J Value Inquiry DOI 10.

1007/s10790-011-9283-z

Enlarging the Sphere of Recognition: A Hegelian Approach to Animal Rights

Michael J. Thompson

Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2011

1 Introduction The problem of extending our ethical duties and obligation to animals is an issue of considerable philosophical interest. Even as animals have continued to be the focus of certain forms of rights, the problem of extending moral consideration to animals remains controversial. But it can be argued that a rmer ethical foundation for the extension of ethical obligation and laws protecting the welfare of animals can be grounded within the unique approach to ethical life laid out by Hegel, specically through his concept of recognition. Animals possess certain traits and characteristics that endow them with recognitive status and, as a result, are also constitutive of our own ethical life and ethical self-understanding. Allowing the harm, abuse, or exploitation of animals constitutes a distortion in our recognitive relations not only with animals, but with ourselves and with other human beings as well. What results from this is a pathology of ethical life, an erosion of our ethical sensibilities and concepts. From this it follows that the inicting of pain on animals degrades the ethical capacities and the ethical status of human agents themselves and therefore the recognition of their protection from unnecessary harm and suffering ought to be defended on those grounds. Perhaps of greater importance is the question of the legitimacy of extending our ethical obligation to animals, securing that ethical duty, and creating a compelling pretext for the legal protection of animals from abuse. In this sense, an ethics that is reexive in nature can provide us with a more compelling perspective that can justify the ethical treatment of animals but also be extended to other areas of moral philosophy as well. In his Philosophy of Right, Hegel puts forth an intriguing thesis with roots in much of his earlier writings and ideas about ethical life and rational agents.
M. J. Thompson (&) Department of Political Science, William Paterson University, Raubinger Hall, 300 Pompton Road, Wayne, NJ 07470, USA e-mail: thompsonmi@wpunj.edu

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He argues that the very existence of pathological forms of social relations damages not only the subject being dominated or degraded, but the status of humanity itself, of individuals who dominate and who are dominated.1 Hegel puts forth an argument about the ways ethical subjects are constituted through the process of recognition. This insight of Hegel can be developed in a different direction by expanding the concept of recognition. More specically, Hegels conception of morality is signicant because it captures something that most modern accounts of ethics, specically views associated with utilitarianism and deontological approaches, Kantian and otherwise, do not: that the mechanisms of ethical constitution are relational in nature, not simply originating in subjective rationality. In contrast to such approaches, it can be argued that the existence of pathological forms of morality is damaging to the moral status of humanity itself. Hurting, abusing, wrongfully killing animals is therefore not to be seen as an unethical act because animals should be treated as moral subjects, but because such acts degrade the ethical capacities of human beings. This is also an argument made by Kant, but his view runs into severe limitations because of the nature of subjective idealism. The approach that stems from Hegels insights is that abusing animals not only does animals wrong, but does harm to human beings in terms of the fabric of our ethical life, a fabric that possesses the power to constitute ethical subjects. On this approach, animals deserve ethical consideration and protection by the law in a state because of the deep pathological consequences animal abuse has on the nature of our shared ethical life. Since animals share with us, in some degree, the possession of certain human traits, they must nd themselves within the sphere of recognition, therefore having implications for our own ethical development. This thesis can serve as the basis of a more morally compelling argument for justifying the legal protection of animals from mistreatment as well as extending our ethical obligations toward animals. We should begin to rethink ethics from a point of view in which we emphasize the ways individuals are constituted. This emphasis should be on the ways in which the existence, toleration and sanctioning of certain practices by a community can degrade the ethical substance dened as the collection of concepts, norms, values, and practices of any community or the ethical life of society as a whole. We should argue for different forms of legal or institutional measures to protect animals from abuse not because they intrinsically possess rights or some kind of ethical substance that ought to be respected in themselves, but instead that the protection of animals from abuse should be grounded in the moral argument that shows the potential for human pathologies stemming from the deformed recognitive structure that emerges from the abuse, and inhumane treatment of animals. Since ethics is, according Hegel, a social phenomenon, it plays a central role in the ways in which individuals are shaped and formed. The reexive moment enters into the picture through a kind of ethical structure where subject, object, and their relations all mutually construct ethical substance: the series of ethical categories, practices, and awareness that constitutes society and individuals.
1

See Michael P. Allen, Hegel between Non-Domination and Expressive Freedom: Capabilities, Perspectives, Democracy, Philosophy and Social Criticism, 32 (2006).

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There is a difculty in that the nature of recognition in Hegels thought is conceived as occurring at two separate levels.2 First, it is assumed to occur between individuals on an inter-subjective basis. In this sense, the self-development of the moral self-consciousness of an agent requires that rst, he is recognized by other agents as rational and second that he recognize others as rational agents. As well, it is assumed that individuals should recognize themselves in the social institutions within which they live. In this sense, recognition is to be seen as a crucial means by which individuals are able to overcome narrower forms of subjectivity and achieve a more universalizable conception of ethical life. Even more, this model contains the assumption that individual agents absorb, through their participation in social life and practices, the ethical sensibilities and categories that constitute the norms of the community. Therefore legal protection against the abuse of animals is necessary because of the ways the nature of human ethical life is negatively shaped by allowing the abuse. A modern, rational ethical life should be a life in which we seek to protect the welfare of animals because of the ways animal abuse can distort the ethical sensibilities of its members, a distortion that can lead to pathologies of ethical life.

