Mitakuye Oyasin as a foundation for the well-being of animal life: reason, nature, and oppression in Horkheimer, MacIntyre, and Midgley

Resumo

I play three traditions against each other in this paper to raise some questions for future research about the nature of reason and the reason of nature. Max Horkheimer and Theodor Adorno of the Frankfurt School contend that reason tends to dominate nature and that domination is part of the essence of reason. I then turn to examine Aristotle and contemporary Aristotelians, namely Mary Midgley and Alasdair MacIntyre, to show a possible resource within the tradition of western philosophy in which reason arises out of nature. Using modern animal studies, Midgley and MacIntyre extend the Aristotelian insight into the nature of reason as part of our animal nature. Finally, I discuss the Lakota, a First Nation people of North America, who have a view of reason which is the mirror opposite of that found in modernity. This comparison suggests that dominating nature is not essential to reason.