photographist

“The ethical dilemmas linked to current biotechnologies and medical practices are at the core of my work. They highlight our technological power and we see that the meaning and the objects of our responsibility are not the same as before since we have to deal with an ecological crisis and, in general, with practices and technologies whose impact on future generations, nature and other species must be considered in ethics and politics.
This reflection has two aspects. The first is political. The question is : how to decide on subjects that go far beyond the problem of the peaceful coexistence of freedoms? In thinking about the changes in democratic institutions and political culture that could put ecology and the animal question at the heart of the Republic and allow for greater citizen participation in debates on bioethical issues, I am trying to redraft the social contract. The point is to ground the social contract in a conception of humanity different from the one characterizing modern and contemporary political theories. This conception is based on a primary philosophy. The second aspect of this research thus involves ontology, in that it questions subjectivity, which is no longer defined only by freedom, but presupposes a rigorously defined relationship among three cardinal concepts of what I call an ethics of vulnerability: autonomy, responsibility, and vulnerability. These categories require changing the way we think of ourselves and our relationship to others, including other living beings.

The ethics of vulnerability first arose from thinking about the identity of patients suffering from degenerative diseases of the nervous system, but it goes beyond the framework of medical ethics. The ethics of vulnerability, which emphasized the category of passivity, is the first phase in this philosophy of corporality, supplemented today by a “subjective” philosophy which takes the materiality of our existence seriously, especially world hunger. Eating is a moral and political action which has consequences upon others and betrays our ability to take them into account. It is a matter of justice towards other humans and other animals. The animal question is very important in my work and in my life. We share a common vulnerability with animals and our relationship to the otherness of the other and also the body of the others are at stake in our ways of treating animals. This is why there is an analogy between such violence towards animals and the way women are still suffering from domination.”

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