Article written by Yves Bonnardel
Couldn’t we be content to call for the abolition of animal husbandry, hunting and fishing, slaughterhouses and other types of animal exploitation, simply in the name of animal rights, or perhaps simply in the name of animal welfare? Why want more, and fight for a non-specialist, non-humanist society, for a new civilization based on the idea of equality[mfn]The so-called animal equality, to distinguish it from the so-called human equality (restricted to humans alone), is in fact the only imaginable equality since it consists in taking equal account of the interests of all sentient beings, that is, of all beings who have interests to defend; it is a true universalism. Human equality, because it is based on arbitrary exclusions (according to the species of individuals) is on the contrary inequality, just as universal suffrage, which is only male, was in fact an injustice.[/mfn]?
There are several answers to this: speciesism is unjust, a non-speciesist society with strong egalitarian tendencies is a just goal. Moreover, demanding the maximum maximizes the possibilities of obtaining something (well, that’s what one can hope for if it doesn’t create counterproductive blockages). Secondly, the stakes are far from being only for the present: we need to lay solid foundations for the centuries or millennia to come, or even longer term. It is not a question of abolishing animal exploitation only for the coming years, but for the future. And, finally, the stakes go far beyond the abolition of animal exploitation alone: there are even greater myriads of animals living lives of misery and martyrdom in the wild, and if humans survive the current and future ecological crises, it would be a very good thing if they stood in solidarity with all sentient beings on the planet.
The movement for animal equality has developed by attacking speciesism; but the anthropocentric version of speciesism that prevails in our societies is humanism: a humanism that takes the form of human supremacism. Why not attack humanism directly? Isn’t that what we should be doing from now on?
So here is a brief discussion of the objectives, and the advantages and disadvantages of these different strategies.
I am speaking here of strategies of cultural struggle, not strategies to abolish or reform this or that part of animal exploitation, or to favor “humane” products, or strategies to develop veganism, etc. I am speaking here of strategies of cultural struggle. I am talking about strategies to change the culture of our societies, or at least to weaken the ideologies of animal exploitation.
These strategies have two main objectives, in my opinion: the first is to reach out to people, to convince them of the validity of the struggle and that they need to become militant; and the second is to change the representations and values of our societies, so that they are less arrogant and bloodthirsty against other animals (in which case the ideologies of domination will be weakened), and so that they are more benevolent and inclusive, the ultimate goal being a large-scale change of civilization.
Why do I make such a distinction between convincing individuals to change a culture? It is not the same scale, and cultural change cannot be reduced to a series of individual changes; rather, change proceeds in the opposite direction. An example: when I started campaigning for animal equality thirty years ago, people almost systematically answered me: “But animals don’t suffer! ». Five years ago, I realized by chance, in the course of a reflection, that it had been years since I had heard that sentence! Without me realizing it, without anyone I knew, it had disappeared from the socially and culturally possible, authorized register (except, alas, for fish or invertebrates, for which this discourse is still being used). Today, saying a sentence like that is no longer acceptable and nobody even thinks about it anymore! It doesn’t matter what the reasons for this important change are (that’s not the point): in any case, it illustrates what a cultural change is. If we take only France as a reference (but the phenomenon must be worldwide), it is not a few hundred, thousands or tens of thousands of people who have changed. It is 70 million people who, without even realizing it, no longer have the same representation of animals as thirty years ago and no longer react in the same way. They have not been convinced, nor have they been conscious of changing their point of view; simply, their culture, the culture in which they are immersed, has changed.
Margaret Mead is often quoted: “Never doubt that a small group of people can change the world. In fact, that’s how the world has always changed. “I think that when she said that, she wasn’t thinking of people who would do a coup like the Bolsheviks in Russia, but she was thinking of people who could change people’s culture and imaginations!
I will therefore give my reflections, in progress, on the question of the value of anti-speciesist and anti-humanist strategies; we must keep in mind that strategies do not apply equally everywhere. In particular, we are not in the same situations in the French-speaking world as we are in the rest of the world (the same strategies have not been adopted to develop the movement and the notion of speciesism is much less known and used elsewhere, for example), and the situations are not the same; notably, in France, Switzerland, Belgium, Quebec, we have a very particular situation in the world, of very strong secularization or secularization of society, where, even if religions continue to exert a not insignificant influence, they no longer play an extremely determining role in the evolution of society. I think that criticisms of the notions of speciesism and humanism do not have the same impact in highly religious societies (USA, Muslim countries, Poland…) as they do in societies with a strong atheist and rationalist presence, and that this implies strategies that may be different or, diversified, composed differently.
Speciesism is the act of discriminating against an individual on the basis of his or her species; it is the act of considering that the species, in itself, is a relevant criterion of discrimination (to treat others in such and such a way). “In itself”: it is a matter of stressing that it is indeed the notion of species that serves as a criterion, and not a priori of the characteristics associated with the species. This is because we also speak of indirect speciesism: when we get around the fact that the species cannot be a criterion by resorting this time, in order to discriminate, to capacitist criteria supposedly linked to the species. Animals are stupid, they have no reason, they have no self-awareness, that’s why there can be no question of recognizing the dignity that is given to humans, and that’s why they are not given rights and remain exploitable at will.
