'Animals sell papers' : the value of animal stories -- Media and animal debates : welfare, rights, 'animal lovers' and terrorists -- Stars : animal performers -- Wild : authenticity and getting closer to nature -- Experimental : the visibility of experimental animals -- Farmed : selling animal products -- Hunted : recreational killing -- Monsters : horrors and moral panics -- Beginning at the end : re-imagining human-animal relations.

Due to their heavy reliance on public goodwill, community-based animal protection organizations (APOs) often face a dilemma in animal advocacy. Either they preserve institutional efficacy by focusing on popular causes—for example, protecting cats and dogs from individual acts of cruelty—at the expense of their own progressive institutional mandates. Or they honor their own institutional mandates by pursuing progressive causes—for example, challenging factory farming or the property status of animals—at the risk of losing public support. In this chapter, the authors argue (...) that APOs can avoid this dilemma by adopting a new model of advocacy: “we”-reasoning. Drawing on recent work in the philosophy of social norms, the authors claim that “we-reasons” rooted in group norms, distinct from both prudential reasoning (“reason-for-me”) and from moral reasoning (“reason-for everyone”), can generate support for progressive agendas. They apply this model to recent controversies about the adoption of vegan diets in shelters. (shrink)

Figuring Animals is a collection of fifteen essays concerning the representation of animals in literature, the visual arts, philosophy, and cultural practice. At the turn of the new century, it is helpful to reconsider our inherited understandings of the species, some of which are still useful to us. It is also important to look ahead to new understandings and new dialogue, which may contribute to the survival of us all. The contributors to this volume participate in this dialogue in a (...) variety of ways--through personal experience, natural history, cultural studies, philosophical inquiry, art history, literary analysis, film studies, and theoretical imagining, and through a combination of these trains of thought. The essays expose weaknesses in western epistemological frames of reference that for centuries have limited our views and, thus, our experiences of animal being, including our own. (shrink)

Namulat sa makipot na kasanayang disiplinal ng metodolohiyang pangkasaysayan na nakatuon sa pagsusuri ng mga dokumento sa arkibo, hindi pa katagalan mula nang mag umpisang mabatid ng mga historyador ang kahalagahan ng kulturang materyal sa kanyang larangan. Higit pa sa pagpapahalaga sa kulturang materyal bilang batis ng kasaysayan, paksa ng sinusuring aklat ang pagsasakasaysayan ng kulturang materyal bilang isang bagong larangan. Tinipon ng mga historyador na patnugot na sina Anne Gerritsen at Giorgio Riello sa Writing Material Culture (...) History ang kontribusyon ng dalawampu’t anim na akademiko mula sa iba’t ibang larangan tulad ng kasaysayan, antropolohiya, arkeolohiya, museolohiya, at kasaysayan ng sining, upang makabuo ng isang batayang aklat tungo sa pagpapayabong ng makabago at interdisiplinaryong larangan ng kasaysayan ng kulturang materyal. Nahahati sa tatlong bahagi ang rebyung ito: ang una’y tatalakay sa pangkabuuang tema na nagbubuklod sa samu’t saring sanaysay na nilalaman ng aklat, ang ikalawa’y magbibigay ng payak na pagbubuod sa bawat kabanata, at ang huli’y tatalunton sa maaaring maging metodolohikal na ambag ng aklat sa larangan ng historiograpiyang Pilipino. (shrink)

Applying critical sociological theory, this book explores the shortcomings of popular tactics in animal liberation efforts. Building a case for a scientifically-grounded grassroots approach, it is argued that professionalized advocacy that works in the service of theistic, capitalist, patriarchal institutions will find difficulty achieving success.

This article reflects upon the increasingly popular claim that animals are persons. Such a claim can take a metaphysical, a moral, or a legal meaning. Animals may or may not be persons, but I challenge the assumption that it is even fruitful to think about the ways in which animals are “persons.” At best, it is a relatively narrow assimilationist conceptual exercise. At worst, it distracts us from conceptualizing more effective strategies to improve the welfare of animals and impoverishes more (...) promising avenues of philosophical investigation on interspecies relations and on the nature and moral status of both animals and human beings. (shrink)

