Heterogeneity and Injustice: A Sketch for a Lyotardian Approach to Animal Ethics

Gerard KUPERUS

While most approaches to animal ethics emphasize the equality of non-human and human animals, this paper recognizes the animal not as an equal, but as an absolute other. In order “to sketch” the argument for such a new approach, the essay relies on Jean-François Lyotard’s notion of the “differend” and makes explicit use of his analysis of the phrase-affect. The “differend” is typically used for understanding the oppression of individuals or groups who have lost the ability to defend themselves. With the phrase-affect Lyotard opposes the animal phônè (the signaling of the body) to human logos. He emphasizes that against our emphasis of logos, we have to recognize that meaning does not only reside in human language. To deny meaning to phônè constitutes a “differend” — a situation in which an individual or group (in this case the non-human animal) is systematically denied rights and cannot phrase the injustice experienced. Through the phrase-affect this essay, thus, applies Lyotard’s analysis of the victim of a “differend” to the non-human animal. Although he never developed such an analysis, Lyotard does mention that the animal constitutes the “paradigm of a victim.” More broadly he argues that we need to cultivate sensitivity for otherness and for the “differend.” The essay argues that a human rights approach can be made precisely through such a strategy, in which we do not emphasize equality, but the absolute otherness as a basis for respect and ethics. The result of this approach is that we recognize the right of the animal to exist as an autonomous being.

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