Environmental Philosophy

Volume 6, Issue 2, Fall 2009

The Silence That Can Speak
Nature, Ethics, and Interspecies Cosmopolitics

This article looks at the question of animality and silence in terms of developing a theory of interspecies cosmopolitics based on ecological dissensus. By starting with the author’s own experiences taking care of chickens, this article engages the question of environmental ethics within the gastronomic axis, the web of life that binds all beings in the shared need to eat. By examining the philosophical roots of silence and abjectness that often characterizes the animal, the author argues for an ecologically oriented celebration of bare life as a means of recognizing silence as a form of politics that moves beyond the human.