This is the definition used in moral philosophy: speciesism is discrimination (which from a logical point of view is arbitrary, indefensible, unjust). I will not go back over why speciesism is rationally untenable, this point has been developed extensively by Peter Singer[mfn]Read for example Peter Singer’s little book, Animal Equality Explained to Humans, tahin party, 2003. The text is available in English here : The Animal Liberation Movement: it’s philosophy, its achievements, and its future (originally published by Old Hammond Press, Nottingham, England, 1985). It should be noted that Singer’s position regarding killing has evolved over the years and is no longer the same; that regarding animal equality, the equal consideration of interests, especially not to suffer, has not changed, however, and in forty years of fierce polemics has never been invalidated from a logical, rational point of view[/mfn] and, in even greater detail, by many of its continuators.
But there is also a political definition in which two axes can be distinguished: the concrete, material axis, and the ideological, cultural axis.
The first is simply the concrete organization of society based on the apartheid of species, the enslavement of nonhumans and what is called animal exploitation, their expropriation of their territories and resources; this concrete level includes speciesist institutions such as law and justice, economic interests, the material organization of the city-countryside relationship, and all the other concrete privileges granted to humans (because they are human) against the other sentient beings of the planet, etc.[mfn]Yves Bonnardel and Pierre Sigler, Change Society for the Animals – Becoming a social movement, ed. BoSi, 2012[/mfn].
The second axis of what can be called the speciesist order of the world is the ideology that locks up this discriminatory and bloodthirsty organization of society: it bathes our civilization, not to say that it is at its foundation. This ideology is the humanist ideology. What is humanism, as I will discuss it here? I will take up the definition given simply by the Larousse: “A philosophy that places man and human values above all other values. “Humanism means taking humanity (“man”, in French patriarchal society) as the alpha and omega of values: the holder and outcome of ethics and politics, in particular. This is what I call human supremacism, human chauvinism or human nationalism. One could also speak of human imperialism.
Here are a few examples of how humanism is translated in language: the notion of person or individual, the notion of victim, the notion of being, the notion of freedom, are reserved for humans and a taboo prevents their use about other sentient beings. The notion of “being of nature”, on the other hand, applies to animals, which are associated (amalgamated, confused), as natural elements, with grasses, rivers, ecosystems, the environment. We use: “It” in English… We distinguish the world into two different reigns: the reign of freedom and individuality, of autonomy, Humanity, and the reign of determinism and functionality, of submission to a fanstamatic order, Nature [mfn]Yves Bonnardel, “Pour en finir avec l’idée de Nature et renouer avec l’éthique et la politique“, tahin party, 2005: “Doing away with the idea of Nature, back to ethics and politics“, tahin party, 2005. The notion of a person, endowed with subjectivity, and owner of himself, is opposed to the idea of a thing, devoid of subjectivity, and appropriate: a knife will be designated as a tool or a weapon depending on whether it is used to slit the throat of a human or a non-human.
As I said, I will therefore focus here on the cultural struggles against speciesism and against humanism: this article will not talk about the struggle against the concrete structures of the speciesist society (animal husbandry, fishing ports, animal transport, etc.), but about the struggle to change the worldview of our societies with regard to the animal question, our relationship to the individuals of other species.
Before this tool was discovered (I am no longer talking about the knife, but about the notion of speciesism), what was called animal defense was condemned to remain very defensive in its critical approach. People spoke of “animal friends” or “zoophilia” as if it were simply a question of feelings (of love for animals), desperately (and in vain) invoked speciesist arguments (the loyalty of the dog, the nobility of the horse, the usefulness of the fox, etc.)[mfn]David Olivier, “Défense animale/Libération animale”, Les Cahiers antispécistes, no. 1, 1991.[/mfn].
Criticism of the notion of speciesism has allowed many people to tell themselves that they were right, that it was not a question of “childish or feminine sentimentality” on their part, because they are concerned about the fate of other animals, that it was a real and fundamental question of ethics and politics, rational, based both on the universal idea of justice and on praiseworthy empathy and compassion. This criticism also made it possible to finally put the spotlight on what is the major part of animal exploitation: the consumption of flesh (99.9% according to my ladle estimate!). Because it was a question of considering individuals independently of their species, and to put the focus on their pleasures and sufferings, as well as on their numbers. Animal equality: a universal, impersonal and impartial morality, in touch with the reality of what matters in the world (the joys and sufferings of sentient beings, what matters to them).
Talking about speciesism has broken the taboo on the ethical question applied to the animal question: after Singer, there has been a flowering of work from various schools. The burden of proof has been reversed: once appearing once indisputable because it was unchallenged, once attacked, speciesism, indefensible, is on the defensive!
1) Speciesism, in thirty years, has become a historical notion, extremely strong theoretically: specialists in moral philosophy who seriously consider the question are forced to recognize that a speciesist morality is untenable. And this is true whatever the major schools of moral philosophy one considers (consequentialism / utilitarianism, deontology / human rights / Kantian morality, morality of virtue, Rawlsian theory of justice). This is a very important point: we are right and we are sure of it.
Introducing the notion of speciesism into the media debate means bringing the requirement of rationality into ethics, which is very important as a “meta-combat” if we want to make progress for animals (and more broadly, for the moral progress of society).