2 A Kantian Point of Departure The attempt to extend the Kantian conception of duties to animals has been plagued by difculty, and this gives insight into the way a Hegelian conception of ethics can perhaps be constructed to provide a more satisfying argument for protecting animals from abuse and provide a rationale for extending legal protections to animals. The most readily available approach of Kantian ethics to the problem of animal abuse is the application of the categorical imperative. Tom Regan makes the argument when it comes to constructing a Kantian moral argument against meat-eating. If we consider the terrible conditions under which factory farming occurs, then it should be seen as violating a universalizable law. Regan writes: If I make use of the Formula of Universal Law, there is no reason why I cannot universalize the relevant subjective maxim: no one is to support the intensive rearing of farm animals by purchasing meat from these sources.3 In this sense, the categorical imperative has been seen to be an adequate ground for defending ethical duties toward animals and as an ethical appeal to vegetarianism. It seems reasonable to argue that Kants categorical imperative ought to apply to such a case, but critics of this position have argued that there is an intrinsic limit to extending Kants concept of ethical duties to animals. Since his basic account of what requires us to have respect for rational nature is that it possess rational autonomy, only beings capable of self-legislation are worthy of our ethical obligations.4 The categorical imperative does not require that animals be treated
2

See Ludwig Siep, Kampf und Anerkennung: Zu Hegels Auseinandersetzung mit Hobbes in den Jaener Schriften, Hegel-Studien, 9 (Bonn: Bouvier Verlag, 1974); see also Robert R. Williams, Hegels Ethics of Recognition (Berkeley, Calif. University of California Press, 1997), pp. 128. Tom Regan, The Case for Animal Rights (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1984), p. 185. J. Skidmore, Duties to Animals: The Failure of Kants Moral Theory, Journal of Value Inquiry, 35 (2001).

3 4

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with the same ethical consideration as human beings because of the condition that they possess the capacity of self-legislation and autonomy. The limitations to the Kantian approach can be summarized in a simple way. The ethical condition of autonomy as the grounding for ethical duties toward others does cannot properly apply to animals. As a result, critics of the categorical imperative approach argue that Kants basic ethical theory cannot be extended to arguing that we possess duties toward animals. However, Kant offers another argument when it comes to extending our moral duties to animals. He argues that we do in fact possess indirect duties to animals in the sense that the abusive treatment of them constitutes a moral harm to oneself. He writes: If a man shoots his dog because the animal is no longer capable of service, he does not fail in his duty to the dog, for the dog cannot judge, but his act is inhuman and damages in himself that humanity which it is his duty to show toward mankind. If he is not to stie his human feelings, he must practice kindness towards animals, for he who is cruel to animals becomes hard also in his dealings with men. We can judge the heart of a man by his treatment of animals.5 These indirect duties derive their validity from the fact that animal nature has analogies with human nature, which means that animals possess some elements of what we possess: the dogs loyalty and obedience, for instance, is something we ourselves possess by our nature.6 In this sense, even though animals are not worthy of intrinsic moral consideration, their mistreatment has negative effects on the morality of human beings, to whom we do in fact owe moral consideration as a duty. Even more, as Dan Egonsson has argued, this argument is universalizable in the form of the categorical imperative. As he puts it: If a universalized acceptance of suffering in animal factories means that people get desensitized to suffering, or even brutalized, then that will be undesirable from your own point of view. We simply do not want to live in such a world.7 In contrast, Allen Wood has argued that it is more persuasive to drop the argument of indirect duties and interpret Kant as making an argument for direct duties to animals. Woods basic thesis is that Kant can be read to argue that any duties we have toward animals or non-rational nature in general are really duties to promote our own moral perfection by behaving in ways that encourage a morally good disposition in ourselves. . . . Similarly, practicing kindness and gratitude toward animals cultivates attitudes of sympathy and love toward human beings, while callousness or cruelty toward animals promotes the contrary vices and makes worse people of us.8 Woods claim is that we should expand Kants notion of duties toward respect for persons toward respect for rational nature in general. On this view, it is necessary to see animals as deserving respect in and of themselves because they participate in rational nature. In this sense, we have a direct duty to respect animals because they are partially within the realm of rational nature. When
5 6 7 8

Immanuel Kant, Lectures on Ethics, trans. Louis Ineld (London: Methuen, 1930), pp. 239240. Ibid., p. 239. Dan Egonsson, Kants Vegetarianism, Journal of Value Inquiry, vol. 31, no. 4 (1997), p. 481.

Allen Wood, Kant on Duties Regarding Nonrational Nature, The Aristotelian Society Supplementary Volume, 72 (1998), p. 193.

