The Lacanian Animal

The project will analyse the different faces of anthropocentrism in the human-animal relationship and the reasons for the ambivalences in human thinking about nonhuman animals in the light of the ongoing post-anthropocentric debate in animal ethics and related disciplines. There is no consensus on whether anthropocentrism is primarily an ethical-political (the assumed superiority of humans over other beings) or an epistemic (the way humans understand or perceive the world) issue. According to the latter position, the ambivalences in human thinking about different animals can be related to anthropocentrism: the fact that many humans love some animals (pets) while eating others may be considered two different manifestations of anthropocentrism. From a psychoanalytical point of view, it is important to consider how anthropocentric or ambivalent thought patterns regarding different animals are related to the way an individuals mind is organized in terms of unconscious processes and libidinal structures. In a psychoanalytical sense, what is the ontological or epistemic condition of the becoming human subject and how is it related to the unconscious ways the individual enjoys its relationships to different animals? The projects interdisciplinary approach will be based on the psychoanalysis by Jacques Lacan, whose theory of human subjectivity and psychogenesis enables an understanding of the phenomenon of anthropocentrism and the ambivalences in the human-animal relationship in the context of the unconscious structures of the human psyche. The philosophical problem of anthropocentrism will be analysed by developing a psychoanalytical method. Following the late works of Lacan, the different ways in which humans refer to and think about nonhuman animals can be associated with an implicit structure, expressing the different modalities of the subjects unconscious enjoyment and possible relationships to the Other. Besides supposedly anthropocentric relationships to animals, the attempt to overcome anthropocentrism can also be related to the individuals unconscious phantasmatic or enjoyment-related activity. Analysing this subjective structure and dynamics will provide an important new perspective on anthropocentrism in the human-animal relationship. It will provide insights into the reasons for the different implicit normative ideas that regulate the ambivalent ways in which humans think about and relate to non-human animals: our own normative ideas (even if they are supposedly non-anthropocentric) may be linked to desire or enjoyment without our consciously being aware of this. The project will represent an interdisciplinary contribution to an improved perception and understanding of the problems in the human-animal relationship.

Although the project has officially ended, the work on the project is still ongoing and will likely be finished by the end of this year. The following summary refers to the results obtained so far. The project offers a new, psychoanalytical perspective to a question raised within the field of animal ethics, that is, why humans treat animals so differently. What are the reasons for the ambivalences in human thinking about nonhuman animals why do we eat some animals while loving others? Based on Jacques Lacans psychoanalytical theory of the human subject, the project concludes: The alleged ambivalences in human-animal relationship can be traced back to the ambivalences and difficulties in the subjects experience with his own (unconscious) enjoyment. What humans feel and think about animals has its roots in the unconscious, which the later Lacan describes as an individual knotting of language, fantasy and bodily experience (see theory of the Borromean Knot). Therefore, what in this work is called the Lacanian Animal does not refer to animals as such but to the question how the subject constitutes its reality and how it deals with the obstacles in its enjoyment and the lack inscribed into its existence: By building an affectionate relationship to their companion animals (pets) humans attempt to give their enjoyment meaning; by eating meat humans reduce (factory) farmed animals to a mere means for their own pleasure but at the same time feel deprived of a certain enjoyment; by being fascinated by free living (wild) animals humans unconsciously fantasize about an untamed enjoyment that is both appealing and disconcerting to the subject. The alleged ambivalences in the human-animal relationship actually illustrate that the relationship desired by the subject will never succeed, that is, being one with the Other. The results of the project contribute to an improved perception and understanding of the problems in the human-animal relationship by going beyond the existing scope of animal ethics and related disciplines. Not only the moral anthropocentrism in the human-animal relationship (the supposed superiority of humans over animals) but also the attempt to overcome anthropocentrism can be related to the subjects unconscious enjoyment and its limits. Therefore, the projects achievements are of relevance in the fields of animal ethics, psychology, Lacan Studies, Human Animal Studies, and practical philosophy.