A common view of politics is that it is reducible to applied ethics. If politics, in a classic phrase, is about “who gets what, when, and how,” then the task of normative political theory would simply be to tell us who is morally entitled to get whatever the “what” is in that statement.This view, however, can easily reduce politics to a dizzying vortex of actions to assess from an ethical perspective. And while the task of moral philosophy may be precisely (...) to articulate principles by which to pass such judgment, the focus of political theory lies elsewhere.To study and assess politics means attending to the institutional frameworks and structural conditions that enable or constrain human action to begin with. The question for normative political theory, in other words, is whether the organizational structure of a given society—embodied in its decision-making procedures, its distribution of power, and its defining patterns of production, reproduction, and distribution—is defensible or not.This question of justice in the institutional makeup of society has not been entirely ignored in animal rights literature. Animal advocates have always been clear about the massive societal ramifications of dismantling the speciesist order. Likewise, rights theorists and activists have often proposed concrete legal measures for improving the protection of animals, be it by piecemeal welfare reform in animal agriculture, by the abolition of specific practices in biomedical research, or by seeking the equivalent of human rights for select species like great apes or dolphins. The field has also seen fierce debate among animal advocates about the appropriate strategies for engaging with the state and the legal system.Nonetheless, most discussions have been about what it means to treat individual animals with respect, and not about what is required of a political order aspiring to just treatment of all species. In fact, it is only in the last decade that the issue of political justice has taken up a place at the center of animal ethics.Though the field is still developing, we may take it as a sign of maturity that it can now sport its first “short introduction” book: Alasdair Cochrane's Should Animals Have Political Rights? (2020). Its appearing as part of the Polity Press series Political Theory Today further attests to the book's timeliness.The starting point of Cochrane's book—and of political animal studies in general—is that political relations between humans and other animals are not optional but inevitable. Other animals live among us, and the way we organize our societies has a massive impact on the lives of other sentient animals both inside and outside the borders of our human communities. Assuming that these creatures possess intrinsic value as experiencing individuals with morally relevant interests, the question seems inescapable: What kind of polity can accommodate for the multispecies character of our communities and embody justice for all sentients? Cochrane's answer is largely the same as the one he offered in his previous book, Sentientist Politics: A Theory of Global Inter-Species Justice (Oxford University Press, 2018), where he laid out his full vision of a postnational and species-neutral “cosmozoopolis.”The present book is much more concentrated and written as an accessible introduction for readers new to the field. Over seven short chapters, Cochrane reconstructs his argument for an interspecies democracy by assessing a series of arguments and propositions drawn from previous literature on the topic.The first notion to be scrutinized is the popular idea that animal welfare legislation is enough to secure respect for animals. Here, Cochrane acknowledges that welfarism goes some way toward safeguarding animal interests, but he also stresses that its historical record has been disheartening. Welfarism protects animals only insofar as their protection coincides with human interests, and this is far from enough to ensure respect for the animals’ intrinsic value.The second line of argument tries to push beyond welfarism by claiming constitutional protection for animals. By this move, reformers hope to place animal interests on an equal footing with human interests and prevent the overriding of the former in the name of human entitlements (to property, artistic expression, freedom of science, and so forth). Looking at real-world cases, however, Cochrane finds that these constitutional provisions tend to be sidelined when they come into conflict with the interests of big agribusiness.Noting that more than constitutional protection is needed, Cochrane turns to a third set of arguments about legal personhood for animals. Winning personhood for animals would certainly constitute a radical step toward equalizing the interests of different species. Nonetheless, Cochrane argues that personhood alone would be insufficient. Intrinsic value, to him, cannot be fully respected unless animals win the political right to have their interests factor into society's articulation of the public good. As sentient beings, we can all make a claim on the political communities we are part of to not only recognize us as members but furnish us with the means to live well.The fourth and final step for Cochrane is to argue that democratic representation for animals is necessary for realizing these political membership rights. Without representation, he contends, political rights risk being watered down, leaving animals with much less than they are entitled to as sentient beings. Cochrane critically discusses several different models for how this representation could be organized. While he is partial to a system where specially trained human representatives are tasked with voicing the animals’ interests in the legislative process, he leaves many of the practicalities open for future experimentation.Readers familiar with the field of political animal studies will find little new in Should Animals Have Political Rights? For students new to the field, however, Cochrane's book does an excellent job introducing the main issues in a very accessible format. Students of “regular” political science will also benefit from the book's fresh challenge to the discipline's understanding of “the political” as well as its important insights into the relationship between individual and political rights. (shrink)

For most people, animals are the most significant aspects of the nonhuman world. They symbolize nature in our imaginations, in popular media and culture, and in campaigns to preserve wilderness, yet scholars habitually treat animals and the environment as mutually exclusive objects of concern. Conducting the first examination of animals' place in popular and scholarly thinking about nature, Anna L. Peterson builds a nature ethic that conceives of nonhuman animals as active subjects who are simultaneously parts of both nature and (...) human society. Peterson explores the tensions between humans and animals, nature and culture, animals and nature, and domesticity and wildness. She uses our intimate connections with companion animals to examine nature more broadly. Companion animals are liminal creatures straddling the boundary between human society and wilderness, revealing much about the mutually constitutive relationships binding humans and nature together. Through her paradigm-shifting reflections, Peterson disrupts the artificial boundaries between two seemingly distinct categories, underscoring their fluid and continuous character. (shrink)

This article brings animal protection theory to bear on Temple Grandin’s work, in her capacity both as a designer of slaughter facilities and as an advocate for omnivorism. Animal protection is a better term for what is often termed animal rights, given that many of the theories grouped under the animal rights label do not extend the concept of rights to animals. I outline the nature of Grandin’s system of humane slaughter as it pertains to cattle. I then outline four (...) arguments Grandin has made defending meat-eating. On a protection-based approach, I argue, Grandin’s system of slaughter is superior to its traditional counterpart. Grandin’s success as a designer of humane slaughterhouses however is not matched by any corresponding success in offering a moral defence of meat-eating. Despite, or perhaps because of, the popularity of her work, Grandin’s arguments for continuing to eat animals are noteworthy only in how disappointing and rudimentary they are. If we can thank Grandin for making a difference in the lives of millions of farm animals, her work can also be criticized for not engaging the moral status of animals with the depth and rigor that it deserves. (shrink)

Who hasn't wondered what it's like to be a dog or bird? Such questions seem unanswerable because we have no way of getting into an animal's mind. Marc Bekoff's work on animal behavior and mind draws world-wide attention for its originality and its probing into what animals might know as well as what skills are needed to live life successfully as a member of a particular species. Convinced that individuals of every species have some level of self-awareness, Bekoff embarks on (...) fascinating observations of animals playing, leaving and detecting scent-marks, solving problems, and behaving fairly toward each other.Animal Passions and Beastly Virtuesbrings together some of his path-breaking research papers, essays on science and ethics, and popular articles in order to reveal a remarkable range of animal behaviors but also to argue that the ethical treatment of animals is an especially significant issue now. (shrink)

