Introduction
The work of Levinas provides a unique perspective in philosophy. Where Western philosophy has a history of pushing the limits of knowledge as far as possible, he questions whether the quest for knowledge is a just one, whether it is ethically appropriate, and questions the assumed freedom which allows us to continue it. Self-criticism, the project of theory and hence of knowledge, “can be understood as a discovery of one’s weakness or a discovery of one’s unworthiness – either as a consciousness of failure or as a consciousness of guilt” (Levinas, 1969, 83). The Western tradition has always assumed the former, and as such has consistently failed to ask itself if it is justified in continuing its search, or whether its failure is reflective of its own essential inadequacy in the face of that which it seeks to know. This is precisely the question which Levinas asks.
For Levinas the human condition is constituted by both separation (the inner life), and a relation with the Other (the infinite, exteriority). It is in this latter relation that ethics appears; in it the Other cannot simply be reduced to the same, reduced to an object for knowledge and therefore possessed by the knower. The interruption by the Other puts my own freedom into question as Levinas puts the question to Western philosophy. I come face to face with the Other, as he puts it, and through my own inadequacy I feel guilt and unworthiness. Part of this guilt is a feeling of responsibility for all suffering of the Other.
One of the major ethical issues facing the world today is the treatment of other species and our common habitat, the environment. Given that Levinas believes ethics to be primary in philosophy, one might have some hope that an analysis of his work can contribute to this problem. However Levinas’ position is so unique, so far outside of traditional ethics, that it has always been difficult to place him in conversation with it, to allow him to contribute to concrete ethics issues. Hutchens goes so far as to say that “the agenda of normative ethics ... is not something to which Levinasian ethics can make any contribution.” (2004, 35)
Yet some writers do still believe that Levinas can contribute through this notion of responsibility. I have a responsibility to the Other, but who is the Other exactly? Does it have to be a fellow human being, or can an animal or even, in some way, the environment be considered an Other to which we are responsible? We will look closely at three accounts which explore this possibility, and attempt to respond, with evidence from Levinas’ work itself, and show why the approaches they take may not be fruitful ones to follow.
The Arguments
Firstly we look at Diehm’s essay ‘Natural Disasters’ (2003). Here he claims that the Other provokes a reaction in me because I see in him a visible vulnerability and more importantly, a suffering. “I do not witness the other’s suffering without being moved” (2003, 175). It is this witnessing which opens up the ethical, though Diehm is quick to point out that “it is not the case that ethics arises only at the sight of blood” (2003, 177), rather that the possibility for suffering is enough to cause the commencement of ethics, and this is “a possibility that inheres in the flesh of every body.” (2003, 177)
As a result, the key question to ask ourselves here is who suffers, “the question of who the other is is not Who speaks? But Who suffers?” (2003, 178) In an investigation of what entities can count as Other, we must ask which entities are capable of suffering. This does not mean only those entities capable of feeling pain, it is a broader term which is not limited by the psychological capabilities of the entity (2003, 176).
Diehm asks this question, who suffers? He finds his answer in the work of Hans Jonas. All organisms have a form of exchange with the environment, they take things which they need, and reject things they do not. In this way they create a border around themselves, and thus have an interiority and an exteriority. Following this line of thought leaves us with organisms which have needs that can be obstructed or interrupted. Any given organism is set up as a site of freedom which I recognise as not mine to interfere with. It seems possible then that all organisms are Other to myself, and I am responsible to each.
Additionally, Diehm cautions “against reducing the face to a face” (2003, 172), reducing alterity to difference, something objectified and thematised. This would reduce it to knowledge, and hence the same. This leads to a principle of inclusion rather than exclusion, placing the burden of proof on those who wish to exclude any organism from counting as Other. Diehm sees evidence for Levinas’ own agreement with this in the infamous interview during which he is asked directly whether animals can have a face, and to which he responds entirely ambiguously, “I don’t know if a snake has a face. I can’t answer that question.” (Bernasconi and Wood, 1988, 172)
Secondly, we will be looking at Calarco’s essay ‘Faced by animals’ (in Atterton and Calarco, 2009 ). One intriguing line he follows here is to argue that animals can in fact be Is, that is, they are capable of ethical responses to the presence of others. To this end he highlights the phenomenon of altruism in the animal kingdom, of which there are many examples. A number of plausible explanations for this phenomenon have been proposed, at the levels of species, group or even genetic preservation. However, Calarco does not wish to provide an explanation that ‘raises’ animal altruism to the level of human ethics. Instead he believes that human ethics is no more than another example of animal altruism. “That human beings engage in acts of radical altruism is no more of a “miracle” or a rupture in the order of being than when animals do the same thing” (2009). In addition to other explanations such as selfish genes (and these are presumed to apply to humans as much as they do animals), Calarco believes there is room for a cognitive explanation in Levinasian terms (this too will apply to animals as much as it does to humans).
Satisfied on this point, Calarco moves on to our primary question, whether animals can be seen as Other, whether animals can have a face. He defines the face as “an expressivity and vulnerability that calls my thought and egoism into question and that demands an alternative mode of relation.” (2009). He acknowledges that Levinas explicitly says the Other must be human when he says that “the absolutely foreign can only be man” (Levinas, 1969, 73), but points out that “the Other cannot belong to any genus whatsoever, not even one as broad as ‘humanity’” (2009). In a similar manner to Diehm, he cites the interview with Levinas where he is so ambiguous as evidence that it is difficult, or indeed impossible, to set a limit to who can count as Other. “By what right can we delimit who the Other is in advance of such encounters? Should we not, then, take Levinas literally when he says “I cannot say at what moment you have the right to be called ‘face’”?” (2009). Levinas is incapable of saying whether animals have faces, not because he is unsure of whether they count, but because he has no authority to arbitrarily limit the Other.
Calarco claims that there are three aspects to ethical encounters: “(a) the ways in which my egoism might be interrupted, (b) the kinds of entities who might call me into question, and (c) the manner in which such interruptions might transform me” (2009). Clearly it is (b) with which we are most concerned here, and Calarco states his assumption “that most readers of Levinas who are somewhat sympathetic to his project would be generous in allowing for alternative modes of interruption (the first point) and transformation (the third point)” (2009). He obviously believes that this second point too cannot be limited and so is also flexible. Considering his earlier point that we have no right to delimit the Other, this leads to the conclusion that literally everyone and everything can potentially be Other to us. Calarco is happy to accept this outcome, saying that “we are obliged to proceed from the possibility that anything might take on a face. And we are further obliged to hold this possibility permanently open” (2009). One could question why he has only focused on the possibility of animals taking on a face. His answer lies in understanding his project and purpose. He begins with an intention to question the common neglect by philosophy to address the issue of animals, and here specifically to question its potential place within the philosophy of Levinas.
Finally we will look at Casey’s essay ‘Taking a glance at the environment’ (2003). As we have just seen, Calarco thinks that it is possible to see anything as Other, and so perhaps there may be an opening within Levinas for an ethics of the environment. This is the task which Casey pursues, believing it possible to see the environment (or part of it) as Other, to see in the environment an equivalent to the face.
He believes “that the human glance, meagre as it seems to be, is indispensable for consequential ethical action” (2003, 188). The reason is that the glance provides a method of access to the other individual, a direct access which can offer information not only about appearance, but about the person behind the eyes, as it were. In Levinasian terms the glance is the precise way in which I witness and welcome the Other. Casey admits that Levinas himself played down the role of the glance in the welcoming of the Other. For Levinas the glance meant perception, and perception implied knowledge, a reduction of the Other to the same in representation. For this reason Levinas did not wish to talk about ‘looking’ upon the face or perceiving it – the relation with the face is rather always and directly ethical. It is a relation which precedes knowledge and so it must precede perception and the glance.
