Philosophy reads humanity against animality, arguing that "man" is man because he is separate from beast. Deftly challenging this position, Kelly Oliver proves that, in fact, it is the animal that teaches us to be human. Through their sex, their habits, and our perception of their purpose, animals show us how not to be them.

This kinship plays out in a number of ways. We sacrifice animals to establish human kinship, but without the animal, the bonds of "brotherhood" fall apart. Either kinship with animals is possible or kinship with humans is impossible. Philosophy holds that humans and animals are distinct, but in defending this position, the discipline depends on a discourse that relies on the animal for its very definition of the human. Through these and other examples, Oliver does more than just establish an animal ethics. She transforms ethics by showing how its very origin is dependent upon the animal. Examining for the first time the treatment of the animal in the work of Heidegger, Merleau-Ponty, Derrida, Agamben, Freud, Lacan, and Kristeva, among others, "Animal Lessons" argues that the animal bites back, thereby reopening the question of the animal for philosophy.

The most detailed and authoritative treatment of the current state of animal welfare law in Britain to date. This book provides a full analysis of the substantive law, considers its objectives, application and effectiveness, the background to the current debate and the arguments for and against further reform. It includes full coverage of key topics such as agricultural production, transportation, scientific procedures, entertainment, domestic pets, wildlife, hunting and enforcement.

This book provides a dispassionate and objective analysis of the current state of animal welfare law in the United Kingdom. It explains the substantive law,

The multiple ways in which people relate to animals provide a revealing window through which to examine a culture. Western cultures tend to view animals either as pets or food, and often overlook the vast number of roles that they may play within a culture and in social life more generally: their use in medicine, folk traditions and rituals. This comprehensive and very readable study focuses on Malawi people and their rich and varied relationship with animals -- from hunting through to their use as medicine. More broadly, through a rigorous and detailed study the author provides insights which show how the people's relationship to their world manifests itself not strictly in social relations, but just as tellingly in their relatioships with animals -- that, in fact, animals constitute a vital role in social relations. While significantly advancing classic African ethnographic studies, this book also incorporates current debates in a wide range of disciplines -- from anthropology through to gender studies and ecology.

Mary Anne Warren explores a theoretical question which lies at the heart of practical ethics: what are the criteria for having moral status? In other words, what are the criteria for being an entity towards which people have moral obligations? Some philosophers maintain that there is one intrinsic property-for instance, life, sentience, humanity, or moral agency. Others believe that relational properties, such as belonging to a human community, are more important. In Part I of the book, Warren argues that no single property can serve as the sole criterion for moral status; instead, life, sentience, moral agency, and social and biotic relationships are all relevant, each in a different way. She presents seven basic principles, each focusing on a property that can, in combination with others, legitimately affect an agent's moral obligations towards entities of a given type. In Part II, these principles are applied in an examination of three controversial ethical issues: voluntary euthanasia, abortion, and the moral status of animals.

The heartbreaking and ultimately hopeful story of an abandoned polar bear cub named Nora and the humans working tirelessly to save her and her species, whose uncertain future in the accelerating climate crisis is closely tied to our own. Six days after giving birth, a polar bear named Aurora got up and left her den at the Columbus Zoo, leaving her tiny, squealing cub to fend for herself. Hours later, Aurora still hadn't returned. The cub was furless and blind, and with her temperature dropping dangerously, the zookeepers entrusted with her care felt they had no choice: They would have to raise one of the most dangerous predators in the world themselves, by hand. Over the next few weeks, a group of veterinarians and zookeepers would work around the clock to save the cub, whom they called Nora. Humans rarely get as close to a polar bear as Nora's keepers got with their fuzzy charge. But the two species have long been intertwined. Three decades before Nora's birth, her father, Nanuq, was orphaned when an Inupiat hunter killed his mother, leaving Nanuq to be sent to a zoo. That hunter, Gene Agnaboogok, now faces some of the same threats as the wild bears near his Alaskan village of Wales, on the westernmost tip of the North American continent. As sea ice diminishes and temperatures creep up year-after-year, Gene and the polar bears--and everyone and everything else living in the far north--are being forced to adapt. Not all of them will succeed. Sweeping and tender, The Loneliest Polar Bear explores the fraught relationship humans have with the natural world, the exploitative and sinister causes of the environmental mess we find ourselves in, and how the fate of polar bears is not theirs alone.

