Thinking outside the cage : sacrifice, equality and the plight of the animal

Abstract

In this dissertation I illustrate the existence of anthropocentric social and legal configurations that are maintained through the embodiment of a belief system in which animals occupy a space as sacrificial beings, and philosophically examine and call into question the way in which we relate to animals within these schemata of domination. These sacrificial structures or arrangements contain animals in an identity which marks them as Other and I subsequently call for a problematisation and destabilisation of these structures. I employ a critical approach that seeks to move beyond the traditional rights-based approach that has come to dominate animal liberation discourse. Such an approach emphasises the significance of deconstruction for animal ethics and highlights the way in which the animal is subjected to marginalisation within anthropocentric schemata of domination. From this perspective, I argue that we need a deconstruction and ensuing displacement of the human (subject) as phallogocentric structure and that we need to embrace a mode of being that facilitates the development of an ethical relation to the animal Other. To this end, I advance veganism as a form of deconstruction and ethical way of being that allows us to criticise and resist repression of the animal Other. I also contemplate animal subjugation as a relation to the law and examine the ideological underpinnings of animal welfare theory and animal rights theory, the two most prominent theories aimed at transforming the human-animal relation. I proceed to critically engage with the philosophical presuppositions of animal rights theory as a possible foundation for animal liberation by addressing, like others have done before me, the historical and theoretical gaps of rights theory. I argue that animal rights theory invokes dichotomies and rigid identities that replicate and perpetuate anthropocentric relations of subordination by (paradoxically) confirming a certain interpretation of the human subject that lies at the very core of animal subjugation. I ultimately argue that such an approach must be rejected if we are to hold open the possibility of recalibrating the animal's status as sacrificial being.