The Harvard Review of Philosophy

For the last two decades, the world has seen the rise of China. With its rise, unfortunately, has come the fall, retreat, and demise of some animals and animal species. China is often singled out for special attention in terms of animal destruction and endangerment. With an increasingly globalized economy and world, we now have a globalized wildlife crisis. This essay focuses on the exploitation of wild animals in China. It argues that the plight of wildlife in China stems from an underlying position in Chinese culture that animals are instruments for human benefits, and such an instrumentalist approach has always dominated the Chinese landscape. This is the case despite the fact that animals and humans are considered to be organically connected in the moral universe in Chinese traditional philosophy in contrast to the segregated approach to humans and non-humans in Western philosophical traditions. It is suggested that to achieve substantive progress in the protection of wildlife and other animals in China, a fundamental change of thinking and acting toward animals by the Chinese to recognize the intrinsic value of animals would be imperative.

This piece is an edited transcript of a dialogue between Professor Shih Chaohwei of Hsuan Chuang University in Taiwan and Professor Peter Singer of Princeton University in the United States and the University of Melbourne in Australia. The dialogue features considerations of various points of interaction between the Buddhist and utilitarian perspectives on animals. We hope that this conversation can serve to open a dialogue between seemingly very different philosophical traditions with regards to the treatment of animals.