Casey recognises that he is in direct contradiction to Levinas on this point, but believes that Levinas’ own position is unsustainable, quoting Levinas referring to the ‘appearance’ of the face. His solution is in a Leibnizian term; apperception, meaning a subtle and pre-conscious perception, but a perception nonetheless. Leibniz’s own example here was of waves crashing on a shore – one could not hear (perceive) an individual wave, but the perception must be there, because with a great number of waves the effect is multiplied and the sound can be clearly heard (perceived). These subtle perceptions are pre-conscious and therefore precede full blown, objectifying perception, of which Levinas is rightly wary.
What appears then is the face, and so Casey needs to find an equivalent in the environment. After rejecting a number of weak propositions (e.g. analogising the world to a body), he finds the focal point of a place in a landscape, which will be composed of a layout and a surface. The most important aspect here is the surface – a flexible and visible means of expression. He also applies this analysis to humans. There is nothing obscure about encountering the face of a landscape, because the face of a human is simply an expressive surface too.
Through the glance I am able to apperceive in a surface something which is against the natural order of things, “I am witnessing disorder in the environment” (2003, 197). This apperception leads to me feeling an imperative to act upon this disorder, to restore whatever balance has been lost. Ethics is thus before anything is said, it is rather seen or witnessed. “Before anything is said ... there is the moment of ethical engagement” (2003, 203).
We have now examined three examples of the use of Levinasian ethics in an ecological setting, each with differing approaches, but sharing some major points which we may wish to investigate. It will be worthwhile to summarise some of these connections between the three essays before we proceed to ask what evidence there may be within Levinas’ work to support or contradict them.
One obvious link is the interview in which Levinas is asked directly about the possibility of animals having faces. His apparent uncertainty here is leaned on heavily by both Diehm and Calarco in their essays, and whilst Levinas is not asked about the environment specifically, and Casey does not use the interview, an interpretation of it along the lines of that put forward by Calarco could certainly be used to the benefit of Casey’s project. Their interpretation of this interview excerpt allows Diehm and Calarco to argue that the Other cannot be limited, thus forcing any would be opponents to their thesis to find justification for any limitation.
Another common aspect is perception. This is most explicitly discussed by Casey, as we have seen in his discussion of perception and apperception. Yet it is implicit in Diehm, when we “catch sight of” (2003, 177) the vulnerability and hence the possibility of suffering inherent in the flesh. Calarco’s position is less clear, but like Diehm he focuses very heavily on the face of the Other, through which I experience primarily his suffering. Here we encounter the final major link between the three, most clearly stated by Diehm, that the key feature of the Other is its suffering, or at least its potential to suffer.
Criticisms
In our response, we will be dealing with these major aspects and discovering that they are not entirely faithful to Levinas’ work itself. There are a number of criticisms to be made regarding various issues and mistakes made in the arguments, and we will take them each in turn, but it will be useful to begin with a broader statement of objection. The view taken by these authors shows a fundamental misinterpretation of the relation of the Other within Levinas’ philosophy.
We will of course discuss this relation in gradually greater detail, but immediately we can see much evidence against the interpretation of the ethical relation given by Calarco, Casey and Diehm. The relation as they see it is a feeling of responsibility initiated by the experience of suffering in another. For Casey I witness disorder, the analogue of suffering, in the environment, and this perception is sufficiently intense to provoke a strong feeling of an imperative to act. For Calarco and particularly for Diehm, I experience an animal as a site of actual or at least potential suffering and once again feel an imperative to act ethically toward this being. This experience of suffering itself is interpreted in the most literal, cognitive sense as an appearance, primarily visually, of an entity in pain or capable of pain. Our main objection will thus be against this account, as we show that according to Levinas himself the relation with the Other is one of metaphysical Desire, as a longing for something completely foreign, an absolute alterity (Levinas, 1969, 34). He is also clear about what this means exactly. The relation occurs thanks to the simple presence of the Other, not an appearance, a specific moment in time which presents me with a vision of suffering. Understood correctly, the other as Other, as infinity and metaphysical Desire, is always present in my life, is in fact constitutive of it. The distance, which cannot be traversed, between myself and the Other communicates to me the idea of infinity. Precisely because this distance cannot be traversed it is the cause of a hunger which cannot be satisfied, the cause of metaphysical Desire.
These concepts will be explained more thoroughly as we continue through our criticisms, for now it is enough to point out that the relation with the Other does not involve any perception, particularly of suffering, and also is not a feeling experienced by a subject, a label attached to it in the way we may say we currently feel guilty, happy or hungry. My relation to the Other is far more integral to who I am, and as we will show, the role of the Other cannot be taken on by just any entity.
In addressing these arguments in detail, we will first talk about Casey’s application of Levinas to environmental issues. Given that animals do have faces in the ordinary usage of the word, this application would seem the most difficult to pull off successfully. When we look closely at Casey’s argument, a pivotal point is the problem of perception. As we just stated, Casey gives it a central role, in opposition to Levinas himself, who played it down. There is ample evidence to support this, which shows how clearly and explicitly Levinas denied that access to the Other is gained in any way through perception. He states early on in Totality and Infinity that vision “is an adequation of the idea with the thing” (Levinas, 1969, 34). By this he means that vision, or perception, presumes that its representation of a thing, its idea of it, is an accurate reflection of the thing itself. In ordinary experience this is no problem, but in an experience of the Other, I am in relation with the infinite. The Other overflows all ideas I can have of him. To talk of accessing the Other through perception would be to do violence to the Other; “the metaphysical relation can not be properly speaking a representation, for the other would therein dissolve into the same” (Levinas, 1969, 38). Perception is in no way sufficient for a truly metaphysical relation with the Other.
Casey of course does acknowledge this, admitting that he is deviating from Levinas somewhat on this issue. He believes however, that Levinas cannot consistently deny perception any role, quoting Levinas talking about the ‘appearance’ of a face (Casey, 2003, 190). As we have seen, he proposes use of the term apperception as a pre-objectifying mode of perception, which allows visual access to the Other without the worry of reducing him to the same. By his use of this term he thinks that he has overcome the problems facing perception. On closer inspection though, it is difficult to have such confidence in his solution, as the pre-objectifying nature of apperception becomes problematic.
“Analogues to this situation abound: the practiced medical doctor knows by a mere glance what her patient is suffering from” (Casey, 2003, 198). A number of similar examples follow this one of the doctor. Aside from the bizarre phenomenon of the doctor who can diagnose illnesses without conducting tests, the problem with this and all of the other examples Casey provides is that they do not appear to be pre-objectifying. Casey specifically names examples of experts within their fields. Seemingly distracted by the speed with which experts can make decisions, he neglects to realise that experts are called such due to their extensive knowledge of their area, and that in a cognitive sense, expertise is believed to be an ability to process information in larger chunks due to knowledge of and familiarity with the appropriate data (Eysenck and Keane, 2005, 451). But these are not simply inaccurate examples of what Casey is referring to. He states that familiarity with an environment will allow a person to see at a glance that there is disorder. The implicit assumption here is that the person will know what the natural order is. It seems unclear how one might distinguish between a person’s feeling that it is not ‘right’ or ‘natural’ for a forest to be cut down from another person’s feeling that it is not ‘right’ or ‘natural’ for two members of the same sex to engage in an intimate relationship. Granted these are two extreme examples, but the difficulty remains, and only increases when less clear cut situations are considered. Leibniz’s apperceptions do not break through to consciousness without becoming full blown perceptions. The sounds of the waves may be made up of a great number of apperceptions, but all that I am aware of experiencing is the perception of waves hitting the shore. An apperception of a landscape cannot make itself known to me without becoming a perception and thus picking up along the way all the social and cultural baggage that unavoidably causes me to misrepresent the Other.
A final point with regard to Casey, which will be more easily discussed in relation to Calarco and Diehm, is the fact that he uses the notion of surfaces for the visible expressivity of suffering. He concludes that ethics is therefore seen before it is said. We have discussed the increased role of perception in Casey’s argument, but it is worth noting that it oppresses the role of language which is, and for good reason, key in Levinas’ own work.
