ABSTRACT
This chapter considers how one's relationships with animals raise issues of justice and how they affect the way people understand and frame the political community. It focuses on the moral traits that could encourage individuals to change their food habits. The challenge is to fill the gap between theory and practice and to overcome the following paradox. The animal question is a political question for several major reasons. Animal factories do not only raise moral issues linked to human cruelty, but they also raise issues of justice. Fighting against violence toward animals is a political priority because they are suffering, but also because such violence sheds light on the unjust foundations of our justice. Vulnerability is the ability to be wounded because one suffers in one’s flesh, but also because one is responsible for the other. Pity is the source of morality; it is a pre-reflexive identification with any being experiencing pain and suffering.
