Abstract
Rather than regarding the relation between humanity and animality as an important supplemental question when considering claims of personhood or ethical worth, this essay makes two claims that place the thresholds among species at the foundation of problems of ethical recognition. First, all modes of recognition presuppose a norm of human likeness and species solidarity; rather than expand this range of human inclusiveness (that relies on differentiation), we might think of attributing political and ethical worth to those with whom we feel neither solidarity nor significant difference. Second, rather than see the self as a person or body that possesses sexuality as an individuating predicate, we might think of a milieu of individuating possibilities from which relatively differentiated selves emerge.