Proponents of the utilitarian animal welfare argument (AWA) for veganism maintain that it is reasonable to expect that adopting a vegan diet will decrease animal suffering. In this paper I argue otherwise. I maintain that (i) there are plausible scenarios in which refraining from meat-consumption will not decrease animal suffering; (ii) the utilitarian AWA rests on a false dilemma; and (iii) there are no reasonable grounds for the expectation that adopting a vegan diet will decrease animal suffering. The paper is (...) divided into four sections. In the first, I set out the utilitarian AWA in its original form. I give some background and I distinguish it from other, related arguments. In the second, I discuss the causal impotence objection, a popular objection to the utilitarian AWA. I explain how the objection works by means of a conceptual distinction between consumers and producers. In the third, I explain how proponents of the utilitarian AWA respond to this objection. In particular, I set out in some detail what I call the expected utility response. In the fourth and final section, I use the three objections noted above to explain why I do not find this response convincing. (shrink)

This paper looks at discourses related to animal farming in a popular South African farming magazine. The paper analyzes four ar ticles using a form of Critical Discourse Analysis . Despite varying widely in content and style, all articles draw from the discourses of production and science; two also show a minor discourse of achievement. With further work, it is possible to discern a fourth, deeply embedded discourse: that of enslavement. This also was present in all the articles. These discourses (...) objectify nonhuman animals and support a world-view of teleological anthropocentrism that fits well with present capitalist practices. (shrink)

Over the course of the latter part of the 20th century the notion that some animals might partake in a cultural form of life has gained growing support in the natural sciences. Iconic examples of tool using chimpanzees, sweet potato washing macaques, and milk bottle opening birds have captured scientific and popular interest alike. But at the same time that this effort to describe, define, and study animal cultures was developing, the global ecological crisis was deepening. This article explores this (...) strange juxtaposition. It offers a critical overview of the concept of animal culture as it has taken shape in the natural sciences. Building on this foundation, the article explores how and why animal cultures matter at the edge of extinction, exploring possible roles for the environmental humanities, extinction studies, and philosophical ethology, in developing new approaches to the question of animal culture in a time of escalating biodiversity loss. (shrink)

Many paradigmatic forms of animal rights and environmental activism have been classed as terrorism both in popular discourse and in law. This paper argues that the labelling of many violent forms of direct action carried out in the name of animal rights or environmentalism as ‘terrorism’ is incorrect. Furthermore, the claim is also made that even those acts which are correctly termed as terrorism are not necessarily wrongful acts. The result of this analysis is to call into question the terms (...) of public debate and the legitimacy of anti-terrorism laws targeting and punishing radical activism. (shrink)

This paper is concerned with the ethics of popularizing moral philosophy. In particular, it addresses the question of whether ethicists engaged in public debates should restrict themselves to acting as impartial informants or moderators rather than advocates of their own moral opinions. I dismiss the idea that being an impartial servant to moral debates is the default or even the only defensible way to publicly exercise ethical expertise and thus, to popularize moral philosophy. Using a case example from the public (...) debate about the human use of nonhuman animals, I highlight the benefits and risks of endorsing an advocate’s and a teacher’s or moderator’s role, respectively. I argue for a general requirement of judgment transparency which entails that the publicly engaged philosopher ought to be clear and consistent about the type of role she takes on, her publicly advanced opinions generally ought to be her professional ones and that she ought to flag her private opinions. I finally show that, despite general concerns about conflicts of interest, exercising ethical expertise and engaging in advocacy, i.e., acting as if one were a moral expert, are not incompatible modes of public engagement for the moral philosopher. (shrink)

This is a lucid and lively account of how Darwinian biology undermines traditional ethical doctrines regarding the moral status of animals. Digestible by nonphilosophers, the book takes a critical, historical view of scientific culture, placing ethical theorizing and popular attitudes about animals into their actual context. Overall, Rachels has succeeded in the following: writing an illuminating story about Darwin and the culture in which he worked ; exposing the poverty of standard argumentation purporting to support the "humanist" view; and providing (...) very reasonable suggestions concerning how animals should be regarded ethically. (shrink)

Recently, animal studies has started to gain popularity. This interdisciplinary field investigates the human- animal relationship from different perspectives, including philosophy, cultural studies, and biology. In 2008, at least three books explored themes related to animal studies : Matthew Calarco, Zoographies: The Question of the Animal ; Jodey Castricano, Animal Subjects: An Ethics Reader in a Posthuman World; and Cora Diamond, Cary Wolfe, et al. Philosophy and Animal Life. Each volume approaches animal studies from a different viewpoint, but they also (...) share many themes. This review paper discusses the differences and similarities between the volumes and highlights the directions in which animal studies is developing. It is argued that an emphasis on "direct" perception or experience of animality and heterogeneity, and an exploration of otherness, are elements that all these books share, and that are relevant to animal studies. (shrink)

In this interfaith and multicultural fable, eloquent representatives of all members of the animal kingdom—from horses to bees—come before the respected Spirit King to complain of the dreadful treatment they have suffered at the hands of humankind. During the ensuing trial, where both humans and animals testify before the King, both sides argue their points ingeniously, deftly illustrating the validity of both sides of the ecology debate. The ancient antecedents of this tale are thought to have originated in India, with (...) the first written version penned in Arabic sometime before the 10th century in what is now Iraq. Much later, this version of the story was translated into Hebrew in 14th century France and was popular in European Jewish communities into the late 19th and early 20th centuries. This exquisite English translation, illustrated with 12 original color illumination plates, is useful in introducing young and old alike to environmental and animal rights issues. (shrink)

