Where the Wild Things are Classified: The Wild-Domestic Distinction and the Nonhuman Animals Caught in the Crosshairs
Abstract
This dissertation examines “wild”, “domestic”, “feral”, and “tame” as a family of interrelated concepts that classify nonhuman animals in both scientific and social contexts. I collectively term these concepts the Wild-Domestic Distinction (WDD). Generally accepted narratives of “wild” and “domestic” appeal to origin stories of mutually exclusive “places” of humannonhuman animal relating, between “the wild” and “the domus”. From this core distinction, “feral” and “tame” trace new “beginnings” or maybe even “bad endings” (depending on whose perspective you take) for the human-nonhuman animal relations that transition between “wild” and “domestic”.
My historical and philosophical analysis targets concept operationalization for nonhuman animal classification, focusing on a particular animal raising “problems” in practice: the horse. I bring the American Mustang, Australian Brumby, and Przewalskii horse together as “wild horse problems” to draw out how WDD concepts can shift between contexts for each horse. I argue WDD concepts operate as thick ethical concepts, but when treated as thin they risk becoming “Conceptual Trojan Horses” (CTH). CTH is a form of intentional or unintentional weaponization of classification, where unexamined evaluative content “rides in,” potentially causing unforeseen harms in specific contexts.
Horses are caught in the classificatory “crosshairs” of conflict discourses around WDD concepts. From a policy perspective, I engage the normative question “what should we do about wild horse problems?” and argue we should move past WDD concepts as a guide to the problem discourse. I offer an alternative Leopoldian framework that advances the role of “Interdependence” in human-nonhuman animal and environmental (abiotic) relations as a means of assessing positive and negative causal interactions in particular “Land Communities”. Through the Leopoldian framework of Interdependence and the normative aim of Land Health, the potential for weaponization is reduced and unique morally salient interest holders and concerns are revealed.