargissement des conditions d’accès au ministère de présidence : ordination d’hommes mariés, délégations à durée déterminée, voire cas-limite d’une présidence «charismatique» dans les (...) cas de nécessité. L’article recense les positions d’une série de théologiens qui ont envisagé positivement ce problème et plaide pour qu’on ne limite pas trop vite l’éventail des solutions théologiquement acceptables. (shrink)

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced recently that food products derived from some animal clones and their offspring are safe for human consumption. In response to criticism that it had failed to engage with ethical, social, and economic concerns raised by livestock cloning, the FDA argued that addressing normative issues prior to issuing a final ruling on animal cloning is not part of its mission. In this article, the authors reject the FDA's claim that its mission (...) to protect and advance public health can be accomplished without considering ethical issues or without making value judgments. The authors offer two arguments in support of their position. First, the agency's mission statement presupposes significant normative commitments and judgments. Second, the FDA's risk assessment of food products from cloned animals and their offspring is itself clearly shaped by a variety of normative commitments. (shrink)

Theories about the changes on the organisms, in the time scale, are know since the 18th century. However, the most famous, as well as the more debated, was the one by Charles Robert Darwin, in his great book On the origin of species. It is interesting to note that while this naturalist was born, in 1809, a book by the French naturalist Jean Baptiste Antoine Pierre de Monet, known as Lamarck, was published, Philosophie zoologique, where another theory of the transformations (...) of the organisms were also proposed. Darwin cited that theory quite enthusiastically, as he himself said in the On the origin; his first scientific work were, in fact, inspired in Lamarck, his theory of inheritance, in another of his books, Variation of animals and plants under domestication, was basically lamarckian, particularly related to the inheritance of acquired characters. And, “from so simple beginning”, as Darwin expressed in the last lines of The origin, the “theory of species transmutations”, as he called at first his theory, was changed in the following years, until achieving the hegemonic theory of the XXth century, called The Evolutionary Synthesis. Is this journey that will be presented here, culminating with a contemporary proposal, in 2010, called The Extended Evolutionary Synthesis which is still being confronted with the former theory. Keywords: Biological evolution. Processes of evolution. Genetics. History and philosophy of biology. (shrink)

What can we infer from numerical cognition about mathematical realism? In this paper, I will consider one aspect of numerical cognition that has received little attention in the literature: the remarkable similarities of numerical cognitive capacities across many animal species. This Invariantism in Numerical Cognition (INC) indicates that mathematics and morality are disanalogous in an important respect: proto-moral beliefs differ substantially between animal species, whereas proto-mathematical beliefs (at least in the animals studied) seem to show more similarities. This (...) makes moral beliefs more susceptible to a contingency challenge from evolution compared to mathematical beliefs, and indicates that mathematical beliefs might be less vulnerable to evolutionary debunking arguments. I will then examine to what extent INC can be used to flesh out a positive case for mathematical realism. Finally, I will review two forms of mathematical realism that are promising in the light of the evolutionary evidence about numerical cognition, ante rem structuralism and Millean empiricism. (shrink)

Perhaps the commonest reasons for the keeping of pets are companionship and as a conduit for affection. Pets are, therefore, being “used” for human ends in much the same way as laboratory or farm animals. So shouldn’t the same arguments apply to the use of pets as to those used in other ways? In accepting the “rights” of farm animals to fully express their natural behavior, one must also accept the “right” of pets to express their intrinsic natural behavior. Dogs (...) kept in houses for most of the day are being kept in an unnatural environment. So are rabbits kept in hutches, and guinea-pigs or birds in cages. These conditions infringe the animals’ telos. Dogs are naturally pack animals, so is a dog in isolation being denied its telos? Other actions more deliberately infringe telos and autonomy. Enforced shampooing – or even exercise; hair-cutting of poodles; putting animals in clothes; and tail-docking. If de-beaking of chickens is considered wrong, then the same must be true for tail-docking of dogs. One should also question the ethics of specialist breeding – especially when that results in physiological disadvantages. There would appear to be no advantage to the animals in having such health problems and when these are the direct result of the breeders’ desire for specific cosmetic traits, we should question the ethics of the practice at least as much as when animals are bred for specific agricultural traits. (shrink)

