ABSTRACT
Examining the ways in which we view service dogs not only reveals problematic assumptions in both animal studies and disability studies, but also can show us a way forward that may be more promising for considering interspecies interdependence. Some versions of feminist care ethics and feminist ethics of vulnerability have explicitly or implicitly based their notions of embodied dependence on the denial and disavowal of our dependence on nonhuman animals. Service dogs are legally defined as equipment rather than companions, which works to disavow our dependence on them. Turning our focus on service dogs makes us aware that the functionality valued in these animals is akin to the functionality valued in mainstream ideas of integration of persons with disabilities. As an alternative to feminist care ethics or feminist ethics of vulnerability, along with traditional Kantian or Utilitarian ethical approaches to both human and nonhuman animals, I propose an ethics based on interspecies interdependence, one that includes nonhuman animals, on the one hand, but doesn’t define their value, or the value of their human counterparts, in terms of functionality, on the other.
