Wanting Conclusions

This chapter reflects on the work of the book in supplementing Derrida’s writing on animals and the animal-human divide, by widening his focus on the Enlightenment to include a greater range of writings in that period on wolves, savages and slaves. Equally his suggestion that the animal-human boundary always implies or implicates sexual difference is taken beyond the critique of men’s figures (including those of Benjamin cited by Agamben) to incorporate the contribution of women writers. Animal rights philosophers (such as Singer or Regan) emphasize the role of reason in their construction of a case – which Derrida queries for its reliance on a humanist model of rights long used to oppress animals. Insofar as emotion is involved they follow Bentham in highlighting animal suffering, which arouses anger or pity – wanting to avoid sentimentality. However, Haraway or Hearne, for example, focus on case studies of ethical and mutual communication, affection, respect and learning between humans and animals, as well as animal suffering. This relation to otherness, which could include love or friendship, involves both an interrogation of man’s confidence in ascribing properties to himself alone and an openness to the potential or existing properties of any other beings.