Les diplomates - Cohabiter avec les loups sur une autre cart

SUNY Series in Environmental Philosophy and Ethics

by Baptiste Morizot

Le livre fondateur de l’œuvre de Baptiste Morizot.

Genres: Nature

448 pages, Paperback

Published April 7, 2023

Reviews

[Dayton Martindale · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really interesting philosophical response to the return of wolves in rural France. Morizot offers the framework of the “werewolf diplomat”—the human with the head of a wolf (ie who is able to think like a wolf and put themself in the wolf’s paws) who uses that knowledge to steer toward mutually beneficial relations. He argues against both destruction of nature and sanctification of nature and for instead understanding ourselves as a part of nature—constituted by our relations with the nonhuman and with the unique and helpful ability to imagine what other species experience and thus communicate in terms they might understand. Parts are a bit too jargon-dense for my tastes and he doesn’t extend his empathy for wolves to all creatures (in particular sheep) but still a creative and generative approach to human-wildlife relations.

[Kat Rahmat · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some interesting ideas but it feels as if diplomacy is exhausted more as a metaphor than a guiding strategy. There’s also an ease of conflating marginalised human communities with animals that I am not entirely comfortable with.