The feeling of security is one of the basic human needs and its disruption evokes reactions towards re-gaining the state of comfort. In order to get it, humans are willing to accept radical procedures proposed by the government and other groups/institutions of power. In contemporary Polish socio-cultural reality this manipulation method is used to justify the need of hunting which is claimed to be a method of managing threats associated with the natural environment. Clearly this is manipulation serving individual interests of lobbing groups and has nothing to do with sustainable development rules. Creating biophobia with the use of the Foucauldian power- knowledge tool is contradictory towards biophilia – indicated by E. Wilson as a human need to create bonds with the natural environment.
The aim of this article is to discuss Agamben’s distinction between dzoē and bios and verify if the category of bare life would be relevant to the life of animals. At first glance, following Agamben’s line of thought, one might say that the very helplessness of the modern law in the face of dzoē results in ephemeral and certainly not inalienable animal rights. Thus, what Agamben calls homo sacer would also refer to animals as animal sacrum. However, when extended to include animals, Agamben’s philosophical project shows serious constraints which are cleverly camouflaged under the linguistic argument and his rather selective interpretation of Aristotle’s works.
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