Animal Ethics and the Nonconformist Conscience by Philip J. Sampson (review)

The modern era is much more humane than previous eras. These advances in animal welfare rest on the compassionate view of animals that emerged during the Enlightenment with its humanitarian ethic, Darwinian ideology, and shift toward secularism in which religious influence, most particularly Christian dominion thought, was diminished. Such is the commonplace "consensus narrative" that is deftly discredited by Philip Sampson in his thoroughly researched and documented Animal Ethics and the Nonconformist Conscience.

Working with the lens of the linguistic resources that serve ethical debate at given points in history, Sampson systematically and convincingly challenges multiple aspects of this narrative, including the nearly universally accepted notion that the modern world is a kinder place for animals. He replaces this consensus narrative, which assigns unique culpritude in sanctioning animal cruelty to Christian dominion thought, with an account of the foundational role that nonconformist thinkers played in vigorously challenging and subverting conventional authorizations of animal cruelty.

After establishing the lack of inherent connection between the Enlightenment and Darwinian ideology and an animal-friendly worldview, Sampson furthers his case by demonstrating that Enlightenment rationalism and Darwinian ideology ultimately gave support to mistreatment of animals. He notes that scientific advances increased human power over the natural world with little ethical guidance for the use of that power. While he concedes that there is evidence that Darwin's On the Origin of the Species was influential in the expansion of animal advocacy, he observes that the notion of survival of the fittest, rather than protecting the vulnerable, quite unambiguously supports predation and the rightful power of the strong over the weak. He further suggests that Enlightenment humanitarianism "authorized a greater pragmatic continuity with earlier uses and abuses of animals than is sometimes assumed" (p. 33), leaving little evidence that it inspired reform.

Sampson then moves on through meticulous documentation to present a neglected Christian tradition evidenced within 16th-, 17th- and 18th-century literature—discourse he refers to collectively as "non-conformist"—to effectively argue that this subtradition was not only responsible for the rise of a more humane understanding and approach to animals but also provides a critical resource for contemporary/post-modern animal advocacy. He finds in this nonconformist discourse a "self-consciously developed, systematic and institutionally authorized challenge to the pragmatic way of talking about animals" (p. 121), which arose during the Enlightenment and continues to permeate contemporary Western culture. Gleaning texts from the Magisterial Reformation, 17th-century Puritans, and other traditions that were subsumed within the nonconformist designation, Sampson provides an essential stream of alternative narrative that has the capacity to challenge and enrich the thinking of both adherents and critics of Christian animal advocacy. The heritage of nonconformist language is explored through the framework of Creation, Fall, and Redemption, a rubric that prioritizes the biblical canon and has the capacity to shift us away from pragmatic, instrumentalist, and binary discourse on animals—a performative linguistic heritage that houses an existential imperative with "responsibilities that are not satisfied simply by stating them" (p. 33).

The final two chapters of Animal Ethics and the Nonconformist Conscience provide a message of hope by outlining the ongoing availability and utility of nonconformist Christian discourse for contemporary animal advocacy. Sampson introduces the notion of a "nomadic" tradition that, while having lost its intellectual authority by the end of the 19th century, remains present in vestiges and fragments that retain cultural force and require no justification beyond their presence in the public sphere. These fragments hold capacities to sustain and nourish, to offer specific insights, and to "integrate disparate fragments of our postmodern culture," (p. 145), providing an "excess of meaning" (p. 123)," as an indispensable part of the "ethical bricolage" (p. 135) that resources animal advocacy.

Animal Ethics and the Nonconformist Conscience is a gift to those who work within the Christian tradition in their quest for a more humane world. Once readers capture the...