Seite 98 [98]
OCR
96 | THe Puitosopny or Eco-Pouirics justly claim a response from us. For the starting point of this radical ethics of responsibility is the event of being addressed, which precedes all objectification. We cannot therefore previously pose the usual question as to who they are — or more precisely, what: things or persons —, we cannot thematise their ethical status or tie it to biological criteria (“let them be bipeds without fur”), for instance. But then how can we know whether who or what begs for our mercy is appealing to our duty rightfully or wrongly? Joe Larios, the author of a recently appeared study, offers a way out in sophisticated fashion for man fleeing from his responsibility, only to immediately close it off. He reminds us that, according to Lévinas, I can tell from the Face of the Other not only their mortality and vulnerability, but also his/her right to hold me accountable. If they can judge me, they must possess judgement themselves. ‘This is usually taken to mean that in the moral sense the Other can only be another human being, i-e., that an eco-ethics is impossible. Larios, however, argues that other higher vertebrate animals besides us also have this capacity. He points to instances where their behaviour indicates individual decisions, i.e., intentionality, and, moreover, intentionality based on the recognition of the interests of Others. Would they therefore be capable of what Waldenfels, in his above-quoted lecture, called the criterion of a moral act: “are they capable of not starting with themselves”? Many take this to be self-evident in the case of a beloved or long-known animal — between a dog and his master, say. How is this possible and why do we not perceive this personalness in the case of other living beings? Larios answers that we attune ourselves over time to our pet and that this makes it possible to notice their Face turned towards us, in spite of the biological distance: the intentionality in their behaviour, the reciprocity in our relationship. Not incidentally, we can create eye-contact with them. (And we could with our livestock doomed to a life of suffering, as well. Why would we avoid the gaze of a cow or pig being dragged to the slaughterhouse if they have no Face? If their gaze contained only instinctive protest and not the forbidding command that addresses us?) But what if it is only the same distance that prevents us from recognising the Face of a stag beetle or an oak forest? Is it possible that the ability required for the creation of a personal, i.e., ethical, relationship is missing not from them but from us?” 92 Joe Larios: Levinas and the Primacy of the Human. Ethics & The Environment 24.2. 2019.
