Rowley, Jeanette (2015) A vegan jurisprudence of human rights. In: Graduate Conference on Human Rights: Challenges to Human Rights Theory and Practice, 2015-05-202015-05-21, University. (Unpublished)
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Abstract
This paper introduces ethical veganism to human rights discourse. It examines the postmodern and posthuman critique of Kantian human rights and the call for Levinasian ethics of alterity to replace the Kantian primary values of reason and autonomy. In congruence with existing scholarship, it advances the argument for a transformational paradigm shift in the foundational architecture of human rights to entrench the importance of duty to Others. However, in examining veganism in the context of human rights discourse, it highlights that the postmodern call for a reorientation of human rights has overlooked the impact of the expansion of postmodern human rights to vegans. It concludes that human rights evidence a shift in the conception of human nature to one that represents a profound responsibility and duty to Otherness. Rather than re-presenting Kantian same-for-self human rights, it highlights that the existence of and protection for ethical veganism has already animated the Levinasian transcendental principle of justice called for by postmodern and posthuman human rights scholarship.