Abstract
This first volume of Celia Deane-Drummond’s trilogy on “the evolution of wisdom” displays her careful precision, interdisciplinary thoroughness, and Thomistic orientation in pursuit of an ethic of multispecies relationships. The book explores manifold dimensions of justice—theologically and philosophically, of course, but also through evolutionary anthropology, ethologically (so far as can be known), and with attention to recent animal ethnographies. D.-D.’s aim is to begin to construct a multispecies ethic in which contemporary sciences and theological moralities may be mutually constructive on questions of both “unity and difference” among species (5).
Robustly interdisciplinary—featuring citations from Agamben to Zagzebski and with hundreds of scientific studies in between—this book demonstrates D.-D.’s extraordinary immersion in multiple fields of inquiry and her commitment to developing Thomistically-derived theological frameworks for human conduct amidst multispecies entanglements. In each chapter D.-D. specifies cross-disciplinary usages of terms and demonstrates rigorous engagement with several philosophers or theologians (often including Aquinas) as well as with secondary literatures, put into conversation with scientific theories and nuanced readings of scientific studies, in the service of discerning constructive ways for framing multispecies encounters and ethics, with specific attention to the manifold virtue(s) of justice. The scope is truly breathtaking and, frankly, resists detailed summary in a short review—as befits a book intended “for those whose curiosity is constantly moving out into other domains and refuses to accept the comfort or security of one area of knowledge” (1). Truly, a book could be written about this book (which is of course why it is the first in a three-volume series), which seeks ways that a “multispecies theoretical framework for ethical decision-making” might be developed and, as such, considers a range of approaches and intimates some new insights at the intersection of scientific studies and theological inheritances (145). D.-D.’s methodology alone is worth intensive study, engagement, and emulation; there is no other scholar in the field of theology and science who is as skilled at and committed to robust citation and rigorous engagement across disciplines.
Of the nine chapters, I would highlight the excellent trajectories of chapters 3, 4, 5, 6, and 9, wherein D.-D. engages evolutionary anthropology on questions of love and justice (chap. 3); articulates wisdom as an evolutionary-moral “becoming,” employing Hans Jonas and Thomas Aquinas (chap. 4); explores implications of the previous chapters in considering how to imagine a “multispecies commons” while avoiding ethical naturalism or scientific reductionism (chap. 5); engages natural law and wild justice while envisioning a multispecies common good (chap. 6); and delves into the question of “personhood” and image-bearing in multispecies communities, where she suggests that personhood can be more capacious than is standardly assumed, but also “[presses] to retain the language of image bearing for humans, while recognizing that all animals in their rich variety can be thought of as showing traces of the Trinity” (chap. 9, p. 246).
Of course, various aspects of each chapter can be fruitfully debated; indeed, D.-D. points out early on that “I do not expect readers picking up this book to agree with all my arguments,” especially given the constructive task, and granting that some conclusions are more provisional than others (1). Of all the content in this volume, I find chapter 7 to be the weakest and most problematic. Here, despite prior cautions about the limits of theorization based upon case studies, that very error is enacted with regard to D.-D.’s invocation of Indigenous practices and lifeways. This is of particular concern given the ways that Western theologies, social norms, and political economic forms have colonized Indigenous lands, peoples, and values. A different and more particular kind of methodological attention is needed.
I appreciated D.-D.’s openness to subjective experience as a touchstone for multispecies relationships in this volume, as seen both in her treatment of animal ethnographies and in her own personal narrative. With regard to the latter, for example, D.-D. frankly and skillfully draws on her own family’s experience of companion species and the forms of mutual care and accompaniment as part of a rejoinder to Martha Nussbaum. D.-D. writes of her dog, Dara: “We did not mistake her for another human, or project anthropomorphic attributes onto her as if she were exactly like one of us. We all know quite well that she was a dog, but she was one who related to us in her own way according to her own lights and her own dog persona” (91). Indeed, theorists from Charles Darwin to Donna Haraway have likewise honored, narrated, and theorized from their relationships with beloved canines. For future work, I suggest that feminist philosophical and theological engagements with experience as a morally significant category would be a useful theoretical support for such approaches in the construction of a multispecies ethic, though that is not signaled in this volume.
In sum: this volume is a tour de force that demonstrates D.-D.’s conviction that “theologians cannot be content just to absorb outdated material or that from textbooks and presume they are really engaging with science” (143). As such, this stunningly interdisciplinary volume paves the way for what will surely be a fascinating trilogy on multispecies communities and theological ethics, and it is well worth the reader’s time and commitment.