2) When one attacks speciesism, one does not attack humanism head-on, which is to some extent an advantage. Thus, Peter Singer, in his book The expanding circle (1981) argues that over the millennia, our morality has progressively enlarged its field of application: we have gone from a consideration only for the members of the tribe, to entities of ethical and political belonging that are increasingly vast, such as religion (Christianity, Islam…), race, humanity…; it is now time to continue this progress and to understand all sentient beings in the sphere of moral concern. This vision of things is based in particular on the parallel between speciesism and racism or sexism.
3) Indeed, my third point is that the notion of speciesism allows the immediate parallel with sexism or racism (and ageism and validism/capacitism), that is to say with the intra-human struggles which they are relatively recognized, which is important to make speciesism recede. This is a great way to make people understand very quickly and very simply what it is, and the fact that speciesism is opposed to a fair consideration of the interests of others. Incidentally, it has an interesting effect, by making animal activists discover the struggles of anti-sexism or anti-racism. Rather reactionary, even extreme right-wing activists have sometimes come to egalitarian ideas through the criticism of speciesism.
4) Finally, indeed, the criticism of the notion of speciesism allows us to put forward the notion of equal consideration of interests, a notion that is very strong at the ethical level, once again. A “true” notion in moral philosophy. The two notions appeared at the same time in 1975 in Peter Singer’s book La Libération animale. It is simply that if discrimination according to species is not justifiable, then one must not discriminate: and one must take into account the interests of sentient beings in a similar, similar, equal way. By weighing them with the same weights on the same scale, without cheating any more.
The demand for equality seems very utopian, and even dreamlike (a dream…), but it strikes people’s minds and nothing prevents it from appearing as a moral regulator, a desirable moral horizon (cf. an article by David Faucheux to appear on this subject in L’Amorce, a journal against speciesism). The notion of “only human” equality (one should always add: “only”!) plays such a regulating role today, even though it is also utopian. But it allows us to set a desirable horizon and to evaluate situations according to its criterion, equality (equality of rights, equality of consideration of interests). The idea has been mobilized in the French-speaking world for a long time: a large anti-speciesist journal was already called Pour l’égalité animale (For Animal Equality) in the early 2000s, with a circulation of 2000 copies (not all of which were sold); the Cahiers antispécistes (Antispeciesist Journals) at one time had the subtitle Réflexion et action pour l’égalité animale (Reflection and Action for Animal Equality); a European event (mainly French- and German-speaking) took place in Strasbourg in 1998 with the slogan Pour l’égalité animale (For Animal Equality). Finally, there is PEA – Pour l’Egalité animale en Suisse, created in 2014, which organized a conference with me on the theme “Talking about speciesism or humanism” on May 8, 2020, for which I wrote this presentation paper that you are reading now.
5) Having said that, the fact that the notion of speciesism is not very well known, on the one hand, and that the arguments against this discrimination according to species are very simple (to understand) without already being part of our culture, also allows us to bypass many intellectual and emotional defenses. Thus, arguing with people in terms of the unjustifiability of speciesism can very quickly be extremely convincing. It is often much more effective than arguing “only” for vegetarianism or veganism, or against this or that type of animal exploitation. And it is likely that the effects of an argument in terms of the unjustifiability of speciesism are much more profound, both on individuals and on culture and society as a whole.
1) On the other hand, criticism of the notion of speciesism misses part of what would be effective as an attack: moral philosophy is not (yet) what commands daily life or political organization. And reflections in terms of moral philosophy have little to do with the mental universe in which the members of our society struggle (as we shall see a little later). We can thus possibly agree that the species itself should indeed not matter on an ethical level, but still think that there are worthy and unworthy (vile, vile, beasts) beings, according to the capacities they can demonstrate. That some are beings of freedom, while others only express instincts, for example. The criticism of humanism can on the other hand better make it possible to clarify the inanity and the unjustifiability of this distinction between beings of freedom and beings of nature. At this level, it is similar to the criticism of racism, sexism, ageism: enslaved “races”, women, children, have always been put aside on the side of nature, apprehended as impulsive and instinctive bodies (they have been dehumanized, animated, as they say), when adult white men (and rich, able-bodied men) were seen as paragons of humanity, cultivated and civilized minds that mastered their bodies, and the world (and others).
2) Criticism of speciesism doesn’t speak much to many people, who don’t relate directly to the ideology in which they are immersed; there is a kind of hiatus. Because it does not represent exactly the ideology that bathes us, speciesism seems a bit ethereal, abstract. And this ideology in which we are immersed very concretely is humanism.
3) Criticism of speciesism also allows for a very embarrassing drift, where we talk about the differences in treatment between the different categories of enslaved animals, rather than the fact that they are enslaved and have a master: a human being. It may thus not call into question human supremacism, humanism, precisely. This was the strategy followed by the first to speak of speciesism in France, the Fondation Ethique et Droit Animal (formerly called the French League for Animal Rights), in the late 1980s, a league that was at the time fiercely anti-vegetarian.
Very often, activists, without even really realizing it, slide down this slippery slope; we find this tendency, partially, also in Aymeric Caron, but he tries to use it to popularize the notion, and then talks about human supremacism. Nevertheless, the exercise seems risky to me.