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a person mistreats an animal, elements of the animals rationality are also mistreated. An animal that has been loyal possesses elements of a rational nature and as such deserves moral consideration. The abuse or contempt of these traits are an abuse of contempt of the traits generally and this is something that Kant sees we have a duty to protect. We have duties to rational nature, and animals, on Woods realist account, have such a status.9 The indirect account of duties to animals is problematic because it cannot be used to establish a causal connection between the abuse or mistreatment of animals and a similar set of actions against human beings. A Kantian cannot point to a mechanism that would make such an ethical claim valid.10 If we are able to imagine a person who can abuse or mistreat animals and not abuse or mistreat human beings, then the basis of the indirect duties thesis collapses. Similarly, if we were to accept the direct duties approach we would need to be convinced of the fact that animals are a part of rational nature, since only they are worthy of moral consideration from a Kantian perspective. Even if such a status held for a dog, it might not hold for a worm or clam. We would be placed in a difcult situation of ethical subcategories based on the extent to which animals might or might not possess rational nature. Even more, as Emer OHagan has argued, Woods argument fails to show that respect for rational nature in the abstract is fundamental to Kants ethics; he doesnt show that Kants own arguments concerning animals depend on the assumption that their mistreatment expresses disrespect for rational nature per se, and not for the humanity in persons.11 Instead, the Kantian claim for both direct and indirect duties collapses because the structure of Kantian ethical thought seems inadequate to realize either thesis. On the Kantian view, it is necessary for animals to have some kind of analogue to our own rational selves. They need to be seen as having some kind of autonomy. Only then can they be worthy of our own ethical consideration. Christine Korsgaard seeks to make the argument that animals deserve moral consideration because they are in fact ends in themselves. She conceives an animal as an organic system to whom its own good matters, an organic system that welcomes, desires, enjoys, and pursues its good.12 Despite this insight, it cannot be shown that animals are ethical beings that possess the capacity for rational autonomy. Even further, Korsgaard needs to attribute the characteristics to animals in order for the Kantian ethical argument to work. The security of the ethical argument rests, then, on the security of the biological argument that animals possesses a knowledge of their own good and willingly pursue it. There does not seem to be a satisfying way to get around this in Kantian terms, because Kantian ethical theory is so structurally determined by that condition.13
9

See Lara Denis, Kants Conception of Duties Regarding Animals: Reconstruction and Reconsideration, History of Philosophy Quarterly, 17 (2000).

10 See Heather Fieldhouse, The Failure of Kantian Theory of Indirect Duties to Animals, Animal Liberation Philosophy and Policy Journal, 2 (2004), pp. 19; see also Skidmore, op. cit. 11 Emer OHagan, Animals, Agency, and Obligation in Kantian Ethics, Social Theory and Practice, 35 (2009), p. 548. 12 Christine Korsgaard, Fellow Creatures: Kantian Ethics and Our Duties to Animals, The Tanner Lectures on Human Values, 25 (2005), p. 103. 13

See OHagan, op. cit., pp. 550553.

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Kantians have struggled to show that ethical treatment of animals is consistent with Kantian moral theory but run into problems of inconsistency. The basic thesis that Kant lays out, that the abuse of animals is morally wrong because it constitutes either a violation of their rational nature, or that such abuse or mistreatment will have negative consequences on the treatment of other human beings, needs to be conceptualized and developed from within a different framework. This argument can be given a rmer and more compelling basis by modifying Hegels theory of recognition and ethical life in order to make the argument that there exists a real ethical basis for the protection of animals from cruelty and abuse. The basis of this argument lies in the way that Hegel is able to argue for recognition as a constitutive process of human ethical life, as a formative dimension of human ethical capacities and sensibilities. On this view, the argument that animals should be ought to be given more consideration and protected from abuse, becomes important because of the ways that human ethical life, once enlarged beyond the realm of humans alone, is seen as a mechanism for shaping and cultivating group and individual ethical substance. The abuse or mistreatment of animals constitutes a distortion or pathology of ethical life having deformative consequences on the moral community as a whole. The abuse of animals degrades us as human beings through a recognitive structure that constitutes human ethical life. This is an argument not possible from within the context of subjective idealism and can reveal a new way of thinking about the ethical treatment of animals.

3 Recognition and the Constitution of Ethical Personality The failure of Kantian attempts to ground a satisfactory account of our ethical conception of animals should be seen as a limitation of the nature of subjective idealism itself. Instead of having ethical duties grounded in subjectivity, a Hegelian account begins from the position of absolute idealism that the nature of ethics does not consist only in the subjective rational structure of agents, but is interwoven into the relations individuals have with each other and the nature of their ideas and practices. On this view, it is crucial to see that the ethical life within which individuals are shaped and live their lives is a central focus for questions of moral validity. The crucial mechanism for this is recognition of the process of obtaining self-consciousness through our interaction and recognition of our own selfconsciousness through the self-consciousness of another being. At the core of Hegels ethical theory is a process of ethical self-constitution. This means that the very essence of the ways in which ethical life is to be judged is based on the ways it shapes or constitutes individuals. The domain of ethics cannot be circumscribed by the subject alone. This is the limitation of Kantian subjective idealism for which there is difculty in achieving a concrete form of universality. In his Lectures on Ethics, Kant proposes that we have ethical duties to animals as a result of them sharing with us, to some extent, human traits. But because of the limitations of this argument this thesis cannot be developed to its fullest potential within the framework of subjective idealism. Instead, the moral insight that our mistreatment of animals is a moral devaluation of ourselves can be made fruitful

