Becoming Wise

In this chapter, the author discusses some recent evidence for the appearance of what appears to be a capacity for complex relational decision-making in the human evolutionary record. Unlike compassion and latent forms of justice known as inequity aversion, finding any traces of wisdom in the lives of other animals is much harder to discern. Some debates on animal intelligence and shared intention provide clues when comparing different primates, including humans and other social animals. Using the work of twentieth-century Jewish philosophers, including Hans Jonas, consideration is given as to how far and in what sense modern humans became doubly wise, Homo sapiens sapiens. It is suggested that this is a becoming wise in community with other hominins and other species, and is determined through a discussion of the different elements of practical wisdom that has been alluded to by the ancients. The faint traces left behind in the evolutionary record show both a sporadic and sometimes inconsistent pattern of distinctively human mental abilities, particularly those related to those elements of practical wisdom that in classic Thomistic thought were recognized as foresight (providentia) and memory (memoria). How far and in what sense such a process also aligned with a receptivity to the divine is difficult to judge, though it seems likely that humans reached a level of fairly sophisticated and consistent wisdom before they became conscious of divine agency. Wisdom, as an intellectual virtue of speculative reason, first required the imaginative capacity to speculate, but that capacity did not emerge in isolation, but in community with other species.

Beyond Animal Rights

This chapter sets out the philosophical context for current debates in animal ethics, including abolitionist versions of animal rights that are against all forms of animal use, including animal experimentation and agriculture. The author argues that while a more muted version of animal rights is more convincing, rights language has proved inadequate to the modest task of shifting to more humane treatments of other animals. There are also theoretical problems associated with the use of rights language that itself is premised on a particular approach to social justice. Utilitarian advocates following Peter Singer do not fare much better in that his liberationist agenda is ethically ambiguous by his association of speciesism with racist and even sexist views. This approach could just as easily diminish women and those of colour, or deny human dignity, all of which have a strong political and social agenda, rather than elevating concern for other animals. Even anti-speciesism still relies on a comparative approach that begins by widening the moral world of humans to sentient others, even while, ironically perhaps, denying the special significance of the human species. Christine Korsgaard has made the most convincing case so far for rehabilitating Immanuel Kant’s categorical imperative so that it is extended to other animals. Rather more promising is the largely theoretical approach of Peter Scott’s argument for postnatural right and Cynthia Willett’s interspecies ethics to begin to map out the multispecies frameworks.

Love’s Evolution

The relationship between empathy, love, and compassion has long been contested in the history of moral theory. Drawing on Martha Nussbaum’s definition of compassion as a form of judgement, and its relationship to empathy as both emotive and cognitive, this chapter seeks to uncover some of the reasons why empathy and compassion are still contested by scientists working in moral psychology as being relevant for the truly moral life. It also draws on fascinating work by archaeologists that shows reasonable evidence for the existence of deep compassion far back in the evolutionary record of early hominins, even prior to the appearance of Homo sapiens. The long-term care of those with severe disabilities is remarkable and indicates the importance of empathy and compassion deep in history. This is not so much a romanticized view of the past, since violence as well as cooperation existed side by side, but an attempt to show that the rising wave of anti-empathy advocates have missed the mark. Compassion is the fruit of cooperative tendencies. Primatologist Frans de Waal has also undertaken important work on empathy operative in the social lives of alloprimates. The Thomistic concept of compassion in the framework of his approach to the virtues in the moral life is also discussed.

Wild Justice, Justice as Virtue, and Natural Law

This chapter begins to link the earlier discussion on the evolution of justice with debates about what justice as a human virtue means and in relationship with different varieties of natural law ethics. How far are accounts of human justice as a virtue of the will still reasonable in an evolutionary age or where contemporary psychological studies deny the presence of the will? Should theologians and philosophers insist on an objective as well as a subjective account of natural law in spite of strong evolutionary and philosophical objections? What is the relationship between reason and revelation in classic accounts of justice as virtue and how might this compare with an evolutionary or systems approach? This chapter explores theoretical scientific frameworks in systems theory and argues that a modest version of natural law could be viewed as a normative aspect of a complex system. More recently, understanding the earth as a single Earth System that has planetary boundaries has gained traction in current debates on the Anthropocene. The author argues that this approach is the culmination of the turn to systems theory in science. Adopting the Earth System as a paradigm has profound ethical implications for humans and other creaturely kinds. Therefore, a discussion of the tensions that come to the surface in navigating a scientific and theistic account is not overlooked. While natural law also has a rich history in positive law, the thoughts of Jean Porter and Thomas Aquinas are drawn on to recover a scholastic version of natural law that is theistic, rather than stripped to its Aristotelian bones.

Life in a Multispecies Commons

Both the haunting memories of our earliest ancestors recorded on ancient cave paintings around the world and close ethnographic studies of human relationships with specific animals, reveal that humans have never been alone. This history is one of cooperation as well as of violence, and while the shadow side of that history should not be either under- or overplayed, a detailed discussion on this is deferred to the second volume. Humans are sometimes known as the hyper-cooperative species, but how might those cooperative tendencies play out in relation to other animals? Using work by anthropologists who have begun to analyse the lives of other animals using anthropological tools through ethno-primatology and ethno-hyenaology, and ethno-elephantology, the case is made for common occurrence of human/other animal entanglements. The theoretical resources for this work stem from an evolutionary approach called the extended evolutionary synthesis or niche construction theory. The philosophical basis for this work draws on biosocial anthropological theories developed by Tim Ingold. It is also useful to distinguish between ‘hidden’ multispecies associations in the microbiome and that which is played out through gradually more explicit responses between different species. All form closely interlaced relationships that contribute to the niche in which these relationships are embedded.

