‘Shut up, keep your head down, do your job. And if you’re not happy, get out!’ I’ve heard this sentence hundreds of times. It sums up all the violence that reigns in this space hidden from view. The workers suffer and the animals are not treated with the dignity they deserve. After seven years of silence, I decided to speak out openly to denounce the animal suffering and human distress. To better confront them, I filmed these images that haunted my nightmares. Shot at my workplace and entrusted to the animal protection association L214, they have been seen around the world. They show dozens of unborn foetuses thrown in the rubbish like common waste. The world’s largest farm aborts for reasons of productivity, in defiance of common sense and all decency. This is my testimony. It is the story of a long descent into hell, followed by a slow recovery. My story is harsh at times, but necessary. We can no longer ignore all the suffering that ends up on our plates. Mauricio Garcia Pereira was born in Spain and grew up on a farm in Galicia, where he learned to love and respect animals. After working in several different jobs, he arrived in Limoges, where he was hired by the largest public abattoir in France. Here, he gives a shocking account of the scandalous practices in abattoirs, which show complete disregard for animal suffering.
The legal personality of animals is a work whose partial objective is to propose the recognition of the category of non-human natural persons and the creation of a specific regime for pets. Law No. 2015-177 of 16 February 2015 defined animals as ‘sentient beings’, marking an evolution in French law. Without legal personality or a new legal regime, animals remain, subject to the laws that protect them, subject to the regime of property. This book calls for a rethinking of the category of persons in order to include animals, promoting the creation of a coherent and effective legal regime. French law currently distinguishes between legal persons and natural persons. Among the latter, it is proposed to create, alongside human persons, the category of non-human persons, distinguishing animals from humans. The contributions gathered in this book explain why this proposal to create legal personality for animals is not only possible but also desirable. The legislator would thus provide theoretical and practical answers to the many inconsistencies in our law on the issue of animals.
The Civil Code only recognises two categories: persons and things. Since February 2015, the Civil Code has defined animals as ‘sentient beings’. Despite this change, they remain subject to the regime of appropriable things. Legally, these beings exist to serve humans, and not intrinsically. Animals, like slaves in ancient Rome, belong to their masters. They are their property. How can we break this deadlock? What is the strategy of animal rights activists? What kind of rights are they demanding and on what grounds? In this passionate essay, Florence Burgat shows how the concept of ‘personhood’ can be used to change the legal status of animals and ensure they are treated with greater respect. There is no need to resemble an autonomous and responsible adult human being in order to be legally recognised as a person. Florence Burgat, born in 1962, is a French philosopher and director of research at the French National Research Institute for Agriculture, Food and the Environment (INRAE), assigned to the Husserl archives (ENS-PSL-CNRS) since 2012. She is particularly interested in animal life, the condition of animals and animal rights.
If the eyes are the window to the soul, then the gaze that Mama – the matriarch of the chimpanzee colony at Arnhem Zoo in the twilight of her life – casts on Jan van Hooff, a biology professor who has known her for over forty years, speaks volumes about animal sensitivity. This is the starting point for the journey on which Frans de Waal takes us. A true immersion into the heart of animal emotion, inviting us to reconsider all our certainties. Recent research is unequivocal: mammals and most birds experience emotions such as joy, fear, anger, desire, sadness, the need for intimacy, grief, thirst for power and a sense of fairness. Frans de Waal counters accusations of anthropomorphism – the tendency to equate animal behaviour with that of humans – with “anthropodeni”, i.e. the vain belief of humans in the incomparability of their species. The American-Dutch primatologist brings his experience to bear on the major ethical and philosophical debates of our time. He challenges the separation between body and mind, between emotion and reason, as well as the divide between humans and animals. Throughout this fascinating book, he shows how emotional intelligence structures the lives of all social animals. Frans de Waal, born on 29 October 1948 in ‘s-Hertogenbosch (Netherlands) and died on 14 March 2024 in Atlanta (Georgia, United States), was a Dutch primatologist and ethologist. He was a professor of primate ethology in the Department of Psychology at Emory University in Atlanta and director of the Living Links Centre at the Yerkes National Primate Research Centre in Atlanta. He published numerous popular science books, including Chimpanzee Politics, Primates and Reconciliation, and The Ape in Us.