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within the context that Hegelian ethical thought provides. But this requires us to move beyond the basic argument that Hegel puts forth regarding his conception of recognition, especially in the Phenomenology of Mind. Although Hegels notion of recognition cannot simply be applied to the question of the ethical treatment of animals, the argument can be extended to construct a compelling claim for the inclusion of animals into the sphere of recognition, affecting our ethical self-constitution. Hegel conceives of recognition as occurring between two selfconscious subjects for the purpose of achieving the inter-subjective mediation of self-consciousness. On Hegels account, the encounter between two self-conscious subjects effects a change in each of them deriving from the fact that each can no longer rest solipsistically within their own frame of reference, but are forced to develop broader self-understanding through their intersubjectivity. In this sense, the simple immediate form of being-for-self develops into a socially mediated beingfor-self; it moves from an I-consciousness toward a we-consciousness. A persons relation to other beings as well as to himself is transformed through this process because the self-relation is made possible only through his relation to another being.14 The other being becomes an objective condition for the development of the self as well as the mutual development of both selves. Recognition is therefore a crucial process of ethical self-formation because it is entwined, as the etymology of the word suggests, with the mechanism of cognition itself. The depth, the progress of our knowledge, both ethical and otherwise, is dependent upon the expansion of the reach of our recognition of others. As Robert Williams has argued: The road to interiority passes through the other. The self is for itself only by being for an other, and the self is for an other only by being for itself. The for itself formulates not the beginning but the result and telos of the process of recognition.15 This process is crucial for Hegel because it forms the determinative mechanism of the shift from simple consciousness toward genuine self-consciousness. Selfconsciousness only obtains unity through the relation to another self-consciousness. Only then can self-consciousness develop, expand out from simple immediacy into the broader consciousness outside of its own interiority. Put more simply, it is the process by which any subject overcomes his immediate, natural state of consciousness and is transformed into an inter-subjective partner capable of participating in the expanded realm of duties and knowledge that are demanded by the community as a whole. As Robert Brandom has pointed out: recognition is a normative attitude. To recognize someone is to take her to be the subject of normative statuses, that is, of commitments and entitlements, as capable of undertaking responsibilities and exercising authority.16 As Robert Williams emphasizes, recognition is a relation that plays out between two self-conscious beings; it is a joint act of double and opposing signications.17
14 See Ludwig Siep, Anerkennung als Prinzip der praktische Philosophie: Untersuchungen zu Hegels Jenaer Philosophie des Geistes (Freiburg: Karl Alber Verlag, 1979), pp. 135195. 15 16

Williams, op. cit., p. 49.

Robert B. Brandom, The Structure of Desire and Recognition: Self-Consciousness and SelfConstitution, Philosophy and Social Criticism, 33 (2007), p. 136.
17

Williams, op. cit., p. 51.

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Although Hegels theory of recognition is conceived as applying to other human beings as rational agents, we can tease out of this mechanism of recognition a crucial argument in defense of the ethical treatment of animals. On Hegels view, recognition is a means by which we are able to cultivate our ethical personality by moving out of our naturalness by which he means our unmediated existence that provides us with a narrow set of interests and concerns. The ethical life of human beings is in fact a product of the process of recognition because an ethical agent requires the existence of another being to provide some sort of determinate existence for himself as an ethical agent. A person becomes a rational ethical agent not by nature, but by realizing himself within another persons consciousness. As Hegel puts it: The others consciousness is the ground, the material, the space in which I realize myself.18 When we read about the master-slave relation, Hegel is trying to show not only an example of a pathological, deformed pattern of recognition, but also how the struggle for recognition is a struggle to attain a consciousness of a more universal set of needs and wants that all human beings share. For Hegel, the freeing of the slave constitutes a changed self-consciousness of the master toward seeing the slave as human. In order for this to happen, the master needs to see that the slave is like himself; he needs to see that the slave possesses the same humanity, that he is part of the same ethical universality. The master therefore breaks out of his own limited, immediate form of consciousness and moves toward the inter-subjective realm of the sociality of reason. The master no longer sees the slave as a mere thing but instead as an object who is needed to reach out of the masters immediacy toward the realm of what is ethical. Ethical life can only be made possible through this phenomenological opening into the ontological structure of recognition.19 It is ontological because it has an existence outside of the mere subjectivity of individual consciousness. Recognition is the mechanism by which we deepen our self-conceptions. We become ethical beings endowed with the capacity to possess self-recognition within the other being.20 The crucial end point of recognition is that a subject comes to grasp some continuity between himself and the other being, a continuity that transforms and cultivates his ethical consciousness.21 Recognition is therefore the ontological mechanism that drives the formative process of ethical self-development. This ontological realm of recognition is fused to a phenomenological layer which is the realm of experiencing the other being. Hegel is clear that the important act of distinguishing a self from another being is crucial because it shows that the other being is an objective reality who negates the subjects own immediacy and desire and, as a result, shows a link to the other person. This relation is crucial because it is
G.W.F. Hegel, Philosophy of Subjective Spirit, vol. 3, trans. M. J. Petry (Dordrecht: D. Reidel, 1979), p. 332.
19 See Robert B. Pippin, Hegels Practical Philosophy: Rational Agency as Ethical Life, (Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 2008), pp. 183209. 18

See Allen Wood, Hegels Ethical Thought, (Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1990), pp. 8893.
21 See Edith Dusing, Genesis des Selbstbewusstseins durch Anerkennung und Liebe: Untersuchungen zu Hegels Theorie der konkreten Subjektivitat, in Hegels Theorie des subjektiven Geistes, ed., Lothar Eley (Stuttgart: Frommann-Holzboog, 1990).

