States of Nature: The Animal as Object and Ancestor in Political Thought

By plotting the historical origins of the human/animal divide, I ultimately offer a rethinking of the human subject, not as anti-animal, but fundamentally comprised of animality. To rethink subjectivity in relation to animal life, I argue, will grant animals a subject position worthy of philosophical consideration, and thus entail an ethics based on the vital interests that they claim in their own right.