Towards an ethical relation to the nonhuman other : deconstruction, veganism and the law

Abstract

This article explores the ethical significance of deconstruction for law and advances veganism as a form of deconstruction that exposes and resists the anthropocentric character of social and legal configurations. The article engages with Jacques Derrida’s project of deconstructing the (human) subject and draws on Drucilla Cornell’s reconception of deconstruction as the philosophy of the limit. By examining the philosophical foundations of justice and deconstruction, the article exposes justice as the limit to a system of law and investigates the capacity of deconstruction to advance the ethical relation (to the nonhuman Other). Justice? – you get justice in the next world, in this world, you have the law.