Moral Pretence. Kafka and Derrida on Hypocrisy in Zoopoetic Imagination

Abstract

Jacques Derrida describes the moment when he realises he is no longer 'human' in his cat's eyes, as the cat looks at him naked without judging him. As he notes, he does not recount this encounter to speak about Kafka’s zoopoetics. Derrida examines the metaphysical hierarchy of anthropological difference built into our animal metaphors. His goal is to deconstruct the binary opposition embedded in the very concepts of 'the human' and 'the animal'. To better understand the moral pretence built into this ontological distinction, the article proposes a closer look at Franz Kafka's literary work, with its zoopoetic imagination in his 'animal' stories. By comparing Kafka's and Derrida's understanding of the violent cut between supposed human and animal nature, the paper reveals that both thinkers point to a triple zoopoetic hypocrisy. Using these findings to challenge contemporary discussions in animal ethics, the article proposes a different, more inclusive use of zoopoetics in human encounters with wild animals.