The COVID-19 pandemic has affected the way many people live their lives. The increasing amount of time spent indoors and isolated during periods of lockdown has been accompanied by an increase in the time people spend playing video games. One such game which soared in popularity during the early stages of the pandemic was Animal Crossing: New Horizons. Through semi-structured interviews with players, and using a theory-informed qualitative analysis, we document and examine players’ motivations and experiences playing Animal Crossing: New (...) Horizons during the pandemic. Findings suggest that playing the game helped satisfy various psychological needs—autonomy, relatedness, and competence—as described by Self-Determination Theory. Conversely, players stopped playing the game when they found that their psychological needs were thwarted or better met through other activities. Our findings offer support that video games can offer psychological relief in stressful contexts by providing opportunities for people to satisfy key psychological needs. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed. (shrink)

On a rainy day in May 1988, a lowland gorilla named Willie B. stepped outdoors for the first time in twenty-seven years, into a new landscape immersion exhibit. Born in Africa, Willie B. had been captured by an animal collector and sold to a zoo. During the decades he spent in a cage, zoos stopped collecting animals from the wild and Americans changed the ways they wished to view animals in the zoo. Zoos developed new displays to simulate landscapes like (...) the Amazon River basin and African forests. Exhibits similar to animals' natural habitats began to replace old-fashioned animal houses. But such displays are only the most recent effort of zoos to present their audiences with an authentic experience of nature. Since the first zoological park opened in the United States in Philadelphia in 1874, zoos have promised their visitors a journey into the natural world. And for more than a century they have been popular places for education and recreation: every year more than 130 million Americans go to zoos to look at the animals and enjoy a day outdoors. The first book-length history of American zoos, Animal Attractions examines the meaning of nature in the city by looking at the ways zoos have assembled and displayed their animal collections. Situated literally and culturally in the American middle landscape, zoos are concrete expressions of longstanding tensions between wildness and civilization, science and popular culture, education and entertainment. In their efforts to promote nature appreciation, they reveal much about how our culture envisions the natural world and the human place in it and how these ideas have changed. (shrink)

Stemming from a study of social aesthetics, in which public reaction to human physical appearance is addressed, the present analysis considers the practice of humans associating themselves with nonhuman animals on the basis of the latter's appearance. The study found these nonhuman animals are intended to serve as a positive reflection on the humans who deliberately choose them for their “special” traits, which the humans then utilize to enhance their own social standing. The study compares this to the same practice (...) used by humans to associate themselves with attractive humans and serves the similar purpose of amassing social status by virtue of the association. This paper explains the phenomenon in theoretical terms; namely, symbolic interactionism, paying special attention to impression-management and dramaturgy, along with other interactionist features of attribution and social exchange. Where available, the paper uses scholarly, empirical work on the topic, supplemented by popular media observations and news articles. Viewed from an interactionist perspective, these empirical and non-empirical examples provide a novel picture of human-and-animal society as a unidirectional, status-seeking interaction intended to benefit human actors. (shrink)

Few areas of scientific investigation have spawned more alternative approaches than animal behavior: comparative psychology, ethology, behavioral ecology, sociobiology, behavioral endocrinology, behavioral neuroscience, neuroethology, behavioral genetics, cognitive ethology, developmental psychobiology---the list goes on. Add in the behavioral sciences focused on the human animal, and you can continue the list with ethnography, biological anthropology, political science, sociology, psychology (cognitive, social, developmental, evolutionary, etc.), and even that dismal science, economics. Clearly, no reasonable-length chapter can do justice to such a varied collection. We (...) have opted therefore to focus on three of these subdisciplines and to provide a somewhat historical tour of them, mentioning along the way the philosophical points that are of particular interest to us, but allowing the development of these points to be limited only by the imaginations of our readers. For readers seeking a more-traditional historical survey, see Dewsbury (1984a, b) and Burghardt (1985a). Our chosen brief is to write about comparative psychology, ethology, and cognitive ethology, although other approaches, especially neuroscience, will be mentioned where appropriate. These sciences are philosophically significant because they are enmeshed in ancient philosophical questions about the nature of mind and purposeful action and about the differences between humans and other animals. These sciences are also clustered because of their attention to mechanistic explanations of individual animal behavior as opposed to attempting to capture regularities at a population level, such as the game-theoretic strategic models popular among behavioral ecologists. (shrink)

The idea that animals make things has entered into popular news and public understanding, but inclusion of animal artifacts within engineering and technology studies lags. This volume works to unite animal construction literature with concepts from epistemology of technology.

