Bettelheim, Valérie
The animal issue and its challenges: A Neoplatonic perspective
- 2024.
85
In our century, the animal question must be considered from a deconstructivist perspective, which, however, coexists with the persistence of an ontological discrimination against animals, with human beings exercising over animals a domination ratified by laws. However, Plotinus’s thought can shed light here, suggesting a new paradigm capable of reframing animal difference: linking ethics to ontology, Plotinus proposes that humans adopt an approach of “laisser-être” [let be] toward animals, understood as a different form of the living being whose protection it behooves us to ensure.