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PPLOUTLOUTARCHOSARCHOS, n.s., n.s.

Scholarly Journal oScholarly Journal of thef the

IINTERNANTERNATIONALTIONAL PPLUTLUTARCHARCH SSOCIETYOCIETY

VVOOLUMELUME

UNIVERSITY OF MÁLAGA (SPAIN)UTAH STATE UNIVERSITY, LOGAN, UTAH (U.S.A.)

7 (2009/2010)7 (2009/2010)

PLOUTARCHOS, n. s., 7 (2009/2010)

I.- ARTICLES

E. ALMAGOR, “Characterization Through Animals: The Case ofPlutarch’s Artaxerxes”

J. BOULOGNE, “La philosophie du mariage chez Plutarque”K. JAZDZEWSKA, “Not an ‘innocent spectacle’: Hunting and venatio-

nes in Plutarch’s De sollertia animalium”P. LICAUSI, “Strange Animals: Extremely Interspecific Hybridiza-

tion (and Anthropoiesis) in Plutarch”P. MARZILLO, “Plutarch’s views on donkeys”G. STEINER, “Plutarch on the Question of Justice for Animals”F. TANGA, “Mulierum Virtutes: atti di virtù individuale e collettiva”E. TEXEIRA, “Plutarque et le politique à la lumière du théâtre Grec”G. WEAIRE, “Plutarch versus Dionysius on the first triumph”

II.- NOTES AND VARIAF. E. BRENK, “†Professor Shigetake Yaginuma”

F. FRAZIER, “†Professeur Daniel Babut (1929-2009)”

P. BERNARDAKIS, “A 1897 postcard sent by Friedrich Blass to Gre-gorios Bernardakis”

III.- BOOK REVIEWSA. PÉREZ JIMÉNEZ & P. ORTIZ, Plutarco. Vidas Paralelas III, Madrid, Gredos,2006 (V. Ramón & A. Vicente). O. GUERRIER (ED.), Moralia et Oeuvres Moralesà la Renaissance. Actes du Colloque International de Toulouse (19-21 Mai 2005),Paris, Honoré Champion, 2008 (F. Frazier & F. Tanga). PLUTARCO, Vidas sem-blantes. Versión aragonesa de las Vidas paralelas, patrocinada por Juan Fernándezde Heredia, edición de Adelino Álvarez Rodríguez, 2 vols., Zaragoza, PrensasUniversitarias, 2009 (M. González González)

IV.- BIBLIOGRAPHY SECTIONARTICLES. An annotated bibliography 2006 (St. Amendola, F. Frazier, R.Hirsch-Luipold, D. Leão, V. Ramón, R. Scannapieco, F. Tanga, F. Titchener, A.Vicente, P. Volpe)

............................................................................... 3-22................ 23-34

............................................ 35-46

................................................... 47-60........................................... 61-72

............ 73-82........ 83-96

...... 97-106............ 107-124

........................................ 125-127

............................. 127-131

.................................................................................. 131-134

......................................................... 135-142

.................................................................................................... 143-158

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Plutarch on the Question of Justice for Animalsby

Gary SteinerBucknell University

gsteiner@bucknell.edu

AbstractPlutarch devotes his three texts on animals in the Moralia to a thoroughgoing

critique of the Stoic prejudices of his time. In doing so, he advances two sorts of reason why we should not kill and eat animals: on the grounds that meat-eating and other forms of cruelty to animals interfere with the human pursuit of virtue, and on the grounds that animals merit direct moral concern inasmuch as they possess rationality, language, and emotions. Both of these lines of reasoning motivate Plutarch’s advocacy of vegetarianism. Late in life, however, Plutarch retreats from the robust defense of animals that he advanced in the Moralia. A refl ection on the shift in Plutarch’s thinking about animals helps us to think through a central question in contemporary animal rights debates: exactly what are the appropriate criteria for determining whether a given living being is owed duties of justice? A consideration of the specifi c experiential abilities that Plutarch attributes to animals in the Moralia, as well as on the Stoics’ main reasons for excluding animals from the sphere of right, is an excellent starting point for thinking through this question.Key-Words: Plutarch, Moralia, Justice, Animals, Critique of the Stoics.

PLOUTARCHOS, n.s., 7 (2009/2010) 73-82 ISSN 0258-655X

1 Hesiod, Works and Days 213, 275.2 JOHN RAWLS, A Theory of Justice, revised ed. (Cambridge, MA: Belknap/Harvard

University Press, 1999), p. 448.

Throughout the history of Western philosophy, the question whether hu man beings owe du-

ties of justice to animals has been hot-ly contested. According to the do mi-nant line of thinking, which extends from Hesiod to John Rawls, only those

beings capable of logos are properly members of the sphere of justice. In the Works and Days, Hesiod states that a being must be able to “listen to justice” in order to be its benefi ciary1. In A Theory of Justice, Rawls asserts in a similar spirit that “the capacity for a sense of justice is necessary in order to be owed the duties of justice.”2

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