4) And, lastly, a point that probably concerns France more than other French-speaking countries: the notion of speciesism appears to be of Anglo-Saxon origin, linked to analytical philosophy and utilitarianism (so many repulsive figures!), whereas France is supposed to be the “country of human rights” (as we say precisely in France), the “humanist” country par excellence. In short, one has to defend oneself from the dripping feeling of overbearing self-importance that comes from an above-ground, brutal philosophy (Anglo-Saxon, that is!) that would understand nothing of the subtleties and majesty of “French-style” humanism. This is what Florence Burgat expresses (with bad right, I think):
“We are dealing with two very different fields, one called “continental”, the other called “analytical”, two ways of philosophizing that have little in common. Their references are not the same (analytical philosophy mobilizes the sciences more readily than philosophy […]). It happens that the impasse on the history of philosophy, but also on anthropology or psychoanalysis, leads to a simplification of the problems, which would first of all be a matter of proposals to be put in the right order. »
4) Humanism does not even manage to define what humanity is, it is entangled in its contradictions: this definition, because of what is at stake, is constantly the object of struggles, concerning for example human fetuses and abortion, euthanasia, suicide, the end of life, severely handicapped humans, but also more and more the Great Anthropogenic Apes, etc. Humanism is an emanation of Christianity, secularized, which draws on two thousand years of Western history. And its religious versions are not always very different from the secular or atheist versions, and serve as the spearhead of attempts to regain the power of religions over consciences (the battle over abortion, the end of life, women’s rights…).
From an anti-specialist point of view, it is important to break the immaculate side of the notion of humanism by recalling that, historically, humanism has not been the spotless ideology of human equality, but on the contrary the ideology of exclusion, deshumanization or animalization: the ideology of racism, sexism, ageism towards children and then towards the old/old, of capacitism and eugenics, that of genocides, etc. It is only since the end of the Second World War, the end of explicit colonization and the rise of feminism that humanism has really claimed a general claim to human equality that proclaims itself “universal” – I put quotation marks around “universal” because by excluding non-humans without rational foundation, humanism is not universalism, but rather communitarianism, particularism.
4) One can therefore distinguish humanism from the notion of equality, and make a link between humanism, humanization and deshumanization, animization. Pierre-Henri Tavoillot: “It is in the light of humanism that the shadow of racism lies [mfn]” Réflexions à partager, Eurogroup Institute, 2008 [/mfn]. “In fact, many studies in social psychology clearly show the links between speciesism and the “dehumanization” or “animization” of human groups. More generally, humanism provides the framework that determines the ideologies of different types of oppression: whether it be racism, sexism, ageism, etc., people from dominated groups are seen as less fully “human” than those from dominant groups, more “animal” or “natural” (more bodily, impulsive, instinctive, etc.). This obviously leads to mistrust, to a lack of trust, to the fact that we do not really consider that they express themselves as individuals (it is their specific “nature”: their gender, or their age, or their race, which expresses itself in them), etc. In cases of crises such as the health crisis linked to Covid19 , the “least human” people were naturally among the first to be sacrificed.
There is thus a very direct link, at this level, to operate with other oppressions, and thus, possibly, with other struggles. This is what many feminists as well as Afro-feminists and Afro-ecologists propose.
1) Humanism is a vague notion and it is necessary each time to clarify what we are talking about; moreover, we will see that there are aspects of humanism that we should keep in mind in order to claim it positively.
2) It is a dominant notion invested with positivity (like the notion of humanity); people are attached to humanism, willingly call themselves humanists, see in humanism the “last bulwark against barbarism”; likewise, they like the notion of human dignity, which seems to have become obvious to them since the Declaration of Human Rights of 1948 (it was put forward by its believing writers, whereas it was not used before).
Broadly speaking, humanism has come to signify a respectful and benevolent attitude towards other humans, identified as our fellow human beings, our neighbors: which is very positive all the same. And it also means the willingness of humans to set their own rules and ideals for themselves and by themselves (which is also very positive), but also, alas, “for themselves” (which is much less positive). Humanism thus operates a decentering of the divine or the natural, but alas to refocus exclusively on the human. All our work will consist of refocusing on all sentient beings on the planet. This critique of humanism is a big project. We are just beginning.
3) Our contemporaries have become accustomed to focusing their own struggles (for education, for human equality, against discrimination…) on the claim of their common belonging to Humanity… It is in their interest to use the humanist ideology in this way, which they have at hand ready to use, but this is hardly in solidarity with the other animals and we can say in a certain way that these struggles are built on their backs. Fighting to make intra-human struggles cease to be based on the demand for humanity will require a great deal of tenacious and offensive cultural and political work; even so, it is probably not tomorrow that we will obtain frank reformulations of the demands. Nevertheless, we are beginning to find some, timidly; thus, a badge against homophobia, lesbophobia and queerphobia, perhaps made by an anti-specialist, is soberly written with the subtitle: “against suffering”.
4) It is very important to attack humanism, but we must also keep in mind that we have the possibility of proposing other types of humanism – which we can hope will soon stop being called that, that they will stop referring to the notion of humanity. Notably, human rights (which should be renamed “human rights”, rather!), instead of being based on the idea of human exceptionality, can be defended on a much more secure, immediate and truly universal basis, based on the notions of embodied subjectivity and vulnerability. Here is what Will Kymlicka writes:
By the 1980s…human rights theory had begun to shed this human supremacist framework. As a reminder, for Shue and Nickel, it was not a necessary condition of human rights theory that it exclude animals, or that it exalt humans over animals. Several] exciting new approaches to human rights theory have emerged. For example, Bryan Turner argued that human rights should be based on respect for individuals as “vulnerable subjects,” an idea also advocated by Martha Fineman and Morawa. Amartya Sen and Martha Nussbaum developed theories of human rights based on “capabilities”; Fiona Robinson developed an approach to human rights based on the ethics of care; and Judith Butler used “precarious life” as the foundation of the human rights approach.
