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Chelsea S. Harry, prófessor í heimspeki við Southern Connecticut University, heldur fyrirlestur á vegum Heimspekistofnunar um heimspeki Aristótelsar um skynjun ómennskra dýra og hvernig þau dafna.
Efni erindisins lýsir hún með svofelldum hætti:
This talk explores the possibility of non-human animal flourishing in Aristotelian non-human animal teleology, or the relationship between animal form and function in Aristotle’s psychology and biology. Whereas Aristotle’s ethical works concerning human character are still consulted for their enduring and perennial wisdom today, his biological and psychological works have been neglected as a potential source for extrapolating an environmental ethic or, more specifically, an argument for non-human animal flourishing, which could then be used as a ground whence to propose fair treatment of non-human animals in a contemporary context. The benefit of starting such an account with an Aristotelian foundation is that Aristotle had a unique method by which knowing, as opposed to profiting from, other beings was the chief goal of his biological and theoretical investigations. In addition, Aristotle was keenly interested generally not only in function, but in functioning well. My provisional claim, then, is that, for Aristotle, distant sensing in many complex non-human animals is an activity of the sensitive soul not just meant for instrumental ends, e.g., survival, catching prey, etc., but also to be an end in itself and thus the chief function by which these animals can indeed flourish. This is to say that non-human animals have cognitive faculties that are not simply in service to base requirements for life; these faculties allow non-human animals to flourish in a sense analogous to human flourishing vis-à-vis intellective engagement and employment of the rational faculty.
