Interview with Peter Singer, Australian philosopher, world-famous animal ethicist

A widely publicized IPBES report from 2019 warns that close to one million species currently on Earth will soon be extinct. In addition to debates in the media and among professionals about the factual value of that number, a larger problem remains—we do not know how many species are on Earth. According to extensive studies and statistical modelling, there are at least six million species in existence that have not yet been described. The term “described species” means that the animal or plant has received a unique scientific name that confirms its identity and relation to other organisms. A question thus remains about how we value species that are not yet named, known, or discovered. The most common practice is to value only creatures that are directly related to human existence, yet there is growing concern that we should value animals for the sake of their existence, for their intrinsic value. In this respect, the anthropocentric concepts of “pest” and “invasive species” need to be re-considered.

Rats have accompanied human habitats for millennia. This complicated coexistence has led to the development of culture-laden narratives that excluded these creatures from the sphere of human moral care. Currently, the existential standing of the genus Rattus appears paradoxical. Contemporary free-living rats are among animals that are widely despised and subject to the most intense extermination. At the same time, due to their social nature and neural structure that is homologous to a large extent to Homo sapiens, they serve as models for research into human psychological properties. Recently, the accumulation of discoveries
regarding many nonhuman species’ cognitive abilities has reignited ethical debate about the welfare and even the rights of “higher” animals. However, rats remain outside its mainstream focus. Meanwhile, based on research on rodents one may arrive at the image which is contrary to common beliefs about rats. The article presents the stereotypical views of rats’ social status obtained from research on the perception of social groups in accordance with the warmth and competence dimensions of Susan Fiske’s Stereotype Content Model. Then, Mark Rowlands’ concept of a moral subject is presented. Against this backdrop, a review of the latest findings of cognitive sciences regarding the properties of the Rattus species is carried out, in order to confront those research findings with Rowlands’ concept. The article aims to underscore the contradiction between the stereotypical perception of the rat and the empirical data, to finally indicate fundamental ethical implications of such a state of affairs.

The dispute over ritual slaughter has been going on for years, not only in Polish discourse. It is commonly indicated that this practice is unethical and inhumane. However, this dispute completely ignores the Jewish perspective on this issue. Jews believe that this is the most humane method of slaughtering animals, and has been commanded by God for their protection from suffering. They emphasize that God’s law cannot be subject to change. The aim of this article is to prove that Jewish ritual slaughter is an ethical practice and
permissible under positive law in Poland. The author also points out that the discussion on the admissibility of such slaughter is mainly based on economic arguments. The text, first of all, discusses what the shechita is, and then how the rules of the Torah protect animals from suffering. It also shows the current legal status regarding ritual slaughter, Poles’ beliefs regarding this subject as well as the social teaching of the Catholic Church on religious slaughter.

In the article, the author attempts at juxtaposing a theory of animal rights defenders – primarily the political theory of animal rights put forward by the authors of Zoopolis, Sue Donaldson and Will Kymlicka – with the practices in the field of dog sports and the methods of working with service dogs. She analyses Donaldson and Kymicka’s particular postulates and presents ways in which both the animal rights advocates and dog sports afficionados approach the subject of new citizenship. Her conclusions seem to suggest that those two groups hold rather contradictory views on domesticated animals.

In his writings, Éric Baratay advances that the chronicles of people should be supplemented with animal histories as he stands by the side of non-human animals and supports attempts to free history from its solely anthropocentric perspective. Animals are not capable of speaking any human language, they cannot record their experiences in writing / words, which makes them unable to create the great animal history. However, they have human friends. Therefore, the indirect approach, meeting to the goal intended by Baratay halfway, may rely on the stories about animals, their biographies written in the personal notes. The article presents the stories of pigs recorded in the autobiographies and memoirs of Antonina Żabińska, Dorota Sumińska, and Sy Montgomery, which are contributions to the history of animals.

Anouk Herman’s aim in this article is to introduce the ecofeminist theory of the animal subject and its absent referent in the poetry book Matecznik by Polish author Małgorzata Lebda. Ecofeminism provides tools for elaborate analysis of the conceptual connections between women (as well as persons of nonbinary identities) and animals and may be used as a theoretical background for ecocritical research on literature. Ecofeminist philosophers Carol J. Adams and Marti Kheel have developed theories regarding relationships of human and non-human phenomena. They examine the issues of sexuality and carnality in the context of the killing and hunting of animals, themes which constitute important motifs in Lebda’s poetry.

The aim of this article is to analyse the motif of corporeality in the poetic book Animalia by a young Polish poet Anna Adamowicz. The methodology implemented was elaborated based on zoocriticism, a subdiscipline of Animal Studies, and lead to advancing the thesis that Adamowicz’s poems are a voice of dissent against treating nonhuman corporeality as inferior and reducing it to worthless, passive “meat”. In her poetry, Adamowicz shatters the anthropocentric hierarchy of species and shows the tragic consequences of human activity for the entirety of animal world. Another theme worth underscoring and pointing to in her poetry is climate change, the effects of which are particularly acute in the world of non-human animals.

A book by British political philosopher and ethicist Alasdair Cochrane entitled Should Animals Have Political Rights? was published in 2019 by Polity Press in the Political Theory Today series. This book fits into the contemporary trend of theorizing the normative aspects of the relationship between man and other animals, which is sometimes referred to as the political turn. In his review, Dariusz Gzyra discusses the book’s structure and traces the trajectory of Cochrane’s thought, which evaluates – in the context of the postulate of Animal protection and interspecies justice – the existing institutions, structures and political processes and proposes interesting changes and developments.