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Books > Social sciences > Sociology, social studies > Social issues > Animals & society > General
Since the early nineteenth century, numerous campaigns have denounced the mistreatment of animals. This book compares the British and French histories of the animal-protection movement to retrace its origins and impact up to the present day. As Christophe Traini shows, the struggle for animal rights - inextricably linked to the rise of philanthropy and established long before the birth of the ecology movement - developed out of several important social and political processes, including changes in sensibilities and socially approved emotions, new definitions of what constitutes legitimate violence, and the influence of religious beliefs. Originally published as La cause animale. Essai de sociologie historique (1820-1980), 2011 (c)Presses Universitaires de France
For much of our history, legal scholars focused predominantly on the law's implications for human beings, while ignoring how the law influences animal welfare. Since the 1970s, however, there has been a steep increase in animal advocates' use of the courts. Animal law has blossomed into a vibrant academic discipline, with a rich literature that examines how the law affects animal welfare and the ability of humans to advocate on behalf of nonhuman animals. But most animal law literature tends to be doctrinally-based or normative. There has been little empirical study of the outcomes of animal law cases and there has been very little attention paid to the political influences of these outcomes. This book fills the gap in animal law literature. This is the first empirically-based analysis of animal law that emphasizes the political forces that shape animal law outcomes.
Contemporary Earth and animal activists rarely collaborate, perhaps because environmentalists focus on species and ecosystems, while animal advocates look to the individual, and neither seems to have much respect for the other. This diverse collection of essays highlights common ground between earth and animal advocates, most notably the protection of wildlife and personal dietary choice. If earth and animal advocates move beyond philosophical differences and resultant divergent priorities, turning attention to shared goals, both will be more effective - and both animals and the environment will benefit. Given the undeniable seriousness of the environmental problems that we face, including climate change and species extinction, it is essential that activists join forces. Drawing on a wide range of issues and disciplines, ranging from wildlife management, hunting, and the work of NGOs to ethics, ecofeminism, religion and animal welfare, this volume provides a stimulating collection of ideas and challenges for anyone else who cares about the environment or animals.
For much of our history, legal scholars focused predominantly on the law's implications for human beings, while ignoring how the law influences animal welfare. Since the 1970s, however, there has been a steep increase in animal advocates' use of the courts. Animal law has blossomed into a vibrant academic discipline, with a rich literature that examines how the law affects animal welfare and the ability of humans to advocate on behalf of nonhuman animals. But most animal law literature tends to be doctrinally-based or normative. There has been little empirical study of the outcomes of animal law cases and there has been very little attention paid to the political influences of these outcomes. This book fills the gap in animal law literature. This is the first empirically-based analysis of animal law that emphasizes the political forces that shape animal law outcomes.
An essential read for activists, community organizers, justice scholars, and academic administrators, Critical Animal Studies and Social Justice: Critical Theory, Dismantling Speciesism, and Total Liberation is a collection that combines scholarship and activism in nine ground-breaking and provocative chapters. The book includes contributions from around the world influenced by critical theory, feminism, social justice, political theory, media studies, environmental justice, food justice, disability studies, and Black liberation. By promoting total liberation and liberatory politics, these essays challenge the reader to think about new approaches to justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion . The contributors also examine and disrupt many of the exclusionary assumptions and behaviors by those working toward justice and liberation, encouraging the reader to reflect on their own thoughts and actions. They emphasize the direct links between exploitation of animals, the planet, and people, the significance of which we can no longer afford to ignore.
For thousands of years, in the myths and folktales of people around the world, animals have spoken in human tongues. Western and non-Western literary and folkloric traditions are filled with both speaking animals, some of whom even narrate or write their own autobiographies. Animals speak, famously, in children's stories and in cartoons and films, and today, social networking sites and blogs are both sites in which animals-primarily pets-write about their daily lives and interests. Speaking for Animals is a compilation of chapters written from a variety of disciplines that attempts to get a handle on this cross cultural and longstanding tradition of animal speaking and writing. It looks at speaking animals in literature, religious texts, poetry, social networking sites, comic books, and in animal welfare materials and even library catalogs, and addresses not just the "whys" of speaking animals, but the implications, for the animals and for ourselves.
This work presents a goal-based model of decision making in which the relative priorities of goals drive the decision process -- a psychological alternative to traditional decision analysis. Building on the work of Schank and Abelson, the author uses goals as the basis for a model of interpersonal relations which permits decisions to incorporate personal and adopted goals in a uniform manner. The theory is modelled on the VOTE computer program which simulates Congressional roll-call voting decisions. The VOTE program expands traditional decision making and simulation models by providing not only a choice, but also a natural language explanation, in either English or French. It simulates real members of Congress voting on real bills, and producing reasonable explanations. The program is consistent with much of the descriptive political science literature on Congressional decision making and provides an explicit model of political issues, relationships, and strategies that converge in voting behavior. In developing the VOTE program, the author draws on his own practical experience in politics from four presidential campaigns and the White House. Given the underlying psychological basis of the program, VOTE can be extended to other decision making domains different from politics. Another use for the program is to simulate business decisions such as securities analysis, as well as mundane decision making such as choosing a college or deciding whether to get a Mohawk haircut.