Many paradigmatic forms of animal rights and environmental activism have been classed as terrorism both in popular discourse and in law. This paper argues that the labelling of many violent forms of direct action carried out in the name of animal rights or environmentalism as ‘terrorism’ is incorrect. Furthermore, the claim is also made that even those acts which are correctly termed as terrorism are not necessarily wrongful acts. The result of this analysis is to call into question the terms (...) of public debate and the legitimacy of anti-terrorism laws targeting and punishing radical activism. (shrink)

According to a widespread view, people often anthropomorphize machines such as certain robots and computer and AI systems by erroneously attributing mental states to them. On this view, people almost irresistibly believe, even if only subconsciously, that machines with certain human-like features really have phenomenal or subjective experiences like sadness, happiness, desire, pain, joy, and distress, even though they lack such feelings. This paper questions this view by critiquing common arguments used to support it and by suggesting an alternative explanation. (...) Even if people’s behavior and language regarding human-like machines suggests they believe those machines really have mental states, it is possible that they do not believe that at all. The paper also briefly discusses potential implications of regarding such anthropomorphism as a popular myth. The exercise illuminates the difficult concept of anthropomorphism, helping to clarify possible human relations with or toward machines that increasingly resemble humans and animals. (shrink)

This book criticizes the common belief that we are entitled to exploit animals for our benefit because they are not as rational as people. After discussing the moral (in)significance of reason in general, the author proceeds to develop a clear, commonsensical conception of what "animal rights" is about and why everyday morality points toward the liberation of animals as the next logical step in Western moral progress. The book evaluates criticisms of animal rights that have appeared in recent philosophical literature (...) and explains the consequences of animal liberation for our diet, science, and treatment of the environment. The issue of animal rights has become of increasing philosophical and popular importance over the past decade. Morals. Reason, and Animals is the first extensive, second-generation contribution to this debate. Focusing exclusively on the fundamental philosophical issues, Sapontzis both undermines the arguments that have been raised against animal rights and constructs a rebuttal that avoids the pitfalls encountered by earlier defenses. (shrink)

There is great injustice in the distribution of wellbeing among humans. But the situation may appear even worse once we expand our outlook to include other animals. Even a human who has a decent but not very good life plausibly has a much better life than the life of a mouse or an ant. And yet, if nonhuman animals are typically worse off than humans, does that mean that we should favor distributions that prioritize their wellbeing over the wellbeing of (...) humans? Many of the popular principles of distributive justice imply that we should, and some philosophers view this as a problem. I carefully specify this alleged problem, reject two popular approaches that have been taken to resolve it, and I then explore how a desertist approach to distributive justice handles the problem. I suggest that desertism about distributive justice sometimes favors human over nonhuman wellbeing in distributions. However, I then show that the desertist principle that I advance offers only a very limited justification for favoring human wellbeing over the wellbeing of other animals. (shrink)

In June 1928, Captain Barnett W. Harris, an amateur naturalist from Indiana, arrived in Zululand to experiment on wild animals with his invention – the mercy bullet. This “bullet”consisted of a hypodermic needle filled with anesthetic drugs that could render an animal unconscious – an early model of what is now known as the tranquilizer gun. The history of this gun typically begins with Colin Murdoch, a New Zealand pharmacist and veterinarian, who patented the invention in 1959. While largely absent (...) in the archives, through tracing popular science publications and press, this article exposes a longer history of animal tranquilizers from an unlikely source. Tracing Harris’s story allows this article to speak to different historical discourses that influenced his rise as a celebrated inventor, and later to his disappearance from the scientific arena. This article argues that debates about pain relief (for both humans and nonhuman animals) and developments in military technology at the turn of the twentieth century resulted in experiments with narcotic bullets, a precursor to this “mercy bullet moment.” While hailed across the press as the man who might transform animal capturing into a humane practice, the workings of Harris’s bullet remained ambiguous. Despite this, he promoted his invention through several lecture series and radio presentations to the American public in the 1930s, where elements of scientific showmanship can be observed. Overall, Harris’s omission from the history of animal tranquilizing demonstrates the multiple contingencies that define a moment of scientific “success” – or, in this case, push some into relative obscurity. (shrink)

The rise of physicalism and naturalism, the development of cognitive science, and the explosion and popularization of knowledge about animal behavior has brought us to see that most of the properties that were once thought to distinguish humans from other animals are shared with other animals. Many people now see properties that are morally relevant to how it is permissible to treat animals, such as sentience, as widely distributed. Agency, however, is one area in which the retreat from human uniqueness (...) is halting. In this essay I suggest that we should feel the same pressure to bring together accounts of human and animal agency that we feel with respect to sentience and other such characteristics. I go on to diagnose the resistance, and briefly sketch how things might look if we were to see agency as continuous. (shrink)

Summary The paper follows the lives of Mateu Orfila and François Magendie in early nineteenth-century Paris, focusing on their common interest in poisons. The first part deals with the striking similarities of their early careers: their medical training, their popular private lectures, and their first publications. The next section explores their experimental work on poisons by analyzing their views on physical and vital forces in living organisms and their ideas about the significance of animal experiments in medicine. The last part (...) describes their contrasting research on the absorption of poisons and the divergences in their approaches, methods, aims, standards of proof, and intended audiences. The analysis highlights the connections between nineteenth-century courtrooms and experimental laboratories, and shows how forensic practice not only prompted animal experimentation but also provided a substantial body of information and new research methods for dealing with major theoretical issues like the absorption of poisons. (shrink)

