Before the Law: Humans and Other Animals in a Biopolitical Frame

by Cary Wolfe

Animal studies and biopolitics are two of the most dynamic areas of interdisciplinary scholarship, but until now, they have had little to say to each other. Bringing these two emergent areas of thought into direct conversation in Before the Law , Cary Wolfe fosters a new discussion about the status of nonhuman animals and the shared plight of humans and animals under biopolitics.

 

Wolfe argues that the human­­­-animal distinction must be supplemented with the central distinction of the difference between those animals that are members of a community and those that are deemed killable but not murderable. From this understanding, we can begin to make sense of the fact that this distinction prevails within both the human and animal domains and address such difficult issues as why we afford some animals unprecedented levels of care and recognition while subjecting others to unparalleled forms of brutality and exploitation. Engaging with many major figures in biopolitical thought—from Heidegger, Arendt, and Foucault to Agamben, Esposito, and Derrida—Wolfe explores how biopolitics can help us understand both the ethical and political dimensions of the current questions surrounding the rights of animals.

Genres: Philosophy, Animals, Academic, Nonfiction

152 pages, Paperback

First published December 3, 2012

Reviews

[A. Redact · Rating 2 out of 5]

Insufferable. Wolfe, enraptured in the increasingly vacant poetics of the continental discussion of "the animal," spends nearly 110 pages reconstructing other's arguments (and, even worse, other's reconstructions of _those_ arguments) without saying much. We get a sketch of two branches of biopolitics (one via Agamben, the other via Foucault) that Wolfe essentially traces from the work of other scholars, especially Roberto Esposito and Dominick LaCapra. We get a critique of rearguard humanists like Zizek and Badiou, also lifted from others. We get an oversimplified gloss of what a few analytic philosophers have said about animal ethics, this time unfortunately without the aid of any other, more focused scholars. We get the unavoidable and practically unreadable lecture on Luhmann and systems theory.

Mostly we get an unfocused pinging from one continental neologism to another, weaving together a dense network of overly stylized and opaque concepts, standing as a testament to philosophical cleverness and little else. Whenever Wolfe lets the jargon rest, we see through to the basically superficial level of analysis that the essay actually offers. For example, dozens of pages are spent crossing and recrossing the status of what analytic philosophers would just call moral standing and then get on with it. Wolfe's conclusion, that the capacity to respond or evaluate is what grants moral standing, comes as less than an epiphany to anyone familiar with the problems of animal ethics. His further conclusion that this capacity to respond cannot be isolated to any intentional subjective capacities, but instead emerges from an interaction between life as a "whom" and as a "what" is both obvious and infuriating, given the death march of what can politely only be called 'figurative' and 'suggestive' continental concepts that he puts the reader through. Anyone familiar with the Hegelian dialectic, first, hell any, generation of Critical Theory, or the basic scientific discoveries of neuroplasticity, will be seriously underwhelmed by the big reveal that it's not just your mind or your body, subject or object, but the *gasp* interaction between them! that grounds our capacity to respond. And, even bigger shocker, this isn't limited to human beings.

His criticism of Zizek, Badiou, Butler et al feels hollow and simplistic. Zizek, Badiou, and Butler are charged with a conservative humanism because they reject and are disturbed by the reduction of human agency and dignity in the conditions of precarity and vulnerability found in places like refugee camps. According to Wolfe, Z, B, & B are not really opposed to the rise of humanitarianism, they are afraid of the animality that is revealed in those human populations exposed to the vulnerability of the refugee camp. What Wolfe seems to miss is the possibility that, without denying or denigrating human animality, we may see something wrong with the collapse of human agency\dignity under the conditions of humanitarian aid. Human beings are animals, but that doesn't mean that it's acceptable to treat them as a helpless herd.

Perhaps the most frustrating part of "Before the Law," more than its derivative or superficial nature, is the sense that it could have been a valuable contribution. Wolfe has moments of insight, even, or maybe especially, when he is interweaving the insights of other thinkers. But too often he seems to end the discussion prematurely, leaving us with a suggestive rather than substantive conclusion. The hard work always seems to wait at the end of each chapter, never resolved or returned to.

[Margaryta · Rating 3 out of 5]

This isn't the kind of book you just dive into without having read all of the theory that Wolfe engages with, especially since he not only references arguments made by Derrida, Agamben, and Foucault, but also to arguments made by those interpreted and themselves engaged in a debate with these theorists. This is not an issue of the book, more a struggle I had as someone not versed in philosophy and therefore having to try and keep the chain of thought in my mind while reading.

[Aaron Thomas · Rating 4 out of 5]

I thought this was exciting and challenging, and Wolfe's use of biopolitics to think through the distinction between "what calls itself man and what he calls the animal" is fascinating and opens up new ways of thinking the crisis of factory farming, environmental destruction, and our relationships with non-human animals. Every single chapter reveals powerful insights.

[Martin Rowe · Rating 4 out of 5]

Challenging and yet very suggestive and thoughtful, BEFORE THE LAW places certain dimensions of twentieth-century continental philosophy in juxtaposition with the larger legal and political frameworks of society's attitudes towards certain animals. The book is heavy on theory and devoted mainly to Wolfe's reading of the texts of these philosophers, who are themselves mainly readers of the texts of other philosophers, and one might wish for more analysis of the concrete realities for the animals in industrialized farming (all too rarely touched on by Wolfe). The book merits more than one reading, especially for those not familiar with the language of continental philosophy.

[Jed Mayer · Rating 3 out of 5]

Theoretically rich, self-indulgently dense exploration of the politics of life and death, human and animal.