Abstract

The ›zoological turn‹ currently proclaimed by animal ethicians suggests a complete reversal of our view on animal life. As welcome as the overcoming of an anthropocentric outlook may be, one cannot ignore the ideological bias of animal ethics. What looks like a modest surrender of our customary arrogance turns out to be a subtle way of reinforcing human supremacy. In order to debunk this kind of self-deception, the article reconstructs how ethics and biology consistently came together in the 19th century. Accordingly, the question arises which kind of ethics best suits current anthropology. My answer is: a concrete ethics of the art of living that takes into account the ambivalent nature of the relationship between humans and animals.