Turning now to the application of Levinas to animal ethics found in Calarco and Diehm, it may be worth talking first about the attempt to argue that animals can respond ethically to other beings in the former’s essay. Levinas is abundantly clear that the I and the Other do not form a totalised system which can be viewed from the outside (e.g., Levinas, 1969, 35-6). I cannot talk about the Other as an I, to do so would be to try to retain power over him, because I would be assuming once again my own freedom to ascertain knowledge regarding an absolute alterity. In the same way, if Calarco wishes to show that the animal is Other, he cannot also show that it can respond ethically as I an. It is also important to remember that for Levinas the I is also singular, and hence the only ‘I’ which I am capable of talking about is my own. As we said in our main objection, the relation with the Other is one of Desire, an insatiable desire brought about because of this failure to reach the Other through knowledge and theory.
We can now return to the issue of suffering which we have touched on previously. All three essays that we are considering, and in particular Diehm’s, claim that suffering is the key factor in my experience of the Other, and as such is the reason the Other can interrupt my separated life. There is no doubt that I feel a responsibility for the Other’s suffering, to whatever extent there is any, but this is not truly the cause of his interruption in my life. Levinas tells us that the Other interrupts my separated life by provoking or initiating Desire, an insatiable desire for the Desirable – the Other himself, or the Infinite. “The separated being is satisfied, autonomous, and nonetheless searches after the other with a search that is not incited by the lack proper to need nor by the memory of a lost good” (Levinas, 1969, 62). Here he contrasts Desire with need, which proceeds from the subject. If I have a need, it is because I am lacking something and thus require whatever would fulfil this lack. Desire is different in that it does not start with the subject, which has no needs. Rather it comes from, is aroused by, the desirable object itself. Desire is a longing for the Other or the Infinite, but it is “the Desire for the Infinite which the desirable arouses rather than satisfies” (Levinas, 1969, 50). I receive from the Other the idea of infinity (Levinas, 1969, 51), and it is only by virtue of having this idea that my Desire is sparked. We will say more on the interruption of the Other shortly, but it is already clear that he has a much more important role to play than arousing my feelings of responsibility through his suffering.
Calarco and Diehm both use as evidence the interview with Levinas which we have quoted earlier (1988). He is asked directly whether animals have faces, and he answers apparently quite ambiguously. Both of these authors rely heavily on their interpretations of these short excerpts. Levinas does not explain his answers in any detail, and it seems just as plausible that he finds the question itself awkward and perhaps inappropriate to his philosophy. The best that can really be said regarding the ambiguity of his answer is that I have no power to say what is and what is not Other, leaving open the possibility that an animal could be experienced as Other. Equally though this approach denies us the opportunity to say that animals definitely do count, and are experienced as Other.
John Llewelyn addresses this same issue in his essay ‘Toward a more democratic ecological order with Levinas’, in which he attempts to find positive ways to use Levinas’ philosophy in relation to ecological ethics. He says that to limit the Other to a specific species would be no more than an attempt to retain power for ourselves, but despite this, I cannot demand anything of other people, being as they are Other to me. Rather than a conclusion similar to Calarco, Diehm and Casey, whereby we end up with an ethical obligation toward animals or environments, he ends up saying that the most that I can do is to “ask others to ask this of themselves” (2009). The attempt to force an obligation onto all those who would consider themselves an I is itself an attempt to wield power over other humans, demanding that they respond in an ethical manner to animals. Levinas himself rules out the possibility of making any demands of the Other; “what I permit myself to demand of myself is not comparable with what I have the right to demand of the Other” (Levinas, 1969, 53). The lack of a definite negative answer by Levinas in the interview makes perfect sense, and should not be mistaken for an opportunity to answer in the positive – the question is inappropriate because the Other is not something I have control over. As we noted at the beginning of the criticisms, I am always already in a relation of metaphysical Desire with the Other, and so could never have any say in what or who the Other is.
We saw when analysing Calarco’s essay that he sees three aspects to ethical encounters: ways of interruption, entities that can interrupt, and ways the encounter transforms me. He assumed that the first and last aspects were flexible, and proceeded to argue that the second was also. However the flexibility of the second aspect relies on the flexibility of the first. If there are only limited way(s) of interruption, this may indirectly limit the kinds of entities which are capable of interrupting. Calarco clearly assumes that there are various modes of interrupting, and Diehm appears to believe that it is primarily if not entirely through suffering. Levinas makes clear though that there is only one way in which the Other interrupts me, one way in which I can be in a relation to him – discourse. “The relation between the same and the other, metaphysics, is primordially enacted as conversation” (Levinas, 1969, 39). Discourse is “an original relation with exterior being” (Levinas, 1969, 66), it is the only way this relation can be formed. The same and the Other do not form a totality, there is a distance between them, an infinite distance, and for the relation to be one with a genuine alterity, to avoid reducing the Other to the same, the mode of relation must be one which maintains this distance. Conversation, or discourse, “maintains the distance between me and the Other” (Levinas, 1969, 40), and is the only thing which can do so. In fact I can only have a relation with the Other because he attends his own speech, he “receives the possibility of questioning” (Levinas, 1969, 96).
Diehm picks up this argument in another essay, in which he claims that ethical ‘discourse’ is not to be understood too literally as verbal language, as words. It is primarily an expression, again primarily of suffering. Discourse is “the activity of call and response, plea cried and aid given” (2000). While it may be the case that discourse does not necessarily refer specifically to clear verbal expression, it is unwise to move too far in the other direction; the relation is still definitely one of discourse. It is certainly not the case, for instance, that the Other has no effect on me as long as he does not physically speak to me – my experience of the Other is always and immediately metaphysical Desire. But this is not to say that I will experience as Other an other which is actually incapable of speaking.
The interruption of the Other is still also more than a mere expression, especially more than only an expression of suffering, a plea for help. We have already noted and objected to the interpretation that suffering is the key factor in experience of the Other, but there is still more to be said here. All three essays we are considering here talk about the Other as a being in need of my assistance, weaker than me. Certainly Levinas tells us that we experience the Other as destitute, but Calarco, Diehm and Casey neglect the role of the Other as my master. “Justice consists in recognising in the Other my master” (Levinas, 1969, 72), I am completely powerless before him, I am a slave to him. He is described as being “not on the same plane as myself” (Levinas, 1969, 101).
Additionally, the Other is a teacher to me as student. The Other is responsible for so much that I require in my life as both separated and in relation with exteriority, but most importantly he teaches to me the idea of infinity, and is the only one who can do so; “the absolutely foreign alone can instruct us” (Levinas, 1969, 73). This provokes Desire, and is the initiation of my relation with him, “the first teaching of the teacher is his very presence as teacher” (Levinas, 1969, 100). While he may demand my time or my possessions for his own reasons, my experience is one of complete subordination and unworthiness. Levinas states that apology “belongs to the essence of conversation” (1969, 40). The Other, as infinite, exceeds my idea of him (Levinas, 1969, 50), presenting himself as beyond my reach. Finally, I rely on the Other, he holds significant power over me through his use of speech. In his discussion of the evil genius Levinas argues that what is so traumatic for us in this picture is the destruction of language through the refusal of the Other to attend his speech, to respond to questions.
In contrast to this picture, the three essays talk about the Other as poor and defenceless, requiring the power I hold to aid in his survival. This seems not to accurately reflect the entire Levinasian relation with the Other, where I give everything I have to the Other, not because I receive a plea for help, but because even that is not adequate to the power he holds over me, thanks to his distance from me. To write about the Other in the way these authors do betrays that they have not truly taken on board Levinas’ point. The picture painted by them is one in which I, as the same, am still very much the powerful entity in the relation, and perhaps this is inevitable in any discussion of ‘protecting’ the environment and the animals that reside within it.