Are you speciesist? In other words, do you think it is normal to exploit animals simply because they are not human? In particular, do you allow yourself to eat certain animals? If so, like racists who discriminate on the basis of race, you would be a follower of an ideology that discriminates arbitrarily on the basis of species. This, at least, is the thesis of this book, which undertakes a thorough deconstruction of this speciesism. Comprising fundamental texts from the French anti-speciesist movement written over the last quarter of a century in favour of an egalitarian society, it offers a highly critical reflection on the modes of thinking that justify many of the relationships of domination in our society. In particular, this book shows how the assimilation of certain sentient beings (Black people, women, animals) into the natural world is what has allowed, and in the case of animals, still allows their enslavement by those who see themselves as belonging to the world of culture (White people, men, humans, etc.). In short, this is a book that invites society to carry out its anti-speciesist revolution.
What distinguishes the mind of a human being from that of an animal? The ability to design tools? Self-awareness? Control over the past and future? Over the last few decades, these theories have been eroded or even outright refuted by a revolution in the study of animal cognition. Here are octopuses that use coconut shells as tools; elephants that classify humans according to age, gender and language; and Ayumu, a young male chimpanzee at Kyoto University, whose dazzling memory rivals that of humans. Based on research conducted with numerous species, Frans de Waal explores the breadth and depth of animal intelligence, which has long been underestimated. In this fascinating book, the renowned ethologist invites us to re-examine everything we thought we knew about animal intelligence… and human intelligence.
What if each of us could change society? In The Toothpaste Theory, Peter Singer recounts the life and methods of Henry Spira. This American activist single-handedly managed to bring McDonald’s, the director of the FBI and even L’Oréal to their knees. His modus operandi: carefully selected targets, empathy towards his enemies, alternative proposals. And when dialogue was not enough, confrontation. Both a biography and a manifesto, this book is a shot of pure inspiration. Reading this biography, entitled Ethics Into Action, we are immediately captivated by Spira’s pragmatism and mindset. His story reveals methods for transforming both the world and oneself in a single movement: always favour dialogue over confrontation; offer a credible alternative to what you denounce; never deceive the media or the public; do not divide the world into saints and sinners; avoid the insularity of activism… ‘His work,’ sums up Peter Singer, ‘can teach us how to transform our moral positions into actions so that they can have an impact on the world.’
A woman, a writer, faces the onslaught of old age. With each passing day, she draws closer to the shadows, and she observes, with calm and lucidity, the decline of her mental faculties. Her children gather around her, worried about her, urging her to leave Australia and join them. However, she refuses, preferring to face the inevitable in the freedom and independence of solitude, questioning herself relentlessly, right to the end, about the meaning of her own existence and the profound nature of our humanity. In seven fictional scenes, J. M. Coetzee offers us a sumptuous portrait of a woman and a lesson in literature, as dense as it is brief. In admirably refined language, he touches on the heart of our most complex and universal questions (what will remain of us when we are gone? what do we pass on to those who remain?) and confronts them without ever departing from his supreme elegance, dignity and humility.
While the consumption of animal products (meat, milk, eggs) is increasingly being questioned today, French ‘intellectuals’ (academics, journalists, experts) regularly attack vegans and vegetarians who campaign for a total end to this consumption. To name a few, Raphaël Enthoven, Luc Ferry, Elisabeth de Fontenay, Périco Légasse, Dominique Lestel, Marylène Patou-Mathis, Natacha Polony, Jocelyne Porcher, and Francis Wolff. Through books, articles, and television appearances, they criticise, denounce, and mock animal rights activists. This is not without consequences. Nowadays, few people remain indifferent to the fate of farm animals. When a film is shot inside a slaughterhouse and broadcast in the media, most people are shocked. Then, confronted with the arguments of vegans and vegetarians, these people seek answers. What to think? What to do? What to eat? But now these intellectuals are telling them that vegans and vegetarians are wrong. Each time, the basic ethical principle that we should not cause suffering and kill sentient beings just for our pleasure is forgotten or misinterpreted. Instead, these intellectuals put forward arguments that defy logic, have no rational basis and encourage cruelty. But in doing so, they reinforce a society that, because it does not want to change its culinary habits, kills a staggering number of animals unnecessarily. This book therefore takes a stand against them, loud and clear; not for the sake of criticism, but in the hope that this clarification will help to put an end to the mass slaughter of farm animals and serve to launch a constructive debate on their place in society.
