Article ID: CBB079918903

Science, sensitivity and the sociozoological scale: Constituting and complicating the human-animal boundary at the 1875 Royal Commission on Vivisection and beyond (2021)

unapi

Arnold Arluke and Clinton Sanders (1996) have argued that human societies index both humans and animals as belonging to particular rungs of the social hierarchy. They term this multispecies ranking the “sociozoological scale”. This paper will investigate how claims at the 1875 Royal Commission on Vivisection about the sensitivity of particular species and breeds not only reflected assumptions about human social hierarchy but also blurred the boundaries between the human and the animal in the process. It will further be shown how these claims were informed by 18th and 19th century humanitarianism, classism, scientific racism and evolutionary theory, and how these influences combined in claims-making about the relative capacity of particular animals to sense pain and ethical duties towards them that followed from this sensitivity. Particular attention will be given to the opposing efforts of commissioners Thomas Henry Huxley and Richard Holt Hutton to demarcate human and animal sensitivity and exempt companion animals from vivisection respectively. The paper concludes by considering the sociozoological orders constituted by the 1876 Cruelty to Animals Act, particularly through its focus on calculating pain, and the legacy and limitations of this constitution.

...More
Citation URI
https://data.isiscb.org/isis/citation/CBB079918903/

Similar Citations

Thesis Shira Dina Shmuely; (2017)
The Bureaucracy of Empathy: Vivisection and the Question of Animal Pain in Britain, 1876-1912 (/isis/citation/CBB762286081/)

Article Beregoy, Natalia E.; (2009)
Charles Darwin, Vivisection and the History of Victorian Science (/isis/citation/CBB001421097/)

Book Charles Darwin; Frederick Burkhardt; James A. Secord; (2015)
The Correspondence of Charles Darwin, Volume 23: 1875 (/isis/citation/CBB427468341/)

Article Woods, Abigail; (2012)
From Cruelty to Welfare: The Emergence of Farm Animal Welfare in Britain, 1964--71 (/isis/citation/CBB001210155/)

Article Preece, Rod; (2003)
Darwinism, Christianity, and the Great Vivisection Debate (/isis/citation/CBB000774479/)

Article Mayer, Jed; (2008)
The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Laboratory Animals (/isis/citation/CBB001030099/)

Book Samiparna Samanta; (2021)
Meat, Mercy, Morality: Animals and Humanitarianism in Colonial Bengal, 1850-1920 (/isis/citation/CBB235772490/)

Article Feller, David A.; (2009)
Dog Fight: Darwin as Animal Advocate in the Anti-Vivisection Controversy of 1875 (/isis/citation/CBB001030028/)

Book Michael Worboys; (2023)
Doggy people: The Victorians who made the modern dog (/isis/citation/CBB958196913/)

Chapter White, Paul S.; (2005)
The Experimental Animal in Victorian Britain (/isis/citation/CBB000772879/)

Book Rudacille, Deborah; (2000)
The Scalpel and the Butterfly: The Conflict Between Animal Research and Animal Protection (/isis/citation/CBB000101123/)

Article Pierre-Luc Germain; Luca Chiapperino; Giuseppe Testa; (2017)
The European politics of animal experimentation: From Victorian Britain to ‘Stop Vivisection’ (/isis/citation/CBB443117651/)

Article Tarquin Holmes; Carrie Friese; (2020)
Making the Anaesthetised Animal into a Boundary Object: An Analysis of the 1875 Royal Commission on Vivisection (/isis/citation/CBB174441189/)

Article Machado, Carlos José Saldanha; Filipecki, Ana Tereza Pinto; Teixeira, Márcia de Oliveira; Klein, Helena Espellet; (2010)
A regulação do uso de animais no Brasil do século XX e o processo de formação do atual regime aplicado à pesquisa biomédica (/isis/citation/CBB001420444/)

Article Beaufays, Joseph-Paul; (2005)
L'animal au service de l'homme? (/isis/citation/CBB000670013/)

Article Lee, Jack; (2008)
How Should Animals Be Treated? (/isis/citation/CBB001031197/)

Authors & Contributors
Shmuely, Shira Dina
Chiapperino, Luca
Friese, Carrie
Samiparna Samanta
Holmes, Tarquin
Germain, Pierre-Luc
Concepts
Animal rights
Science and ethics
Vivisection
Human-animal relationships
Animal experimentation
Controversies and disputes
Time Periods
19th century
20th century, early
20th century, late
20th century
Places
Great Britain
England
Italy
Europe
Bengal (India)
Brazil
Institutions
Royal Commission on Vivisection (1875)
Comments

Be the first to comment!

{{ comment.created_by.username }} on {{ comment.created_on | date:'medium' }}

Log in or register to comment