The distinction between personal level explanations and subpersonal ones has been subject to much debate in philosophy. We understand it as one between explanations that focus on an agent’s interaction with its environment, and explanations that focus on the physical or computational enabling conditions of such an interaction. The distinction, understood this way, is necessary for a complete account of any agent, rational or not, biological or artificial. In particular, we review some recent research in Artificial Life that pretends to (...) do completely without the distinction, while using agent-centred concepts all the way. It is argued that the rejection of agent level explanations in favour of mechanistic ones is due to an unmotivated need to choose among representationalism and eliminativism. The dilemma is a false one if the possibility of a radical form of externalism is considered. (shrink)

El objetivo del artículo es reflexionar sobre el concepto de revuelta popular para precisar su valor heurístico en relación con la comunidad política. Para ello se realiza un recorrido teórico de la idea de revuelta popular en algunos textos de Arendt, Rancière, Blanchot, Nancy, Agamben y Esposito. Propongo que la revuelta debe ser entendida en el marco de una ontología de la comunidad. Se concluye que la revuelta popular supone el rechazo de un orden de desigualdad sostenido en un desacuerdo (...) y la exigencia de no perder la comunidad entendida como el lugar mismo de nuestra existencia. The aim of this paper is to reflect on the concept of popular revolt in order to clarify its heuristic value in relation to political community. The essay traces a theoretical trajectory of the idea of popular revolt in some texts of Arendt, Rancière, Blanchot, Nancy, Agamben and Esposito. I propose that popular revolt must be understood in the context of an ontology of the community. I conclude that popular revolt presumes the rejection of an order on inequality sustained by a disagreement and the requirement of not to lose the community understood as the very place of our existence. (shrink)

