The question of animal selves: Implications for sociological knowledge and practice

Leslie Irvine

doi:10.18778/1733-8077.3.1.02

Authors

Leslie Irvine University of Colorado at Boulder, USA

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.18778/1733-8077.3.1.02

Keywords:

Animals, Self, Mead, Animal cognition, Consciousness

Abstract

The question of whether sociologists should investigate the subjective experience of non-human others arises regularly in discussions of research on animals. Recent criticism of this research agenda as speculative and therefore unproductive is examined and found wanting. Ample evidence indicates that animals have the capacity to see themselves as objects, which meets sociological criteria for selfhood. Resistance to this possibility highlights the discipline’s entrenched anthropocentrism rather than lack of evidence. Sociological study of the moral status of animals, based on the presence of the self, is warranted because our treatment of animals is connected with numerous “mainstream” sociological issues. As knowledge has brought other forms of oppression to light, it has also helped to challenge and transform oppressive conditions. Consequently, sociologists have an obligation to challenge speciesism as part of a larger system of oppression.

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Author Biography

Leslie Irvine, University of Colorado at Boulder, USA

Leslie Irvine is Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of Colorado, Boulder. Her courses include Animals and Society, Social Psychology, and Sociological Theory. She is the author of If You Tame Me: Understanding our Connection with Animals (2004; Temple University Press) and Codependent Forevermore: The Invention of Self in a Twelve Step Group (1999; University of Chicago Press). Her current research examines the impact of disasters on animals.

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