Alfie Showman

Leading arguments in the current literature—what I call “functionalist arguments for non-sentience”—are not sufficient to establish that non-sentient creatures have intrinsic moral value. Said functionalist arguments maintain that non-sentient creatures still have conative states (e.g., dispositions like interest, desire, intention), and that conative states are value generating. I make the argument that conative states must be conscious, or at least be potentially conscious (as in ‘subconscious’ conative states). A non-sentient creature therefore is not capable of having conative states. Saying that non-conscious creatures, or any sort of object without subjectivity, have desires, wants, interests etc. is nothing more than metaphor or cheap anthropocentrism. Moreover, I will make the argument that, even if non-conscious conative states are possible, they are not value generating. I do, however, argue that non-sentient creatures can be assigned value based on their instrumental value to sentient creatures. The point of this essay is not to disregard the value of non-sentient creatures, but to find proper motives for their importance.

This essay aims to critically outline a Žižekian theory of subjectivity; including explanations of concepts that are necessary for understanding the Žižekian subject, such as Phantasy, the big Other, disavowal etc. The minimal condition of the Žižekian subject is constituted by the following: The subject is a hole/lack in material reality. This hole/lack is freedom. The subject has a ‘death drive’, which constructs a Phantasy world the subject can live which keeps it desiring. In this phantasy, made up of symbols (objects), the subject misrecognises himself as object. I will first outline the no-thingness of the subject through an elucidation of the Hegelian Master-Slave dialectic. I will then posit the death drive, before justifying it by reference to existentialism, showing that the subject’s no-thingness and freedom are equivalent, The second part of the essay will be devoted to how exactly the subject constructs the Phantasy of identity in which it lives, using Lacanian Psychoanalysis. The subject’s Phantasy is the social identity it constructs in order to sees itself _as other than_ a free subject. I will lastly discuss Macintyre’s epistemic objection to such worldviews that posit universal ignorance of some posited phenomenon – in this case the nothingness/freedom of the subject. Introducing the concept of disavowal in response to Macintyre’s criticism completes the minimal picture of the Žižekian subject.