One aim of this dissertation is to remove ambiguities that have impeded a clear discussion and adequate evaluation of animalism. To that end I develop a taxonomy of different varieties of animalism and argue that there are substantive differences between them. In earlier debates about animalism, the previously elided distinctions that my taxonomy makes clear create unnecessary confusion and disagreement. My taxonomy resolves some of that confusion and provides the parties to the debate with a conceptual framework for importantly distinct (...) accounts of personal identity. I also evaluate animalist arguments in light of the distinctions my taxonomy tracks. Specifically I identify which arguments support which varieties of animalism. The most popular varieties, I argue, are critically under-supported. All rely on a tacit presupposition that ‘animal’ is a natural kind term or a substance sortal, a supposition that animalists are under some pressure to reject. Thus, my evaluation prompts a refocusing of the standard defenses of animalism to prioritize defending the tacit presupposition. Finally, I defend a hylomorphic variety of animalism from two objections: first, from the objection that if animalism is true, then human persons cannot survive death, or at least they cannot exist in an intermediate, disembodied state between their deaths and resurrections. I do this by arguing that given hylomorphism, animals can become immaterial, and that this is less an affront to intuition and mereology than it might seem. Second, I defend a hylomorphic variety of animalism from the objection that if it is true, we are not the primary thinkers of our thoughts. The criticism is that if hylomorphism can solve certain puzzles, the resolving of which is one of the main points in hylomorphism’s favor, the view implies that our contingent mental properties primarily characterize something other than us. I argue that this criticism turns on a misunderstanding of how the hylomorphism at stake solves the relevant puzzles and that it can do so without major modification. (shrink)

The thesis that animals feel a morally relevant kind of pain is an incredibly popular one, but explaining the evidence for this belief is surprisingly challenging. Michael Murray has defended neo-Cartesianism, the view that animals may lack the ability to feel pain in a morally relevant sense. In this paper, I present the reasons for doubting that animals feel morally relevant pain. I then respond to critics of Murray’s position, arguing that the evidence proposed more recently is still largely unpersuasive. (...) I end by considering the implications for moral discourse and praxis. (shrink)

Despite the increased attention that has been paid in recent years to the significance of animal interests within moral and political philosophy, there has been virtually no discussion of the significance of animal interests within business ethics. This is rather troubling, since a great deal of the treatment of animals that will seem especially problematic to many people occurs in the context of business, broadly construed. In this chapter, I aim to extend the growing concern that our normative theories should (...) be animal-friendly to business ethics. I consider whether several popular theoretical approaches in business ethics are consistent with taking animal interests to bear on the decisions that business managers are obligated to make. I do not argue for the claim that we should reject any theory in business ethics that cannot count animal interests as providing reasons that are relevant to the moral status of managerial conduct (though I think that this is true). Instead, I proceed on the assumption that many will find this claim plausible, and argue that those who do have reason to doubt that many of the prominent theoretical approaches defended in the business ethics literature are acceptable. My main aim, then, is to show that those who believe that the correct theory in business ethics must be animal-friendly, at least in the limited sense of counting animal interests as relevant to the moral status of managerial conduct in a plausible way, will need to look beyond the main competing theories that occupy present discussions. (shrink)

The stakeholder approach has become a popular perspective in mainstream management and the corporate social responsibility (CSR) literature. However, it remains an open question as to how real-life managers actually view stakeholders and what rationales and logics are used for explaining the relationship between the firm and its constituencies. This article examines whom managers in multinational corporations (MNCs) consider to be their important stakeholders, and how they describe the societal responsibilities towards these groups and individuals. It is concluded that managers (...) still tend to hold a rather narrow (managerial) view of the firm and generally give priority to stakeholder groups who are directly involved in the firm's core transformation system. The conclusions are derived from interview and survey data from 647 managers in four MNCs. The paper is based on data collected as part of project RESPONSE: a European Union- and corporate-funded initiative on CSR. (shrink)

Several attempts to conceptualize farm animal welfare have been criticized for diverging reasons, among them often the failure to incorporate the public concern and opinion. This paper’s objective is to develop a conception of farm animal welfare that starts from the public’s perception and integrates the opinion of different stakeholder representatives, thus following a fork-to-farm approach. Four qualitative citizen focus group discussions were used to develop a quantitative questionnaire, which has been completed by a representative sample of Flemish citizens ( (...) n = 459). Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses were applied to develop a conception of farm animal welfare starting from an extended list of aspects that relate to animal production and associate with farm animal welfare in the public’s perception. In depth interviews with stakeholder representatives were used to match and adapt the structure of the animal welfare conception model. The resulting conception revealed seven dimensions grouped in two different levels. Three dimensions were animal-based: “Suffering and Stress,” “Ability to Engage in Natural Behavior,” and “Animal Health.” Four dimensions were resource-based: “Housing and Barn climate,” “Transport and Slaughter,” “Feed and Water,” and “Human-Animal Relationship.” This conception is distinct from earlier attempts since it is based on public perceptions; it addresses the opinion of different stakeholders, and it distinguishes empirically between animal-based and resource-based dimensions in the conceptualization of farm animal welfare. The relevancy of a popular definition is supported by the present demand oriented economy, in which animal welfare is a non-trade concern, and mainly left to the market where consumers still mainly act as individuals who calculate and weigh pros and cons. (shrink)

From 1957 to 1973, Barcelona Zoo was transformed from a small-scale, antiquated establishment harboring very few animals, a place that was still in a poor condition following the Spanish Civil War, into a new, larger, modern, and internationally recognized institution that included up-to-date animal enclosures and that boasted one of the first dolphinariums in Europe, as well as a famous white gorilla as its icon. From its very beginning, this renovation involved an intense popularization campaign. In this paper, by describing (...) the public discourse generated throughout this transformation and by analyzing the roles played by Antoni Jonch, the director of the zoo at that time; Josep Maria de Porcioles, the then-mayor of Barcelona; and General Francisco Franco, the Spanish dictator who was head of state during this period, I will highlight how the context of the dictatorship not only authorized the new Barcelona Zoo but is, in fact, crucial to its understanding. The narratives that surrounded the renovation of the zoo focused on its civic and educational purpose, with a firm emphasis on modernity. The zoo was a modern space for learning about animals in order to become better people. These narratives were not only suitable to the policies, ideas, and aims of Porcioles’ City Council and Franco’s dictatorial regime; in fact, they completely matched them. Both local and national governments benefited from the restructuring of Barcelona Zoo and from its public discourse as a tool for social control and an instrument for their own propaganda, legitimation, and perpetuation. (shrink)

