'The Suffering Animal': Balancing Vulnerability and Power

Simone Ghelli's book takes a deep dive into human-animal relationships.

Reviewed by Davia Sills

Key points

• In the book 'The Suffering Animal,' Ghelli asks, what's the difference between human existence and animal?
• We must understand the historical roots of our mindset, believing humans are the most important entities.
• We share crucial features with other animals: a mortal body, biological needs, passions, and social habits.
• All in all, Ghelli offers a solid argument for ridding ourselves of human exceptionalism.

It’s not a stretch to say that globally, countless non-human animals (animals) suffer at the hands of humans. But what does that really mean?

Simone Ghelli’s new book, The Suffering Animal: Life Between Weakness and Power, offers a critical and innovative reassessment of contemporary debates on human-animal relationships. Here’s what he had to say about his interesting and thoughtful book in which the major question at hand is not whether they suffer but why we do not want them to be suffering living beings. On numerous occasions, I found myself putting the book down and thinking deeply about the implicit ethical divide between “them” and us.

Why did you write The Suffering Animal?

The Suffering Animal is based on the research I conducted for my Ph.D. dissertation. Of course, the passage from the dissertation to the book entailed some significant changes, especially my attempt to write in a way that non-specialist readers could find accessible.

I decided to write and publish this book as I really thought I could say something original and relevant on the animal question. This is a very debated topic, and literature, academic or not, is constantly growing. Was another book necessary? Well, yes it was (at least, for me): We still have not looked at the full potential of the animal question.

How does your book relate to your background and general areas of interest?

The question of animals, of their rights and, especially, of our relationship with non-human forms of life, has always intrigued me. Not only from a philosophical, specialist, or scientific point of view, but also for its profound ethical and existential meaning: What is the difference between our human existence and theirs? Why are we led to think that ours matters, that it is endowed with special and unique meanings?

Who do you hope to reach in your interesting and important book?

All people who are interested in the animal question, well beyond the field of animal rights. Talking about non-human animals and all the philosophical questions connected to our relationship with them should not solely be of interest in terms of more ethical diets or treatments.

In my book, I focus more on “why we do it,” on “what is really at stake with human exceptionalism,” rather than “why we should not.” I think that we cannot truly make a significant step forward in the ethical treatment of animals if we do not understand the historical roots of our mindset, believing that humans are the central, most important entity.

What are some of the major topics you consider?

In The Suffering Animal, I dwell upon the link between atheism and suffering, especially the need for our metaphysical tradition to deny the suffering of non-human animals. More simply, I tried to show how our tendency, at least from Descartes on, to reduce non-human animals to senseless and mindless “machines” is nothing but the desperate answer to a crucial problem: If animals suffer, then God (an ultimate idea of the justice of this mortal world) cannot exist. Otherwise, it would mean the existence of innocent beings who suffer for nothing. Therefore, you either have a wicked God who protects only one species and condemns all the others, or there is no God, no ultimate justice, and we living beings are all destined to nothingness: i.e., there are no punishments, no rewards, no meaning for the pain and the injustice we endure due to our mortal condition.

What do we prefer? To sacrifice all animals for our salvation or to accept the harsh truth of equality: No one is exceptional?

The book also covers the fact that we share crucial features with non-human animals: a mortal body, biological needs, passions, and even social and political habits, from solidarity to aggression. Why, then, should my human body, whether dead or alive, matter more?

Why can my “meat” not be slaughtered and sold without committing abomination, while we can serenely walk through shelves full of dead flesh and carcasses coming from once-living bodies? Did they deserve this? Do we have the right to do so? Is “hunger” or “appetite,” some may even invoke “culture,” enough to justify such a contradiction?

By studying philosophy, these questions have started to assume a wider historical account: Such unequal treatment is rooted in the history of our culture, where rational arguments and ethical and political requirements are intertwined.

How does your book differ from others that are concerned with some of the same general topics?

In my book, I wanted to propose a provocation, let’s say a sort of thought experiment that wants to shake the basis of our philosophical culture that I think animal studies have not fully undertaken yet. What happens if, instead of bringing non-human animals closer to us (which is a subtle form of paternalism that wants to share some privileges in order to lose nothing), we, human animals, go towards them? To give up our exceptionalism is not painless.

Are you hopeful that as people learn more about this very important topic they will come to treat animals with more respect and dignity?

Yes, I am, even though I am skeptical of the idea that rational persuasion may be enough. That animals suffer and rejoice like us is something that everyone today is ready to acknowledge, and somehow, today’s ethical awareness of “animal rights” seems more widespread and more rooted. Yet, I repeat, I think the biggest challenge is to consider that animals’ suffering is not simply “like ours” but that ours is like theirs.

This explains, for instance, why it is hard to accept that in our society, the idea interrupts our existence once we consider the pain we go through not only unbearable but meaningless is still contrasted and largely denied (something that we easily grant to our beloved pets). “Life is sacred,” some might answer. Well, what does the sacrality of a mortal life that ends painfully consist of?