20

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the gateway, so to speak, into a deeper set of ethical reasons that an agent comes to grasp as valid only once it has become possible to experience the other person as distinct from but also similar to himself. It is distinct in the sense that it is not he, but it introduces him to and consistently reinforces within him a continuity with others. The phenomenological or experiential act of recognition shows the rational subject that the other person possesses similar traits to himself. The other person possesses self-consciousness, agency, humanity, and within the phenomenological act, a person sees himself in a fuller way, and is able to articulate a deeper conception of self through the act. This leads to the realm of rational ethical life in the sense that the agent breaks down the distinction between subjective notions of ethical value and moves into the more generalizable space of universalizable ethical categories. This is the foundation of rational ethical life, with the notion that reason is not subjective, but social. This is why Hegel sees the cultivation of ethical substance, of the ethical awareness of any person, as functionally dependent on the recognition of another being. But what is being recognized in the process? Hegel is clear that it is another self-consciousness, another human subject. But it can also be argued that what is recognized in the other being is the humanity, aspects, or traits that the subject shares with the other being. Only then would a rational ethical agent be able to grasp some sort of universality and leap out of immediate subjectivism or narrow inwardness. This is where we can see Kants hypothesis in his Lectures on Ethics intersect in an interesting way with Hegels thesis of recognition. As Kant suggests, we should extend ethical treatment to animals because not doing so will prevent us from cultivating some of our ethical sensibilities toward other human beings. An animal, for Kant, does not possess intrinsic value but is a mere foil for the practical life of an ethical agent. But this misses something that the Hegelian conception captures, that the ethical self-development of an individual is dependent on the recognition by the other individual of a certain continuity with his self. Although Hegel does not mention animals in this context, it seems more than reasonable, given the structure of the argument, to extend the act of recognition to animals as well. After all, they possess fundamental traits, capacities, and characteristics that we also possess, such as suffering, pain, loyalty, and relatedness. In contrast with the Kantian view, we are not concerned as much with the concept of rational nature as with the phenomenological realization that an animal as another being does participate in a continuity with the ethical agent as a self-conscious human being. An animal feels pain, can suffer, and can experience any number of other states that we can too. In this sense, rationality is not a precondition for the animal becoming an object of recognition. Hegels notion of the sphere of recognition can therefore be enlarged once we see that any self-consciousness needs also to recognize in animals the same traits. The phenomenological layer of recognition picks up on such traits in animals all the time. A persons ethical self is therefore a function of the recognition of animals as other beings as well as human beings as other beings. The misrecognition of animals, their abuse and mistreatment, therefore constitutes a pathology or distortion in the self-constituting potential of recognition itself. It stands to reason that there is some underlying unity between people and animals in the sense that they share, as Kantians have tried to show,

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to some degree in what we consider to be human qualities or traits. Nevertheless, unlike Kantians, it need not be seen in terms of rationality, since the phenomenological layer of recognition perceives more in another being than its rationality. It also, by extension, becomes sensitive to broader elements of another being which can show afnities with the subject. In this sense, Kants original insight regarding our duties to animals is deepened and can be fully realized within a Hegelian framework of the ethics of recognition.

4 Animal Abuse as a Pathology of Ethical Life A mechanism of recognition is evident in the way that Hegel sees the confrontation with another being as constitutive of the process of ethical self-formation. Without the confrontation, the self-consciousness as well as the ethical substance of the subject would be severely limited, since it would lack the conditions necessary to grasp the universal dimensions of ethical life. Thus, we are left with an interesting mechanism by which individuals are shaped and their ethical substance formed. Since it is a process that exists objectively, we can view it as a recognitive structure in which the set of relations and the mechanism by which the ethical substance of the individual is formed is dependent upon the nature of the relations within which he is embedded. The recognitive structure of ethical life is important not only for Hegels account, but in order to provide us with a more compelling conception of ethics. We can identify the practices, traditions, and acts that distort the recognitive structure and degrade the ethical substance of individuals and the community as a whole. This serves as a more compelling ground to argue for a valid claim that we have a duty to protect animals from human harm, abuse, and cruelty, since the moral value of protecting animals from this kind of harm and cruelty becomes an objective moment in the ethical self-realization of individuals within the context of modern ethical life. Put another way, allowing the abuse of animals violates our sense of what is good because it constitutes a pathology of ethical life. It is a distortion of the mechanism which shapes and forms human moral categories, sensibilities and practices. It is not simply that the experiential moment of animal abuse has a degrading impact on ethical sensibilities, as Kant seems to argue, but also, and more crucially, that a rupture is created in the ontological space of ethical rationality. A person recognizes another being based on certain traits that they both share. He does not recognize a tree or a stone ethically, because it is not possible to recognize otherness that is intrinsically worthy of any kind of ethical obligation within them. But in animals, this does not hold, because animals do in fact share with the subject certain traits that must be recognized at a phenomenological level as similar to the traits he possesses. The recognitive structure constitutes an ontological hook on which ethical claims can nd validity, but it is also an objective structure having certain reasons and processes that are outside of the subject. In this sense, institutions such as the state and the legal system ought to be oriented toward the protection of animal welfare. There are two principles to tease out of Hegels complex notion of recognition that are relevant for enlarging the sphere of recognition to include animals and their

