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

本项目采用了列维纳斯（1981）和罗格斯特鲁普（2020）提供的现象学方法来解决动物伦理问题。在西方传统中，目前大多数关于动物伦理的描述都是以动物的能力为基础的。这种方法是能力方法，得到了许多哲学家的支持(Nussbaum (2006), Palmer (2010), Bendik-Keymer (2014), Korsgaard （2018), Irvin(2004)）。虽然所有的理论家都同意道德上的可考虑性与动物拥有的某些能力有关，但他们在能力的集合上都存在分歧。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，它无法解释认知发展程度较低的生物的道德价值，如智障人类和非人类动物。这篇论文的目的是在与他者相遇的层面上重新定位伦理学。我认为，动物伦理学的现象学方法最适合解决能力模型产生的问题，因为它认为伦理是由生物的脆弱性产生的。现象学是研究世界上存在的第一人称体验的学科。我将使用列维纳斯和洛格斯特鲁普的现象学方法来探索一个存在与另一个存在互动过程中产生的伦理维度。我认为，非人类动物面对人类的具象化存在，对人类产生了一种需求。洛格斯特鲁普所说的“道德要求”是他者通过向他者暴露他们的弱点而向他者提出的片面和沉默的要求。这个要求先于任何约定，只有对他者负有道德责任的那一位才能听到。伦理不是能力的产物，而是面对另一个有无限需求需要满足的生物时的概念前的重量。

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.