Montaigne's Argument - Speciesism

For animal rights activists, a common argument that is discussed throughout several centuries has been the idea of whether the human is really higher, smarter, and also better than all other living creatures such as animals.  A particular philosopher who thoroughly argued on this topic is Michel de Montaigne.

In his essays, Montaigne heavily criticized the nature of man's thinking, specifically its connection with animal relations.  Attributing speciesism to "human vanity", he claimed that humans placed themselves as "the only one[s] in this great edifice who [have] the capacity to recognize its beauty and its parts."  Montaigne believed this was the key to animal cruelty for he felt that within our vain and selfish thinking, we believed ourselves to be close to the "heavens" and therefore were equal to that of a god, much higher than any lower animal could suffice up to.  Montaigne attacks this argument by claiming that humans have no grounds to heavenly comparison whatsoever.  He questions in his essay, "when we see that not merely a man, nor a king, but kingdoms, empires, and all this world below move in step with the slightest movements of the heavens [...] and this comparison of them to us, comes [...] by their medium and their favor [...] how can our reason make us equal to heaven?"  In this, Montaigne points out the paradox of humans trying to compare our "celestial bodies" with that of the heavens, but yet admitting that the heavens themselves are allowing this accommodation to be placed upon the homo sapiens.  It is within this truth that Montaigne argues that humans therefore have no further abilities than that of animals, and where there is no control or further capabilities, there is no merit in the idea of humans being superior. 

Montaigne disputes another point within the animal vs. human debate, in which he claims that language barrier as well as different forms of intellectual knowledge helped form this idea of human superiority.  In conjunction with the moral thinking of human vanity, Montaigne claims that it is by this "same imagination" that draws humans to "distribute" the animals accordingly, based upon the knowledge of human intelligence.  Montaigne criticizes this way of logic by asking, "how does he know, by the force of his intelligence, the secret internal stirrings of animals?  By what comparison between them and us does he infer the stupidity that he attributes to them?"  These questions help dismantle human philosophy by referencing the clearly distinct ideas of what "intelligence" is within the animal kingdom and within the human kingdom.  The subject of language is also brought into question in Montaigne's essay by noting that due to no translation of any sort, it hinders the process of human to animal communication, in which it only becomes a matter of "guesswork" between the beings.  He argues that like humans, animals do not understand our human language and therefore can not respond nor accommodate to the humans' interest.  In this reasoning, he concludes that while we may consider animals "beasts" based upon their lack of human communication, animals within their own right may consider us "beasts" as well.  It is within this context that this relates back to Dr. Cardilla's lecture on the idea of the animals vs. human superiority debate, where Cardilla argues that humans are asking the wrong questions on animals, because they are asking questions in a human language and in a human context.

It is within these two categories, and more, that Montaigne disputes the idea of animal vs. human superiority within the species hierarchy world known as speciesism.  Though this is still a heavily debated topic, Montaigne's work is still heavily regarded today and has brought much attention to the ideas of animal rights as well as looking at animals in a more respected light.  It is within this essay that Montaigne brings upon an interesting inquiry that truly summarizes yet also questions the idea of animal intelligence vs. human intelligence within our speciesist world:

“When I play with my cat, who knows if I am not a pastime to her more than she is to me?”

Christopher Smith

Matthew Landry, Section C