These essays also appear to forget that Levinas is concerned with what precedes ontology – the Other offers the world in discourse, and it is only through discourse that we can share a common world. “The world is offered in the language of the Other” (Levinas, 1969, 92). The Other offers a world to me through his speech, and it is this which is the true way in which my world becomes gifts for him. I give my world to him in return, and we thus, through discourse, begin to share a common world (Levinas, 1969, 50). In fact, the Other only manifests himself to me by proposing a world (Levinas, 1969, 96). I only have a thematizable world in my separated life because the world has been given to me by the Other. “The objectivity of the object and its signification comes from language” (Levinas, 1969, 96), an object only has meaning because an ‘absolute alterity’ has proposed a world through speech. Meaning within the separated life alone makes no sense, speech must already be resounding for the separated I to live in a world of objects (Levinas, 1969, 97). The Other plays a drastically important role in the life of the separated I, far beyond making simple ethical demands in the way that he does in the essays of Casey, Calarco and Diehm.
This issue highlights another mistake, easily made when reading Levinas. He often sets out the process of interruption in a very linear narrative, as he does in Totality and Infinity, where the Other interrupts an oblivious, separated I. This method of exposition is misleading though, when Levinas is actually discussing a series of tensions within (and exterior to) the life of the I. As we have just seen, for the separated I to have a world in which to be oblivious, it must already be engaged in discourse with the Other. As such my relation with the Other is constitutive of my life, even in its moments of separation and self-involvement. The experience with the Other is not an occasional encounter inspiring a feeling of responsibility after which I return to a state of being separated.
Possible Ways Forward
The purpose of these criticisms has by no means been to attempt to show that the philosophy of Levinas has no contribution to make to ecological ethics. It does show, I believe, that a simple application of his system (if one can call it that) to encounters with animals and environments is not a productive goal. However, given that he does place ethics at the forefront of his philosophy, as constitutive of the human condition, along with his techniques for dealing with certain methodological issues, it would seem a shame to conclude that ecological ethics should simply ignore him completely. We will now consider some possible ways forward, positive steps that could still see Levinas contribute to this field.
One interesting idea contained within the essays we have already considered is Casey’s use of Leibnizian apperceptions. Casey’s version of the concept is fairly basic, but as we look more closely at Leibniz’s own discussion of it, we will see that it relates to the infinite in an intriguing way.
For Leibniz physical effects carry on indefinitely, and in this way “every individual created substance exerts physical action and passion on all the others” (Leibniz, 1989, 33). A physical effect emanating from one substance will continue on, diminishing as it goes but without ever being extinguished. Leibniz himself uses the analogy of a glass of water; “in a vessel filled with a liquid (and the whole universe is just such a vessel) motion made in the middle is propagated to the edges, although it is rendered more and more insensible, the more it recedes from its origin” (Leibniz, 1989, 33).
We apperceive these insensible effects and thus are in some sense connected to the entire physical universe. Leibniz also refers to apperceptions as ‘tiny perceptions’, and offers a very pertinent discussion of them in his ‘Preface to the new essays’.
“These tiny perceptions are therefore more effectual than one thinks. They make up this I-know-not-what, those flavours, those images of the sensory qualities, clear in the aggregate but confused in their parts; they make up those impressions the surrounding bodies make on us, which involve the infinite, and this connection that each being has with the rest of the universe. It can even be said that as a result of these tiny perceptions, the present is filled with the future and laden with the past, that everything conspires together (sympnoia panta, as Hippocrates said), and that eyes as piercing as those of God could read the whole sequence of the universe in the smallest of substances.”
(Leibniz, 1989, 296)
Of clear importance here is the infinite, which is involved because these tiny perceptions ensure that every effect is felt by every substance. If we combine this idea with the philosophy of Levinas, we find that we can posit a relation of the I to the infinite in every substance it encounters. This could potentially open up the Other to be completely inclusive as it becomes for Calarco. In my relation to any particular substance I am in some way in a relation with the infinite.
This is in no way a substitute for the use of apperceptions in Casey’s work. There the concept was used to sneak perception in through the back door. Our own line of thought would never lead to an ability to talk about ‘perceiving’ the Other or witnessing disorder/suffering. It thus emerges very differently to what Casey, Calarco and Diehm were trying to achieve. Additionally it does not address any concerns over the relation being one of discourse, or the role of the Other in offering me a world. This relation of discourse to the human Other will always be necessary, and as such no other substance, animal or inert, could be fully Other, but perhaps we can show how all substances participate in the infinite, and so I find myself in an ethical relation with them all.
There is also more to the work of Levinas than the relation between the I and the Other, and hence many more possible ways it could contribute to an ecological ethics. Llewelyn, for instance, shows how his methodology could help some forms of ecofeminism.
Llewelyn discusses variations of ecofeminism and their viewpoints. One of these, which he refers to as singularist ecofeminism, is characterised as “the ecofeminism for which this centralising of the universal is still a centralising of the masculine” (2009). What this variant of ecofeminism requires is “a feminist critique of universalism” (2009). There is thus an issue regarding how one might go about critiquing universalism without inadvertently subscribing to it. Working entirely outside of a system of universal principles is likely to simply alienate those currently within that system, precisely the audience ecofeminism is trying to reach and convert.
Llewelyn suggests that “eco-feminists could conduct their critique of androcentrism in a manner analogous to that in which Levinas conducts his phenomenology of ethical experience” (2009). What Levinas achieves in his philosophy is an analysis, through the use of classical logic, of classical logocentrism itself, in order to show how it is already deeply affected, at a fundamental level, by alterity, the Other, and ethics. In much the same way, ecofeminism could use masculine universalism “in order to bring out how the very heart of its apparently purely conceptual sameness is affected, touched, contaminated by the alterity not only of another human being but also of what is other than human” (2009).
Conclusion
Each of the essays under investigation, particularly Casey’s, admit that for their project to be successful one needs to go further than Levinas did in his own writings, to make some changes. This is a perfectly reasonable thing to be doing, to use his ideas as a launching pad to new ones. Yet with close investigation it seems that one would need to go so much further that to even use him as a starting point at all is likely to be more of a hindrance than a help.
This is not at all to say, as Calarco comes close to at some points, that Levinas has anything against animals or the environment, or that he believes they are unworthy of an ethical, philosophical treatment. These topics were simply not his concern, he was philosophising on social relations between humans – an entirely understandable subject matter following his experience as a Jewish man living through the 1930s and 40s Europe. It seems at least mildly unfair to criticise someone in that situation for paying too much attention to the issues of inter-human ethics.
Even if some obstacles were overcome and the hard work was done on this project (if the obstacles are ones that have the potential to be overcome), an ecological ethics under this interpretation of Levinas would provide a solution which only worked on the basis of individual encounters of suffering. There is ample evidence that issues in animal and (particularly) environmental ethics require a more fundamental and global change in attitude and approach that perhaps this solution is not best equipped to provide. Certainly Levinas’ work itself operates at this level, but the changes required to transform it into an ecological ethics would almost certainly remove this ability.
None of this denies that Levinas has a contribution to make to ecological ethics, but simply makes the case that forcing animals or landscapes into the role of the Other is inadvisable. At most, what could possibly be achieved is allowing other substances participation in the idea of infinity, as we explored through the use of Leibniz’s apperceptions. We also saw how Llewelyn believes Levinas has other contributions to make to ecological ethics by his methodology, without needing to find a place within Levinasian ethics itself for animals or the environment. These ideas both show that despite the failings of the essays considered earlier, there may be positive changes to be made to an ecological ethics as a result of reading Levinas.
The work of Levinas provides a unique perspective in philosophy. Where Western philosophy has a history of pushing the limits of knowledge as far as possible, he questions whether the quest for knowledge is a just one, whether it is ethically appropriate, and questions the assumed freedom which allows us to continue it. Self-criticism, the project of theory and hence of knowledge, “can be understood as a discovery of one’s weakness or a discovery of one’s unworthiness – either as a consciousness of failure or as a consciousness of guilt” (Levinas, 1969, 83). The Western tradition has always assumed the former, and as such has consistently failed to ask itself if it is justified in continuing its search, or whether its failure is reflective of its own essential inadequacy in the face of that which it seeks to know. This is precisely the question which Levinas asks.
