Nature, Toothless and Declawed

Clare Coffey in The New Atlantis:

We cannot be sure what animals are, because we cannot be sure what we are. We are beasts among beasts, and something qualitatively different. The boundary between these two kinds of being is always ready to dissolve by moonlight.

But that boundary feels bright and clean in Martha Nussbaum’s latest rationalizing project, Justice for Animals, even if she draws it in a different place. The book is an intriguing attempt to find a simultaneously comprehensive and minimally metaphysically committed account of what we owe animals. It is also a plea, with dramatic upshots on questions like the justice of humans eating animals — even the justice of animals eating animals.

More here.