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welfare. The rst is a principle of self-constitution where the problem of animal abuse has some kind of impact on the shaping of ethical self-constitution. It is not in the recognition of an animal as a rational agent that there is a concern for the process of self-constitution. It is the abuse, misuse, and the causation of suffering of animals that has a pathological impact on the formative process of ethical self-development. Hence, this principle concerns the ways that the process of self-constitution is guided. That we can discern good from bad forms of self-development is a crucial rst step. The second principle is a principle of ethical self-understanding where the notion that recognition is reexive in nature is stressed. The actions a person is permitted to perform and are seen as permissible by others to perform irrespective of the arbitrary inclinations of the person, enter into the ethical fabric of the person and the rest of the community as well. Recognition connects us to others. It is a process that opens us up to the ways that relations between human beings and animals can have effects upon our own sensibilities. This means that moral harm is not considered only from the psychologistic reduction of behavior, that a person might simply see such acts as permissible and continue to perform and legitimate them. It means that it constitutes a disruption in the ethical integrity of an individual either by shaping him in a way to see such acts as permissible and acceptable, or by exposing him to acts that might erode the ethical-emotional dimension of that person and his duties to others. No individual can be seen as immune from this point of view, since ethics is seen as embedded in social acts and self-understanding simultaneously. If we take the two principles and see them as interrelated dimensions of the recognitive structure, then we nd that they lie at the root of ethical life or the ethical sensibilities and categories that are inculcated in individuals. Since individuals absorb ethical content from social relations and social relations are the nexus within which the process of recognition unfolds, we can see a distinct connection between ethical life and the relations we have to other beings. Pathological relations give rise to a damaged ethical life by obfuscating recognitive relations that in turn lead to the malformation of ethical substance within the community. This leads to the basic character of this kind of approach to ethics. The actions, practices, sensibilities that any society evinces have a formative effect upon others and ourselves. They are reexive in nature. There is little reason why this recognitive structure ought not to be enlarged to include animals and their welfare. Since they, too, evince human capacities for feeling, relatedness, suffering, pain, and a sense of will, we must recognize in them similarities with ourselves, and as a result a continuity between an ethical subject and an animal is thereby discovered. When a person sees an animal suffering, it is not simply empathy, as suggested by Schopenhauer, that grips him, it is also that the person participates in a recognitive relation to the suffering. As such, it means that an expansion and deepening of rational ethical life would need to include the animal as part of the universal set of relata toward which the ethical categories of an agent should be directed. If Hegels thesis of recognition has any merit at all, we must see that the two principles of ethical self-constitution and ethical self-understanding are distorted through recognitive pathologies because they erode such capacities within ethical subjects. By deliberately tolerating, enjoying, or being indifferent to the suffering of another

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creature, a creature that possesses some of the most basic similarities with us as human beings, we turn away from the shared, universalizable qualities of basic ethical orientations. Such an act in the phenomenological realm of misrecognition lters into the ontological realm of our ethical categories, the very means by which we achieve ethical self-understanding. They are not reducible to feelings of sympathy but have some normative force upon us once we recognize them as worthy of our ethical obligations. On this reading, the ethical status of animals lies in their mutual sharing in certain traits with us as human beings. It therefore stands to reason that they must be included within the recognitive structure responsible for the shaping of the substance of ethical life. In this sense, when a person abuses an animal, or when someone is exposed to practices that abuse animals for any number of reasons, space is opened up for a pathology in the recognitive structure. A persons ethical capacities are in the process mutilated to a greater or lesser degree by not recognizing the suffering as legitimate, as real, as having an effect upon another being. The agents potentiality to reach out of a narrower form of ethical self-consciousness is muted and he is denied a fuller range of ethical capacities. There is still a recognition that an animal cannot serve as a complete other being to make the recognitive relation totally sufcient, since that requires the other being to possess rational self-consciousness and, as a result, free will. It is true that animals, in a Hegelian sense, can never reach this status and therefore cannot serve as a sufcient other being for the realization of human freedom. However, the theory of recognition also provides a mechanism of ethical cognition that can be used to justify the inclusion of animals and their welfare into the sphere of ethical value and duty. This has its roots in Kants suggestion, and followers of it such as Wood, that animals possess an aspect of humanity. If we accept Hegels thesis about the mechanism of recognition as the phenomenological dimension of our ethical self-realization, then it seems we must also accept that animals, too, can be circumscribed within the domain of recognizable relata necessary for rational ethical life. But the concept of a pathology of ethical life attains a higher order of complexity once we see that Hegels argument about rational ethical life is that the ultimate meaning of the ethical concepts we adopt need to be generalizable. In this sense, irrational forms of ethical life produce contradictions within our ethical culture since the normative guidelines of [our] social environment no longer seem to offer any guarantee of being rational in the sense that their underlying principles can be generalized.22 The recognitive structure makes us ethical because it forces us to take a normative standpoint toward others. The recognitive relation makes an agent ethical because he begins to conceive of himself as the subject of normative commitments to others, but also that the normative commitments are universal in nature. They hold as general, universal values that mediate the sense of duty of the agent. When he ceases to be subject to such normative requirements, his ethical substance is degraded. He is less ethical than if he were to adopt such a stance. In this sense, animal abuse becomes acutely pathological in that it is both an
22 Axel Honneth, The Pathologies of Individual Freedom: Hegels Social Theory, (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2010), p. 40.

