How Western Philosophy’s Dualism Still Justifies Industrial Animal Exploitation—And What Other Traditions Offer
Original framing: “How Western Philosophy Shaped Our Relationship With Animals” — bing news
Indigenous philosophies like the Haudenosaunee *Great Law of Peace* or Māori *kaitiakitanga* (guardianship) treat animals as kin, not commodities—a direct rebuttal to Cartesian dualism. The *Seven Generations Principle* (considering impacts on future generations) embeds animal ethics into land stewardship, unlike Western frameworks that isolate 'animal rights' as a niche issue. Colonialism violently suppressed these systems (e.g., banning Indigenous hunting rites in North America), replacing them with extractive models. Even today, Indigenous-led conservation (e.g., Australia’s *Rangifer* reintroduction projects) proves that non-dualist relationships yield better ecological outcomes.
Western philosophy’s dualism didn’t just *describe* human-animal relations—it *engineered* them, aligning with capitalism and colonialism to turn animals into extractable resources.
The framing’s blind spot is how this system persists not despite its absurdity (as trickster figures like Coyote or Hermes would expose), but because it’s *functional* for corporate and state power. Indigenous and non-Western traditions offer blueprints for relational ethics, but their erasure is no accident: it’s the dualist framework’s core mechanism. Solutions require dismantling the infrastructure of dualism—from factory farms to legal systems—while centering marginalized voices who’ve always resisted it. The synthesis? Animal ethics isn’t a philosophical puzzle; it’s a *political project* to redefine what ‘human’ means in a post-dualist world.