Issues to do with animal ethics remain at the heart of public debate. In Beyond Animal Rights, Tony Milligan goes beyond standard discussions of animal ethics to explore the ways in which we personally relate to other creatures through our diet, as pet owners and as beneficiaries of experimentation. The book connects with our duty to act and considers why previous discussions have failed to result in a change in the way that we live our lives. The author asks a crucial question: what sort of people do we have to become if we are to sufficiently improve the ways in which we relate to the non-human? Appealing to both consequences and character, he argues that no improvement will be sufficient if it fails to set humans on a path towards a tolerable and sustainable future. Focussing on our direct relations to the animals we connect with the book offers guidance on all the relevant issues, including veganism and vegetarianism, the organic movement, pet ownership, and animal experimentation.
Contains eight contributions which extend feminist ethic-of-care theory to the issue of animal well-being. As a group, the essays aim to suggest ways that theorists can move beyond the notion of animal rights to establish care as a basis for the ethical treatment of animals. Annotation c. by Book
In Beyond Animal Rights, Josephine Donovan and Carol J. Adams introduced feminist "ethic of care" theory into philosophical discussions of the treatment of animals. In this new volume, seven essays from Beyond Animal Rights are joined by nine new articles-most of which were written in response to that book-and a new introduction that situates feminist animal care theory within feminist theory and the larger debate over animal rights. Contributors critique theorists' reliance on natural rights doctrine and utilitarianism, which, they suggest, have a masculine bias. They argue for ethical attentiveness and sympathy in our relationships with animals and propose a link between the continuing subjugation of women and the human domination of nature. Beginning with the earliest articulation of the idea in the mid-1980s and continuing to the theory's most recent revisions, this volume presents the most complete portrait of the evolution of the feminist-care tradition.
Are animals worthy recipients of justice? If so, what do we owe them, and what is to be gained by using the language of justice when considering our duties toward them? This innovative book argues that not only are animals worthy recipients of justice, but that the language of justice offers a stronger base of claims for animal advocates than does the language of ethics or morality. Contending that a genuinely political theory of animal rights must go beyond the level of ideal theory, this is the first account of animal ethics to use nonideal theory to plot a course from where we are now to where we want to be. Robert Garner argues that a valid theory of justice for animals should be rights-based, and that animals have a right to not suffer at the hands of humans. At the same time, he argues that humans have a greater interest in life and liberty than most species of nonhuman animals. Tackling animal ethics as it relates to justice and non-ideal theory, this is a seminal work that will challenge traditional approaches and offer a compelling new vision of animal justice.
In Beyond Prejudice, Evelyn B. Pluhar defends the view that any sentient conative being--one capable of caring about what happens to him or herself--is morally significant, a view that supports the moral status and rights of many nonhuman animals. Confronting traditional and contemporary philosophical arguments, she offers in clear and accessible fashion a thorough examination of theories of moral significance while decisively demonstrating the flaws in the arguments of those who would avoid attributing moral rights to nonhumans. Exposing the traditional view--which restricts the moral realm to autonomous, fully fledged "persons"--as having horrific implications for the treatment of many humans, Pluhar goes on to argue positively that sentient individuals of any species are no less morally significant than the most automomous human. Her position provides the ultimate justification that is missing from previous defenses of the moral status of nonhuman animals. In the process of advancing her position, Pluhar discusses the implications of determining moral significance for children and "abnormal" humans as well as its relevance to population policies, the raising of animals for food or product testing, decisions on hunting and euthanasia, and the treatment of companion animals. In addition, the author scrutinizes recent assertions by environmental ethicists that all living things or that natural objects and ecosystems be considered highly morally significant. This powerful book of moral theory challenges all defenders of the moral status quo--which decrees that animals decidedly do not count--to reevaluate their convictions.
This article puts forward a novel analogy between animal welfare law and international humanitarian law - two seemingly unrelated bodies of law that are both marked by the aporia of humanizing the inhumane. Based on a comparative analysis with the law of war, this article argues that animal welfare law is best understood as a kind of warfare law which regulates violent activities within an ongoing “war on animals,” and needs to be complemented by a jus contra bellum and peacetime animal rights.
Gary L. Francione explains our historical and contemporary attitudes about animals by distinguishing the issue of animal use from that of animal treatment. He then presents a theory of animal rights that focuses on the need to accord all sentient nonhumans the right not to be treated as property.
Animal ethics also stands to gain from an inquiry into the political status of animals. Animal ethics has gone through two periods of development and now stands on the cusp of a third. First generation thinkers identified the original issues and second generation writers refined this work, all within the context of ethical theory. However, though the political dimension of these issues often surfaces, rarely is it addressed in a systematic or sustained way. By not providing a careful political analysis of our obligations to animals, animal ethicists fail to engage in the difficult work of weighing the very important goal of protecting animals' interests against other important social values, some of which appear to be in tension with a universal animal ethic. Without attending to these sorts of political questions, animal advocates will be unable to fulfill the goals of their own movement. In the last decade, legal and political reforms have migrated to the centre of the animal protection agenda as a growing number of scholars and activists work, not just to strengthen animal welfare policies, but to enfranchise animals themselves to liberal democratic communities. Mainstream political theory has remained insulated from these developments. To date, political theorists have confined themselves almost entirely to questions of interhuman social organization, having little to say about our relationship to the natural world and its non-human inhabitants. The purpose of this thesis is to address this lacuna in political theory. I explore two questions: (1) should animals have standing in our political communities, as political subjects in their own right? and (2) if so, how are their political entitlements to be specified and institutionalized?In the first half of my thesis, I examine the underlying causes of the neglect of The Animal Question in political theory and consider two generations of arguments which exclude animals from the polis. First generation arguments take the idea of including animals as members of the political community seriously, but conclude that such membership is not possible because animals lack the capacities necessary for political agency. Second generation arguments sidestep the question of the political status of animals from the outset, aligning the matter with religion and leaving the issue up to the discretion of individuals. In the second part of my thesis, I develop an account of political entitlements for animals and propose institutionalizing these entitlements by assigning animals a set of carefully guarded basic rights, setting a place for them at the legislative table and giving them access to the courts through human representatives. Important in its own right, The Animal Question is also a useful test case for liberal theory. Careful consideration of the issue points to the need for a theory of political membership which disaggregates political agents from political subjects and gives each group its due; underscores the importance of embodiment, ecological dependency and animality generally, in thinking about justice; and introduces a requirement for a system of proxy political representation for any political theory which claims to be comprehensive.
In Beyond Nature Maurizi tackles the animal question from an unprecedented perspective: strongly criticizing the abstract moralism that has always characterized animal rights activism, the author proposes a revolutionary, historical-materialistic analysis of the relationship between humans and non-humans.
