In an interview with the New York Times (NYT) December 6, 2022, Nussbaum made an implicit equivalence of predation with rape
Photo: Sally Ryan via Wikimedia Commons
Distinguished philosopher Martha Nussbaum, who teaches at the University of Chicago, has used strong words to describe the actions of carnivores in order to feed themselves in her upcoming book Justice for Animals: Our Collective Responsibility, which will be published January 3, 2023.
In an interview with the New York Times (NYT) December 6, 2022, Nussbaum made an implicit equivalence of predation with rape.
The book is dedicated to her daughter Rachel, an animal rights lawyer who died in 2019 at 47 from an infection following transplant surgery, according to NYT.
“Nussbaum, who is 75, argues for, among other things, increased legal standing for animals as well as an ethical framework in which animals’ right to pursue flourishing lives is not subordinate to our own — a quietly radical proposition,” the introduction to the interview noted.
The comments regarding the equivalence between rape and predation were made in response to a question on the hunting of elk (as the Wapiti is called in North America).
The interviewer asked the philosopher as to whether the trophy hunting of elk every season was ethically just given that such hunters (and indeed all trophy hunters) respond to criticism by saying they are, in fact, helping conserve a species by taking out unhealthy individuals and generating revenue as well.
In response, Nussbaum said there had to be population control both on the part of humans and animals.
Read Blurring identities
“Now, the available methods of contraception for animals are not always good…With the elk, there are things that have been tried: shooting them in cold blood; some kind of population control; introducing wolves to tear the elks limb from limb,” she said.
Nussbaum then added:
People say that (wolves) is better because it’s nature. I don’t like that argument. For the elk, a bullet to the brain — if the person knew how to shoot, which a lot of hunters don’t — would be a lot better than the wolf’s tearing them apart. So I think the only reasonable long-term solution is some form of population control.
The interviewer then cited the part on wolves in Nussbaum’s answer and a sentence in her book about vulnerable animals in the wild.
The sentence read: “It simply is not part of the form of life of these creatures to be eaten by predators.” The interviewer asked how this could not be a part of life since predators did exist.
Nussbaum then gave a shocking response.
Nature is not harmonious, and nature is not just. Just think: Women are often raped, and that has been so all throughout human history. That doesn’t mean women were made to be raped. They were made to lead their own lives with considerable autonomy. But in fact, they’re in an environment where other people have the power, so they all too often get raped. That doesn’t mean we should perpetuate that and say it’s the nature of women. So, too, with predation.
The philosopher went on to defend her stance. She also suggested that wild carnivores should be given humanely-killed meat.
Nussbaum also waxed eloquent about the subject of her book. She said animals should be given legal rights similar to human beings.
Interestingly, she cited the Indian constitution to make her case:
Ultimately we could do what India has done, which is to give animals recognition as persons under constitutional law. Animals have now been recognised as persons within the meaning of Article 21 of the Indian Constitution, which is their equivalent of our 14th Amendment. You can’t deprive an animal of life or liberty without due process of law. That would be the goal.
What then shall we make of Nussbaum’s comments? Giving rights and ‘personhood’ to nature, rivers and animals is a movement that has caught on in recent years.
Read Give rivers their rights, activists tell IUCN World Conservation Congress
New Zealand granted personhood to the Whanganui, a river sacred to its indigenous Polynesian people, the Maori in 2017. That was also the year when the the Ganga and Yamuna in India were given personhood rights.
Rights have also been recognised or declared for the Boulder Creek watershed in the United States, the Magpie river in Canada, waterways in Orange County in the US, the Alpayacu river in Ecuador and the Paraná river and its wetlands in Argentina.
Efforts are also on to grant personhood to ‘sentient beings’ such as great apes, elephants, dolphins and some other animal species.
But carnivorous predation being similar to rape? What should we make of that?
Ravi Chellam, Asiatic Lion expert and chief executive of the Metastring Foundation has some strong views on the matter.
“While the idea of personhood to animals and parts of our environment like rivers and mountains are important legal concepts and I am glad such ideas are getting wider articulation, I do NOT agree with the arguments made regarding wild carnivores and predation. I think her views on this topic are ignorant and deeply problematic,” he told Down To Earth.
He added: “I would go the extent of stating that she is ecologically illiterate and doesn’t really understand nature and wilderness.”
I will have to agree with what Chellam says here. Will you?
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