Gaius Plinius Secundus (23–79 CE), called the Elder to distinguish him from his similarly named nephew, is the compiler of a thirty-seven volume encyclopedia called Naturalis Historia (Natural History), a work that he himself claims contains material drawn from 2000 written sources. A valuable and fascinating depository of facts (and fictions) on subjects as far-reaching as agriculture, metallurgy, botany and art history, Pliny’s work includes four books (VIII–XI) on zoological topics, although animals are discussed in various contexts throughout the work, in par-ticular in books XXVIII–XXXII on pharmaceuticals derived from animal prod-ucts. While it would be a gross exaggeration to call Pliny a naturalist in the manner of Aristotle or Theophrastus, it is nevertheless possible to divine some view of the place of animals in the scheme of creation embedded in his innumerable accounts of miraculous deeds and characteristics of animals. He agreed with Aristotle that animals were intended by nature to serve man’s needs, but he abhorred mis-treatment of animals by humans. He denied reason to animals but he frequently recounted anecdotes in which animals are shown to have behaviors analogous to those of humans. In the excerpt that follows, he suggests that some animals have religious sensibilities because certain species demonstrate behaviors that resemble those of humans at worship. He contradicts a number of ancient assertions that only man has religious sensibilities (for example, Xenophon, Memorabilia I. 4. 13;
Plato, Protagoras 322a; Cicero, Laws I. 8. 24). Pliny’s formulation of the issue leaves him open to the charge of anthropomorphization that is frequently leveled against modern ethologists – specialists in animal behavior, who seek to suggest that ani-mals have moral qualities evident in human beings.
Similarities between Humans and Animals
Let us pass to the remaining animals, and first to the land-dwellers. The elephant is the largest and the closest to humans in intelligence (sensibus). Indeed, [it demonstrates]
understanding of the language used in its homeland, obedience to orders, recollection of what is has learned, pleasure in affection and fame, goodness, discretion and fair-ness (which are rare even in a human being), as well as reverence for the stars and ven-eration of the sun and moon. Authorities report that in the woodlands of Mauretania, herds of them come to a particular river whose name is Amilo at the time when the new moon is bright, and, purifying themselves, they sprinkle themselves with water and thus, after greeting the moon, they return to the forests, carrying their weary calves in front of them. They are believed, due to their understanding of the religious scruples of others, to be unwilling to climb on board ships when they are about to cross the seas until they have been enticed by the oath of their masters promising their return. They have been observed, when weary from sickness (illnesses beset even those with huge bodies) to lie on their backs and toss grasses to heaven, as if the earth were bound by their entreaties. As far as concerns their docility, they reverence their king by bending their knee and offering him garlands. The smaller ones, which they call the bastard elephant, are employed by the Indians for ploughing.
(Natural History VIII. 1)
7. Plutarch
In his dialogue De sollertia animalium (On the Cleverness of Animals), Plutarch’s inter-locutors Aristotimus and Phaedimus debate the relative degree of “cleverness”
exhibited by land-dwelling and sea-dwelling animals, with Aristotimus maintain-ing the intellectual superiority of land-dwellers and Phaedimus that of sea-dwellers.
Ultimately, neither side proves victorious in the debate as all animals are declared to possess “cleverness.” In the passage from On the Cleverness of Animals translated below, Phaedimus, at the outset of his comments, argues that it is much more difficult to make a case for the cleverness of sea-dwelling species because they are so seldom observable to the human eye and consequently seem alien to human beings, while land-dwelling species are likely to strike humans as more like them because of their physical proximity to humans which serves to render them more
“akin” to humans in manners and lifestyle through an imitation of human habits.
In so arguing, Phaedimus makes an oblique allusion to the doctrine of oikeio¯sis,
“kinship, belonging,” which Plutarch, in contrast to the Stoics, believed to exist between human and non-human animals, both land- and sea-dwellers. Plutarch ends the passage by stressing that any lack of “kinship” between humans and sea-dwelling species is only apparent and is occasioned solely by their marine existence and not by their nature itself.
The treatise De Stoicorum repugnantiis (On the Self-Contradictions of the Stoics) seeks to point out absurdities in the philosophical system of Stoicism, and in the work, Plutarch repeatedly singles out the influential early Stoic Chrysippus (see pp. 3–4) for censure. Here he notes the prominent place that the doctrine of oikeio¯sis had in the writings of Chrysippus. Plutarch’s elucidation of the Chrysippean under-standing of the doctrine demonstrates that, in Stoic parlance, such kinship existed between human and human and between animal and animal but not between human and animal. Plutarch’s case for a debt of justice toward non-human ani-mals on the part of human beings set forth in On the Cleverness of Aniani-mals depends in part upon a demonstration of interspecies kinship based on intellectual “kinship.”