A fake CV, a false identity, and a shaved head. Steak Machine is the story of a forty-day undercover investigation in an industrial slaughterhouse in Brittany. Geoffrey Le Guilcher shared the daily lives of the workers: blood splattered in their eyes, fingers that seized up, and night-time binges. A world where, according to one slaughterhouse colleague, ‘if you don’t take drugs, you can’t cope’. The factory targeted by the journalist slaughters two million animals a year. A monstrous pace that inevitably leads to the degrading treatment of both humans and animals. After three years at Les Inrockuptibles, Geoffrey Le Guilcher, 32, became a freelance journalist and editor. He contributes to Mediapart, Le Canard enchaîné, Streetpress and Les Jours.
An extraordinary work. Why do we eat meat? Have humans always been carnivores and are they destined to remain so? Florence Burgat sets out to answer these seemingly simple questions in a landmark work: a comprehensive study of the issue of “carnivorous humanity”. Florence Burgat shows that we cannot simply shrug our shoulders and say, “because it tastes good”: human flesh is also reputed to taste good, which does not prevent cannibalism from being widely prohibited (although not universally so). And throughout history and prehistory, there have been various diets in which meat is absent or marginal. We must question the myths and rituals, the anthropological underpinnings of meat consumption – including a certain taste for cruelty, the very idea of killing, dismembering and consuming living beings, through which humans experience their superiority over animals. The discovery of a principle of equivalence at the heart of sacrificial logic (the substitution of a plant for an animal or human victim) is what Florence Burgat ultimately draws on to propose an original way out and show how plant-based and in vitro meat could replace the animal meat that humanity has become accustomed to eating. Florence Burgat is a philosopher and director of research at INRA, seconded to the Husserl Archives in Paris. She works on the animal condition, particularly from a phenomenological perspective.
How are animals treated in the land of the sacred cow? During a mission to India, Florence Burgat had the opportunity to visit several shelters and meet with numerous leaders of animal welfare organisations. She now reflects on this experience and shares with us the sober and sensitive account of her travel diary, supplemented by an essay and an anthology of texts by Mahatma Gandhi. Alternating between subjective and documented approaches, this original collection offers us a conception of animals that is as complex as it is perplexing. Florence Burgat, a philosopher, is the author of several seminal works on animal issues.
Their days usually begin before anyone else’s, in the middle of the night. They bleed, cut, skin and bone. Their obsession is to keep up with the pace and persevere. It starts as a small job, and becomes a career. In France, 50,000 workers are employed in slaughterhouses. Every day, they kill and cut up three million animals, transforming them into steaks, chops and sausages. For three years, I set out to meet these unloved people who feed the French. I listened to them and heard their suffering. For this book, I joined them on the production line for a few days, without hiding, just to ‘learn the ropes’. To understand. ‘This unique place, where people work with blood and guts, is rarely seen up close. Not even on video. Not to mention the ’slaughterhouse”, the place no one wants to think about. Alternating between portraits, encounters and testimonials, Olivia Mokiejewski offers us a powerful and salutary account. Welcome to the taboo world of industry and death. Olivia Mokiejewski is a French journalist born on 6 June 1977 in Suresnes. She specialises in environmental economics and has participated in the production of television documentaries on ecology.
