ABSTRACT
The Last Kantian in Nazi Germany': this is how Emmanuel Levinas describes 'Bobby', the dog who befriends him during his 'long captivity' in a slave labor camp. Thirty years after the fact, Levinas briefly describes the story of his terrible days in Camp 1492, days whose numbing inhumanity is momentarily relieved by the arrival of an animal that offers a semblance of respect. The concept of animality, along with the 'world poverty' of the animal, is human artifacts, indeed, artifacts that are difficult to wield. The killing of animals, and the concomitant construction of the 'animal' as that which may be freely put to death for the purposes of consumption, is profoundly related to the constitution of human Dasein. Levinas's experience with and reflection upon Nazism makes it imperative that the 'ethical' not be contaminated by the 'biological', lest the destinal thinking of the latter become the means by which to exterminate the obligations of the former.
