Vulnerability & The Other Non-Human Animal: a Phenomenological Approach to Animal Ethics

这个项目使用了Levinas(1981)和Logstrup(2020)提供的现象学方法来解决动物伦理问题。西方传统中大多数关于动物伦理学的描述都把道德建立在一个人的能力上。这种方法就是能力方法，得到了众多哲学家(Nussbaum(2006)、Palmer(2010)、Bendik-Kemer(2014)、Korsgaard(2018)、Irvin(2004))的支持。虽然所有的理论家都同意道德上的体贴与动物拥有某些能力有关，但他们都不同意这套能力。这种概念上的分歧暗示了能力方法产生的一个更广泛的问题，即它无法解释认知水平较低的生物，如智力残疾的人和非人类动物的道德价值。本文旨在将伦理学重新定位于与他人相遇的层面。我将争辩说，动物伦理学的现象学方法最适合于解决能力模型所产生的问题，因为它认为伦理学是由存在的脆弱性产生的。现象学是对世界上存在的第一人称经验的研究。我将使用列维纳斯和洛斯特鲁普的现象学方法来探索在一个存在与另一个存在的互动中产生的伦理维度。我会争辩说，面对人类的非人类动物的具体化存在创造了对后者的需求。Logstrup所称的“道德要求”是对方通过向对方暴露其脆弱性而对对方提出的片面和沉默的要求。这一要求先于任何惯例，只有对另一方负有道义责任的一方才能听到。道德不是能力的产物，而是面对另一个有无限需要需要满足的生物的概念前的重量。

This project uses the phenomenological approach offered by Levinas(1981) and Logstrup(2020) to address the question of animal ethics. Most current accounts of animal ethics in the Western tradition ground morality on a being's capabilities. This approach is the capabilities approach and is defended by a wide range of philosophers (Nussbaum (2006), Palmer (2010), Bendik-Keymer (2014), Korsgaard (2018), Irvin (2004)). While all theorists agree that moral considerability is tied to an animal's possession of certain capabilities, they all disagree on the set of capabilities. This conceptual disagreement hints at a wider problem generated by the capabilities approach, i.e., its incapacity to account for the moral worth of less cognitively developed beings such as mentally disabled humans and non-human animals.This thesis aims to relocate ethics at the level of the encounter with an Other. I shall argue that a phenomenological approach to animal ethics is best suited to solve the problems generated by capabilities models because it views ethics as arising out of a being's vulnerability. Phenomenology is the study of the first-person experience of beings in the world. I will use the phenomenological approaches of Levinas and Logstrup to explore the ethical dimension arising during a being's interaction with another being. I will argue that the embodied presence of a non-human animal facing a human being creates a demand on the latter. What Logstrup calls the 'Ethical Demand' is the one-sided and silent request the Other makes on the One by exposing their vulnerability to them. This demand is prior to any convention and can only be heard by the One who becomes morally responsible for the Other. Ethics is not the product of capabilities, but is rather the pre-conceptual weight of being confronted to another living creature which has infinite needs that need to be fulfilled.