From eye-witness accounts of elephants apparently mourning the
death of family members to an experiment that showed that hungry
rhesus monkeys would not take food if doing so gave another monkey
an electric shock, there is much evidence of animals displaying
what seem to be moral feelings. But despite such suggestive
evidence, philosophers steadfastly deny that animals can act
morally, and for reasons that virtually everyone has found
convincing.
Most approaches to animal ethics ground the moral standing of nonhumans in some appeal to their capacities for intelligent autonomy or mental sentience. "Corporal Compassion "emphasizes the phenomenal and somatic commonality of living beings; a philosophy of body that seeks to displace any notion of anthropomorphic empathy in viewing the moral experiences of nonhuman living beings. Ralph R. Acampora employs phenomenology, hermeneutics, existentialism and deconstruction to connect and contest analytic treatments of animal rights and liberation theory. In doing so, he focuses on issues of being and value, and posits a felt nexus of bodily being, termed symphysis, to devise an interspecies ethos. Acampora uses this broad-based bioethic to engage in dialogue with other strains of environmental ethics and ecophilosophy. "Corporal Compassion" examines the practical applications of the somatic ethos in contexts such as laboratory experimentation and zoological exhibition and challenges practitioners to move past recent reforms and look to a future beyond exploitation or total noninterference--a posthumanist culture that advocates caring in a participatory approach.
The city includes opportunities as well as constraints for humans and other animals alike. Urban animals are often subjected to complaints; they transgress geographical, legal as and cultural ordering systems, while roaming the city in what is often perceived as uncontrolled ways. But they are also objects of care, conservation practices and bio-political interventions. What then, are the "more-than-human" experiences of living in a city? What does it mean to consider spatial formations and urban politics from the perspective of human/animal relations? This book draws on a number of case studies to explore urban controversies around human/animal relations, in particular companion animals: free ranging dogs, homeless and feral cats, urban animal hoarding and "crazy cat ladies". The book explores 'zoocities', the theoretical framework in which animal studies meet urban studies, resulting in a reframing of urban relations and space. Through the expansion of urban theories beyond the human, and the resuscitation of sociological theories through animal studies literature, the book seeks to uncover the phenomenon of 'humanimal crowding', both as threats to be policed, and as potentially subversive. In this book, a number of urban controversies and crowding technologies are analysed, finally pointing at alternative modes of trans-species urban politics through the promises of humanimal crowding - of proximity and collective agency. The exclusion of animals may be an urban ideology, aiming at social order, but close attention to the level of practice reveals a much more diverse, disordered, and perhaps disturbing experience.
Animal Ethics has long been a highly contested area with debates driven by unease about various forms of animal harm, from the use of animals in scientific research to the farming of animals for consumption. Animal Ethics: The Basics is an essential introduction to the key considerations surrounding the ethical treatment of animals. Taking a thematic approach, it outlines the current arguments from animal agency to the emergence of the ‘political turn’. This book explores such questions as:
Critical Animal Geographies provides new geographical perspectives on critical animal studies, exploring the spatial, political, and ethical dimensions of animals' lived experience and human-animal encounter. It works toward a more radical politics and theory directed at the shifting boundary between human and animal. Chapters draw together feminist, political-economic, post-humanist, anarchist, post-colonial, and critical race literatures with original case studies in order to see how efforts by some humans to control and order life - human and not - violate, constrain, and impinge upon others. Central to all chapters is a commitment to grappling with the stakes - violence, death, life, autonomy - of human-animal encounters. Equally, the work in the collection addresses head-on the dominant forces shaping and dependent on these encounters: capitalism, racism, colonialism, and so on. In doing so, the book pushes readers to confront how human-animal relations are mixed up with overlapping axes of power and exploitation, including gender, race, class, and species.
How do we treat animals? How ought we to treat them? These are the two central questions tackled in the extensively re-written and up dated second edition of this well-regarded and much-cited text. It remains the only book which combines in a single volume, not only a concise and accessible account of the on going debate about animals in moral and legal philosophy, but also a detailed analysis of how this debate is central to an understanding of the ways in which animals are treated. In the last decade in Britain, we have witnessed major campaigns and public controversy over the export of live animals, and the use of animals in research. Major campaigns have been mounted against companies such as Shamrock and Huntingdon Life Sciences. The impact of genetic engineering on the welfare of animals has also emerged as an important area of concern. In addition, the controversy over hunting has become even more pronounced, with the launch of the pro-hunting Countryside Alliance. -- .