Should animal law be made a discipline in its own right? What could be considered a branch of environmental law is now on the verge of standing on its own two feet, driven by societies increasingly inclined to consider animals worthy of justice. Tracing the history of animal law, which governs the treatment of animals both to guard against them and to protect them, is to move from anthropocentrism to the contemporary urgency of preserving biodiversity, from Descartes’ ‘animal-machine’ to the ‘sentient beings’ of the French law of 16 February 2015. This growing recognition in the legal sphere of a theoretical ‘animal rights’ now implies the need to rethink the relationship between humans and animals, no longer based on hostility and mistrust, but on prevention and protection for both. In light of the revolution brought about by the sudden spotlight on animal rights in recent years, this book takes stock of the state of this new law through sources and court decisions, and argues for the recognition of a discipline that already affects all other areas of law. Jean-Pierre Marguénaud, associate professor of private law and criminal sciences at the University of Limoges, is a researcher at the European Institute of Human Rights Law at the University of Montpellier and editor of the biannual Revue de droit animalier (Animal Law Review). Florence Burgat is Director of Research in Philosophy at the National Institute for Agricultural Research and a member of the Husserl Archives in Paris (ENS-CNRS). Jacques Leroy, Associate Professor of Private Law and Criminal Sciences at the University of Orléans, is Honorary Dean of the Faculty of Law, Economics and Management and Director of the Pothier Legal Research Centre.
The ultimate anti-speciesist bible. Our bedside book. “Anti-speciesism advocates for the integration of all sentient beings into the same family of moral consideration. Seen from another angle, this means that anti-speciesism claims that the human species belongs to a community much larger than itself, that of animals. This is our community of origin, from which we have never left, despite our desperate attempts to make others believe otherwise and our stubbornness in denying our origins. We are merely young visitors to a zoo lost in the middle of nowhere. Antispecist explores genetics, cosmology, ethology, law and philosophy to explain why we are now obliged to grant certain basic rights to sentient non-human animals. But this extension of our sphere of moral consideration is part of a much broader reflection. By inviting us to rethink living beings and humanity’s place in the universe, Antispecist deciphers the reasons for the failure of traditional political ecology and proposes a new project called essential ecology, which must lead to constitutional reform to take into account the intrinsic value of all living beings. Antispecist also asks unprecedented questions: who are the animal sceptics? Why is anti-speciesism a social struggle? Why is Superman an anti-speciesist superhero? Why is the real goal of ecology actually to remove humans from nature? What is negative footprint reduction? Why is it in the interest of farmers to join the anti-speciesists? Antispéciste is a call to raise awareness. A call for individual revolt. A call for a new humanism. Aymeric Caron is a journalist and writer. He is the author of Envoyé Spécial (2003), No Steak (2013) and Incorrect (2014). He invites us to rethink our relationship with nature and animal rights.
For over a year, Audrey Jougla conducted hidden camera investigations in French public and private laboratories to understand the reality of animal testing. What tests are carried out today? For what purpose? In Europe, more than 11.5 million animals undergo testing every year, including not only rodents but also many familiar species such as cats, dogs, horses and monkeys. By pushing open the doors of these places, which are off-limits to the general public and which no one has yet been able to access without breaking in, Audrey Jougla takes us on a journey alongside animal rights activists. A unique investigation and a gripping account of the suffering inflicted on animals, which questions our humanity in the face of the absurdity of violence. Audrey Jougla, born on 27 March 1985 in Saint-Cloud, is a French author, essayist and philosophy teacher.
For years, de Waal has observed chimpanzees comforting neighbours in distress and bonobos sharing their food. Today, he publishes fascinating new evidence on the seeds of ethical behaviour in primate societies, further reinforcing the thesis of the biological origins of the human sense of fairness. Weaving his text with compelling stories from the animal kingdom and insightful philosophical analyses, de Waal seeks to explain morality through a bottom-up process, emphasising what connects us to animals. In doing so, he explores for the first time the implications of his work for our understanding of modern religion. Whatever role moral imperatives may play, he sees religion as a “eleventh-hour worker”, added to our natural instincts for cooperation and empathy. But unlike the dogmatic atheist evoked by the title of his book, de Waal does not despise religion as such. Drawing on the long tradition of humanism exemplified by the painter Hieronymus Bosch, he asks thoughtful readers to consider these questions from a positive angle: does religion have a role to play in the proper functioning of today’s society, and if so, what is it? Where can believers and non-believers find inspiration to live well? Rich in cultural references and anecdotes about primate behaviour, The Bonobo, God and Us develops an original and captivating argument based on evolutionary biology and moral philosophy. Always thinking outside the box, de Waal brings a new, encouraging and unifying perspective on human nature and our efforts to give meaning to our lives. Frans de Waal, born on 29 October 1948 in Bois-le-Duc (Netherlands) and died on 14 March 2024 in Atlanta (Georgia, United States), was a Dutch primatologist and ethologist. He was a professor of primate ethology in the Department of Psychology at Emory University in Atlanta and director of the Living Links Centre at the Yerkes National Primate Research Centre in Atlanta. He published numerous popular science books, including Chimpanzee Politics, The Reconciliation of Primates and The Ape in Us.
