How to Mourn for Animals? From Misanthropic Melancholia to Animal Ethical Mourning




Aaltola, Elisa; Pihkala, Panu

PublisherJohn Muir Institute for Environmental Studies

2025

 Environmental Ethics

47

3

237

258

0163-4275

2153-7895

DOIhttps://doi.org/10.5840/enviroethics2025101100

https://doi.org/10.5840/enviroethics2025101100

https://research.utu.fi/converis/portal/detail/Publication/506340187



The paper explores “animal ethical mourning” through three directions: 1) mourning for nonhuman animals, 2) mourning for lost human ideals, and 3) mourning with nonhuman animals. First, it investigates the political and moral significance of animal ethical mourning arguing it is a radical normative act. Second, it claims such mourning extends also to given human ideals, which our treatment of animals reveals to be forsaken. Here, it introduces “misanthropic melancholia” and argues it to form one affectively challenging yet normatively illuminating aspect of animal ethical mourning. Finally, it considers what it means to mourn with other animals. The paper’s central claim is more rituals and rhetoric are needed to evoke these aspects of animal ethical mourning.


She (Aaltola) thanks Koneen Säätiö (Kone Foundation) for their generous funding of this article


Last updated on 05/01/2026 01:07:50 PM