La trascendenza dell'animale a partire da Lévinas

In the field of animal ethics and in contemporary discussion on animal welfare, there is a widespread idea that man has a responsibility towards animals due to the fact that they are sentient beings, i.e. beings that can suffer. In the most recent studies dealing with the animal question from the perspective of Levinas’ ethics there is a tendency to argue that the sense of responsibility towards animals primarily derives from the exposure to their suffering. The present paper addresses this issue by shifting the attention from the suffering of animals to their transcendence. With the aid of Lévinas’ categories it will be demonstrated that man primarily has a responsibility towards animals not because they suffer, but because they represent, regardless of their actual condition, an ontological transcendence, a value that is always positive, which once destroyed is irreplaceable.