To this list can be added the work of Corine Pelluchon on the ethics of vulnerability. These new theoretical approaches form what Ann Murphy calls the new corporeal humanism, which, in contrast to the haughty proclamation of a superior nature, is based on “the vulnerability of the human body to suffering and violence”. Such a corporeal humanism opens the door to the consideration of “vulnerable bodies” and “precarious lives”, whatever they may be.
It goes without saying that such a “humanism” remains a “humanism” only as long as it applies only to humans, but in fact it undermines any logical basis for excluding non-human feelings. In fact, such a humanism is no longer a humanism, it is sentientism. The criterion of humanity is ultimately replaced by that of sentience. This is what the anti-speciesist revolution demands.
In an article entitled “Humanism Needs Updating: Is Sentientientism the Philosophy that Could Save the World? “Jamie Woodhouse argues:
“Sentientism has a lot in common with humanism. Like humanism, it supports human rights and focuses on our common humanity on a global scale. It is anti-sexist, anti-racist, anti-ageist, anti-capacitist, anti-nationalist and anti-LGBTQ+phobic.
Humanism and sentientism both help us focus on what we have in common: our humanity[mfn]I imagine that when Woodhouse talks about humanity here, he means our concern for justice, or our compassion[/mfn] and our sensitivity. »
and :
“While many humanists already give moral consideration to non-human animals (for example, the national organization Humanists UK includes it in its definition of humanism), sentientism makes this explicit, as it considers that causing the suffering and death of sentient animals is ethically wrong. »
He also adds, what I found very interesting:
“There is already an untapped synergy between these movements. In a recent survey of 1,000 British humanists, about 40% of those surveyed said they were vegan or vegan – a much higher rate than the general population. It also appears […] that moral vegans and vegetarians are more likely to be atheists or humanists than the general population. For me, this is because the evidence and the reasoning underlie both points of view. “Jamie Woodhouse, “Humanism Needs An Upgrade: Is Sentism The Philosophy That Could Save The World? “Secular Humanism, Vol. 39, No. 3, April-May 2019.[/mfn].
There is indeed the possibility that humanist movements are concerned with the animal question, through the demand for rationality that they put forward against religious guardianships. In the nineteenth century, the struggle for humanism was in fact often inseparable from a struggle for the animal question, whether it was fought by republicans or anarchists, socialists, feminists or anti-slavery activists.
While working on this presentation, I was thus led to reconsider the very negative judgment I had of Martin Gibert’s partition between exclusive humanism (chauvinism and human supremacism, based on speciesism) and inclusive humanism (granting rights to animals, fighting speciesism… in the name of humanism, of our humanity, in the name of our reason and our compassion).
I am less clear-cut than I was; in particular, I came across the site of Humanists international (originally, the International Humanist and Ethical Union), which links humanism to free thought (against the hold of religions, therefore); the Union brings together more than a hundred organizations fighting internationally and states in its presentation of what is humanism:
“A humanist bases his understanding of the world on reason and the scientific method (rejecting supernatural or divine beliefs as bad explanations or badly formed ideas). The humanist bases his ethical decisions again on reason, with the contribution of empathy, and aims at the well-being and fulfilment of living beings[mfn]I imagine that when they speak here of “living beings”, they mean “sentient beings”: the notions of well-being and fulfilment do not make sense for mushrooms or amoebas…[/mfn]. »
So there is a big gap compared to the centering on humanity alone that I was used to. These humanists then add, when they provide details:
“A humanist is someone who recognizes that we human beings are by far the most sophisticated moral actors on Earth. We can grasp ethics. …] This does not mean that we are the only moral objects. For example, other animals also deserve moral consideration, and perhaps the environment as a whole […] I must say that it does not seem to me, however, very rational to want to consider the environment as a moral patient! One may well give importance to “the environment” (if we mean the unfeeling world), indirectly, or instrumentally, because it is important for sentient beings, but not for itself. It makes no ethical sense[/mfn]. […]
To act well, we must assume our responsibilities to ourselves and to others. »
There is nothing to be rapturous about either, but I find it encouraging.
In another document from 2015 the same states:
« Nous adoptons des positions éthiques basées sur des considérations terre à terre sur la dignité et la valeur inaliénables de l’individu, la valeur de l’autonomie et de la liberté combinée avec la responsabilité sociale, la réduction de la souffrance (de tous les êtres sensibles, pas seulement des humains) et la poursuite de l’équité, de l’épanouissement humain et du bonheur. (…) »
Bref, cette Union mondiale montre bien que l’humanisme laïc n’est pas nécessairement obtus, centré exclusivement sur la notion d’humanité et fermé à l’idée de prise en compte des intérêts des autres.
Ça n’enlève pas la nécessité de critiquer frontalement l’humanisme, notamment tel qu’il sévit en France, en tant que idéologie du suprémacisme humain. Cette critique frontale de l’humanisme participe de ce qu’on pourrait appeler une stratégie du choc : perturber les évidences satisfaites de nos contemporains, bousculer leurs croyances, déséquilibrer leurs opinions toutes faites sur le fait qu’ils seraient « du bon côté de la barrière ».