Are animals people? For a long time, we considered animals to be creatures that nature had deprived of the qualities that we humans possess: the ability to reason, learn, communicate, adapt, decode, transmit, teach, progress… Scientific research has shattered this preconception and, over the last decade, has surprised us even more. Who are animals really? We knew they were playful, jokers, laughers, sometimes ferocious; we are discovering that they are cheaters, liars, deceivers, but also loving, melancholic or even emotional, strategists, sensitive to the intentions of others, capable of respecting morals or developing a culture. The ingenuity of the tests and the extraordinary diversity of scientific observations (ethology, genetics, psychology, zoology, primatology, neuroscience) reveal the many facets of animal intelligence and identity, and prove the absurdity of reducing an animal’s abilities to the sole force of its instinct. For despite the characteristics that form the basis of the homogeneity of their species, each animal is an individual in its own right, a unique, complex social being, and therefore a subject of law. From monkeys to leopards, elephants to antelopes, whales to dolphins, the author offers us an approach to otherness that contributes greatly to the debate on animal exploitation and manipulation. A well-documented plea in favour of animal rights.
A fictionalised vegetarian plea by American writer Jonathan Safran Foer. Released on 2 November 2009 in the United States, it was translated into French by Gilles Berton and Raymond Clarinard and published by Éditions de l’Olivier on 6 January 2011. How do we treat the animals we eat? Drawing on childhood memories, statistical data and philosophical arguments, Jonathan Safran Foer questions beliefs, family myths and national traditions before embarking on a vast investigation of his own. Between a clandestine expedition to a slaughterhouse, research on the dangers of pig manure and a visit to a farm where turkeys are raised in the wild, J.S. Foer explores all degrees of contemporary abomination and examines the last vestiges of a civilisation that still respected animals. Shocking, funny and unexpected, this book by one of the most talented young American writers of his generation has already sparked passion and controversy in the United States and Europe.
This book is an essay on political philosophy by philosophers Sue Donaldson and Will Kymlicka, originally published in 2011 (2016 for the French translation). It proposes a theory of animal rights which, for the first time, is not limited to “negative rights” (the right not to suffer, not to be restrained, confined, killed, etc.), but extends to “relational and differentiated rights”, making animals full members of society. The authors thus distinguish three categories of animals, giving rise to different rights depending on their place in society and their modes of interaction with human beings: ‘domestic citizens’, ‘wild sovereigns’ and ‘liminal residents’ (such as pigeons or rats, which populate cities alongside human beings without being either domestic or wild). Zoopolis is a reference work for animal rights theory and anti-speciesism.
Faced with an individualistic society that is sorely lacking in empathy and compassion, Frans De Waal sounds the alarm. In a landmark book, remarkable for its intelligence, vitality, culture and humour, he uses numerous examples from the animal world and human societies to demonstrate how cooperation and mutual aid, contrary to popular belief, are essential to the survival of species. A book about nature and science with strong political implications. The American edition of the book has a print run of 50,000 copies. Are we on earth, as is so often claimed, only to serve our own survival and personal interests? Is it really human nature to stab each other in the back in order to climb the ladder of hierarchy? Selfish behaviour and excessive competitiveness, often justified as instinctive and consistent with evolutionary theory, are masterfully challenged in this book. A highly topical book at a time when the crisis is highlighting the terrible excesses of individualism and the primacy given to the notion of competition. Drawing on his experience in the field, his research in anthropology, psychology, animal behaviour and neuroscience, and his laboratory experiments on chimpanzees, bonobos and capuchin monkeys – as well as dolphins and elephants – Frans de Waal, the most famous ethologist, also shows us, with examples to support his arguments, that many animals are predisposed to care for one another, to help one another and, in some cases, to mobilise to save the lives of others. In short, the capacity for empathy is not, as was previously believed, unique to humans. Written in language accessible to all, full of anecdotes, marked by ironic humour and incisive intelligence, The Age of Empathy, by placing cooperation at the heart of the evolution of species, opens up exciting perspectives in the fields of politics, economics and our way of being in the world.
