Louis-André Richard is a college philosophy professor. Out of modesty, he refuses the title of philosopher, “a coat much too large for [lui] “, which he reserves for the big names in the discipline. Defining himself as a “smuggler” seems fairer to him. “I frequent philosophers as friends and introduce them to others,” he writes nicely.
For years, he has worked with the Canadian Council on Animal Care as a public representative. This organization is primarily concerned with “ethical practices in the care and use of animals in science,” as its website states. By participating, Richard has developed a reflection on our relationship with animals, which he presents in Friends of men? Ruminations on ethics animal (Mediaspaul, 2023, 200 pages).
Like the great La Fontaine who, with his fables, said he used “animals to instruct men”, Richard uses animal figures to lead a reflection aimed, basically, at defining the “status of the human being” in his relationships with other living beings.
The spirit of his approach is also inspired by that of Paul Valéry. Invited, in 1938, to give a lecture in front of surgeons, the writer wondered what he could say to these experts in a field of which he did not know much. He concludes as follows: by becoming a specialist in a discipline that obsesses us, it can happen that we forget “certain elementary difficulties, certain initial conventions, that it is not bad for the ingenuity of a passer-by to revive everything Suddenly “.
Richard learned the lesson. His book, he writes, is not that of an expert ethicist, but that of a free man who practices “ingenuous discernment”. He proceeds, he explains, like a tortoise among hares. In the world of scientific research, experts and sponsors “tend to carry out operations in an expeditious manner”. The public, in general, does not complain about it since it benefits from the ease provided by scientific advances. The philosopher, in the role of the turtle, slows down the tempo by questioning himself “before embarking on the adventure”. Is the goal worth it? Does the good pursued go beyond the mere pursuit of the interests of the actors? Is it ethical?
When it comes to research involving animals, the “Three Rs Rule”, theorized in 1959 by sociologist and zoologist William Russell and microbiologist Rex Burch, both British, serves as a guide par excellence. She offers to replaceas far as possible, the use of animals by other methods, reduce the number of animals used and refine the conditions reserved for them. It would go faster without these constraints, but ethics, and therefore the dignity of human beings, would suffer as much as animals.
More radical supporters of the animal cause will not find an ally in Richard. “There is, he writes, inequality between species, and evoking a myriad of individual differentiations cannot justify their suppression. »
The antispeciesist argument of genetic proximity does not change the case, he continues. It is true, recognizes Richard, that we share 98.79% of our genetic heritage with the chimpanzee, but there is a “gap separating the acts and productions posed by humans” and those of other animal species. This “extra soul” specific to humans shows that “the use of reason, as a relevant criterion of interspecies differentiation, should not be considered as a sweet delirium”.
Be careful, however: this superiority does not entail, on an ethical level, a right to use other species as lawless tyrants. “She commits us to be watchmen and guardians,” writes Richard. It is up to us to take care of the world — animals cannot — in “respect of the limits of use”.
Two excesses await us. The first, that of hubris, greed and pride, hurts not only nature, but also the human being himself, by destroying the only environment able to welcome it, to make it live. .
The second, less often mentioned, is that of “false humility”, which amounts to putting humans and animals on the same level. “We do well to insist on the duty to take care of the animals, but we must not apologize for being who we are”, stresses Richard.
The “ruminations” proposed by the essayist sometimes lack finish. Some arguments, more evoked than developed, are left in limbo. It remains that this plea, which rejects anti-speciesist radicalism in the name of a “lucid and responsible humanism with regard to other animals”, is far from being stupid.
Columnist (Presence Info, Game), essayist and poet, Louis Cornellier teaches literature in college.