Il ne faut pas hésiter à attaquer de façon très dure l’humanisme, quitte à repréciser ensuite que certains aspects de l’humanisme sont sympathiques et progressistes et qu’il ne faut surtout pas les jeter avec l’eau du bain. Je suis pour affirmer haut et fort que l’humanisme, ça a aussi été les génocides, le colonialisme et l’esclavage, l’asservissement des femmes et des enfants, la relégation des fous et des déviants, etc. Et l’appropriation pillarde du monde, l’asservissement et la dépossession sanguinaire de tous les non-humains, la crise écologique planétaire. Ne pas hésiter à dire que de ce point de vue, le nazisme par exemple se situe bel et bien dans un certain prolongement de l’humanisme : son racisme, son sexisme, son impérialisme même, son eugénisme et le génocide étaient justifiés en invoquant des figures « supérieures » ou « inférieures » de l’humanité, dans la lignée de cette échelle des êtres humaniste qui donne la primauté à l’humanité. Claude Lévi-Strauss, par exemple, écrivait il y a quarante ans :
« J’ai le sentiment que toutes les tragédies que nous avons vécues, d’abord avec le colonialisme, puis avec le fascisme, enfin les camps d’extermination, cela s’inscrit non en opposition ou en contradiction avec le prétendu humanisme sous la forme où nous le pratiquons depuis plusieurs siècles, mais, dirais-je, presque dans son prolongement naturel. Puisque c’est, en quelque sorte, d’une seule et même foulée que l’homme a commencé par tracer la frontière de ses droits entre lui-même et les autres espèces vivantes, et s’est ensuite trouvé amené à reporter cette frontière au sein de l’espèce humaine, séparant certaines catégories reconnues seules véritablement humaines d’autres catégories qui subissent alors une dégradation conçue sur le même modèle qui servait à discriminer entre espèces vivantes humaines et non humaines. Véritable péché originel qui pousse l’humanité à l’autodestruction. Le respect de l’homme par l’homme ne peut pas trouver son fondement dans certaines dignités particulières que l’humanité s’attribuerait en propre, car, alors, une fraction de l’humanité pourra toujours décider qu’elle incarne ces dignités de manière plus éminente que d’autres. »
Jean-Marie Benoist, « Entretien avec Claude Lévi-Strauss », Le Monde, 21-22 janvier 1979. (Lévi-Strauss, comme souvent, et comme beaucoup, confond ici « vivant » et « sentient » ; dans d’autres passages, il est très clair qu’il fait références aux êtres sentients, et non au « vivant » dans son ensemble.)
In fact, I think that the two angles of attack – against speciesism and against humanism – are justified and proceed, precisely, from slightly different perspectives. They don’t raise exactly the same problems, while going in exactly the same direction.
The “speciesism” angle highlights the arbitrary discrimination linked to the notion of species and places the question of anti-speciesism on the same level as struggles already well seen within the population (at least, theoretically well seen): anti-sexism, anti-racism…; it also allows the introduction into circles that did not know them of the notions of ageism and validism, which are very important tools of political struggle to move towards egalitarian types of societies!
The critique of humanism, on the other hand, allows us to deepen the critique of the separation that is made between humanity and “Nature” (between the ideas of humanity and Nature, because neither of them really exist: they are phantasmagorias): it strikes in a concrete way at the heart of what founds our civilizations, having, there again, the reason for it.
The subversiveness of each of these strategies is immense: there is a chance that by these two combined means we will obtain “let go” on the animal question, if only, in the worst case, to avoid too radical a reconsideration.
To paraphrase Tavoillot, one must be able to rely on the project of the Enlightenment so that autonomous humanity (that is, one that gives itself its own goals and its own rules, without seeking to follow the indications of a God or of Nature) not only acquires majority (the freedom to decide), but also the right to decide, with regard to religions in particular), but also maturity[mfn]I do not like to use the term maturity, which is used to deny any reason or discernment to children and to justify dominating and oppressing them, and which is used against them in the same way that the term rationality is used against non-humans. But here, the opportunity is too good [/mfn], thanks to self-criticism and a relationship to the world, which remains to be developed, responsible, ethical and rational.
What we can then retain from humanism is the idea that humans are often moral agents, and not only moral patients. This is fundamental, because we have also acquired such power that, whether we like it or not, we are the masters of the world. We are in control. It remains for us to find out how, politically, we can collectively control these levers, instead of letting them be blindly ruled by the capitalist economy and the possessing classes.
Many humans around the world have managed to extricate themselves from the grasp of religions, Gods or Nature. They have come of age. They have yet to become mature (ripe), as Tavoillot would say.
L’humanisme, paradoxalement, du moins au sens de suprémacisme humain, est devenu le principal obstacle à la réalisation de l’humanisme au sens de la maturité humaine. Utiliser sa majorité, non plus uniquement pour se taper avec satisfaction sur le ventre (après un bon repas carné) en se disant « nous sommes au top ! » en soupirant d’aise, mais pour décentrer notre regard de notre nombril, le porter autour de nous et nous vouloir justes, bienveillants et solidaires. Utiliser notre pouvoir, non plus pour asservir les autres, mais pour les servir.