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expression of the pathological self and also the germ for the disruptions or distortions within the recognitive structure of human ethical life. This view requires that we see the nature of human ethical substance as constituted by the relational structure of sociality. Just as Hegels foundational concept of recognition between two self-conscious subjects promotes the accomplishment of a fuller, more complete self, so to with the enlarged sphere of recognition incorporating animals: their inclusion into the ethical realm of humane and ethical treatment and consideration can expand and deepen the ethical substance of individual agents by giving them a broader horizon of ethical commitments. Animals possess intrinsic qualities that qualify them as recognizable other beings, and as such, we must to some degree extend them ethical commitments. The intrinsic qualities include attributes such as pain, suffering, and relatedness that any rational ethical agent would recognize as a shared attribute between himself and an animal. It is not that the shared attributes in and of themselves requires a moral duty toward an animal. The Hegelian argument is that the recognition of an animal as possessing similar attributes to us means that animals move into the sphere of moral consideration. A society that does not protect animals from abuse and other forms of suffering reects inconsistencies in its ethical fabric and institutions in that members of the society do not truly generalize ethical commitments toward all beings in which we can nd recognitive linkages. If we accept the two principles of ethical self-constitution and ethical self-understanding, then we can begin to see the basic mechanism of the recognitive structure of ethical life. It can serve as the means by which we absorb the ethical categories, norms, and practices of our community and the self-regarding and other-regarding conceptions that constitute rational agency. Since Hegels discussion is meant to apply only to the act of confrontation of two rational human beings, it is clear that the boundaries Hegel sets on the mechanism of recognition is that it applies only to human intersubjectivity. But it does not prevent us from elaborating a mechanism of recognition that can be expanded in the sense that human ethical sensibilities and capacities are affected by other kinds of confrontations, with animals in particular. Here we can raise once again Kants interesting and controversial moral hypothesis regarding our moral duties to animals. Kants thesis was that we ought to treat animals with moral consideration because doing otherwise erodes our ethical treatment of other human beings and is therefore to be seen as morally impermissible. But Hegels more interesting claim is that only by absorbing a rational ethical life can we be a part of a moral community which is able to thrive under truly rational ethical norms. Recognition is needed for this end because that is how we are able to see that our humanity reaches out of our particularity toward a more shared, universal level. If we can recognize in animals, through their various traits and features, some degree of what we too possess as human beings, then we must include them within the sphere of recognition. To do otherwise would be a clear violation of the process of recognition. If Hegels thesis has any internal consistency, then it stands to reason that there must follow some deformation of an agents ethical substance and the ethical life of the community of which he is a part. The fact that just as human beings, animals possess certain shared traits means that they must be seen as possessing a recognitive status. An agent must recognize

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some sense of commonness between himself and an animal. This aspect of the argument is crucial because without it, the mechanism of recognition affects the ethical awareness of the subject. The idea that an ethical agent perceives a trait or set of traits that he recognizes as similar to himself means that he sees something analogous to his own self. What is recognized is a resemblance that informs ethical reasoning. Without the resemblance, we would be back to trying to construct an abstract conception of personhood to give shape to our ethical duties. Instead, the thesis of recognition rests on an analogy that is phenomenlogically perceived. The production of ethical reasoning from the recognition of what is in common means that ethical ideas can gain some degree of strength from the perception of a shared, analogous resemblance. In his discussion of the power of analogy, Hume provides an account for this reasoning when he argues that the present object inlivens the imagination; and the resemblance along with the constant union, conveys this force and vivacity to the related idea; which we are therefore said to believe, or assent to. If you weaken either the union or resemblance, you weaken the principle of transition, and of consequence that belief, which arises from it.23 The stronger we perceive the afnity, the stronger the connection in our ethical reasoning. Once the analogous resemblance is present, the recognitive structure can open up the ethical space of reasons showing us the universality of our ethical commitments. If not, then we risk violating the premise of Hegelian ethical life. We become unable to generalize our ethical concepts and sentiments and we fail fully to realize a rationalist ethical life. As a result, on this reading, Hegels understanding of recognition obliges us to extend ethical consideration to animals. The recognitive structure of ethical life, containing the principles of ethical selfconstitution and ethical self-understanding, further means that once any agent fails to recognize animals as worthy of recognition, he degrades his possession of the two principles. It means that the ethical principles that he absorbs are non-universalizable in that they apply only to human beings and not to animals. If a person tolerates or even enjoys bull ghting, then he tolerates or enjoys not only the suffering of the animal itself, but also overlooks or becomes insensitive to, the suffering and fails to extend his most basic ethical capacities to a creature that shares with him some of the most basic features of what it means to be a conscious being. This is something he ought to recognize at a phenomenological level where the ethics of recognition begins. An ethical life that allows such practices can therefore produce subjects with more limited forms of ethical capacities than practices that enforce the protection of animal welfare. Since ethical life should be conceived as a set of attitudes, practices, and orientations that are accumulated by the community and which are transmitted through education, we can see a legitimate argument for the institutional protection of animals through law in a state since such institutions, according to Hegel, are rational objectications of our shared ethical conceptions and commitments. This space of ethical life is related to the process of recognition in the sense that it forms a nexus of recognitive relations. Any individual develops his ethical capacities within this nexus of recognition. It is also Hegels point that individuals should see modern

23

David Hume, A Treatise of Human Nature (London: Penguin Books, 1969), p. 192.

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ethical life as reected in the institutions that structure the developmental process of human life.

