De Villiers, Jan-Harm2022-02-222022-02-222020De Villiers, J-H. 2020. Thinking-of-the-Animal-Other with Emmanuel Levinas. Potchefstroomse elektroniese regsblad = Potchefstroom electronic law journal, 2019(22):1-18 [http://dx.doi.org/10.17159/1727- 3781/2020/v23i0a8974]1727-3781http://hdl.handle.net/10394/38491http://dx.doi.org/10.17159/1727- 3781/2020/v23i0a8974This article situates the texts in which Emmanuel Levinas directly addresses questions of animality against the backdrop of his larger oeuvre and argues that, despite an explicit attempt to arrange a privileged ethical (dis)position for humans, Levinas' ethical logic opens onto a deeper conception of ethics without boundaries or a priori content. Juxtaposing Levinas' ethical subjectivity with the relational structure underlying the prominent models of animal rights, it proceeds to examine the implications of Levinas' ethics for a theory of animal rights. The article concludes that Levinas' theory is not logically consistent with a thematisation of the ethical claims of animals in the language of rights and that it is best utilised as a framework within which to deconstruct the inherent anthropocentric character of current models of animal rights.enEmmanuel LevinasAnimal ethicsAnimal rights theoryArticle