It is difficult to talk about this masterful work without emotion. This book will mark the history of the anti-speciesist struggle, and its author will always hold a special place in our hearts. We cannot thank Jean-Luc enough for his courage, tenacity and humanity in the face of adversity. Meat comes at a high cost to animals. Fattened up in dark buildings from which they only emerge to be slaughtered, deprived of any contact with their fellow creatures, shackled, sometimes strapped down to the point of immobility, these animals are killed on an assembly line amid utter indifference. Jean-Luc Daub’s investigations in French slaughterhouses over a period of fifteen years lift the veil on the misery of billions of animals. The power of this testimony lies in its extremely precise description of the slaughtering operations that inexorably take the lives of these animals in places where, according to the law, ‘no animal shall leave alive’. The authorities responsible for enforcing animal protection regulations are passive to the point of complicity. More broadly, this book invites us to reflect deeply on the condition of animals raised for food. Why have we banished them to such an extent from all aspects of our lives? In addition to his work as an investigator in slaughterhouses for animal protection associations, Jean-Luc Daub works in Alsace in the medical-social sector; he is a technical educator specialising in people with psychotic disorders.
Elizabeth Costello, an ageing novelist, owes her fame to a book published 25 years ago. Today, she travels the world giving lectures on cruise ships and at posh conferences. Despite her fatigue, she must put on a show… J.M. Coetzee paints a vivid portrait of a disoriented old lady, plagued by doubt and questions about the power of literature in the face of loneliness and death. “When she hears her own voice, she is no longer sure she believes what she is saying. ‘This dazzling book is a vibrant eulogy to disbelief in a world saturated with certainties and prejudices.’
What if human psychology were an extension of animal psychology, whether in terms of violence, empathy, or even morality? This is the thesis defended by Frans de Waal, an internationally renowned primatologist, in The Ape in Us: he opposes theories of human exceptionalism, whether they portray humans as a species destined to transcend evil animality or as an aberration of nature, whose technical and intellectual progress bears little relation to its ability to manage its aggression. Through the study of the two great apes closest to us, the chimpanzee and the bonobo, Frans de Waal deciphers our behaviour. While chimpanzees embody our aggressive side, bonobos correspond to the gentle and empathetic side of the human species: peaceful primates, they live in matriarchal societies where the frequency of sexual intercourse helps to smooth out conflicts. Drawing on a number of fascinating anecdotes, as well as in-depth research, the author paints a portrait of the ‘bipolar ape’ that is man. He also uses the formidable laboratory that is chimpanzee and bonobo societies to address the problems of coexistence among human beings. An incredible reservoir of information on the lives of great apes, this book holds up a mirror to humanity that may enable us to better manage our own instincts. Frans de Waal, born on 29 October 1948 in ‘s-Hertogenbosch (Netherlands) and died on 14 March 2024 in Atlanta (Georgia, United States), was a Dutch primatologist and ethologist. He was a professor of primate ethology in the Department of Psychology at Emory University in Atlanta and director of the Living Links Centre at the Yerkes National Primate Research Centre in Atlanta. He published numerous popular science books, including Chimpanzee Politics, The Bonobo Way of Peace, and The Ape in Us.
