The Ethics of Animals in Adorno and Kafka

Gerhardt, Christina

doi:10.1215/0094033x-2005-009

Cited by 11 publications

(6 citation statements)

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“…Finally, after a literally torturous journey, he arrives in Europe able to ape being human and is given a choice between the circus and zoo. He chooses the circus as he recognises, by this point, that the zoo is a gilded cage and the choice a deception (Gerhardt, 2006). At least in a circus he will have the illusion of freedom.…”

Section: Responses To the Call Of Nonhuman Othersmentioning

confidence: 99%

A report to an academy: On carnophallogocentrism, pigs and meat-writing

Sayers

2016

Organization

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How can organisational studies theory respond to the call of nonhuman animals? This article argues there is ‘too much humanism’ in organisational studies and defines the problem as originating in language practices. The example of factory-farmed pigs is used to illustrate the argument. Derrida’s term carnophallogocentrism is used to suggest that ethical thinking about the animal be moved from face-to-face encounters through the eyes to the mouth and that by adopting methods used in literature and ‘feminist dog-writing’ ways can be found to co-constitute human and nonhuman species in academic writing practices. The term meat-writing is offered as a practice of challenging carnophallogocentrism.

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Section: Responses To the Call Of Nonhuman Othersmentioning

confidence: 99%

A report to an academy: On carnophallogocentrism, pigs and meat-writing

Sayers

2016

Organization

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“…-Theodor W. Adorno (1974:228) More than any other school of social theory prior to the formation of animal studies, the thinkers associated with Frankfurt, Germany's Institute of Social Research (the "Frankfurt School") 1 theorized and problematized society's troubling relationship with animals. Other authors have begun to write explicitly about the Frankfurt School's views on human-animal relations (Bell 2010;Mendieta 2010) and animal ethics (Gerhardt 2006(Gerhardt , 2010Nelson 2011). 2 For early critical theory, society's relationship Here, I show how the Frankfurt School explored the various manifestations of the "unrelenting exploitation" animals have experienced in human systems and lifeworlds, and why they claimed that the domination of animals is intimately linked to the domination of human beings, especially of women and racial and ethnic minorities.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This endeavor was not only uncharacteristic of their intellectual climate but largely foreign to sociology as a discipline. Other authors have begun to write explicitly about the Frankfurt School's views on human-animal relations (Bell 2010;Mendieta 2010) and animal ethics (Gerhardt 2006(Gerhardt , 2010Nelson 2011). 3 I contribute to this relatively new conversation by providing a complete yet concise depiction of their anthrozoology by systematically compiling their writings about animals in human society and their views on compassion for animals from their entire corpus (excluding German works that have remained untranslated).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The First-generation Frankfurt School on the Animal Question

Gunderson

2014

Sociological Perspectives

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Well before the now flourishing field of animal studies, the thinkers associated with Frankfurt, Germany's Institute of Social Research theorized and problematized society's troubling relationship with animals. Early critical theory explored the various manifestations of "unrelenting exploitation" animals have experienced in human societies and maintained that the domination of animals is intimately linked to the domination of human beings, especially of women and racial and ethnic minorities. They criticized Western thought for instrumentalist attitudes toward animals and were committed to extending compassion to animals. Max Horkheimer, Theodor W. Adorno, and Herbert Marcuse mount four challenges to sociologists today: (1) to unmask the shared forms of domination experienced by both animals and marginalized human beings, (2) for environmental sociologists to make animals a principle subject of investigation, (3) for sociological animal studies scholars to engage with philosophy, and (4) to adopt a critical and normative sociological perspective when studying human-animal relations.

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“…In Christina Gerhardt's fascinating essay ‘The Ethics of Animals in Adorno and Kafka’, we find the following, in this context, helpful observation: ‘the lesson that Adorno had picked up on from Schopenhauer—to have compassion for animals […] yield[s] up the insight that animals […] may be the source of a profound humanity, an ‘animal humanity’. (Gerhardt : 174).…”

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confidence: 99%

‘The Zone of the Carcass and the Knacker'—On Adorno's Concern with the Suffering Body

Peters¹

2013

European J of Philosophy

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Adorno's moral philosophy is famously problematic. One of the main reasons for this is that it revolves around the moral addendum: a physical impulse of solidarity with suffering beings that, he argues, cannot and should not be rationalized. I show that, since this moral addendum remains vague and since Adorno's radical negativity forces him to dismiss as uncritical all other approaches to morality, he deliberately places his thought in danger of relapsing into irrationality. Most commentators therefore disagree about the manner in which Adorno's references to the moral addendum can be translated into a moral theory. In this paper, I bring in some often overlooked material to form a more complete overview of the issues at hand and to adjudicate this contested area. I do this by briefly discussing Schopenhauer's moral observations on Mitleid and by focusing on Adorno's references to animal cruelty and corporeality. Although this interpretation stays close to Adorno's observations on the moral addendum, it forces us to accept that his moral philosophy is rather weak. I conclude, however, that this weakness reflects a disturbing aspect of reality and in that sense has critical value.

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The Ethics of Animals in Adorno and Kafka

Cited by 11 publications

References 0 publications

A report to an academy: On carnophallogocentrism, pigs and meat-writing

A report to an academy: On carnophallogocentrism, pigs and meat-writing

The First-generation Frankfurt School on the Animal Question

‘The Zone of the Carcass and the Knacker'—On Adorno's Concern with the Suffering Body

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