For Levinas the human condition is constituted by both separation (the inner life), and a relation with the Other (the infinite, exteriority). It is in this latter relation that ethics appears; in it the Other cannot simply be reduced to the same, reduced to an object for knowledge and therefore possessed by the knower. The interruption by the Other puts my own freedom into question as Levinas puts the question to Western philosophy. I come face to face with the Other, as he puts it, and through my own inadequacy I feel guilt and unworthiness. Part of this guilt is a feeling of responsibility for all suffering of the Other.
One of the major ethical issues facing the world today is the treatment of other species and our common habitat, the environment. Given that Levinas believes ethics to be primary in philosophy, one might have some hope that an analysis of his work can contribute to this problem. However Levinas’ position is so unique, so far outside of traditional ethics, that it has always been difficult to place him in conversation with it, to allow him to contribute to concrete ethics issues. Hutchens goes so far as to say that “the agenda of normative ethics ... is not something to which Levinasian ethics can make any contribution.” (2004, 35)
Yet some writers do still believe that Levinas can contribute through this notion of responsibility. I have a responsibility to the Other, but who is the Other exactly? Does it have to be a fellow human being, or can an animal or even, in some way, the environment be considered an Other to which we are responsible? We will look closely at three accounts which explore this possibility, and attempt to respond, with evidence from Levinas’ work itself, and show why the approaches they take may not be fruitful ones to follow.
The Arguments
Firstly we look at Diehm’s essay ‘Natural Disasters’ (2003). Here he claims that the Other provokes a reaction in me because I see in him a visible vulnerability and more importantly, a suffering. “I do not witness the other’s suffering without being moved” (2003, 175). It is this witnessing which opens up the ethical, though Diehm is quick to point out that “it is not the case that ethics arises only at the sight of blood” (2003, 177), rather that the possibility for suffering is enough to cause the commencement of ethics, and this is “a possibility that inheres in the flesh of every body.” (2003, 177)
As a result, the key question to ask ourselves here is who suffers, “the question of who the other is is not Who speaks? But Who suffers?” (2003, 178) In an investigation of what entities can count as Other, we must ask which entities are capable of suffering. This does not mean only those entities capable of feeling pain, it is a broader term which is not limited by the psychological capabilities of the entity (2003, 176).
Diehm asks this question, who suffers? He finds his answer in the work of Hans Jonas. All organisms have a form of exchange with the environment, they take things which they need, and reject things they do not. In this way they create a border around themselves, and thus have an interiority and an exteriority. Following this line of thought leaves us with organisms which have needs that can be obstructed or interrupted. Any given organism is set up as a site of freedom which I recognise as not mine to interfere with. It seems possible then that all organisms are Other to myself, and I am responsible to each.
Additionally, Diehm cautions “against reducing the face to a face” (2003, 172), reducing alterity to difference, something objectified and thematised. This would reduce it to knowledge, and hence the same. This leads to a principle of inclusion rather than exclusion, placing the burden of proof on those who wish to exclude any organism from counting as Other. Diehm sees evidence for Levinas’ own agreement with this in the infamous interview during which he is asked directly whether animals can have a face, and to which he responds entirely ambiguously, “I don’t know if a snake has a face. I can’t answer that question.” (Bernasconi and Wood, 1988, 172)
Secondly, we will be looking at Calarco’s essay ‘Faced by animals’ (in Atterton and Calarco, 2009 ). One intriguing line he follows here is to argue that animals can in fact be Is, that is, they are capable of ethical responses to the presence of others. To this end he highlights the phenomenon of altruism in the animal kingdom, of which there are many examples. A number of plausible explanations for this phenomenon have been proposed, at the levels of species, group or even genetic preservation. However, Calarco does not wish to provide an explanation that ‘raises’ animal altruism to the level of human ethics. Instead he believes that human ethics is no more than another example of animal altruism. “That human beings engage in acts of radical altruism is no more of a “miracle” or a rupture in the order of being than when animals do the same thing” (2009). In addition to other explanations such as selfish genes (and these are presumed to apply to humans as much as they do animals), Calarco believes there is room for a cognitive explanation in Levinasian terms (this too will apply to animals as much as it does to humans).
Satisfied on this point, Calarco moves on to our primary question, whether animals can be seen as Other, whether animals can have a face. He defines the face as “an expressivity and vulnerability that calls my thought and egoism into question and that demands an alternative mode of relation.” (2009). He acknowledges that Levinas explicitly says the Other must be human when he says that “the absolutely foreign can only be man” (Levinas, 1969, 73), but points out that “the Other cannot belong to any genus whatsoever, not even one as broad as ‘humanity’” (2009). In a similar manner to Diehm, he cites the interview with Levinas where he is so ambiguous as evidence that it is difficult, or indeed impossible, to set a limit to who can count as Other. “By what right can we delimit who the Other is in advance of such encounters? Should we not, then, take Levinas literally when he says “I cannot say at what moment you have the right to be called ‘face’”?” (2009). Levinas is incapable of saying whether animals have faces, not because he is unsure of whether they count, but because he has no authority to arbitrarily limit the Other.
Calarco claims that there are three aspects to ethical encounters: “(a) the ways in which my egoism might be interrupted, (b) the kinds of entities who might call me into question, and (c) the manner in which such interruptions might transform me” (2009). Clearly it is (b) with which we are most concerned here, and Calarco states his assumption “that most readers of Levinas who are somewhat sympathetic to his project would be generous in allowing for alternative modes of interruption (the first point) and transformation (the third point)” (2009). He obviously believes that this second point too cannot be limited and so is also flexible. Considering his earlier point that we have no right to delimit the Other, this leads to the conclusion that literally everyone and everything can potentially be Other to us. Calarco is happy to accept this outcome, saying that “we are obliged to proceed from the possibility that anything might take on a face. And we are further obliged to hold this possibility permanently open” (2009). One could question why he has only focused on the possibility of animals taking on a face. His answer lies in understanding his project and purpose. He begins with an intention to question the common neglect by philosophy to address the issue of animals, and here specifically to question its potential place within the philosophy of Levinas.
Finally we will look at Casey’s essay ‘Taking a glance at the environment’ (2003). As we have just seen, Calarco thinks that it is possible to see anything as Other, and so perhaps there may be an opening within Levinas for an ethics of the environment. This is the task which Casey pursues, believing it possible to see the environment (or part of it) as Other, to see in the environment an equivalent to the face.
He believes “that the human glance, meagre as it seems to be, is indispensable for consequential ethical action” (2003, 188). The reason is that the glance provides a method of access to the other individual, a direct access which can offer information not only about appearance, but about the person behind the eyes, as it were. In Levinasian terms the glance is the precise way in which I witness and welcome the Other. Casey admits that Levinas himself played down the role of the glance in the welcoming of the Other. For Levinas the glance meant perception, and perception implied knowledge, a reduction of the Other to the same in representation. For this reason Levinas did not wish to talk about ‘looking’ upon the face or perceiving it – the relation with the face is rather always and directly ethical. It is a relation which precedes knowledge and so it must precede perception and the glance.
Casey recognises that he is in direct contradiction to Levinas on this point, but believes that Levinas’ own position is unsustainable, quoting Levinas referring to the ‘appearance’ of the face. His solution is in a Leibnizian term; apperception, meaning a subtle and pre-conscious perception, but a perception nonetheless. Leibniz’s own example here was of waves crashing on a shore – one could not hear (perceive) an individual wave, but the perception must be there, because with a great number of waves the effect is multiplied and the sound can be clearly heard (perceived). These subtle perceptions are pre-conscious and therefore precede full blown, objectifying perception, of which Levinas is rightly wary.
