Marco Maurizi

Lombardo Radice Institute/University of Rome “Tor Vergata”

What is Animal Freedom? Political Perspectives for the Critique of Anthropocentrism

15 November 2022, 17h00 (Lisbon Time — GMT+0)

Sala Mattos Romão (Room C201.J – Department of Philosophy)

School of Arts and Humanities – University of Lisbon

Abstract

The theory of liberation and animal rights develops in a period of decline of the Marxist left and in line with the establishment of neo-liberal hegemony. Consequently, the classic utilitarian approaches, those founded on moral rights or on the juridical implementation of the animal condition, but also the kind of liberal-oriented eco-feminism of the 1980s do not seem to take into due account the economic structure of capitalist society. Though the highly industrialized and anthropocentric nature of real socialism has partly justified the disinterest in classical antispecism for the class struggle, the lack of a serious analysis of capitalism and its intrinsic tendencies makes any theoretical definition and practical defense of animals and animality problematic. By judging class relations irrelevant with respect to the “domination of man” over the animal world, classic animal liberation theories have worked with abstract and static concepts of “animality” and “humanity” often falling behind the profound insights into the relationship between humanism and nature proposed by Marx and Engels themselves. Is it possible to overcome the traditional anthropocentric orientation of the Left to make room for a discourse that does not exclude animal liberation from the overall project of emancipation of the working class? This paper will try to criticize the limits of liberal animalism and Socialist anthropocentrism by resorting to the theses defended by Adorno and Horkheimer in their Dialectic of the Enlightenment, while expanding Marx’ and Engels’ insights on the dialectic of nature. We will try to show how the elaboration of different and dialectical concepts of “nature” and “animality” is essential to correctly set these questions and establish a new way to articulate the relationship between animal liberation, critical theory, and eco-socialism.