Animal Ethics and Human Learning (original) (raw)

Conference paper for the European Educational Research Association, Section Environmental Education

University of Porto, Portugal, 1 - 5 September 2014

http://www.eera-ecer.de/ecer-programmes/conference/19/contribution/31090/

**Animal Ethics and Human Learning**

Reingard Spannring, University of Innsbruck, reingard.spannring@uibk.ac.at

One of the deep roots of the environmental crisis lies in anthropocentric characterisations of humanity as separate from other species and the natural world. The forgetting of our animality implies a lack of understanding that we are animals ourselves, embedded in and dependent on nature, and that many forms of human, animal and environmental injustices are intertwined. The turn toward the “animal question” draws attention to speciesism, questions humanism and strives toward a socio-ecological justice that includes other animals as subjects with whom we share the world.

While education theory is preoccupied with “the human project”, and environmental education often seen as a “corrective device” that does not question the hegemonial domination of the human (Pedersen, 2010), this paper draws attention to learning in the realm of cross-species intersubjectivities, agencies and entanglements as processes of “mutual becoming” (Pickering 2005). The paper reveals practices of knowing and morality, how they are constructed and negotiated in processes of “mutual domestication” (Despret, 2004), and how such a “pedagogic space” (Spannring, in review) is possible and at the same impossible (Biesta, 1998).

This paper is rooted in an understanding of animals as living subjective Others who convey a sense of agency, coherence, affectivity and continuity (Myers, 2006), and who are incorporated within a social space (Sanders, 2008). They are able to create intersubjective meaning with humans through analogous and nonverbal communication (e.g. Shapiro, 2008; Brandt, 2004; Irvine, 2004) - a view that is supported by evolutionary biology and comparative biology (Julius et al, 2013).

The theoretical framework is the feminist ethic-of-care theory (e.g. Donovan/Adams, 2007). This perspective criticizes animal rights theory (Singer, 1975; Regan, 1983) for its rationalism, individualism and formalism, questions the dualisms of human/animal, culture/nature, mind/body, and grounds knowledge and ethics in the embodied, emotional and spiritual conversation with the animal Other. Elements of the care ethic echo Martin Buber’s philosophy of dialogue. Learning in I-Thou relationships with animals implies dialogic, integral educational processes characterised by non-conceptual awareness, mindfulness and solidarity. They call for the development of a “great character” that takes on the responsibility of confirming and liberating the animal Thou (Spannring, in review).

Such a perspective presents several challenges. First, it questions the traditionally assumed relationship between epistemology and ethics, in which ethical action is based on the knowledge of the world and the integration of animals in ethical consideration is achieved through the expansion of the category of who matters (e.g. Singer, 1975). Such an “epistemology-based-ethics” is countered by an “ethics-based epistemology”, which is “first and foremost an attempt to open up possibilities to enrich the world” (Cheney/Weston, 1999:117). Second, it contests cognitive-rationalist, dualistic, individualistic and functionalist models of learning (Kühn, 2003) and calls for an inclusion of the implicit, embodied as well as the relational dimension of learning (Künkler, 2011). Learning understood via the concept of experience or practice “emphasises process and the quality of learning, which is seen as an essentially creative, reflexive and participative process” (Sterling, 2001:61) Both, learning and justice remain unfinished projects (Biesta, 1998).

Empirically, the question of animal ethics and human learning has so far been mainly addressed in research on ethical vegans, as for example McDonald (2000), who uses transformative learning theory to describe this process of becoming vegan. By comparison, this paper does not so much investigate how abstract moral principles are acquired/extended and behaviour aligned, but how an “interspecies etiquette” (Warentkin, 2010) is learned and lived as a “collaborative venture” (Plumwood, 2002: 195). In doing so the research strives to provide a critical and differentiated empirically based conceptualisation of a dialogical ethic of care for animals.

