Philosophy in the Wild: Finding Hope in Mixed Communities
A Travelogue
Everybody knows that you mustn’t give cookies to wildlife. So why on earth am I sending a “biscuit tin” to people working with dolphins, bats, eider ducks, seals, bison, foxes, pigeons, wolves and many other species, even whole ecosystems? Because … not all biscuits are created equal! And this tin has the special power to prompt inspiring philosophical and poetic conversations that may aid in improving our relations with wild living animals. Let me explain.
British philosopher Mary Midgley may be known to a number of people in the “animal world” as an early proponent of a multicriterial and relational approach to animal ethics. In her book Animals and Why They Matter, she uses the term ‘mixed community’ to introduce, if you like, “communitarian” or “political” ideas to animal ethics that were little explored at the time.
Today, animal studies scholars speak as a matter of course about the ‘zoopolis’ and animal politics. Yet Midgley emphasized already in 1983 that humans have, during the course of their evolution as one distinct species, never lived apart from other animals. Humans seem to be innately interested in other animals and have a special capacity for understanding many other species’ needs and interests. What is more, the very tools humans have developed to communicate with each other can to some extent aid in communicating with other animals. Sympathy, or what we today call empathy, for instance.
Of course, Midgley isn’t blind to the many ways in which non-human animals have historically been denied adequate recognition, care and, importantly, rights. But rather than just arguing for simple ‘anti-speciesism’ and ‘abolitionism’, approaches familiar from the mainstream ethics of utilitarianism and deontology at the time and still widespread to this day, she invites us to think about how we can transform communities made up of many species in such a way that all members stand to truly benefit. I will return to what this can mean in practice.
Let me first mention a perhaps lesser known fact about Mary Midgley. Whenever someone came to her to “do philosophy”, they weren’t just offered tea or coffee, but also biscuits from a tin Midgley herself had decorated. (I am told that, on occasion, her hospitability towards students went so far, she even offered pizza and Monty Python.) Now, this biscuit tin was at the center of countless conversations between Midgley — whose thought ranged widely, from metaphysics to ethics, from science to religion, from questions of gender to metaphilosophical ones. After her death in 2018, the Midgley family gifted this tin to (Women) In Parenthesis — a research network dedicated to preserving the philosophical heritage of not just Midgley herself, but also of her fellows during her time in Oxford: Iris Murdoch, Elizabeth Anscombe and Philippa Foot. In keeping with Midgley’s outgoing and often entertaining style, combining wisdom and wit in equal measure, (Women) In Parenthesis decided to send this biscuit tin on a global voyage — to facilitate conversations between philosophers and poets in 12 countries between 2019 and 2021. Thus, the project Notes from a Biscuit Tin was born and covered the whole range of Midgley’s thinking.
At the time, I facilitated its German stop (though from lockdown in London). German poet Ulrike Draesner and I discussed one of Midgley’s early papers “The Concept of Beastliness” (1973). It is something like a germ cell of her philosophy, introducing a range of concerns that will remain central to her work. One is her concern with human nature and her insistence that humans are not just “like” animals, but that they are animals. Midgley also insists that philosophy needs to remain in conversation with ethology and other sciences that can dispel the myth about “the animal” per se, understood as the “beast” incarnate. This is so important to her because an antagonistic view of ‘humanity’ and ‘animality’ is really rather deleterious for how we understand ourselves! In contrast, she encourages us to focus on the positive and open instincts that are really part and parcel of human nature — caring, friendship, loyalty, or sociality. These exist not just somewhat alongside what she calls “negative open instincts”, like aggression, but, importantly, in a complex interplay with them. Finally, on her view, both classes of instincts can be shaped to some extent. In fact, this is not just an option but it happens no matter what, which is why Midgley focuses on the conditions of social life that are important for people to be able to structure their lives in meaningful ways as a matter of course. Communities matter.
