Abstract

In the work of Emmanuel Levinas, the emphasis on the human is what allowed him to maintain a concept of fraternity limited to only one set of beings, thus allowing for an appropriable exteriority to form that could sustain this set of beings. In a worldview in which the set of beings of moral concern is opened up to include nonhumans in a non-determinate way, there is no consistently defined appropriable exteriority posited. This is the point at which the question of justifying the appropriation of other "persons" presents itself since, in such a context, there can be no appropriation which is not potentially that of another "person" since "persons" are not defined in a stable way in...