Tavoillot, partant du « désenchantement du monde » propre à notre modernité, nous pose la question : « aujourd’hui, qu’est-ce qui peut encore justifier nos vies aussi brèves que vaines quand le passé se perd, la nature se tait, le ciel se vide et les lendemains ne chantent plus : bref, quand il n’y a plus que l’homme pour consoler l’homme ? »
Ma réponse, c’est que ce n’est que « dans notre tête » qu’« il n’y a plus que l’homme ». Il n’y a jamais eu « plus que l’homme ». Nous nous sommes isolés nous-mêmes, et de plus de façon illusoire et fantasmatique. Dans la réalité, dans le monde réel, nous sommes entourés de myriades d’autres êtres sentients, qui sont tous à eux-mêmes des mondes. Pas besoin d’aller chercher des extra-terrestres sur Mars : nous sommes entourés d’autres mondes subjectifs ! Ils vivent leur vie sous nos yeux, mais nous nous refusons à les voir et mourons de solitude dans l’univers. Ma réponse à sa question, c’est que notre responsabilité vis-à-vis des individus sentients de la planète fournit un but ambitieux, noble, généreux[mfn]Je n’aime pas ces termes, « noble », « généreux » (de gens, generis, la lignée, en latin ; par extention, ceux de haute extraction) qui, comme « humain », « viril », « vertu » (de vir, virtus, l’homme, viril, en latin), « chevaleresque », sont en fait issus de sociétés de domination dont les classes dominantes exaltaient leur propre excellence en accolant à l’adjectif les désignant les vertus positives du moment. Mais je voulais exprimer quelque chose de valorisant et notre langue est bien pauvre alors…[/mfn], enthousiasmant, à nos existences : cette responsabilité a du sens, elle est véritablement ce qui a le plus de sens au monde. Et pour ce qui est de donner du sens à nos existences, elle est de nature, justement, à remplacer avantageusement les religions, les grandes utopies collectives du passé (comme les millénarismes religieux, ou les millénarismes politiques comme le communisme ou l’anarchisme), qui en comparaison paraissent bien dérisoires. Mais il ne s’agit plus de se fanatiser pour le ciel des idées, en scrutant l’horizon lointain, l’au-delà du monde ou de l’histoire, mais de retrousser ses manches bien concrètement, se pencher sur la vulnérabilité du monde, et travailler humblement, pas à pas, à le changer. Pour chaque individu, chaque vermisseau sentient sur Terre. Comme le font, chaque jour, sans s’enivrer d’une noblesse auto-proclamée, les soignants du monde entier lors des crises sanitaires – dues à des pandémies par exemple.
Cette immense tâche que nous commençons à nous donner, qui nous incombe, nous seuls, des humains, pouvons nous la donner, pouvons commencer à la mener à bien.
Si nous devons promouvoir un nouvel humanisme, c’est celui-ci : un humanisme au service de l’ensemble des êtres sentients de la planète – nous-même inclus, bien entendu. Je pense que très vite, un tel humanisme cessera de s’appeler humanisme. Si nous cessons de dominer les autres pour les asservir, alors nous cesserons de vouloir nous mettre en avant. Ce seront les autres que nous mettrons en avant, ou en tout cas, ce que nous avons en commun avec eux : notre sentience et, tout particulièrement, notre vulnérabilité face à la souffrance et à la mort, mais aussi, notre capacité à jouir de notre vie.
David Olivier, « Défense animale / libération animale », Cahiers antispécistes, n° 1, octobre 1991
(https://www.cahiers-antispecistes.org/defense-animale-liberation-animale/)
Valéry Giroux, L’antispécisme, Que sais-je ?, Puf, 2020
Peter Singer, L’égalité animale expliquée aux humain-es, éd. tahin party, 2003 (can be downloaded free of charge from the publisher’s website).
Humanist arguments against animal liberation
Luc Ferry, Le nouvel ordre écologique, Grasset, 1992
Luc Ferry et Jean-Didier Vincent, Qu’est-ce que l’homme ?, éd. Odile Jacob, 2000.
Luc Ferry, « Quelle justice pour les bêtes ? », L’Express du 25 mars 1993.
Alain Renaut, « L’Humanisme de la corrida », Critique, vol. 723-724, n° 8, 2007.
Paul Ariès, Libération animale ou nouveaux terroristes ? Les saboteurs de l’humanisme, éd. Golias, 2000 (environ) ; (« bête » et méchant.)
Against Humanism
Claude Lévi-Strauss, Anthropologie structurale deux, Plon, Paris, 1973, p. 53.
Jean-Marie Benoist, «Entretien avec Claude Lévi-Strauss », Le Monde, 21-22 janvier 1979.
Peter Singer, La Libération animale, Grasset, 1993
(Singer expose les bases de l’égalité animale et sa définition du spécisme, son argumentaire contre ; mais aussi une rapide histoire de l’humanisme, bien utile.)
David Olivier, « Qu’est-ce que le spécisme ? », Cahiers antispécistes, n° 5, déc. 1992
(un texte fondamental sur la notion de spécisme, qui explique comment fonctionne l’idéologie humaniste, et comment on essentialise animaux, femmes, Noirs et Juifs.)
David Olivier, « Pour un radicalisme réaliste », Cahiers antispécistes n°17, avril 1999.
(https://www.cahiers-antispecistes.org/pour-un-radicalisme-realiste/)
Patrice Rouget, La violence de l’humanisme. Pourquoi nous faut-il persécuter les animaux ?, Calmann-Lévy, 2014
(les abattoirs sont la vérité de l’humanisme.)