Many philosophers, including Aquinas, Locke, Schopenhauer and Kant, have assumed that there is a link between cruelty to animals and violence to people. During the last 40 years, evidence for this view has steadily accumulated as a result of statistical, psychological, and medical investigations, and there is now a substantial body of supporting empirical evidence. "The Link Between Animal Abuse & Human Violence" brings together international experts from seven countries to examine in detail the relationships between animal abuse and child abuse, the emotional development of the child, family violence, and serial murder. It considers the implications for legal and social policy, and the work of key professionals. Sections include critical overviews of existing research, discussion of ethical issues, and a special focus on the abuse of wild animals. This book is essential reading for all those who have a stake in the debate, either because their academic work relates to the issues involved, or because their professional role involves contact with the abused or the abusers, both human and animal, including child care officers, community carers, law enforcement officers, health visitors, veterinarians, anti-cruelty inspectors, animal protection officers, social scientists, lawyers, psychologists, and criminologists. This is the most up-to-date, authoritative, and comprehensive volume on the link between animal abuse and human violence.
Elizabeth Sutton, using a phenomenological approach, investigates how animals in art invite viewers to contemplate human relationships to the natural world. Using Rembrandt van Rijn's etching of The Presentation in the Temple (c. 1640), Joseph Beuys's social sculpture I Like America and America Likes Me (1974), archaic rock paintings at Horseshoe Canyon, Canyonlands National Park, and examples from contemporary art, this book demonstrates how artists across time and cultures employed animals to draw attention to the sensory experience of the composition and reflect upon the shared sensory awareness of the world.
Animal behaviour and, as a result, animal welfare are increasingly complex areas of study, with the diversity of the animal kingdom and new research findings ensuring there is no one, easy answer. Instead, we need to take a holistic approach, combining scientific principles with both philosophical and ethical considerations to develop all-inclusive policies and legislation that decide how society should interact with domestic, farm and native animals. With a focus on domestic animals, while also referring to wild species to reinforce the arguments, this book: * promotes direct observation for those who claim to be interested in animals, their behaviour, and their welfare. * considers the concept of consciousness, how it can be assessed, and how it relates to suffering and animal welfare more widely. * emphasizes the need to understand better how animals behave both with humans and outside of human influence, considering the diversity of behaviour and sensorial capacities across species. * includes author knowledge and expertise across a wide range of animal species, from primates to farm animals, and across animal living situations from intensive to free ranging. We are far from having all the answers, so this book also raises questions that require further research and focus, such as the way animals are likely to act based on their recent and whole-of-life experiences. Still, this review of the topic, an updated translation of the French language work Vivre parmi les animaux, mieux les comprendre, is an invaluable resource for everyone with an interest in animal behaviour and welfare.
This book advances current literature on the role and place of animals in sport and society. It explores different forms of sporting spaces, examines how figures of animals have been used to racialize the human athlete, and encourages the reader to think critically about animal ethics, animals in space, time and place, and the human-animal relationship. The chapters highlight persistent dichotomies in the use of and collaboration with animals for sport, and present strategies for moving forward in the study of interspecies relations.
Living Beings examines the vital characteristics of social interactions between living beings, including humans, other animals and trees. Many discussions of such relationships highlight the exceptional qualities of the human members of the category, insisting for instance on their religious beliefs or creativity. In contrast, the international case studies in this volume dissect views based on hierarchical oppositions between human and other living beings. Although human practices may sometimes appear to exist in a realm beyond nature, they are nevertheless subject to the pull of natural forces. These forces may be brought into prominence through a consideration of the interactions between human beings and other inhabitants of the natural world. The interplay in this book between social anthropologists, philosophers and artists cuts across species divisions to examine the experiential dimensions of interspecies engagements. In ethnographically and/or historically contextualized chapters, contributors examine the juxtaposition of human and other living beings in the light of themes such as wildlife safaris, violence, difference, mimicry, simulation, spiritual renewal, dress and language.
Drawing on anthropological and historical data, this book examines human-wildlife relations in China, Tibet, Japan, Bhutan, Indonesia, the Philippines, Malaysia, India, Thailand and Vietnam. The volume initially focuses on the various ways in which wild animals are exploited as a resource, for food, medicine and crop-picking labour, before examining animals termed as pests or predators that are deemed to be harmful and dangerous. Bringing together anthropologists and historians, this book analyses the range, variability and historical mutability of human sensibilities towards animals in Asia and will be of interest to Asianists and anthropologists alike.
