狗臉的歲／水月
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Date
2006-01-01
Authors
梁孫傑
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Publisher
國立臺灣大學出版中心
Abstract
法國哲學家列維納斯以人本關懷著稱於世，強調我們對他者無條件的歡迎接納，在二十世紀的倫理學研究上產生舉足輕重的深遠影響。本論文擬就列維納斯的倫理主張為理論依循指標，探索動物是否有可能成為列維納斯倫理思維中所悅納的異己。列氏將其倫理哲學設定在人與人的關係上，在先天上就已將動物排拒在待客之道之外，但他在〈一條狗的名字，或是自然權利〉裡，卻聲稱一條他在集中營裡有邂逅的狗是「納粹德國最後一位康德的追隨者」，又和他的倫理觀有所杆格齟齬。本論文從列氏的主要倫理概念著手，簡介待客之道、他者、面貌、語言對人類和對動物有不同程度的適用性，致使他的倫理思想在動物問題上會產生嚴重的雙重標準，而列氏的解決之道是藉用文學象徵手法，在這些人類和動物互動的事件裡，營造出動物所象徵的文化意涵，然而意義一旦得以彰顯，動物被賦與的象徵功能立刻自動消散，人還是人、狗還是狗，各自歸回其位。動物和人類之間不可逾越的鴻溝其實是列氏對納粹親身經驗和嚴肅思者的結果。假如人類是動物的話，那納粹的暴行都可解釋成生物演化過程中自然的一環。但基於這樣的邏輯卻讓列維納斯的倫理觀不得不架構在物種位階體系的必然性上，也因此對列維納斯而言，動物稱不上是我們的客人。
Frech philosopher Emmanuel Levinas is worldly renowned for his ethical concerns, emphasizing our unconditioned welcome to the other, and his philosophy has exerted a great influence upon the studies of ethics in the 20th century. This paper intends to employ Levinasian ethics as the theoretical framework to explore the question: whether the animal can be regarded as the other that enjoys the unconditioned welcome. Since Levinas’s ethics is based on a human-to-human relation, the animal seems to have been excluded form the ethical concern in the first place. In his “The Name of a Dog, or Natural Right,” however, Levinas claims that a stray dog he encountered in the concentration camp is “the last Kantian in Nazi Germany.” This paper begins with the discussion of major ethical issues in Levinas’s philosophy, such as hospitality, the other, the face, language, and their different applications to human beings and the animals; these different applications nonetheless result in a serious double standard. The way for Levinas to solve this problematic is to resort to the cultural significance represented by the animal, but once this purpose is fulfilled, the symbolic dimension of the animal automatically vanishes; human is human, and animal remains animal. The gap between human and animal can never be traversed. This is a conclusion form Levinas’s experience with the Nazi. If human being can be animal, the atrocity of Nazi can be interpreted as part of the natural process in terms of biological revolution. This logical conclusion forces Levinas to build up his ethics on the necessity of a hierarchy. To Levinas, the animal can never be our guest.
Frech philosopher Emmanuel Levinas is worldly renowned for his ethical concerns, emphasizing our unconditioned welcome to the other, and his philosophy has exerted a great influence upon the studies of ethics in the 20th century. This paper intends to employ Levinasian ethics as the theoretical framework to explore the question: whether the animal can be regarded as the other that enjoys the unconditioned welcome. Since Levinas’s ethics is based on a human-to-human relation, the animal seems to have been excluded form the ethical concern in the first place. In his “The Name of a Dog, or Natural Right,” however, Levinas claims that a stray dog he encountered in the concentration camp is “the last Kantian in Nazi Germany.” This paper begins with the discussion of major ethical issues in Levinas’s philosophy, such as hospitality, the other, the face, language, and their different applications to human beings and the animals; these different applications nonetheless result in a serious double standard. The way for Levinas to solve this problematic is to resort to the cultural significance represented by the animal, but once this purpose is fulfilled, the symbolic dimension of the animal automatically vanishes; human is human, and animal remains animal. The gap between human and animal can never be traversed. This is a conclusion form Levinas’s experience with the Nazi. If human being can be animal, the atrocity of Nazi can be interpreted as part of the natural process in terms of biological revolution. This logical conclusion forces Levinas to build up his ethics on the necessity of a hierarchy. To Levinas, the animal can never be our guest.