Violence against animals from the perspective of Jacques Derrida

Abstract

In this paper we will study a particular position with regards to the ethical responsibility we owe to non-human living beings, namely the position of Derrida. We will study how the French thinker approaches the question of the animal, focusing on the relation between the human living being and the animal living being, and the sacrificial violences that the former operates on the latter. Firstly, we will analyze the concept of animal genocide, and how it differentiates from the traditional violences towards animals. We will see that Derrida describes our culture as a «carno-fallogocentrism», where violence towards animals always had a constitutive position, although in the last two centuries it underwent alarming transformations. Next, we will consider compassion as a reaction to the genocide: we will see that this compassion does not lead us to a total eradication of violence, but to an economy of it ruled by the question «how does one eat well?». Finally, we will ask ourselves the question of animal rights, and we will see that Derrida considers these rights as necessary but insufficient.