Dignity, Difference, and the Representation of Nature

• Author: Joshua Foa Dienstag
• Published date: 01 August 2021
• Date: 01 August 2021
• DOI: 10.1177/0090591720966284
• Subject Matter: Articles

https://doi.org/10.1177/0090591720966284

Political Theory

2021, Vol. 49(4) 613 –636

© The Author(s) 2020

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DOI: 10.1177/0090591720966284

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Article

Dignity, Difference, and

the Representation of

Nature

Joshua Foa Dienstag1

Abstract

In the past few decades, political theorists have attempted to articulate a

nontheological basis for a special human place in the moral universe. These

attempts, I argue, generally fall into two groups, one centered around the

concept of “dignity” and the other around ideas of “difference.” Both of these

attempts ultimately fail, I maintain, but their failures are instructive and help

us along a path toward a better kind of relationship with nature and the earth

as well as one another. In the face of increased scientific knowledge about the

environment, animals, and our own species, we have every reason to recalibrate

our stance toward nature as a whole. But in doing so we must acknowledge

that the human relationship with nature is ultimately a representative one that

can therefore never achieve the kind of reciprocity available in human society.

Whatever form our respect for nature takes, it will always be distinct from

the relationships we have with those we consider co-citizens.

Keywords

human, dignity, difference, representation, nature, language

Our planet’s surface is covered by living beings of great variety. We could

group them by their location, their mating practices, their abilities, their color,

or many other criteria. But whichever mode of sorting we choose, we will

1UCLA/Political Science, Los Angeles, CA, USA

Corresponding Author:

Joshua Foa Dienstag, UCLA/Political Science, 4289 Bunche Hall, Los Angeles, CA 90095-1472,

USA.

Email: jfdienstag@me.com

966284PTXXXX10.1177/0090591720966284Political TheoryDienstag

research-article2020

614 Political Theory 49(4)

find that all earthly beings routinely interact across the boundaries that any

such intellectual partition would create. No group, kind, or species is ecologi-

cally separated from all the others; all are part of one functional system.

Indeed, it has been widely argued that species boundaries themselves, while

a useful and convenient intellectual fiction in many practical circumstances,

are in fact artifacts of biological inquiry and not at all “natural kinds” (in the

philosophical sense).1 In fact, scientists disagree on what the concept of

“species” means and on exactly how to draw species boundaries.2 Whether

Neanderthals are members of the same species as modern humans, for exam-

ple, depends not only on biological facts but also on the species definition

one employs.3 These disagreements make it difficult, if not impossible, for

political theory to rely on science or scientists to provide us with firm bound-

aries with which to make important moral and political distinctions. If such

distinctions are to hold water they must be made within moral and political

theory itself.

These facts about nature and science (or more precisely, this lack of rele-

vant facts) are neither a moral nor a political crisis by themselves, but they do

call into question any attempt to create or recognize a singular category of

rights-bearing beings—humans—with “the right to have rights” (as Hannah

Arendt put it), who we are especially bound to protect, honor, respect, or treat

in any way in particular. If there is to be any such category we cannot simply

ask a biologist, or any kind of scientist, to mark it out for us. We must find

another way.4

Of course there are many today who doubt the need for such a category or

actively oppose its centrality to moral or political theory, a group we can col-

lectively call posthumanist, even if they arrive at this position from different

directions. Animal rights theorists like Sue Donaldson and Will Kymlicka,

Tom Regan, and Alasdair Cochrane maintain that moral standing and politi-

cal rights ought to derive from the subjectivity or sentience that many ani-

mals possess. While not denying elements of human distinctiveness, they all

argue for some version of “sentientist democracy” (Cochrane) where rights

and citizenship are broadly conferred across species, and representation of

nonhuman interests is a core duty.5 Many green and indigenous theorists such

as Christopher Stone, Paul Taylor, Val Plumwood, Robyn Eckersley, Glen

Sean Coulthard, and John Dryzek generally commit to a “respect for nature”

(Taylor) that involves a radical diminution of human stature and a restriction

of any special claims on behalf of humans.6 Thirdly, the new materialism of

writers like Jane Bennett and Bruno Latour envisions an even more radical

“parliament of things” (Latour) where the nature to be represented politically

is not limited to the living or biologically organized but encompasses all

“agentic assemblages” (Bennett) that display vitality.7 Few of these theorists,