A PHILOSOPHY OF VEGETABLES?

The history of philosophy can be read as a series of medita-tions on the relationship between humans and animals. Ever since Aristotle defined human beings as "rational animals," philosophers

have busied themselves with discovering and demarcating that element of "rationality" or "intelligence" that distinguishes human beings from their animal kin. Nearly every burning issue in phi-losophy-from the nature of knowledge and mind to the prescrip-tions of ethics and politics—has been animated by a reflection on the space between the "rational" and the "animal" in Aristotle's generative definition. All of modern ethics, for example-from David Hume and Immanuel Kant through Peter Singer and Alain Badiou—has concerned itself with the question of moral bound-aries and, hence, with the question: "Do animals (the human animal included) qualify for ethical consideration?"