And other animals matter, too, because we are animals, too. That is what we have in common. I have always disliked an understanding of animal ethics as one branch of “applied” ethics that would be of special interest to perhaps animal lovers and veterinarians. We are doing us and other animals a disservice if we compartmentalize our thinking like that. Midgley is really a wonderful exception to that trend and is slowly but surely receiving the acknowledgement she deserves. As you see, I am a fan. So, when a few years later, I was invited to curate another global voyage of the tin, I didn’t hesitate a second. This time, the plan was to make the tin roam more widely even, working title: “Philosophy in the Wild”, but deep dive into one of her concerns: “Mixed Communities” — and finding hope in them.
After my habilitation and second book, Passionate Animals, I had moved on from themes like farmed animals and animal experimentation and concentrated on Solidarity with Animals and wild animals in particular. I had also been following developments in all things multispecies art and anthrozoological endeavors, so I had immediately many ideas where to send this tin and how to give this a creative spin. The biscuit tin was to be turned into an anthrozoological vasculum and instead of just page poetry, it would prompt the creation of multispecies poetry.
An anthrozoological what, you may wonder? A vasculum is a type of container used in botanical fieldwork, somewhat gone out of fashion, but 19th century naturalists regularly used them to collect plant specimens without having to press them on site. In our anthrozoological usage, it is a container designated to collect proofs that humans can live in non-exploitative ways with wild living animals. Since the historical biscuit tin was considered an object of cultural value and unfit to travel the world again, Women in Parenthesis acquired this beauty:
… and sent it on its way from the United Kingdom to Norway, France, The Netherlands, Romania, Austria, Denmark, Brazil, the United States, India, the Czech Republic, Ireland and back again. You can find all stops and more information here, on our website — it truly has grown into a massive project, with close to 30 people passionate about wild living animals collaborating, often working with young audiences also. All human-animal-relations portrayed fall into at least one of three categories:
Biological evolved mutualism: as in the mutual benefits of eider keepers and eiders in using man-made sheltered nesting sites on the coast of Norway, collaborative hunting practices of bottlenose dolphins on the coast of Brazil, or the community living arrangements between free-ranging dogs (streeties) and local people in India.
Culturally and politically evolved reparations: as in the case of rewilding of European bison in Romania, restoration of farmland as a Natura 2000 site in France, or rehabilitating native bats as done by the Austrian Bat Station.
Culturally/artistically and/or politically evolving futuristic interventions: as in philosophical-pedagogical interventions on behalf of “non-charismatic species” in Galway, architectural interventions to facilitate cohabitation with local carnivores in Denmark, or creatively listening to the needs of marine creatures like seals in Wales.
PAN members are also involved in two cases: Fran Santiago-Ávila is collaborating with Greg McElwain on the — currently stalled — National Wolf Conversation; and Barbara J. King has liaised with Josh Zeman, the director of the documentary “Checkpoint Zoo” so that we can include reflections on aiding captive wild animals in times of war. Sounds messy? That’s because it is. Truly zooming in on our complex relations with wild living animals in our mixed communities requires more than utopian (or, depending on where you stand, dystopian) flights of the philosophical imagination into predation-free worlds, in which humans and other animals have parted ways forever.
To honor Midgley’s view that good philosophy needs to combine the qualities of poetry and the law, you can find more information about the role of poetry as well as about some of the legal dimension of our work on my Substack — which is also where all teams are (being) introduced with their work and where you can offer your bi(scui)t of wisdom in the comments if you feel like it. It would be lovely if you joined the conversation.
Mara-Daria Cojocaru, PD Dr. phil., is a London-based, award-winning poet and pragmatist philosopher from Germany, and Fellow and Virtual Writer in Residence at PAN Works. In her poetry, she is pioneering multispecies cocreation, in her philosophical research and teaching, she is experimenting with animal-informed approaches. Having always harbored an interest in public philosophy, she is currently developing her Substack Philosophy Going Wild (@thedrynosedprimate), where she is covering the second installment of Notes from a Biscuit Tin in more detail.
Nicole Roberts is the Associate Editor for PAN Works and provided editorial support for this essay.
Please visit PAN Works for more about our work on ethics and animal wellbeing.