Intrinsic value and animal integrity are two key concepts in the debate on the ethics of the genetic engineering of laboratory animals. These concepts have, on the one hand, a theoretical origin and are, on the other hand, based on the moral beliefs of people not directly involved in the genetic modification of animals. This ‘external’ origin raises the question whether these concepts need to be adjusted or extended when confronted with the moral experiences and opinions of people directly (...) involved in the creation or use of transgenic laboratory animals. To answer this question, 35 persons from the practice of biomedical research who are directly involved in genetic engineering (scientists, biotechnicians, animal caretakers and laboratory animal scientists) were interviewed. They were asked to give their moral opinion on different aspects of the genetic engineering of animals and to react to statements about the concepts of intrinsic value and animal integrity. Analysis of the interviews showed that, contrary to what is often assumed, the respondents embraced these concepts, even those senses that (more) specifically apply to genetic engineering. And although the respondents raised some objections that go beyond issues of animal welfare, these objections could quite well be expressed in terms of the concepts of intrinsic value and animal integrity. In short, the results of the present study strongly suggest that these concepts do not have to be adjusted or extended in the light of the moral experiences and opinions from practice. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:diacritics 33.2 (2005) 3-9 [Access article in PDF] The Suspended Substantive On Animals and Men in Giorgio Agamben's The Open Leland de la Durantaye Giorgio Agamben. The Open: Man and Animal. Trans. Kevin Attell. Stanford: Stanford UP, 2004. [O] Trans. of L'aperto: L'uomo e l'animale. Torino: Bollati Boringhieri, 2002. [A] With a title as enigmatic as The Open, the reader might well wonder, "the open what?" Is the (...) title's adjective to stand alone? Does it need no substantive to support it? This unfamiliar title is not what one might first guess—it is not an awkward translation from the work's original title. No substantive follows in the original, and none is meant to. The idea that gives Agamben's book its title is that of an openness which is unconditioned—and perhaps unconditional, an openness which is unspecified—and perhaps unspecifiable.If the answer to the question "the open what?" can be answered with no substantive, might we ask in what this opening occurs? Between what more substantive things has an indefinable space been opened? The first answer to the question can be found in the work's subtitle—Man and Animal. The open space in question is that which separates and distinguishes man from animal. Philosophers, anthropologists, social scientists, zoologists, chemists, taxonomists—and many others—have had no small difficulty in agreeing upon the matter.Philosophers have traditionally had a low opinion of animals [cf. de Fontenay]. Descartes had especially little respect for the minds of animals and influentially classified them as automata mechanica. As Agamben notes, the great naturalist and taxonomist Linnaeus responded to this assertion with the laconic rejoinder: "Descartes obviously never saw an ape" [cf. O 23/A 30; translation modified]. Philosophers have been more eager than taxonomists to put distance between themselves and the animals—and for this reason have been particularly interested in studying what separates man from animal. The last great philosophical attempt in this regard is that of Martin Heidegger. Despite his preference for the primordial, his openness to the woods and the wilderness, his opinion of animals' faculties was not much higher than that of Descartes. In his view, animals live in an environment in which they are receptive to various stimuli, but where they have nothing approximating what we call a "world"—animals are, as he claims, "poor in world" (weltarm)—or even "without world" (weltlos). They live in such intense and incessant proximity to their environment and its stimuli that they do not see the existential forest for the environmental trees. They can never take a step away from the immediacy of their perception and for this reason cannot be said to possess a "world" in the sense that man, in Heidegger's view, does.As mentioned above, the title The Open is, for all its strangeness, not the result of [End Page 3] an awkward translation from Agamben's Italian. Its strangeness stems, nevertheless, in large part from a translation. Or, to be more precise, from two translations. The first of these is from the German. The German in question is a special one—that of the profoundly idiosyncratic technical vocabulary that Heidegger fashioned for his philosophical purposes. For Heidegger, "the open" is something literally fundamental which lay at the heart of his thought. "The open" is the space revealed to us in the moment when the world we live in, which because of our many tasks and travails we tend to take no distance from (like animals with their stimuli), opens out onto something larger. This moment of distancing ourselves from our everyday concern with means and ends, with stimuli and response, is what gives us not just an environment, but a "world." "The open" is what we find ourselves in when the bustle and haste of our environment recedes and we see that environment in all its strangeness and immensity—as a "world," greater and less graspable than our restricted and finite representations. This experience of "the open" is, for Heidegger, what makes us human, and... (shrink)

In this article, I present in a systematic way Aristotle’s understanding of movement (kinêsis) as efficient cause in the Generation of Animals. This aspect of movement is not disclosed in the approach to movement as an incomplete activity in contrast to energeia, which has been extensively discussed in the literature. I explain in which sense movement is the efficient cause of generation and how this movement is related to the other factors, in particular the source of movement, the seminal fluid, (...) pneuma, and the vital heat, as well as to the form and the soul. The role of movement as efficient cause of generation shows how, for Aristotle, form and soul are inseparable from matter and movement in nature. Explaining the role of movement as efficient cause of generation also helps to make sense of the multiplicity of factors involved in the efficient causality of generation. The key to articulating these factors with one another is the identity of form of the generative movement, which is specifically the same in the source, in the tools, and in the substance that is coming into being. (shrink)

La sexualité, force vitale essentielle, anime l’humain en tant qu’individu et membre d’un groupe. Depuis les soins primaires indispensables à l’éveil de la sensualité et à la construction de l’identité sexuée chez le jeune enfant jusqu’au temps des pratiques sexuelles possibles de l’adolescent, l’article scande les moments de transformation portée par les liens intersubjectifs indispensables de cette évolution, de la sexualité infantile à la sexualité génitale.