@article{De Villiers_2018, title={Metaphysical Anthropocentrism, Limitrophy, and Responsibility: An Explication of the Subject of Animal Rights}, volume={21}, url={https://perjournal.co.za/article/view/5320}, DOI={10.17159/1727-3781/2018/v21i0a5320}, abstractNote={<p>This article undertakes a critical analysis of subjectivity and exposes the metaphysical and anthropocentric quasi-transcendental conditions that give rise to the construct(ion) of the Subject. I locate a critical moment for the metaphysical Subject in the work of Martin Heidegger which, whilst sadly not sustained in his later writings, provides a point of departure for an examination of the significance that animality plays in the metaphysical tradition and its constitutive relation to the construct of subjectivity. I discern this relation to be violent and sacrificial and draw on Jacques Derrida’s nonanthropocentric ethics against the background of Drucilla Cornell’s ethical reading of deconstruction to construct a critique of approaches that assimilate animals to the traditional model of subjectivity in order to represent their identity and interests in the legal paradigm. The main argument that I seek to advance is that such an approach paradoxically re-constructs the classical humanist subject of metaphysics and re-establishes the subject-centred system that silences the call of the animal Other, thereby solidifying and extending the legitimacy of a discourse and mode of social regulation that is fundamentally anthropocentric. I examine how we can address, incapacitate and move beyond this schemata of power through a rigorous deconstruction of the partitions that institute the Subject and how deconstruction clears a space for a <em>de novo</em> determination of the animal "subject" that can proceed from different sites of nonanthropocentric interruption. What follows is a call to refuse the mechanical utilisation of traditional legal constructs and I argue in favour of an approach to the question of the animal (in law) that identifies and challenges <em>anthropocentrism</em> as its critical target. I ultimately propose a critical engagement with the underlying metaphysical support of animal rights at a conceptual level, rather than simply utilising the law pragmatically as an instrument of immediate resolution.</p> <p> </p> <p><a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=en&view_op=list_works&gmla=AJsNF7ap8RHRG9BoqpMjpI21zQn2mk39GhT95OqCIXjzhls64fuba66CQaAJj_btl60SyhUKz20QinI4ThWP440_VdGF5tgg&user=C4ZqO54AAAAJ#" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><img src="/public/site/images/bontle-1813/Google_Scholar39.png"></a>  </p>}, journal={Potchefstroom Electronic Law Journal}, author={De Villiers, Jan-Harm}, year={2018}, month={Dec.}, pages={1–29} }