Reply #55: this of course brings up the question of WHY "Self-awareness, suffering and a social culture"

[MisterP]

were de facto denied to whales--and it was not simply due to some neutral, objective lack of evidence

anthropocentrism--the focusing solely on humans to the exclusion of things such as other animals, "Nature," and even God--has been strong in human culture, and especially European culture, including the mainstream of scientific thinking. From the Cicero-derived "man as divine" idea of Ficino and Pico della Mirandola to Enlightened "divine Reason" as the rationale for human (white male) rights, as well as the practicalities of farming, vivisection, and student dissection created a veritable edifice of cavalierness toward non-speaking creatures.

Rod Preece wrote http://www.jstor.org/stable/3654233, though you'll need a subscription or proxy.

"developmentalism"--however defined from the Technocrats to Nehru, Suharto, and Nkrumah--saw the nonhuman world as food and fuel for the human