Introduction: A Weaving of Wisdom

This introductory chapter lays out the core theological framework for the book understood in its broadest sense as a work of theological wisdom, that includes, rather than excludes, scientific discussion and debate. This is a broader philosophical framework compared with theological anthropology, but the secular philosophical discussion of the evolution of morality has similar broad implications beyond the human. It shows how Darwin’s theories are of historical relevance, but confining theological research just to this era of dawning evolutionary consciousness weakens the engagement between theology and science. Different debates in evolutionary biology that form the backdrop to the book as a whole are introduced, showing how newer hypotheses detailing a significant shift away from standard evolutionary theory that developed subsequently in the wake of Darwin’s ideas are more consistent with the kind of theological approach informed by wisdom that is being developed in this book.

Conclusions: Towards Wisdom Practices

These concluding remarks draw together the different threads of the book and then offer reflections on wisdom’s bearing on particular practices as a starting point for deeper ethical reflection, particularly in relation to treatment of animals. The author shows that a multispecies and wisdom paradigm work together and reinforce each other. Four broad examples are given of where the kind of approach being developed theoretically in this volume could potentially work out in terms of practical ethics: conservation ethics, ethics of biodiversity management, agricultural practice, and vegetarianism. The author has not, so far, faced up to the difficulties in implementing such a paradigm that arise through individual and collective tendencies towards vice. Tracing the roots of such tendencies and their theological and philosophical interpretation await the volume to follow.

Persons in Multispecies Communities

This chapter considers arguments for and objections to extending the notion of personhood beyond the human community. While extension of personhood is rather more appealing compared with rights, it is still premised on moral worth parsed out in anthropocentric terms. Such discussion hinges on philosophical debates about whether animals have moral worth, intrinsic value, subjectivity, and moral agency, and on the definition of personhood. It also touches on questions of the place of animals in religious traditions discussed in critical animal studies, as in authors such as Aaron Gross. It suggests that if personhood is extended it should not be confused with divine image bearing and in this respect argues against authors such as Charles Camosy and David Clough that tie both together in advocating an extended notion of personhood. While some theologians have become nervous about using any language about divine image bearing even in the case of humans, on the basis it could lead to an unhelpful sense of human superiority, the author considers that such nervousness can be avoided by suitable qualifications of what human image bearing means. Divine image bearing is, like wisdom, a complex term that has its own chequered history of interpretation. But image bearing is also a reminder that human persons bear a special responsibility in a multispecies community in a way that personhood alone does not. Enlarging a notion of personhood may broaden the moral sphere, and the author believes that it is justified in the case of many animal kinds, but it does not tell us how to act in situations of conflicting interests.

Whence Justice?

Justice requires proper consideration of right relationships between beings. What kind of philosophy might allow an extension of justice to animals? How did systems of justice evolve in deep history? Rather than constructing a comparative narrative between humans and advanced social animals, this chapter explores accounts of how systems of reciprocity and inequity aversion have evolved in other social animals, including primates. Inequity aversion is correlated with pro-social behaviour and cooperation in primates. Sarah Brosnan argues that while inequity aversion can be used to describe primate behaviour, there should be greater hesitation in using the language of fairness or justice, though she is prepared to use the language of morality. Marc Bekoff, who has worked as an ethologist among canids, is rather less hesitant about describing his observations of play behaviour as examples of wild justice. Examples of interspecies exchange that follows specific patterns of mutually entangled behaviour in Marcus Baynes-Rock’s work among hyenas in Ethiopia and Piers Locke’s work among elephants in Nepal are discussed. While there may be some convergence with the way justice has arisen in human communities, the basis for justice in a Christian theological sense often takes its bearings from transcendent norms of divine justice. Using Proverbs as a starting point, the argument is that there are at least some strands in the Christian tradition that widen an understanding of justice as inclusive of animals, though this is best understood as set in the context of a multispecies community.

Capability Theory, Just Institutions, and Communitarian Conscience

This chapter starts to move towards a political theory that, by taking multispecies context seriously, considers communitarianism as the most reasonable starting point over utilitarian or other alternative approaches. Drawing on Martha Nussbaum, the author develops and refines her political theory of justice through her communitarian approach in a way that attempts to take into account interaction and entanglements with other species. Nussbaum’s approach, which draws on capabilities in community, is more inclusive and holistic compared with procedural theories of justice such as that of John Rawls, but it still lacks a robust means to integrate love and compassion with justice. Classic theological approaches provide such an ontological basis, but remain vulnerable in the face of ethical naturalism. Yet an evolutionary naturalistic ethic also flounders given the ambiguity of human history with other animals. The work of Paul Riceour is discussed as his theories contribute to the overall thesis of this book, namely, that the goal of a multispecies ethics needs to include the idea of living well in and for others in just institutions, but broaden out his view so that it is inclusive of other animal kinds.