What appears then is the face, and so Casey needs to find an equivalent in the environment. After rejecting a number of weak propositions (e.g. analogising the world to a body), he finds the focal point of a place in a landscape, which will be composed of a layout and a surface. The most important aspect here is the surface – a flexible and visible means of expression. He also applies this analysis to humans. There is nothing obscure about encountering the face of a landscape, because the face of a human is simply an expressive surface too.
Through the glance I am able to apperceive in a surface something which is against the natural order of things, “I am witnessing disorder in the environment” (2003, 197). This apperception leads to me feeling an imperative to act upon this disorder, to restore whatever balance has been lost. Ethics is thus before anything is said, it is rather seen or witnessed. “Before anything is said ... there is the moment of ethical engagement” (2003, 203).
We have now examined three examples of the use of Levinasian ethics in an ecological setting, each with differing approaches, but sharing some major points which we may wish to investigate. It will be worthwhile to summarise some of these connections between the three essays before we proceed to ask what evidence there may be within Levinas’ work to support or contradict them.
One obvious link is the interview in which Levinas is asked directly about the possibility of animals having faces. His apparent uncertainty here is leaned on heavily by both Diehm and Calarco in their essays, and whilst Levinas is not asked about the environment specifically, and Casey does not use the interview, an interpretation of it along the lines of that put forward by Calarco could certainly be used to the benefit of Casey’s project. Their interpretation of this interview excerpt allows Diehm and Calarco to argue that the Other cannot be limited, thus forcing any would be opponents to their thesis to find justification for any limitation.
Another common aspect is perception. This is most explicitly discussed by Casey, as we have seen in his discussion of perception and apperception. Yet it is implicit in Diehm, when we “catch sight of” (2003, 177) the vulnerability and hence the possibility of suffering inherent in the flesh. Calarco’s position is less clear, but like Diehm he focuses very heavily on the face of the Other, through which I experience primarily his suffering. Here we encounter the final major link between the three, most clearly stated by Diehm, that the key feature of the Other is its suffering, or at least its potential to suffer.
Criticisms
In our response, we will be dealing with these major aspects and discovering that they are not entirely faithful to Levinas’ work itself. There are a number of criticisms to be made regarding various issues and mistakes made in the arguments, and we will take them each in turn, but it will be useful to begin with a broader statement of objection. The view taken by these authors shows a fundamental misinterpretation of the relation of the Other within Levinas’ philosophy.
We will of course discuss this relation in gradually greater detail, but immediately we can see much evidence against the interpretation of the ethical relation given by Calarco, Casey and Diehm. The relation as they see it is a feeling of responsibility initiated by the experience of suffering in another. For Casey I witness disorder, the analogue of suffering, in the environment, and this perception is sufficiently intense to provoke a strong feeling of an imperative to act. For Calarco and particularly for Diehm, I experience an animal as a site of actual or at least potential suffering and once again feel an imperative to act ethically toward this being. This experience of suffering itself is interpreted in the most literal, cognitive sense as an appearance, primarily visually, of an entity in pain or capable of pain. Our main objection will thus be against this account, as we show that according to Levinas himself the relation with the Other is one of metaphysical Desire, as a longing for something completely foreign, an absolute alterity (Levinas, 1969, 34). He is also clear about what this means exactly. The relation occurs thanks to the simple presence of the Other, not an appearance, a specific moment in time which presents me with a vision of suffering. Understood correctly, the other as Other, as infinity and metaphysical Desire, is always present in my life, is in fact constitutive of it. The distance, which cannot be traversed, between myself and the Other communicates to me the idea of infinity. Precisely because this distance cannot be traversed it is the cause of a hunger which cannot be satisfied, the cause of metaphysical Desire.
These concepts will be explained more thoroughly as we continue through our criticisms, for now it is enough to point out that the relation with the Other does not involve any perception, particularly of suffering, and also is not a feeling experienced by a subject, a label attached to it in the way we may say we currently feel guilty, happy or hungry. My relation to the Other is far more integral to who I am, and as we will show, the role of the Other cannot be taken on by just any entity.
In addressing these arguments in detail, we will first talk about Casey’s application of Levinas to environmental issues. Given that animals do have faces in the ordinary usage of the word, this application would seem the most difficult to pull off successfully. When we look closely at Casey’s argument, a pivotal point is the problem of perception. As we just stated, Casey gives it a central role, in opposition to Levinas himself, who played it down. There is ample evidence to support this, which shows how clearly and explicitly Levinas denied that access to the Other is gained in any way through perception. He states early on in Totality and Infinity that vision “is an adequation of the idea with the thing” (Levinas, 1969, 34). By this he means that vision, or perception, presumes that its representation of a thing, its idea of it, is an accurate reflection of the thing itself. In ordinary experience this is no problem, but in an experience of the Other, I am in relation with the infinite. The Other overflows all ideas I can have of him. To talk of accessing the Other through perception would be to do violence to the Other; “the metaphysical relation can not be properly speaking a representation, for the other would therein dissolve into the same” (Levinas, 1969, 38). Perception is in no way sufficient for a truly metaphysical relation with the Other.
Casey of course does acknowledge this, admitting that he is deviating from Levinas somewhat on this issue. He believes however, that Levinas cannot consistently deny perception any role, quoting Levinas talking about the ‘appearance’ of a face (Casey, 2003, 190). As we have seen, he proposes use of the term apperception as a pre-objectifying mode of perception, which allows visual access to the Other without the worry of reducing him to the same. By his use of this term he thinks that he has overcome the problems facing perception. On closer inspection though, it is difficult to have such confidence in his solution, as the pre-objectifying nature of apperception becomes problematic.
“Analogues to this situation abound: the practiced medical doctor knows by a mere glance what her patient is suffering from” (Casey, 2003, 198). A number of similar examples follow this one of the doctor. Aside from the bizarre phenomenon of the doctor who can diagnose illnesses without conducting tests, the problem with this and all of the other examples Casey provides is that they do not appear to be pre-objectifying. Casey specifically names examples of experts within their fields. Seemingly distracted by the speed with which experts can make decisions, he neglects to realise that experts are called such due to their extensive knowledge of their area, and that in a cognitive sense, expertise is believed to be an ability to process information in larger chunks due to knowledge of and familiarity with the appropriate data (Eysenck and Keane, 2005, 451). But these are not simply inaccurate examples of what Casey is referring to. He states that familiarity with an environment will allow a person to see at a glance that there is disorder. The implicit assumption here is that the person will know what the natural order is. It seems unclear how one might distinguish between a person’s feeling that it is not ‘right’ or ‘natural’ for a forest to be cut down from another person’s feeling that it is not ‘right’ or ‘natural’ for two members of the same sex to engage in an intimate relationship. Granted these are two extreme examples, but the difficulty remains, and only increases when less clear cut situations are considered. Leibniz’s apperceptions do not break through to consciousness without becoming full blown perceptions. The sounds of the waves may be made up of a great number of apperceptions, but all that I am aware of experiencing is the perception of waves hitting the shore. An apperception of a landscape cannot make itself known to me without becoming a perception and thus picking up along the way all the social and cultural baggage that unavoidably causes me to misrepresent the Other.
A final point with regard to Casey, which will be more easily discussed in relation to Calarco and Diehm, is the fact that he uses the notion of surfaces for the visible expressivity of suffering. He concludes that ethics is therefore seen before it is said. We have discussed the increased role of perception in Casey’s argument, but it is worth noting that it oppresses the role of language which is, and for good reason, key in Levinas’ own work.
Turning now to the application of Levinas to animal ethics found in Calarco and Diehm, it may be worth talking first about the attempt to argue that animals can respond ethically to other beings in the former’s essay. Levinas is abundantly clear that the I and the Other do not form a totalised system which can be viewed from the outside (e.g., Levinas, 1969, 35-6). I cannot talk about the Other as an I, to do so would be to try to retain power over him, because I would be assuming once again my own freedom to ascertain knowledge regarding an absolute alterity. In the same way, if Calarco wishes to show that the animal is Other, he cannot also show that it can respond ethically as I an. It is also important to remember that for Levinas the I is also singular, and hence the only ‘I’ which I am capable of talking about is my own. As we said in our main objection, the relation with the Other is one of Desire, an insatiable desire brought about because of this failure to reach the Other through knowledge and theory.
