Through field observations and laboratory experimentation, biologists have shown that nonhuman primates evaluate fairness in terms similar to humans, and that rats manifest humanlike reciprocity in their social arrangements. Based on this evidence, researchers have made persuasive arguments that nonhuman animals are ethical beings.

Might some predilections of nonhuman species be more ethically advanced than our own? Might their lifeways reveal domains in which humans have never even contemplated the need for principled behavior?

Until very recently in geological time, hominids were quite limited in their habitat; we’re imperfectly evolved to manage the planet we now dominate, as current planetary conditions make readily apparent. Other species have abundant knowledge and experience that we lack. They offer a plethora of ways of being that we’d be foolish to neglect.

More-than-human ethical principles have the potential to be transformational. They can inspire greater goodness in people and align values across taxa for the greater good of all on a local and planetary level.

The Library of the More-Than-Humane originated in 2023 with a workshop designed and led by experimental philosopher Jonathon Keats for the exhibition Ways of Knowing, Ways of Being: Arts Research and Integration, organized and curated by Ellen McMahon at the University of Arizona. After the workshop and the exhibition, the library directors decided to create a digital archive to showcase the works submitted by participants from Tucson, Arizona, and other places around the world. The multilingual website administered by the Wanwu Arts Research Lab at the University of Arizona also serves as a tool for expanding international collaborative research about more-than-human conditions, with a particular emphasis on art as a generative mode of inquiry.

In addition to the workshop in Tucson, Keats has continuously led community workshops around the world for participants to evaluate the lifeways of animals, plants, and fungi they know personally, deriving guidance that might be applied to the human domain. Taking inspiration from cultural and historical sources including medieval bestiaries, each participant narrates what one of the creatures might teach in a small hand-crafted book.

The books are collected in a physical and digital archive administered by the University of Arizona. Through exhibitions and the website, the public can learn from flora and fauna globally, and contribute books of their own making. The Library of the More-Than-Humane supports unstructured, process-based learning from nonhuman teachers, and serves as a critical resource for research on epistemology, ethics, and legal models that reflect and protect the values of nature.