Thomas Lepeltier, L’Imposture intellectuelle des carnivores, Max Milo, 2017
(critique divers propos humanistes profondément « bêtes »).
Philippe Reigné, « Le propre de l’homme, le penseur et les lapins », Libération, 17 juillet 2017
(https://www.liberation.fr/debats/2017/07/17/le-propre-de-l-homme-le-penseur-et-les-lapins_1584425)
Elisabeth Hardouin-Fugier, David Olivier, Estiva Reus, Luc Ferry ou le rétablissement de l’ordre, tahin party, 2002 (Une attaque en règle contre l’humanisme de Luc Ferry, son essentialisme et son naturalisme), librement téléchargeable sur le site des éditions.
David Olivier, « Luc Ferry ou le rétablissement de l’ordre », Les Cahiers antispécistes, n° 5, déc. 1992. (Une analyse essentielle du caractère métaphysique de l’humanisme « à la Française » – « à la Ferry », à la Kant)
(https://www.cahiers-antispecistes.org/luc-ferryou-le-retablissement-de-lordre/)
Sue Donaldson & Will Kymlicka, Zoopolis. Pour une théorie politique des droits des animaux, Alma, 2016 (sur l’agentivité des animaux, contrairement à ce que dit d’eux l’humanisme, qui voit en eux des « êtres déterminés, mûs par leurs instincts »).
Peter Singer, Questions d’éthique pratique, Bayard, 1997
(Une déconstruction rationnelle de la plupart des prises de position humanistes en bio-éthique –le plus souvent fondées sur une approche essentialiste –, au profit d’un sentientisme égalitariste.)
Cédric Stolz, De l’humanisme à l’antispécisme, Ovadia, 2019. Une critique en bonne et due forme, au pas de charge.
Axelle Playoust-Braure et Yves Bonnardel, Solidarité animale. Défaire la société spéciste, La découverte, juin 2020 (parle d’une bonne partie de ce que j’ai exposé ici, et dont j’ai parfois repris des extraits).
Nick Fiddes, Meat, A Natural Symbol, Routledge, 1991.
Carol J. Adam, La politique sexuelle de la viande, L’Âge d’Homme, 2016 (la conso de viande reliée à une affirmation humaniste/patriarcale).
David Olivier, « Le goût et le meurtre », Les Cahiers antispécistes, n° 6, 1993
(www.cahiers-antispecistes.org/le-gout-et-le-meurtre/)
(Sur le goût du meurtre dans la viande, et son rapport avec le statut à part que nous nous donnons en tant qu’humains.)
Yves Bonnardel, « La consommation de viande en France : contradictions actuelles », Les Cahiers antispécistes, n° 13, 1995
(http://www.cahiers-antispecistes.org/la-consommation-de-viande-en-france-contradictions-actuelles/)
(On the consumption of meat as a symbol of our domination as humans over animals and, through them, “Nature”).
Françoise Armengaud, Réflexions sur la condition faite aux animaux, Kimé, 2011(various reflections, notably on sacrifice for meat, of an ideological and humanistic nature).
Florence Burgat, L’Humanité carnivore, Seuil, 2017
(The killing of animals for their consumption serves to place us on a pedestal: they are our inferiors, we are their absolute masters, the lords of the Earth).
Interview de Florence Burgat par Diane Lisarelli : « Pour se rappeler qu’elle s’est séparée des animaux, l’humanité les mange », Libération, 23 juin 2017.
(https://www.liberation.fr/debats/2017/06/23/florence-burgat-pour-se-rappeler-qu-elle-s-est-separee-des-animaux-l-humanite-les-mange_1579126)
Cédric Stolz, De l’humanisme à l’antispécisme, Ovadia, 2019. (à nouveau !)
Axelle Playoust-Braure et Yves Bonnardel, Solidarité animale. Défaire la société spéciste, La Découverte, juin 2020 (un chapitre est consacré à la question de la symbolique de la viande).
Peter Singer, The Expanding Circle, Oxford University Press, 1981. (L’agrandissement du cercle de considération morale au fil des siècles.)
Jamie Woodhouse, « Humanism Needs An Upgrade: Is Sentientism The Philosophy That Could Save The World? », Secular Humanism, Vol. 39, n° 3, avril-mai 2019
(https://secularhumanism.org/2019/04/humanism-needs-an-upgrade-is-sentientism-the-philosophy-that-could-save-the-world/)
Martin Gibert, Voir son steak comme un animal mort, Lux, 2016
Florence Burgat, « Etats des lieux de la “question animale”. Enjeux théorico-pratiques », Revue philosophique de la France et de l’étranger, Puf, 2019/3, T. 144, pp. 295-308.
Will Kymlicka, « Human rights without human suprema- cism », Canadian Journal of Philosophy, 2018, 48:6, 763-792 (https://doi.org/10.1080/00455091.2017.1386481)
Capabilities” or “capacities”, according to Amartya Sen, are “the possibility for individuals to make choices among the goods they deem worthwhile and to achieve them effectively”.
(Nicolas Journet, « Capabilités », Sciences Humaines, n° 241, octobre 2012).
Et sinon :
Articles and books on the intricacies of human identity and oppression, race, gender, etc., are also available. :
This is an article by Yves Bonnardel, published here with his permission. Its content does not necessarily reflect the official position of Vegan Option Canada.