We can now return to the issue of suffering which we have touched on previously. All three essays that we are considering, and in particular Diehm’s, claim that suffering is the key factor in my experience of the Other, and as such is the reason the Other can interrupt my separated life. There is no doubt that I feel a responsibility for the Other’s suffering, to whatever extent there is any, but this is not truly the cause of his interruption in my life. Levinas tells us that the Other interrupts my separated life by provoking or initiating Desire, an insatiable desire for the Desirable – the Other himself, or the Infinite. “The separated being is satisfied, autonomous, and nonetheless searches after the other with a search that is not incited by the lack proper to need nor by the memory of a lost good” (Levinas, 1969, 62). Here he contrasts Desire with need, which proceeds from the subject. If I have a need, it is because I am lacking something and thus require whatever would fulfil this lack. Desire is different in that it does not start with the subject, which has no needs. Rather it comes from, is aroused by, the desirable object itself. Desire is a longing for the Other or the Infinite, but it is “the Desire for the Infinite which the desirable arouses rather than satisfies” (Levinas, 1969, 50). I receive from the Other the idea of infinity (Levinas, 1969, 51), and it is only by virtue of having this idea that my Desire is sparked. We will say more on the interruption of the Other shortly, but it is already clear that he has a much more important role to play than arousing my feelings of responsibility through his suffering.
Calarco and Diehm both use as evidence the interview with Levinas which we have quoted earlier (1988). He is asked directly whether animals have faces, and he answers apparently quite ambiguously. Both of these authors rely heavily on their interpretations of these short excerpts. Levinas does not explain his answers in any detail, and it seems just as plausible that he finds the question itself awkward and perhaps inappropriate to his philosophy. The best that can really be said regarding the ambiguity of his answer is that I have no power to say what is and what is not Other, leaving open the possibility that an animal could be experienced as Other. Equally though this approach denies us the opportunity to say that animals definitely do count, and are experienced as Other.
John Llewelyn addresses this same issue in his essay ‘Toward a more democratic ecological order with Levinas’, in which he attempts to find positive ways to use Levinas’ philosophy in relation to ecological ethics. He says that to limit the Other to a specific species would be no more than an attempt to retain power for ourselves, but despite this, I cannot demand anything of other people, being as they are Other to me. Rather than a conclusion similar to Calarco, Diehm and Casey, whereby we end up with an ethical obligation toward animals or environments, he ends up saying that the most that I can do is to “ask others to ask this of themselves” (2009). The attempt to force an obligation onto all those who would consider themselves an I is itself an attempt to wield power over other humans, demanding that they respond in an ethical manner to animals. Levinas himself rules out the possibility of making any demands of the Other; “what I permit myself to demand of myself is not comparable with what I have the right to demand of the Other” (Levinas, 1969, 53). The lack of a definite negative answer by Levinas in the interview makes perfect sense, and should not be mistaken for an opportunity to answer in the positive – the question is inappropriate because the Other is not something I have control over. As we noted at the beginning of the criticisms, I am always already in a relation of metaphysical Desire with the Other, and so could never have any say in what or who the Other is.
We saw when analysing Calarco’s essay that he sees three aspects to ethical encounters: ways of interruption, entities that can interrupt, and ways the encounter transforms me. He assumed that the first and last aspects were flexible, and proceeded to argue that the second was also. However the flexibility of the second aspect relies on the flexibility of the first. If there are only limited way(s) of interruption, this may indirectly limit the kinds of entities which are capable of interrupting. Calarco clearly assumes that there are various modes of interrupting, and Diehm appears to believe that it is primarily if not entirely through suffering. Levinas makes clear though that there is only one way in which the Other interrupts me, one way in which I can be in a relation to him – discourse. “The relation between the same and the other, metaphysics, is primordially enacted as conversation” (Levinas, 1969, 39). Discourse is “an original relation with exterior being” (Levinas, 1969, 66), it is the only way this relation can be formed. The same and the Other do not form a totality, there is a distance between them, an infinite distance, and for the relation to be one with a genuine alterity, to avoid reducing the Other to the same, the mode of relation must be one which maintains this distance. Conversation, or discourse, “maintains the distance between me and the Other” (Levinas, 1969, 40), and is the only thing which can do so. In fact I can only have a relation with the Other because he attends his own speech, he “receives the possibility of questioning” (Levinas, 1969, 96).
Diehm picks up this argument in another essay, in which he claims that ethical ‘discourse’ is not to be understood too literally as verbal language, as words. It is primarily an expression, again primarily of suffering. Discourse is “the activity of call and response, plea cried and aid given” (2000). While it may be the case that discourse does not necessarily refer specifically to clear verbal expression, it is unwise to move too far in the other direction; the relation is still definitely one of discourse. It is certainly not the case, for instance, that the Other has no effect on me as long as he does not physically speak to me – my experience of the Other is always and immediately metaphysical Desire. But this is not to say that I will experience as Other an other which is actually incapable of speaking.
The interruption of the Other is still also more than a mere expression, especially more than only an expression of suffering, a plea for help. We have already noted and objected to the interpretation that suffering is the key factor in experience of the Other, but there is still more to be said here. All three essays we are considering here talk about the Other as a being in need of my assistance, weaker than me. Certainly Levinas tells us that we experience the Other as destitute, but Calarco, Diehm and Casey neglect the role of the Other as my master. “Justice consists in recognising in the Other my master” (Levinas, 1969, 72), I am completely powerless before him, I am a slave to him. He is described as being “not on the same plane as myself” (Levinas, 1969, 101).
Additionally, the Other is a teacher to me as student. The Other is responsible for so much that I require in my life as both separated and in relation with exteriority, but most importantly he teaches to me the idea of infinity, and is the only one who can do so; “the absolutely foreign alone can instruct us” (Levinas, 1969, 73). This provokes Desire, and is the initiation of my relation with him, “the first teaching of the teacher is his very presence as teacher” (Levinas, 1969, 100). While he may demand my time or my possessions for his own reasons, my experience is one of complete subordination and unworthiness. Levinas states that apology “belongs to the essence of conversation” (1969, 40). The Other, as infinite, exceeds my idea of him (Levinas, 1969, 50), presenting himself as beyond my reach. Finally, I rely on the Other, he holds significant power over me through his use of speech. In his discussion of the evil genius Levinas argues that what is so traumatic for us in this picture is the destruction of language through the refusal of the Other to attend his speech, to respond to questions.
In contrast to this picture, the three essays talk about the Other as poor and defenceless, requiring the power I hold to aid in his survival. This seems not to accurately reflect the entire Levinasian relation with the Other, where I give everything I have to the Other, not because I receive a plea for help, but because even that is not adequate to the power he holds over me, thanks to his distance from me. To write about the Other in the way these authors do betrays that they have not truly taken on board Levinas’ point. The picture painted by them is one in which I, as the same, am still very much the powerful entity in the relation, and perhaps this is inevitable in any discussion of ‘protecting’ the environment and the animals that reside within it.
These essays also appear to forget that Levinas is concerned with what precedes ontology – the Other offers the world in discourse, and it is only through discourse that we can share a common world. “The world is offered in the language of the Other” (Levinas, 1969, 92). The Other offers a world to me through his speech, and it is this which is the true way in which my world becomes gifts for him. I give my world to him in return, and we thus, through discourse, begin to share a common world (Levinas, 1969, 50). In fact, the Other only manifests himself to me by proposing a world (Levinas, 1969, 96). I only have a thematizable world in my separated life because the world has been given to me by the Other. “The objectivity of the object and its signification comes from language” (Levinas, 1969, 96), an object only has meaning because an ‘absolute alterity’ has proposed a world through speech. Meaning within the separated life alone makes no sense, speech must already be resounding for the separated I to live in a world of objects (Levinas, 1969, 97). The Other plays a drastically important role in the life of the separated I, far beyond making simple ethical demands in the way that he does in the essays of Casey, Calarco and Diehm.