Is it acceptable to kill an animal that has been granted a pleasant life? This book rigorously explores the moral basis of the ideal of animal-friendly animal husbandry. Utilitarianism is recognised as being the moral theory that, historically, has contributed most to the recognition of animal suffering as an evil. This book sheds new light on utilitarian moral theory by pointing out the assumptions and implications of two different versions of utilitarianism. One version, total utilitarianism, can indeed morally justify the routine killing of animals, provided that they have been granted pleasant lives. The other version, prior existence utilitarianism, implies a much stronger protection for animals, both human and non-human. Hence, in opposition to what is typically brought forward in the classrooms and in the literature, the utilitarian concern with animals need not be restricted to the avoidance of suffering. Utilitarianism has the resources to oppose the routine killing of animals, as practiced in animal husbandry and many other common practices of animal use.
This edited collection testifies to the fact that the animal liberation movement is now entering its political phase, after a period dominated by ethical approaches that undermined the paradigm of human supremacy and demanded justice for nonhuman beings. The contributors of this book collectively confront and take on questions of social transformation, guided by the idea that philosophy has an important role to play even at such a new level. They start from such diverse perspectives as critical theory, left liberalism, and biopolitical thought. The result is an articulated picture in which, beyond any principled divergence, it is possible to detect the emergence of a relevant set of shared political preoccupations. This exploration of those offers fresh theoretical insights and suggestions for praxis.
For thousands of years, in the myths and folktales of people around the world, animals have spoken in human tongues. Western and non-Western literary and folkloric traditions are filled with both speaking animals, some of whom even narrate or write their own autobiographies. Animals speak, famously, in children's stories and in cartoons and films, and today, social networking sites and blogs are both sites in which animals-primarily pets-write about their daily lives and interests. Speaking for Animals is a compilation of chapters written from a variety of disciplines that attempts to get a handle on this cross cultural and longstanding tradition of animal speaking and writing. It looks at speaking animals in literature, religious texts, poetry, social networking sites, comic books, and in animal welfare materials and even library catalogs, and addresses not just the "whys" of speaking animals, but the implications, for the animals and for ourselves.
As people come to understand more about animals' inner lives-the intricacies of their thoughts and the emotions that are expressed every day by whales and cows, octopus and mice, even bees-we feel a growing compassion, a desire to better their lives. But how do we translate this compassion into helping other creatures, both those that are and are not our pets? Bringing together the latest science with heartfelt storytelling, Animals' Best Friends reveals the opportunities we have in everyday life to help animals in our homes, in the wild, in zoos, and in science labs, as well as those considered to be food. Barbara J. King, an expert on animal cognition and emotion, guides us on a journey both animal and deeply human. We meet cows living relaxed lives in an animal sanctuary-and cows with plastic portals in their sides at a university research station. We observe bison free-roaming at Yellowstone National Park and chimpanzees confined to zoos. We learn with King how to negotiate vegetarian preferences in omnivore restaurants. We experience the touch of a giant Pacific octopus tasting King's skin with one of his long, neuron-rich arms. We reflect on animal testing as King shares her own experience as the survivor of a particularly nasty cancer. And in a moment all too familiar to many of us, we recover from a close encounter with two spiders in the home. This is a book not of shaming and limitation, but of uplift and expansion. Throughout this journey, King makes no claims of personal perfection. Though an animal expert, she is just like the rest of us: on a journey still, learning each day how to be better, and do better, for animals. But as Animals' Best Friends makes clear, challenging choices can bring deep rewards. By turning compassion into action on behalf of animals, we not only improve animals' lives-we also immeasurably enrich our own.
With a new introduction by the author Some thousands of years ago, the world was home to an immense variety of large mammals. From wooly mammoths and saber-toothed tigers to giant ground sloths and armadillos the size of automobiles, these spectacular creatures roamed freely. Then human beings arrived. Devouring their way down the food chain as they spread across the planet, they began a process of voracious extinction that has continued to the present. Headlines today are made by the existential threat confronting remaining large animals such as rhinos and pandas. But the devastation summoned by humans extends to humbler realms of creatures including beetles, bats and butterflies. Researchers generally agree that the current extinction rate is nothing short of catastrophic. Currently the earth is losing about a hundred species every day. This relentless extinction, Ashley Dawson contends in a primer that combines vast scope with elegant precision, is the product of a global attack on the commons, the great trove of air, water, plants and creatures, as well as collectively created cultural forms such as language, that have been regarded traditionally as the inheritance of humanity as a whole. This attack has its genesis in the need for capital to expand relentlessly into all spheres of life. Extinction, Dawson argues, cannot be understood in isolation from a critique of our economic system. To achieve this we need to transgress the boundaries between science, environmentalism and radical politics. Extinction: A Radical History performs this task with both brio and brilliance.
This book provides a comprehensive introduction to business organisation and administration. Written in a straightforward, readable style this textbook covers all the major aspects of the subject. Starting with the organisational background it goes on to cover the functions of the important departments within the firm, the role of the administrative officer, and other areas of knowledge vital to the smooth running of a business. There are self-assessment questions at the end of each section, past exam questions, study and exam tips and a full index. |
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