The period of the end of the twentieth — the beginning of the twenty-first century can be called the heyday of human rights movements that advocate the inclusion of new agencies in the political, ethical, social and other fields. Among them arose the animal rights movement, which later developed into a philosophical turn called animal turn, which is now one of the most popular in the Western philosophical and anthropological discourse. Being mostly a media and popular science project, animal turn (...) has been little studied and criticized from an academic point of view. In this article, it is proposed to explore the history of the turn, its development and, most importantly, how the ideas about man, animal and their relationships changed within the framework of animal turn. The new anthropology, which also includes the turn under discussion, inextricably links the concept of man with the concept of boundary, stating it as a necessary element for the constitution of the human self. As a part of a general philosophical trend to expand the discourse of the Other, animal turn suggests to consider the animal as a universal example of Otherness, which can not only coexist with a human, but also be an integral part of his self-perception. The article proposes to consider how the transition from the recognition of animals as "also feeling" was gradually made to the idea of maximum inclusiveness, openness and hospitality. It is also proposed to critically comprehend the new concept of man as a being who strives for maximum positive harmony with himself and the material world. As examples, the texts of the most famous representatives of animal turn are analyzed: P. Singer, T. Regan, J. Derrida, B. Massumi, P. Godfrey-Smith and V. Despre. (shrink)

This article captures and critiques a recurring and prominent political argument against animal welfare improvements in Switzerland which we term the “ranking argument”. This states that Swiss animal welfare law ranks among the strictest in the world, therefore no improvements are called for. This argument was advanced three times by Swiss government authorities in 2022 alone, but also in a case dating back to 1984, to advise the electorate on popular initiatives aiming at animal welfare improvements. We argue that, while (...) the argument commits a fallacy of relative privation and is ethically dubious, it can be deployed to great effect by agents opposed to norm change in animal welfare regulation. We conclude with some thoughts on how the ranking argument can and should be challenged in public discourse. (shrink)

Many personal identity theorists claim that persons are distinct from the animals that constitute them, but when combined with the plausible assumption that animals share the thoughts of the persons they constitute, this denial results in an excess of thinkers and a host of related problems. I consider a number of non-animalist solutions to these problems and argue that they fail. I argue further that satisfactory non-animalist solutions are not forthcoming and that in order to avoid these problems we ought (...) to affirm our identity with animals. I then discuss arguments to the effect that i) animalism faces its own problems of too many thinkers, arising from the non- identity of animals with thinking bodies and thinking body parts, and ii) that in order to avoid these problems we must deny not just that there are persons distinct from animals, but that there are bodies and body parts distinct from animals Once the second of these claims is granted, there is a short further step to the conclusion that there are no such things as body parts, and from there there is a direct route to eliminative animalism. Eliminative animalism denies not only that there are persons distinct from animals, but that there are any composite objects distinct from animals. This position has been gaining popularity recently, but I argue that we need not, and indeed should not, accept it. Although the problems of the thinking animal do commit us to animalism, the problems of thinking bodies and thinking body parts do not commit us to eliminate animalism. (shrink)

The Tiger Temple in Kanchanaburi province, western Thailand, is a popular tourist attraction, offering visitors a unique opportunity to interact closely with tigers. It presents itself as a “tiger sanctuary,” whose tigers have been tamed by nonviolent Buddhist methods. This claim has been disputed by visitors and animal welfare activists. This article confronts the Temple’s master narrative of “Buddhist compassion” with a counternarrative of “animal abuse” according to which, rather than being a “sanctuary” for tigers, the Temple in fact mistreats (...) the animals and exploits them commercially. However, even as an animal welfare organization’s report confirmed the abuse of the tigers and called for their confiscation and for the suspension of their display to visitors, the Thai authorities granted the Temple permission to operate as a zoo. This decision highlights the profound contrast between Thai and Western-inspired international norms for the treatment of captive animals. The article examines the cultural roots of this contrast and argues that in their narrow focus on the Tiger Temple the critics have unwittingly missed the opportunity to use the Temple’s animal abuse as an instance of a wider problem in the perception and treatment of animals in Thailand. (shrink)

Cowboy Bebop, a popular anime series set in the year 2071 onboard the spaceship Bebop, chronicles the bohemian adventures of a group of bounty hunters. This paper presents how the imaginary characters and their voices are conventionalized to fit hegemonic norms. The social semiotic of desire depicted in Cowboy Bebop caters to a general heterosexual market in which hero and babe characters represent the anime archetypes of heterosexual normativity. Scripted speech used in the anime functions as a (...) role language which indexes common ideological attributes associated with a character’s demeanor. This study focuses on how ideas, including heterosexual normativity and culture-specific practices, are reproduced in media texts in order to negotiate the intertextual distances that link the characters and audience. (shrink)

