Mgr. Mira Tan Reyes (since 2017)
Email: yummypinkrabbit@gmail.com
Supervisor: Dr. Ondrej Beran
Dissertation subject: Otherwise than Anthropocentrism: Levinas Face-to-Face with the Animal
Dissertation abstract
This project searches for a non-anthropocentric animal ethics based upon the thought of Emmanuel Levinas. Levinas’ critique of onto-theology evades substance and reasonsponsored
animal ethics that marginalises other avenues of seeing truth in value such as relationship and emotions. The problem, however, is that Levinas does not grant the animal the status of Face. He explained that animals belong to the Darwinistic struggle for life which is preoccupied with a life of appropriating for the self.
This thesis takes the challenge of:
1. demonstrating that Lévinas’ central concepts affirm that the animal does have a Face;
2. showing that Levinasian ethics could sponsor a relational and care approach to animals that is an alternative to the rights, interest, and egalitarian species discourse;
3. criticising that the notion of ‘humane’ is not feasible without regard for the nonhuman Other.