{"title":"想想(野猫):野性、生物力量和捕食的伦理","authors":"Nicholas Holm","doi":"10.1163/15685306-bja10006","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"\nCats confound clear distinctions: not least that between the human and natural worlds. As a consequence, they are prime examples of “ferality”: a category of nonhuman subjects who are neither domestic, nor wild, but instead move between those realms. It is argued that that potential for movement informs particular social anxieties and debates that emerge regarding cat hunting behaviors. Drawing on the biopolitical work of Michel Foucault, in conjunction with the ethical paradox of the “predator problem,” it is argued that the ethical indictment of cat predation is best understood as a consequence of cats’ abilities to move across the different regulatory and ethical spaces of the home and the wild. Ferality thus functions as a means by which human ethics are brought to bear on nonhuman nature, and predation is thereby framed as an unnecessary, “unnatural,” and even evil act.","PeriodicalId":22000,"journal":{"name":"Society & Animals","volume":" ","pages":"1-17"},"PeriodicalIF":0.6000,"publicationDate":"2020-04-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"2","resultStr":"{\"title\":\"Consider the (Feral) Cat: Ferality, Biopower, and the Ethics of Predation\",\"authors\":\"Nicholas Holm\",\"doi\":\"10.1163/15685306-bja10006\",\"DOIUrl\":null,\"url\":null,\"abstract\":\"\\nCats confound clear distinctions: not least that between the human and natural worlds. As a consequence, they are prime examples of “ferality”: a category of nonhuman subjects who are neither domestic, nor wild, but instead move between those realms. It is argued that that potential for movement informs particular social anxieties and debates that emerge regarding cat hunting behaviors. Drawing on the biopolitical work of Michel Foucault, in conjunction with the ethical paradox of the “predator problem,” it is argued that the ethical indictment of cat predation is best understood as a consequence of cats’ abilities to move across the different regulatory and ethical spaces of the home and the wild. Ferality thus functions as a means by which human ethics are brought to bear on nonhuman nature, and predation is thereby framed as an unnecessary, “unnatural,” and even evil act.\",\"PeriodicalId\":22000,\"journal\":{\"name\":\"Society & Animals\",\"volume\":\" \",\"pages\":\"1-17\"},\"PeriodicalIF\":0.6000,\"publicationDate\":\"2020-04-27\",\"publicationTypes\":\"Journal Article\",\"fieldsOfStudy\":null,\"isOpenAccess\":false,\"openAccessPdf\":\"\",\"citationCount\":\"2\",\"resultStr\":null,\"platform\":\"Semanticscholar\",\"paperid\":null,\"PeriodicalName\":\"Society & Animals\",\"FirstCategoryId\":\"97\",\"ListUrlMain\":\"https://doi.org/10.1163/15685306-bja10006\",\"RegionNum\":4,\"RegionCategory\":\"农林科学\",\"ArticlePicture\":[],\"TitleCN\":null,\"AbstractTextCN\":null,\"PMCID\":null,\"EPubDate\":\"\",\"PubModel\":\"\",\"JCR\":\"Q4\",\"JCRName\":\"SOCIOLOGY\",\"Score\":null,\"Total\":0}","platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Society & Animals","FirstCategoryId":"97","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1163/15685306-bja10006","RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"农林科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q4","JCRName":"SOCIOLOGY","Score":null,"Total":0}
Consider the (Feral) Cat: Ferality, Biopower, and the Ethics of Predation
Cats confound clear distinctions: not least that between the human and natural worlds. As a consequence, they are prime examples of “ferality”: a category of nonhuman subjects who are neither domestic, nor wild, but instead move between those realms. It is argued that that potential for movement informs particular social anxieties and debates that emerge regarding cat hunting behaviors. Drawing on the biopolitical work of Michel Foucault, in conjunction with the ethical paradox of the “predator problem,” it is argued that the ethical indictment of cat predation is best understood as a consequence of cats’ abilities to move across the different regulatory and ethical spaces of the home and the wild. Ferality thus functions as a means by which human ethics are brought to bear on nonhuman nature, and predation is thereby framed as an unnecessary, “unnatural,” and even evil act.
期刊介绍:
Society & Animals publishes studies that describe and analyze our experiences of non-human animals from the perspective of various disciplines within both the Social Sciences (e.g., psychology, sociology, anthropology, political science) and the Humanities (e.g., history, literary criticism).
The journal specifically deals with subjects such as human-animal interactions in various settings (animal cruelty, the therapeutic uses of animals), the applied uses of animals (research, education, medicine and agriculture), the use of animals in popular culture (e.g. dog-fighting, circus, animal companion, animal research), attitudes toward animals as affected by different socializing agencies and strategies, representations of animals in literature, the history of the domestication of animals, the politics of animal welfare, and the constitution of the animal rights movement.