Equality: a multispecies perspective

Abstract (English)

The inclusion of other forms of existence into democracy was advocated by B.Latour in the beginning of the century. It was not an unprecedented theme; indeed, the debate followed along the very foundations of liberal law, as shows J.Bentham's (1789) statement about a future time when fur, feather or skin would not make a difference in the access of rights. "Can they suffer?" famously asked the philosopher, thus establishing a common ground of sentience between humans and other animals. Nevertheless, physical proximity has not necessarily resulted in symmetry in moral and legal terms. Much to the contrary, DNA closeness between humans and mice only gave room to a hyper-exploitation of mice in labs in this century. Focusing on the extreme case of animal experimentation, the paper will call out the dilemmas of the concept of equality from a multispecies perspective.