WHO IS AFRAID OF ETHOLOGY? HUMAN ACTION AND ANIMAL ACTION IN ARISTOTLE

There is a tension between two features of Aristotle's conception of praxis: on the one hand, Aristotle emphasizes that human action differs specifically from animal behaviour; on the other hand, he seeks to define a common genus including the different kinds of activities (human and animal). In order to overcome this tension, one has to distinguish the axiological, psychological and ethological lines of Aristotle's arguments. One must also specify the sort of resemblance, which simultaneously differentiates and connects animals and human beings. Although human and animal behaviour belong to the same genus, they relate to each other through analogy, that is to say through an irreducible difference. Thus, Aristotle's ethology, far from naturalizing human behaviour, leads to a better qualification of it.