Abstract for UiT Terra conference: "What implications does the relational nature of living beings have with regard to their agency, autonomy and moral status – and our world view?"

Today I have composed the abstract below, for an invited talk at the conference "Terra", to be arranged at University of Tromsø June 6-7th.

«What implications does the relational nature of living beings have with regard to their agency, autonomy and moral status – and our world view?»

Morten Tønnessen

Professor of philosophy at University of Stavanger´s Department of social studies

Relationality – the ways in which organisms are involved in relations to other organisms – is a crucial aspect of ecology, and biology at large. In biosemiotics, the semiotic study of biology, biosemioticrelations are understood as relations that involve methodical (regular or recurring) sign exchange. Organisms that are connected by such relations are biosemiosically linked, and have a partly overlapping or complementary experience of the world. By mapping and describing the biosemiotic relations a specific organism engages in, and thus what it relates to as carrying meaning for it, we by and largely describe what being that organism amounts to. Biosemiotic relationality can furthermore help us understand how the individual and ecological level of biological study are interconnected. 

   Building on biosemiotics, Umwelt theory (first developed by Jakob von Uexküll) and deep ecology, I will explore implications of the relational nature of living beings for agency, autonomy, moral status and our world view.

   Agency: In biosemiotics, agency can be understood as semioticagency, which is the capacity of relating to signs. Such agency always involves a degree of subjectivity. All living beings relate to signs. While proper subjects have unified, cohesive experience of their surroundings, quasi-subjects such as plants, fungi and animals with decentralized bodies have semiotic experience but one that is not cohesive or integrated. Their respective agency reflects this.

   Autonomy: By being relational creatures we all depend on others – and yet all living beings have autonomy in the sense that their actions are based on their species-specific semiotic agency. Freedom is related to how what we perceive as meaningful can be interpreted, and what alternative actions we can take in response to what we perceive.

   Moral status: The crucial importance of relations is emphasized in biosemiotic ethics (as developed by Tønnessen and Jonathan Beever). Under current ecological circumstances, many biosemiotic relations are bended or broken by extreme breeding, automated machine-handling, homogenous social environments, industrial-style indoor environments (in animal husbandry), and depleted wildlife. What are the moral limits for such bending of significant biosemiotic relations, in terms of environmental sustainability and individual welfare? Biosemiotic ethics suggests that respecting autonomy and enabling autonomous choices is essential.

   World view: We need to develop an empirically based understanding of the Anthropocene from an animal and organismic (individual level) perspective. Through our affiliated global species such as livestock and pets, humankind partakes in human–animal relations that largely determine resource use and conditions for domesticated and wild animals alike. Improving our scientific understanding of human–animal and other relations is crucial for understanding the world we live in, and the current and future state of the environment.

Acknowledgement: Morten Tønnessen is a member of two program areas for research at University of Stavanger, namely “Philosophy and subjectivity” and “The Greenhouse: An environmental humanities initiative at University of Stavanger”.