As full members of our families, our pets are often the first to remind us how sensitive animals are and how each has its own personality, how they are individuals with their own interests. We know that no animal wants to suffer, and we affirm that no suffering should be inflicted on them unless absolutely necessary. Yet every day, we condone the unspeakable, and animals that are not lucky enough to be our dogs or cats endure extreme suffering for our mere comfort. At a time when everyone claims to love animals, it is striking to note that our society still treats them more carelessly than objects: we artificially inseminate them for the pleasure of eating their young, we applaud their torture in circuses, we adorn ourselves with their corpses… what is happening to us? Francione offers a diagnosis: we are suffering from moral schizophrenia. Fortunately, it is not incurable, and the remedy is as simple as it is effective: after human slavery, we must abolish animal exploitation.
Antiquity was, in a way, a golden age for animals. For although humans offered animals as sacrifices to God and the gods, they agreed on their status as living beings and treated them with respect. Of course, many questions remained unanswered, and the philosophers of the time did not hesitate to tear each other apart in their attempts to answer them. Do animals think? Are they endowed with reason? Do they have the same sensitivity as us? Should we refrain from eating them? But why do they remain silent? Since God became man, since Christ offered himself as a sacrifice like a lamb, that is, since the Christian era, the condition of animals has changed radically. Nowadays, philosophers are mainly concerned with defining what is unique to humans and dwelling on the traits that differentiate them from other living beings, which are considered insignificant: regarded as machines (Descartes) and occasionally compared to potatoes (Kant). Of course, there were exceptions, men of spirit and heart, especially in the 18th century. Following in their footsteps, Michelet prophetically denounced the injustice done to animals and declared that persecuting them compromised democracy. In the 20th century, certain literature reinforced new philosophical trends, reminding us that the way we view animals is not unrelated to the way some of us are treated, those who are dehumanised by racism, those who, because of disability, illness, old age or mental disorder, do not conform to the dominant ideal of self-awareness. This book clearly explains how various Western philosophical traditions, from the Pre-Socratics to Derrida, have approached the enigma of animality, revealing at the same time how each of them views humanity. This is why it can also be read as another history of philosophy. Elisabeth de Fontenay teaches philosophy at the University of Paris-I. Her publications include Figures juives de Marx (1973) and Diderot ou le matérialisme enchanté (1981).
Florence Burgat, philosopher, currently works at the Social Anthropology Laboratory at the Collège de France. Humans have a contradictory relationship with animals. On the one hand, they exploit, manipulate and slaughter them. On the other, they willingly allow themselves to be parasitised, polluted and even dominated by their domestic animals. They have not found the right balance. In this philosophical essay, Florence Burgat analyses how, since classical times, humans have sought to define themselves in opposition to animals, seeking their specific difference in their non-animal nature. By claiming noble faculties for themselves – consciousness, thought, aesthetic taste, moral sentiment – they have deprived animals of these qualities. This has allowed them to dispose of these beings, deprived of dignity, as they see fit. In return, humans have had to repress their own animal nature, particularly their sexuality, which has made psychoanalysts rich. Florence Burgat is not content with this negative observation. She opens up new perspectives. She follows the path laid out by Jean-Jacques Rousseau, according to which humans, like animals, are sentient beings and therefore capable of suffering. And she sketches out a new morality on this basis.
In this cult book published in 1990 in the United States, researcher and activist Carol J. Adams offers a powerful and original analysis of the intersection between patriarchal oppression and animal exploitation. By tracing how meat consumption is associated with masculinity, she shows that male domination is based as much on the slaughter of animals as on the control and objectification of women’s bodies. This colossal work of research, in which sociological, historical and advertising analyses are combined with literary references (Mary Shelley, Margaret Atwood, Colette, etc.), reveals the common structures of sexism, speciesism and racism. Insisting unequivocally on the need for convergence in the struggles, the author reminds us that it is ‘high time to look at the sexual politics of meat, because it is not separate from the other urgent issues of our time’. Carol J. Adams is an American feminist writer and animal rights activist. Her main work, The Sexual Politics of Meat: A Feminist-Vegetarian Critical Theory (1990), translated into French in 2016 (Politique sexuelle de la viande, une théorie critique féministe), deals with the links between the oppression of women and non-human animals. She has written over a hundred articles in newspapers, magazines and books on vegetarianism, animal rights, domestic violence and sexual abuse.