This issue highlights another mistake, easily made when reading Levinas. He often sets out the process of interruption in a very linear narrative, as he does in Totality and Infinity, where the Other interrupts an oblivious, separated I. This method of exposition is misleading though, when Levinas is actually discussing a series of tensions within (and exterior to) the life of the I. As we have just seen, for the separated I to have a world in which to be oblivious, it must already be engaged in discourse with the Other. As such my relation with the Other is constitutive of my life, even in its moments of separation and self-involvement. The experience with the Other is not an occasional encounter inspiring a feeling of responsibility after which I return to a state of being separated.
Possible Ways Forward
The purpose of these criticisms has by no means been to attempt to show that the philosophy of Levinas has no contribution to make to ecological ethics. It does show, I believe, that a simple application of his system (if one can call it that) to encounters with animals and environments is not a productive goal. However, given that he does place ethics at the forefront of his philosophy, as constitutive of the human condition, along with his techniques for dealing with certain methodological issues, it would seem a shame to conclude that ecological ethics should simply ignore him completely. We will now consider some possible ways forward, positive steps that could still see Levinas contribute to this field.
One interesting idea contained within the essays we have already considered is Casey’s use of Leibnizian apperceptions. Casey’s version of the concept is fairly basic, but as we look more closely at Leibniz’s own discussion of it, we will see that it relates to the infinite in an intriguing way.
For Leibniz physical effects carry on indefinitely, and in this way “every individual created substance exerts physical action and passion on all the others” (Leibniz, 1989, 33). A physical effect emanating from one substance will continue on, diminishing as it goes but without ever being extinguished. Leibniz himself uses the analogy of a glass of water; “in a vessel filled with a liquid (and the whole universe is just such a vessel) motion made in the middle is propagated to the edges, although it is rendered more and more insensible, the more it recedes from its origin” (Leibniz, 1989, 33).
We apperceive these insensible effects and thus are in some sense connected to the entire physical universe. Leibniz also refers to apperceptions as ‘tiny perceptions’, and offers a very pertinent discussion of them in his ‘Preface to the new essays’.
“These tiny perceptions are therefore more effectual than one thinks. They make up this I-know-not-what, those flavours, those images of the sensory qualities, clear in the aggregate but confused in their parts; they make up those impressions the surrounding bodies make on us, which involve the infinite, and this connection that each being has with the rest of the universe. It can even be said that as a result of these tiny perceptions, the present is filled with the future and laden with the past, that everything conspires together (sympnoia panta, as Hippocrates said), and that eyes as piercing as those of God could read the whole sequence of the universe in the smallest of substances.”
(Leibniz, 1989, 296)
Of clear importance here is the infinite, which is involved because these tiny perceptions ensure that every effect is felt by every substance. If we combine this idea with the philosophy of Levinas, we find that we can posit a relation of the I to the infinite in every substance it encounters. This could potentially open up the Other to be completely inclusive as it becomes for Calarco. In my relation to any particular substance I am in some way in a relation with the infinite.
This is in no way a substitute for the use of apperceptions in Casey’s work. There the concept was used to sneak perception in through the back door. Our own line of thought would never lead to an ability to talk about ‘perceiving’ the Other or witnessing disorder/suffering. It thus emerges very differently to what Casey, Calarco and Diehm were trying to achieve. Additionally it does not address any concerns over the relation being one of discourse, or the role of the Other in offering me a world. This relation of discourse to the human Other will always be necessary, and as such no other substance, animal or inert, could be fully Other, but perhaps we can show how all substances participate in the infinite, and so I find myself in an ethical relation with them all.
There is also more to the work of Levinas than the relation between the I and the Other, and hence many more possible ways it could contribute to an ecological ethics. Llewelyn, for instance, shows how his methodology could help some forms of ecofeminism.
Llewelyn discusses variations of ecofeminism and their viewpoints. One of these, which he refers to as singularist ecofeminism, is characterised as “the ecofeminism for which this centralising of the universal is still a centralising of the masculine” (2009). What this variant of ecofeminism requires is “a feminist critique of universalism” (2009). There is thus an issue regarding how one might go about critiquing universalism without inadvertently subscribing to it. Working entirely outside of a system of universal principles is likely to simply alienate those currently within that system, precisely the audience ecofeminism is trying to reach and convert.
Llewelyn suggests that “eco-feminists could conduct their critique of androcentrism in a manner analogous to that in which Levinas conducts his phenomenology of ethical experience” (2009). What Levinas achieves in his philosophy is an analysis, through the use of classical logic, of classical logocentrism itself, in order to show how it is already deeply affected, at a fundamental level, by alterity, the Other, and ethics. In much the same way, ecofeminism could use masculine universalism “in order to bring out how the very heart of its apparently purely conceptual sameness is affected, touched, contaminated by the alterity not only of another human being but also of what is other than human” (2009).
Conclusion
Each of the essays under investigation, particularly Casey’s, admit that for their project to be successful one needs to go further than Levinas did in his own writings, to make some changes. This is a perfectly reasonable thing to be doing, to use his ideas as a launching pad to new ones. Yet with close investigation it seems that one would need to go so much further that to even use him as a starting point at all is likely to be more of a hindrance than a help.
This is not at all to say, as Calarco comes close to at some points, that Levinas has anything against animals or the environment, or that he believes they are unworthy of an ethical, philosophical treatment. These topics were simply not his concern, he was philosophising on social relations between humans – an entirely understandable subject matter following his experience as a Jewish man living through the 1930s and 40s Europe. It seems at least mildly unfair to criticise someone in that situation for paying too much attention to the issues of inter-human ethics.
Even if some obstacles were overcome and the hard work was done on this project (if the obstacles are ones that have the potential to be overcome), an ecological ethics under this interpretation of Levinas would provide a solution which only worked on the basis of individual encounters of suffering. There is ample evidence that issues in animal and (particularly) environmental ethics require a more fundamental and global change in attitude and approach that perhaps this solution is not best equipped to provide. Certainly Levinas’ work itself operates at this level, but the changes required to transform it into an ecological ethics would almost certainly remove this ability.
None of this denies that Levinas has a contribution to make to ecological ethics, but simply makes the case that forcing animals or landscapes into the role of the Other is inadvisable. At most, what could possibly be achieved is allowing other substances participation in the idea of infinity, as we explored through the use of Leibniz’s apperceptions. We also saw how Llewelyn believes Levinas has other contributions to make to ecological ethics by his methodology, without needing to find a place within Levinasian ethics itself for animals or the environment. These ideas both show that despite the failings of the essays considered earlier, there may be positive changes to be made to an ecological ethics as a result of reading Levinas.
References
Atterton, P. and Calarco, M. (eds.) (forthcoming 2009) Radicalizing Levinas. New York: State University of New York.
Bernasconi, R. and Wood, D. (1988) The Provocation of Levinas: Rethinking the other. London: Routledge.
Casey, E.S. (2003) ‘Taking a Glance at the Environment’. In Brown, C.S. and Toadvine, T. (ed.). New York: State University of New York.
Diehm, C. (2000) ‘Facing Nature – Levinas beyond the human’. Philosophy Today. April 1.
Diehm, C. (2003) ‘Natural Disasters’. In Brown, C.S. and Toadvine, T. (ed.). New York: State University of New York.
Eysenck, M.W. and Keane, M.T. (2005) Cognitive Psychology. Sussex: Psychology Press.
Hutchens, B.C. (2004) Levinas: A guide for the perplexed. London: Continuum.
Leibniz, G.W. (1989) Philosophical Essays. Ariew, R. and Garber, D. (ed.). Indianapolis: Hackett.
Levinas, E. (1969) Totality and Infinity. Lingis, A. (trans.). Pittsburgh: Duquesne University Press.