Land-Dwelling Animals Are Most Akin to Humans
PHAEDIMUS: And yet there is nothing to stand in the way of [our taking] examples from land animals, since the land lies completely open to study by the senses. But the sea allows just a few stingy glimpses, and covers over the births, rearing, attacks and defenses of most of her inhabitants, among which not a few examples of understand-ing (suneseo¯s) and memory and fellowship are hidden and hinder our argument. Also, land animals, because of the relatedness of their nature [to that of human beings] and their closeness of habitation, somehow benefit from their upbringing and teaching and imitation, by virtue of their contact with human customs. This contact sweetens all their bitterness and gloominess, as river water sweetens seawater, and all their dense-ness of understanding and dulldense-ness are invigorated by interaction with humans. But the life of sea-dwellers, because it is removed from intercourse with humans by great boundaries and is alien and in no way akin to human life, is distinct and indigenous and
unrelated and unmixed with customs alien to it because of location and not because of nature.
(On the Cleverness of Animals 975E–F)
Chrysippus Defines the Stoic Theory of “Kinship” (oikeio¯ sis)
And likewise [Chrysippus] in the following words states that nothing is akin (oikeion) to or appropriate to the base man, “Just as nothing is foreign to the well-bred man, so is nothing akin (oikeion) to the base man, since the latter sort of thing (that which is akin) is a good thing while the former (that which is foreign) is bad.” By Zeus, why does he, in every book about physics and ethics, bore us by writing that as soon as we are born we are akin to one another and to our bodily parts and our offspring? In the first book of his On Justice, he says that even beasts in like measure have such affinity to their offspring in accord with their needs, excepting fish whose embryos are self-nourishing.
But there is neither sensation among those creatures to which nothing is sensible nor kinship (oikeio¯sis) among those to which nothing is akin, since kinship seems to be the apprehension of that which is akin.
(De Stoicorum repugnantiis [On the Self-Contradictions of the Stoics] 1038B)
8. Porphyry
The third book of Porphyry’s lengthy treatise De abstinentia (On Abstinence from Animal Flesh) is given over to an elaborate defense of the position that human beings owe a debt of justice to non-human animals, both because animals are, like humans, endowed with reason and because they understand justice and practice it in their own lives. The passage below is rich in ideas central to Porphyry’s argument for justice toward animals: he alludes to the Stoic doctrine of oikeio¯sis by chastising the absurdity of those who would admit that animals possess some degree of rational-ity but would still deny them any kinship with human beings, and he brings up the question of contracts (sunthe¯ kai), the importance of which we have observed in the Epicurean denial of justice toward animals (see Selection 3 on pp. 28–29), arguing that we would not conclude that humans who do not form contracts with us are consequently irrational, so that, by implication, we should not conclude that ani-mals that behave similarly are necessarily irrational. Porphyry’s ingenious argu-ment that the very presence of vices in animals proves their rationality since vice is a failure to heed reason would be rejected by the Stoics who held that animals cannot choose to be either virtuous or vicious because they cannot live their lives in accord with reason in the first place.
Animals Are Akin to Humans because They Are Rational
But someone might say that [animals] are rational but do not possess any relationship to us. Yet it was because of their being irrational that they removed their relationship to us. They make them irrational since they … And there is the [position] of those who derive our association with animals from need, not from reason. But we proposed to show whether they are rational, not whether they form covenants (suntheka¯s) with us.
No one would say that, because not every man forms a covenant with us, he who does not is therefore irrational. And yet most animals are slaves to human beings and, as someone rightly said, although they are enslaved from the ignorance of human beings, still, because of their wisdom (sophia¯s) and justice (dikaiosune¯s), they have made their masters into their underlings and caretakers. Their vices are obvious, in consequence of which their rationality is revealed most clearly, for they exhibit jealousy and rivalries over females, just as the females do over the males. But the one vice that they do not exhibit is treachery toward someone of goodwill, but they demonstrate goodwill in each instance themselves. They have so little fear of a person of goodwill that they follow him even if he leads them to slaughter and manifest danger. And too they feel goodwill toward their owner even if he feeds them not for their own sake but rather out of his own interests. But humans conspire against no one so much as against him who nourishes them, and they pray for no one’s death so much as for his.
(On Abstinence from Animal Flesh III. 13. 1–3)
Suggestions for Further Reading 1. Aristotle
Dierauer, Tier und Mensch 155–157.
Sorabji 134–138. Sorabji offers a discussion of the part played by Politics 1256b13–26 and related Aristotelian texts in the debate concerning the colonization of the New World by Spain and in the treatment of New World populations following their subjugation by Europeans.
2. Diogenes Laertius
Becchi, Francesco, “Biopsicologia e Giustizia verso gli Animali in Teofrasto e Plutarco,”
Prometheus 27 (2001) 119–135. This study maintains that Plutarch employed material from Theophrastus to argue that one can be both just and pious toward animals.
Brink, C.O.,“Οι’κει′ωσις and Οι’κειο′της: Theophrastus and Zeno on Moral Theory,”
Phronesis 1 (1955–56) 123–145. Brink considers the Theophrastean contribution to oikeio¯sis theory to be exaggerated and the importance of the idea to Stoic ethics to be overstated by scholars.
