Nonhuman Animals as Relational Others: An Existential Metatheoretical Reframing of the Being-in-the-World Model

Nonhuman animals are relational, sentient, and existential beings, who form bonds with conspecifics, respond to others, and engage in meaningful relations with humans. They possess capacities for suffering, learning, and affective responses. They live as situated and embodied, who are vulnerable, finite, and encounter threat, fear, and loss. These features position nonhuman animals differently from purely ecological or biological entities, while situating them in close proximity to human existence and the social world. Individuals, therefore, need to maintain relations with nonhuman animals. When humans become relationally disconnected from them, however, nonhuman animals are not recognized as subject of experience, and are instead reduced to objects of exclusion, domination, and exploitation. The alienation from nonhuman animals, in turn, results in possible relational disconnection from other domains, particularly the social world. The present conceptual work challenges contemporary anthropocentric models of theoretical frameworks, focusing on the being-in-the-world model. It critically reviews theoretical conceptualizations of human existence in both existential philosophy and existential psychology. It integrates empirical works adapted from existential psychology research and social psychology studies. The human-animal relational world of existence, in turn, is brought into view to redefine the largely ignored animal existence conceptualization within psychology. Nonhuman animals, therefore, are conceptualized as relational others, and are proposed to be incorporated into the model of being-in-the-world. In doing so, the model offers a more comprehensive understanding of human existence, while recognizing nonhuman animals as subjects of experience, capable of suffering, cognition, and relation.