Paper short abstract:

Beyond recessive trends of human-animal ties in (western) history, (some) animals have been turned recently to “persons”, thus figuring a “new domestic order”. Complementary, the very concept of man was challenged and theorized by rather anti-enlightenment post-humanist thinkers and activists.

Paper long abstract:

"I see the life of the native as utterly devoid of interest or importance, something as remote from me as the life of a dog…" - Malinowski confessed in his Journal. Only some decades latter, Tim Ingold claimed that "animals are not just like persons, they are persons". For 63.2% of the American pet owners, these are indeed members of the family. A "new domestic order" seems to emerge as the outcome of a co-evolution of the family structure and a changing attitude toward animals in general. (Some) animals have been turned not just to "persons", but to subjects of law too - or, at least, to subjects of ethics. In return, the very concept of manhood has been challenged along an anti-enlightenment post-humanist ideology.

Following the case study of pets, the paper presents and questions this recent moral standard of the "authentic man" and its enlarged concept of personhood.