Disclaimer: Dr. Sara Bizarro is a series editor at the Blog of the APA. The views expressed here are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent or reflect the views of the American Philosophical Association or the Blog of the APA.
The movie Eo, directed by Jerzy Skolimowski and inspired by Robert Bresson’s Au Hasard Balthazar, is a beautiful poetic depiction of the journey of a donkey named Eo who goes through life being bought and sold, being loved and mistreated, being a beast of burden, traveling, and finally dying. The movie Eo has some similarities to and some differences from the original movie that inspired it, which was also about a donkey, Balthazar, going through different stages of life, being loved, changing hands, and being the victim of human vices along the way.
In Eo, the main character is an animal who, being a donkey, does not have any dialogue. However, not only does the story follow the donkey, but the donkey provides a quasi-objective gaze toward the humans he interacts with. With this simple device, we can observe our human behavior from the outside, without being asked to side with any of the human characters in particular. This allows us to look at ourselves objectively, including looking at how ridiculous human behavior is sometimes, and also to empathize with the main character in a way that would be impossible if the donkey were not the main character. In Au Hasard Balthazar, Bresson’s donkey was also intended as the main character, but Skolimowski makes this even more obvious.
The film Eo can be used as a background and illustration for several discussions on animal ethics. Peter Singer, a very important contemporary animal ethics philosopher, published his book Animal Liberation in the 1970s. This book spearheaded the animal rights, movement yet is not really a book about rights at all; it is a utilitarian book. Animals are considered by utilitarians to have interests that should be considered, even though their interests differ from those of humans. Animals experience the events that happen to them, they feel pleasure and pain, they suffer, and therefore there is such a thing as harming an animal. Singer contends that we need to take animals into consideration when weighing whether an action is moral or immoral. Human interests also count in this view, so we need to balance our interests with those of animals, but our interests are not necessarily more important than theirs.
Singer is also known for having proposed the speciesism argument, which was developed in the first chapter of Animal Liberation. Singer starts out by saying that when Mary Wollstonecraft wrote A Vindication of the Rights of Women in 1792, her views were regarded as absurd, and Thomas Taylor wrote in reply A Vindication of the Rights of Brutes. This satirical work argued that if women received equal rights, so should dogs, cats, and horses. Since the argument could be so extended, the original position should be considered absurd, according to Taylor. Singer agrees that it would indeed be absurd to give the right to vote to animals since they do not understand what this is. The equality required in the case of animals is equality of consideration that is dependent on their interests. This means we need to look at animals’ interests and see what they are, and those are the ones we need to respect. It is not in the interest of animals to be mistreated and abused, it is not in the interest of animals to have their children removed from them, nor to be bought and sold, nor to ignore the attachments and relationships they have developed with their human caretakers.
Both films, Eo and Au Hasard Balthazar, are perfect illustrations of cases in which the animal’s interests are being disrespected. Both Balthazar and Eo are forced to work. When Balthazar does not cooperate with one of his “masters,” he attaches a newspaper to his tail and sets it on fire. Eo is spanked by a group of soccer fans because they consider him guilty of distracting their losing team. The donkeys’ needs are hardly ever considered in both movies. The only meaningful relationships they have are with the female characters, Dora in Eo and Marie in Au Hasard Balthazar. Even though they are well treated by these caretakers, they are forcibly taken from them as well.
Singer says that equality of consideration is not based on equality of intelligence, character, or any other characteristics. He gives this example: Imagine that someone proposes a division in a society where “all those with IQ scores below 100 be given less consideration than those with ratings over 100.” Would that be justified? The principle of equality of consideration does not depend on equality of ability. Similarly, animals may lack language and have less self-awareness, but that does not mean that their interests may be dismissed.
The American abolitionist and suffragette Sojourner Truth made this point in her speech Ain’t I a Woman? She asked:
“If my cup won’t hold but a pint and yours holds a quart, wouldn’t it be mean not to let me have my little half-measure?”