Dirlmeier, Franz, “Die Oikeiosis-Lehre Theophrasts,” Philologus Supplementband 30 (1937) 1–100. This is the most influential argument for Theophrastean influence on the devel-opment of subsequent oikeio¯sis theory.
Obbink, Dirk, “The Origin of Greek Sacrifice: Theophrastus on Religion and Cultural History,” in William W. Fortenbaugh and Robert W. Sharples, eds, Theophrastean Studies on Natural Science, Physics and Metaphysics, Ethics, Religion, and Rhetoric (New Brunswick: Transaction Books, 1988) 272–295. Obbink speculates on the structure of Theophrastus’ lost treatise On Piety, and declares it valuable as a Peripatetic vision of the doctrine of oikeio¯sis.
Pembroke, S.G., “Oikeio¯sis,” in A.A. Long, ed., Problems in Stoicism (London: Athlone Press, 1971) 114–149. This chapter offers valuable discussion of the etymology of the term oikeio¯sis.
Striker, Gisela, “The Role of Oikeiosis in Stoic Ethics,” OSAPh 1 (1983) 145–167. Striker discusses the connection of the concept of oikeio¯sis with Stoic notions of the origins of justice.
3. Epicurus
DeLacy, Phillip, “The Epicurean Analysis of Language,” AJPh 60 (1939) 85–92. DeLacy argues that the Epicureans took a practical view of language as a tool arising from con-vention and necessity, and that they scorned poetic and metaphorical language as unsci-entific and useless.
Dierauer, Tier und Mensch 194–198.
Gauthier, David P., Morals by Agreement (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1986). This volume sets forth a modern ethical system based on contract theory.
Huby, Pamela M., “The Epicureans, Animals, and Freewill,” Apeiron 3 (1969) 17–19. Huby demonstrates that the Epicureans seem to have accorded freewill to humans but not to animals.
Mitsis, Phillip, Epicurus’ Ethical Theory: The Pleasures of Invulnerability (Ithaca: Cornell, 1988).
Mitsis offers an extended discussion of the part played by contract forming in Epicurean ethics, although without specific reference to animals.
4. Lucretius
Budiansky, Stephen, The Covenant of the Wild: Why Animals Choose Domestication (New York:
William Morrow, 1992). Budiansky develops at length the position advanced in the fifth book of Lucretius that domestication of animals happened naturally in a manner that benefitted human and non-human species by providing both with useful services and protecting both from danger and want.
Shelton, Jo-Ann, “Contracts with Animals: Lucretius, De Rerum Natura,” Between the Species 11 (1995) 115–121. Shelton argues that the interspecies contract formation that Lucretius envisions helped humans to achieve the pleasure that is the goal of the Epicurean system by reducing anxiety among humans who were provided with services that bettered human life.
——, “Lucretius on the Use and Abuse of Animals,” Eranos 94 (1996) 48–64. This article maintains that human beings produce for themselves the pleasure that Epicureans cov-eted by being willing to fulfill obligations toward some animals while secluding them-selves from other animal species.
5. Philo of Alexandria
Newmyer, “Philo on Animal Psychology: Sources and Implications.” This study touches upon ways in which Philo manages to incorporate articles of Jewish faith into the Stoic-influenced dialogue On Animals.
Terian, Abraham, “A Critical Introduction to Philo’s Dialogues,” ANRW II. 21, 1 (1984) 272–294. Terian demonstrates that although Philo makes no direct use of scriptural material in On Animals, the anthropocentric slant of Scripture clearly influenced his asser-tion that to equate humans and animals is sacrilegious.
6. Pliny the Elder
Beagon, Mary, Roman Nature: The Thought of Pliny the Elder (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992).
Beagon offers a valuable appreciation of Pliny as a philosopher of nature and attempts to
formulate a coherent picture of his world view and of its animal, vegetable and mineral components.
Bodson, L., “Aspects of Pliny’s Zoology,” in Roger French and Frank Greenaway, eds, Science in the Early Roman Empire: Pliny the Elder, His Sources and Influence (Totawa, NJ: Barnes and Noble Books, 1986) 98–110. Bodson provides a summary of Pliny’s sources, methods and aims as a scientist.
French, Ancient Natural History 196–253.
Newmyer, Stephen T., “Paws to Reflect: Ancients and Moderns on the Religious Sensibilities of Animals,” QUCC 75, 3 (2003) 111–129. This study surveys the debate on whether animals have religious feelings and how these are manifested in animals, according to ancient writers and modern ethologists.
7. Plutarch
Becchi, “Biopsicologia e Giustizia verso gli Animali in Teofrasto e Plutarco.”
8. Porphyry
Pérez-Paoli, “Porphyrios’ Gedanken zur Gerechtigkeit gegenüber den Tieren” 106–109.
Pérez-Paoli argues that Porphyry’s understanding of the Stoic concept of oikeio¯sis was influenced by his study of Plutarch and developed in accordance with Porphyry’s belief that the human person, as an image of God, seeks to avoid causing harm and strives to live in accord with reason, recognizing the rational element in animals as well as in human beings.