5 The Reexive Nature of Ethical Concepts A pathology of ethical life needs to be conceived as a distortion in the recognitive relations between ethical selves. It must also be seen as those elements that cause a degradation of the optimum potentiality of ethical substance absorbable by ethical agents. Since the notion of recognition opens up for us the insight that we recognize not only others, but also ourselves, as partaking in the ethical life of a community and that we are in fact constituted by the ethical fabric of a community within which we are interwoven, we must consider the thesis that there is a reexivity of ethical life. The thesis of reexivity is therefore a crucial dimension of rational ethical life, a point also raised by Brandom when he argues: in such an ideal community, each member is able to recognize himself as a member. To say that is to say that recognition is reexive. Recognition is also to be symmetric, that is to say, reciprocal or mutual.24 A person recognizes another being that recognizes him back. This is the phenomenological level of recognition. There is also, however, the deeper, ontological level of recognition which is the actual ethical self that is shaped and formed by the phenomenological level. The ethical sensibilities and categories used to determine actions and practices make up this ontological level of recognition. Distortions in the phenomenological domain produce a pathological shape to the ontological domain of ethical consciousness and practice itself. If the is a reexive dimension to ethics and we are to judge certain acts and practices from the perspective of their consequences on our ethical self-development as persons, then we can see, as Hegel does, that such ethical insights require an objective referent in terms of the law in a state. As Hegel points out in his concept of objective spirit, our ethical life would remain abstract if it were not realized in the realm of the institutional arrangements of law in a state. All of this suggests the idea of a reexive ethics as a form of ethical argumentation that requires us to place the process of ethical self-constitution as the central locus of attention for ethical argumentation. A reexive moment comes in asking to what extent any particular action or set of actions, tradition or set of sanctioned behaviors and practices are capable of deepening the ethical selfconstitution of rational agents. It concerns the problem of pathologies of this process, coinciding with Hegels thesis that the formation of the ethical substance of any rational agent is determined by the kinds of relations and forms of recognition that the agent absorbs. Reexive ethics therefore requires that we pay attention to the recognitive structure of ethical life within which individuals are formed and shaped. The reexivity thesis therefore revolves around the particular mechanism that produces and reproduces ethical substance and ethical self-consciousness. Decient forms of recognition in the phenomenological realm lead to distortions in ethical self-constitution and self-consciousness, the ontological realm of ethical
24

Brandom, op. cit., p. 137.

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substance itself. This, in turn, can have various pathological consequences for human action and ethical practices and categories. Animal abuse is a crucial example of a disruption in the recognitive structure having reexive feedback effects upon the ethical self-constitution of subjects. As a result the protection of animals from harm and maltreatment requires protection from law in a state. The acts we perform or are performed around us are constitutive of our own ethical selfformation. As such, all forms of animal exploitation, suffering, and unnecessary dependence and misuse, become damaging to the ethical life of human beings as rational ethical agents.

6 Conclusion The structure of reexive ethics is substantive enough to compete with other traditions of argumentation for animal rights because it provides a deeper understanding for justifying our ethical obligations to animals and gives a rationale for legal and political action as well. The idea that laws should be provided not simply for the protection of animals in and of themselves, but that the prevention of acts of cruelty and inhumanity have a damaging and pathological effect on the human beings by exposing them to degenerative forces on their ethical selfdevelopment requires that state action protect animals and individuals from such acts. Once we are able to grasp the notion that human beings are formed by their recognitive experiences in the world, we can see that their relation to other responding beings has an impact on the ways in which their own ethical substance will be shaped and formed. In this sense, the ethical life of a community requires us to recognize that the abuse of animals and their protection from cruelty is an essential element in the realization of ethical beings. Animal abuse constitutes a distortion in the nexus of recognitive relations. This constitutes the element of reexivity. The actions which we perform, have a formative impact on the ethical sensibilities of an agent as well as the sensibilities of others. The protection of animals from harm and abuse at the hands of human beings becomes, on this view, a matter of enriching and protecting a more highly evolved sense of ethical norms and practices. The argument that can also be extended to matters having to do with the environment and elements of nature that do not possess consciousness. If the thesis of recognition can show us a new way to appreciate the ways our abuse of animals can introduce pathological ways of treating other beings, then it stands to reason that the sphere of recognition can expand beyond the non-animal realm as well. Once we perceive our destructive actions on other objects, the reexive element of ethical life, given force by the recognitive structure, can open up for us as ethical agents the pathological nature of such activities. No doubt it is more difcult to nd immediate phenomenological matters in common with a tree or the atmosphere, but once an ethical agent sees that his actions are destructive in some wanton sense, the agent will see this only if we see ethical propositions as reexive in nature. We need to see that our actions need to be judged not only on their immediate effects, but on the ways that they have effects back upon our ethical development and the ethical

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development within the ethical community as a whole. This is opened up by seeing the basic ways that the recognitive structure is essential to the formation of a truly rational ethical life. The argument for moving toward the recognition of animals as legitimate other beings for our ethical duties is therefore a starting point for deepening other domains of our ethical thought. This approach adds a depth and richness to the moral argument that animals ought to be protected from abuse and cruelty without the inconsistencies that plague the Kantian position. We are forced to consider the proposition that ethical life is a shared, dynamic context within which we and others are formed and shaped. Seen in this way, we are able to open up a new realm for making ethical claims. Reexive ethical arguments are made within the space of ethical life and the recognitive structure that maintains and reproduces it. Extending Hegels theory of recognition to animals means adapting it to a signicant extent, but not eroding its basic ethical premise. The fact that animals are not self-conscious in the way that human beings are does not mean that they must be outside the sphere of recognition. Instead of seeing recognition as exclusive to human agents, animals can be included into the sphere of recognition because there are real, shared continuities between human beings and most animals. If this is the case, then we are confronted with the notion that if our own ethical life is to be truly rational, then we must also extend ethical obligations to animals. In addition to this, if we take the recognitive structure that Hegel articulates seriously, then we must also see animal abuse as a serious pathology of ethical life. For this reason, it is important to see Hegels ideas as deeply relevant to the current discourse on animal rights and our ethical obligations to non-rational nature.25

25 I would like to thank an anonymous reviewer, Thomas Magnell, Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Value Inquiry, and Nichole Shippen for helpful comments in revising this article.

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