Singer goes on to argue that discriminating against animals is a version of racism and sexism. Both racism and sexism, he says, are wrong quite independently from any abilities someone may or may not have; that question is not relevant. Therefore speciesism is also wrong, on the same grounds. Animals may have needs that are different from the ones humans have, but they are their needs, and according to Singer, they deserve equal consideration.
Other philosophers went further than Singer. Tom Regan, for instance, challenged his utilitarian approach. Regan argued that the problem is viewing animals as resources, period. It is not a matter of balancing their interests against ours. Utilitarianism, he worried, can be open to the idea that in some situations, human interests are superior to those of animals and that in those cases we are justified in using them. For Regan, all animals, humans included, are the “subjects of a life” and have intrinsic value; using them as resources to benefit ourselves is plainly wrong. Regan argued that regardless of the conditions animals live in, as long as we see them as resources, we are treating them immorally.
Both Eo and Balthazar are examples of exactly this. In each of the movies, Eo and Balthazar are the subjects of a life; they have emotions and attachments, they suffer, they have some form of consciousness, they are aware of what happens to them, and what happens to them matters to them. They love, endure hardships, and are abused and exploited while exhibiting virtues such as patience and something approaching saintliness. They do lash out on certain occasions and out of frustration, which also indicates that what happens to them does matter to them. For example, Eo at one point is working on a mink farm, and the abuse he experiences causes him to lash out and kick the breeder. This leads to him being sold to a meat dealer, who takes him reluctantly. Since the movie is presented from Eo’s point of view, it is easy for us to understand him as the “subject of a life.”
Another contemporary philosopher, Gary Francione of Rutgers University, has created arguments along the same lines as Regan, stating that as long as animals are viewed as property, their rights as living, experiencing beings are being violated, the only solution is to stop considering them property and to abolish animal use. In the movies, it is clear that both Eo and Balthazar are viewed as property; they are bought and sold, their forced labor is exploited, and their good nature is trampled on time after time. The general behavior of most humans towards them is contrasted with the behavior of the young women, Marie and Dora, who represent a caring attitude and love that is unconditional and non-exploitative.
Eo and Au Hasard Balthazar can be seen in several ways: as essays that argue for giving equal consideration to animals; as illustrations of animals as “subjects of a life”; and as manifestos against the use of animals as property. Besides exploring the exploitation of animals, they can also be seen as a metaphor for human exploitation. Bresson said explicitly in an interview that Balthazar has “two lines that converge, sometimes run parallel, and sometimes cross. The first line, in a donkey’s life, we see the same stages as in a man’s. A childhood of tender caresses and adult years spent in work for both man and donkey. A little later, the time of talent and genius, and finally, the stage of mysticism that precedes death. The other line is the donkey at the mercy of his different owners, who represent the various vices that bring about Balthazar’s suffering and death.”
In Eo there are also clear parallels between the experiences of the donkey and the social inequality that humans endure. Most notably, Skolimowski’s film contrasts Eo the donkey with some magnificent horses. The horses are respected and well treated; they are valued and admired, while Eo is the beast of burden that is disrespected and abused. Often the lower-income class has to suffer similar treatment while looking at the privileged groups that live right next to them. By having Eo as the main character, we as viewers identify with him, and Skolimowski is indirectly inviting us to sympathize with those on the lower rungs of society. The movie makes an obvious visual argument that these divisions are deeply unfair and unjustified.
This brings us back to the origin of Singer’s argument: Discrimination, racism, sexism, and speciesism are all equally bad and need to be resisted, and both movies are good arguments for the inclusion of animals in our efforts to create a more equal and just society.
Sara Bizarro
Sara Bizarro is a Series Editor of the Philosophy of Film Series. She teaches at Fairleigh Dickinson University. She recently published Free Will and A Clockwork Orange: A Polythetic View of Free Will, (2022) and a review of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman by Mary Wollstonecraft on Philosophy Now (2021).
