ABSTRACT
As the physiological question of how one sees became central in conversations about perception, several Romantic-era social movements raised questions about how we might perceive the suffering of others. Indeed, the Romantic-era fascination with subjective perception emerges as much from medical theories about the physiology of vision in individual bodies as from idealist philosophy. Romantic-era medical theories of vision both reinforce the philosophy of subjective perception and ground it in physical structures. At the same historical moment that vision was increasingly understood as both powerful and contingent upon the individual subject's body, social movements concerned with the suffering of slaves and animals focused on connections among vision, suffering, and subjectivity. The Romantic-era animal rights movement sought to shift the focus away from the use-value of animals to an awareness of animals as sensitive and suffering creatures. The chapter also presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in this book.