Method:

The study makes use of the grounded theory method (Glaser/Strauss, 1967). The data gathering process follows the theoretical sampling method. The primary selection criterion is that the interview partners interact with one or several horses on a regular basis and that they have committed themselves to treating their animals fairly on a high level. This implies substantial investments in learning about and with the horse but also about oneself. The data gathering process started with three horse owners who have different philosophical approaches to animals. One is an animal rights activist, another is active rescuing abandoned cats and dogs and the third has no particular ethical position apart from making a point in his life to do his horse and dog justice. The first three interview partners were known to the author beforehand. The currently ongoing analysis of these interviews is leading to further interviews, using snowball or chain referral sampling techniques.

Data are gathered by means of in-depth interviews. The opening question, “How can one treat an animal fairly?” proved useful to initiate a narrative of the history of the relationship between the participant and her/his animal, the learning history that formed the participant’s ethics and behaviour towards animals, as well as descriptions and anecdotes of negotiations of what fairness means between human and horse in everyday interaction.

In-depth interviewing is augmented by participant observation of the interview partners’ interactions with their horses in an attempt to see the world through the horses’ eyes as well. While this is a challenge to traditional notions of scientific objectivity, it is encouraged by feminist epistemology as well as ethology (Beckoff, 2002; Wemelsfelder, 1997), since “the researcher’s disciplined attention to his or her emotional experience can serve as an invaluable source of understanding” (Arluke/Sanders, 1993).

Outcomes:

The paper seeks to contribute to posthumanist theorising in the field of environmental education by deconstructing the authoritative position of the human subject and acknowledging the animal Other as a proper partner in the production of knowledge and morality. While recognising the social and psychological limits inherent in our modernist and humanist tradition, it explores epistemologies and ethics in processes of “mutual domestication” thereby providing a posthumanist curriculum that moves beyond “greater care for ecology and the environment” (Stables/Scott, 2001:276).

More specifically, the paper addresses the following questions:

Some preliminary findings: examples from an interview with Chuck, a horse owner and leisure rider

- Chuck learned to use his body as tool: *The learning is, when I want to teach my horse, to know how does the horse learn and how do I implement this? How do I use my equipment, my senses and how do I deal with myself? What does the horse communicate with his eyes, ears, tail, body tension? What does my body communicate?*
- And he learned to answer to the situation: *And this is the art, to understand, to deal with the situation, … And these are the things that are part of the learning process, this relinquishing, this yielding and softening; this not-having-an-exciting-experience, not galloping but getting off the horse and saying, this is not appropriate in this moment*.

- Deconstructing social and economic structures and systems: *Today I am really convinced that horses are fed in the wrong way, because feeding is based on belief systems, because it was always done like this and because the animal feedstuff industry sells it like that and people just don’t want to realize it. They spray peppermint oil onto horse pellets and horse owners smell it and say, ‘oh that smells nice; my horse will like that!’ People are manipulated so badly.*
- New life style expands to other areas: Recently, Chuck decided to become vegetarian: *Then I participated in this agricultural course where you see cows being kept in tie-stalls. I mean, my horse is in a 12x12 foot stall and I am not happy about it. And then I saw this film on slaughtering and that was for me the decision not to eat meat any more. Now I find myself thanking the vegetables I eat. So there is some kind of universal thinking.*

- Moral conflicts: *At the beginning I had this thought, is it fair to keep an animal at all? Is it ok to have a horse? Wouldn’t it be more sensible to take it to Hungary and say “Have your freedom!”? Wouldn’t that be fair? Um, but then this egoism emerges. Then there is this love for the horse.*
- The role of knowledge:
    - Revising knowledge and interpretations: *Some time ago I would have been all for a loose barn, but today I would opt for a combination of a loose barn for a whole herd plus individual stalls.*
    - Contradictory arguments: *I was confronted with the question, who is right? Some argue well in this direction, others argue well in the other direction. So, where do you go?*
    - Limiting (pseudo-)scientific understandings: *[When a horse doesn’t want to do something that is asked of him,] there is this conflict. “Yes, but I am the leader of the herd. In another situation the horse cannot say, I don’t want to, either. So it has to do it.*
- The series of situations never stops: *I think any animal will surprise you again and again. And this means development for you, .. It never stops. …*

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