Animals have rights. This is the thesis defended by Tom Regan in this seminal work, a major contribution to contemporary moral thinking. Far from being mindless, as Descartes claimed, the animals we eat, hunt or use in scientific experiments are conscious of the world. Their minds are filled with beliefs and desires, memories and expectations. As such, they are beings with their own moral value, regardless of their usefulness to us. It is not simply out of compassion for their suffering, but out of respect for their value that we must treat them with respect. Regan’s theory is the most elaborate and radical philosophical formulation of an animal rights ethic. It demands consistency: if we reject the exploitation of humans, we must also denounce the exploitation of non-human animals. The abolition of farming, hunting and experimentation is required by justice.
Book by Australian philosopher Peter Singer, published in 1975. Although Singer was not the first to defend the importance of non-human animals in ethics, the book is widely considered to be a fundamental philosophical basis for contemporary animal rights movements. A cult book for these movements, it was reissued in 1989 and has been translated into nearly fifteen languages since its publication. Peter Singer nevertheless rejects the ‘rights’ approach to this issue: in his view, animals’ interests should be taken into account based on their capacity to feel suffering. It is not essential to use the concept of ‘rights’ to recognise the moral importance of non-human animals and respect their interests.
Pedagogy of the Oppressed (Portuguese: Pedagogia do Oprimido) is an essay by Brazilian philosopher and educator Paulo Freire, written in Portuguese in 1968. The book is considered one of the major texts of critical pedagogy; it outlines a pedagogy based on a new relationship between teacher, student and society. According to Freire, traditional pedagogy is based on a ‘banking model of education’: it treats the student as an empty vessel to be filled with knowledge, like a piggy bank. He argues that pedagogy should instead treat the learner as a co-creator of knowledge. Drawing on his own experience as an educator of adults, Freire contrasts a pedagogy of domination with a pedagogy of the oppressed, which encourages the questioning of unequal values instilled by the powerful and the emergence of new beings who are neither oppressors nor oppressed. By 2000, the book had sold more than 750,000 copies worldwide[3]. It is the third most cited book in the social sciences[4]. It was translated into French in 1974 by Maspéro, and again in 2021 by Agone.
The work won the Goncourt Prize that same year. In the mid-20th century, the main character, Morel, wants to prevent the extermination of elephants in Africa. At the same time, in French Equatorial Africa (AEF), the idea of independence begins to spread here and there. The story recounts Morel’s struggle, his actions on behalf of the elephants, the persecution he faces from the authorities, and, in parallel, the conflicts of interest between the commitments of different parties: for elephants, for independence, for colonial power, for the preservation of traditions, for humanity’s march towards modernity, for short-term interests, for the honour of mankind… The central idea defended by Gary is the protection of nature (‘and this task is so immense, in all its implications,’ writes the author in his short preface). But, in doing so, he also exposes the protection of a ‘certain idea of man’ that Morel, Minna, Schölscher and others illustrate throughout the novel. ‘We must not choose what to defend: nature or humanity, humans or dogs. No, we must tackle the root of the problem: the protection of the right to exist.’ A truly seminal work for anti-speciesism.
The Jungle is a novel written by American journalist and novelist Upton Sinclair (1878–1968), first published as a serial between 25 February 1905 and 4 November 1905 in the socialist newspaper Appeal to Reason, before being published in book form in 1906. Its main character is Jurgis Rudkus, a Lithuanian immigrant who moves with his family to Chicago at the beginning of the 20th century, to the neighbourhood of the New City slaughterhouses (the ‘Union Stock Yards’) and the meat industry. Several million copies were printed, and it has been translated into more than thirty-three languages. When the novel was published, however, many readers were concerned by the description of the deplorable hygiene conditions in the meat industry, which was based on an investigation conducted by the author in October 1904 on behalf of the newspaper Appeal to Reason. US President Theodore Roosevelt, although hostile to Sinclair because of his socialist views, ordered an investigation into meat processing facilities in Chicago. This largely confirmed most of the elements described in the novel, leading to the adoption of the Meat Inspection Act and the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906, which also established the Bureau of Chemistry (renamed the Food and Drug Administration in 1930) of the United States Department of Agriculture.
