When I saw the title and then read Emma Håkansson’s new book Sub-Human: A 21st-Century Ethic; On Animals, Collective Liberation, and Us, I immediately wanted to know more about why she wrote it. Among the first things that came to mind is the fact that humans are mammals, and when we think everything revolves around us—that we’re exceptional and separate from and above all other animals—this is bad biology and results in unwarranted speciesism and oppression.1 We are exceptional in various ways, and so, too, are other animals.

The words we use to refer to humans and other animals deeply matter, and it’s clear that other animals are nonhumans, not subhumans. Humancentric hierarchies are totally misleading, and thinking about “higher” animals and “lower” animals makes no sense. This is not a radical view; it is solid evolutionary biology.

Simply put, anthropocentric speciesism doesn’t work, and other animals aren’t less than humans (Fig. 1). As Emma reminds us, “When we accept oppression of some, we feed the oppression of others, and we make space for domination driven by false ideas of inferiority and lesser worth. When we discount the inherent preciousness of animals who think and feel, we erase precious parts of ourselves.”

I’m pleased Emma could answer a few questions about Sub-Human in which she delves into what it means to be an animal, how our view of other animals impacts our view of other people, oppressions, and the planet, how we got here, as well as how we can move forward together. Her book is very timely as we move through an epoch called the Anthropocene, often called “the age of humanity.” In practice, the Anthropocene has morphed into “the rage of........

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