There have been major developments in the understanding of children’s nonhuman concepts, particularly God concepts, within the past two decades, with a body of cross-cultural studies accumulating. Relatively less research has studied those of non-Christian faiths or children’s concepts of popular occult characters. This paper describes two studies, one in Spain and one in England, examining 5- to 10-year-olds’ human and nonhuman agent beliefs. Both settings were secular, but the latter comprised a Muslim majority. Children were given a false-belief task (...) in which they were asked to infer about three humans, three animals and three supernatural beings. Similar false beliefs about humans, with subtle differences in inferences about animals and supernatural beings, were found between the two locations. In London different patterns for God between participants with a family religion, in particular Muslims, and non-affiliates, were identified as well as an association between religious beliefs and practice and inferences about God. Findings are discussed in the light of theory and research on the role of sociocultural inputs in children’s theory of mind development and understanding of agency. (shrink)

Though Nicholson (b.1760) devoted his life to a number of radical causes -- among them popular education, women's rights, democratic government, and animal welfare -- he was not part of the London circle of radical political reforms that their enemies called English Jacobins, but a printer far from the city. He did however contribute to the movement that brought a number of reforms during the 19th century, including legislation to protect animal interests. He argues not only that eating meat is (...) cruel to animals, but that it is unnatural for humans and therefore unhealthy. (shrink)

The active ‘doing’ of gender and sexuality in and through social interaction has been a topic of academic inquiry for several decades. This study examines the cultural reproduction of that ‘doing’ through the onscreen discourse of the animated television sitcom. A conversation-analytic approach to various excerpts from two popular series reveals the ways in which the situated interactions of these programs make gender and sexuality overtly relevant to viewers through polarization of ‘the norm’ versus deviations from it at the level (...) of talk. In temporarily deviating from their everyday, normative speech practices, characters tap into viewers’ preconceived notions of the behaviors of different gendered and sexual identities in interaction. These non-normative actions are then oriented to as such in the onscreen discourse, thereby making gender, sexuality, and the conduct associated with those identities simultaneously salient for the at-home viewer. It is hypothesized that, while these gender-/sexuality-based associations can be used as a tool through which to offer critiques of the social stereotypes that they parody, they can also serve to re-create those hegemonic divisions at a discursive level through homogenization of the complex range of human identities being represented. (shrink)

This interdisciplinary study fuses analysis of feminist literature and manifestos, radical political theory, critical vanguard studies, women's performance art, and popular culture to argue for the animal liberation movement as successor to the liberationist visions of the early twentieth-century avant-gardes, most especially the Surrealists. These vanguard groups are judiciously critiqued for their refusal to confront their own misogyny, a quandary that continues to plague animal activists, thereby disallowing for cohesion and full recognition of women's value within a culturally marginalized cause. (...) This volume is of interest to anyone who is concerned about the continued--indeed, escalating--violence against nonhumans. More broadly, it will interest those seeking new pathways to challenge the dominant power constructions through which oppression of humans, nonhumans, and the environment thrives. Women, Destruction, and the Avant-Garde ultimately poses the animal liberation movement as having serious political and cultural implications for radical social change, destruction of hierarchy and for a world without shackles and cages, much as the Surrealists envisioned. (shrink)

In recent years, the animation industry has achieved unprecedented development trends, and many excellent animation works have emerged in China, which are popular with audiences. Among all kinds of animation works, the most important feature is the integration of traditional Chinese philosophical and cultural elements, which leads to the difference between Chinese animation works and other countries. It not only conforms to the aesthetic standards of Chinese people, but also gives play to the traditional Chinese culture, providing a direction for (...) further promoting the inheritance and development of outstanding traditions. With the rise of mobile intelligent terminals, the vigorous development of the Internet era, and the rising demand of people for the existing market, traditional philosophy and culture, as a new business opportunity, has great development prospects in this era. The fashion transformation of traditional philosophy and culture in the animation art is about to attract more attention from capital and entrepreneurs. In animation art design, the most important core concept is artistic creativity. Due to China's lack of originality in animation design for a long time, this paper attempts to revive China's animation art design by applying traditional innovative ideas in the fashion transformation of animation art design schemes. This new artistic expression method is aimed at better expressing the theme of animation activities, maximizing the value of animation works and promoting the development of animation industry. Through the transformation and innovation of traditional philosophy and culture and animation art customization, this paper explores the transformation and innovation of traditional philosophy and culture and animation art customization in order to provide some reference for the development of animation industry. (shrink)

In pre-Columbian times, the Zenu Indians established drainage systems in the wetlands of the Colombian Caribbean that enabled them to exploit this rich ecosystem in a sustained manner. Modern inhabitants of the region are, however, exposed to a regimen of periodic flooding that limits their productive activities. In addition, they are surrounded by large cattle ranches that occupy almost all the land and are responsible for the disappearance of forests that sustain the wild fauna. These peasants employ a classification system (...) for the fauna that favors the criterion of habitat over that of morphology to distinguish categories of animals. Secondary forest animals inspire carnival dances, folk tales, poetry, and songs, while insects and other invertebrates are barely represented in the oral tradition. Fishing provides the principal source of protein for many families, but there are no mechanisms to control the use of large nets that exhaust the resource. The capture of reptiles such as iguanas, turtles, and crocodilians is intensive and is not based on studies that determine the state of the populations and the impact of hunting activities. The author draws attention to the need to take into account local representations of animals in programs aimed at conserving the wetlands and their fauna. She discusses the popular nomenclature, knowledge, attitudes, and beliefs regarding the fauna of a wetland region of the Colombian Caribbean to assist in the design of programs for the sustainable exploitation of the resources of this ecosystem, vital to the survival of local fishermen and peasants. (shrink)