Examined Life with Non-Human Others

The examined life—Socrates' imperative that 'the unexamined life is not worth living'—becomes radically expanded through the Hodja's tradition. Rather than examining only human affairs, we examine our relationships with animals: Why do we find some creatures worthy of protection and others disposable? What habit made us stop noticing the chickens? How did we justify taking what wasn't ours? The Hodja's method is to ask seemingly naive questions that reveal profound contradictions in what we think we know. Applied to animal ethics, this means regular self-inquiry: What animals do I ignore? Whose perspective am I excluding? Where do my comfort and their suffering overlap? This practice transforms ethical consideration from abstract principle into lived, embodied awareness of our complicity and power.