In THE URBAN BESTIARY, acclaimed nature writer Lyanda Lynn Haupt journeys into the heart of the everyday wild, where coyotes, raccoons, chickens, hawks, and humans live in closer proximity than ever before. Haupt's observations bring compelling new questions to light: Whose "home" is this? Where does the wild end and the city begin? And what difference does it make to us as humans living our everyday lives? In this wholly original blend of science, story, myth and memoir, Haupt draws us into the secret world of the wild creatures that dwell among us in our urban neighborhoods, whether we are aware of them or not. With beautiful illustrations and practical sidebars on everything from animal tracking to opossum removal, THE URBAN BESTIARY is a lyrical book that awakens wonder, delight, and respect for the urban wild, and our place within it.

After centuries of neglect, the ethics of food are back with a vengeance. Justice for food workers and small farmers has joined the rising tide of concern over the impact of industrial agriculture on food animals and the broader environment, all while a global epidemic of obesity-related diseases threatens to overwhelm modern health systems. An emerging worldwide social movement has turned to local and organic foods, and struggles to exploit widespread concern over the next wave of genetic engineering or nanotechnologies applied to food. Paul B. Thompson's book applies the rigor of philosophy to key topics in the first comprehensive study explore interconnections hidden deep within this welter of issues. Bringing more than thirty years of experience working closely with farmers, agricultural researchers and food system activists to the topic, he explores the eclipse of food ethics during the rise of nutritional science, and examines the reasons for its sudden re-emergence in the era of diet-based disease. Thompson discusses social injustice in the food systems of developed economies and shows how we have missed the key insights for understanding food ethics in the developing world. His discussions of animal production and the environmental impact of agriculture breaks new ground where most philosophers would least expect it. By emphasizing the integration of these issues, Thompson not only brings a comprehensive philosophical approach to moral issues in the production, processing, distribution, and consumption of food - he introduces a fresh way to think about practical ethics that will have implications in other areas of applied philosophy.

Like many young Americans, Jonathan Safran Foer spent much of his teenage and college years oscillating between enthusiastic carnivore and occasional vegetarian. As he became a husband, and then a father, the moral dimensions of eating became increasingly important to him. Faced with the prospect of being unable to explain why we eat some animals and not others, Foer set out to explore the origins of many eating traditions and the fictions involved with creating them.
Traveling to the darkest corners of our dining habits, Foer raises the unspoken question behind every fish we eat, every chicken we fry, and every burger we grill. Part memoir and part investigative report, "Eating Animals" is a book that, in the words of the "Los Angeles Times," places Jonathan Safran Foer "at the table with our greatest philosophers."

We have come to regard nonhuman animals as beings of concern, and we even grant them some legal protections. But until we understand animals as moral agents in and of themselves, they will be nothing more than distant recipients of our largesse. Featuring original essays by philosophers, ethicists, religionists, and ethologists, including Marc Bekoff, Frans de Waal, and Elisabetta Palagi, this collection demonstrates the ability of animals to operate morally, process ideas of good and bad, and think seriously about sociality and virtue. Envisioning nonhuman animals as distinct moral agents marks a paradigm shift in animal studies, as well as philosophy itself. Drawing not only on ethics and religion but also on law, sociology, and cognitive science, the essays in this collection test long-held certainties about moral boundaries and behaviors and prove that nonhuman animals possess complex reasoning capacities, sophisticated empathic sociality, and dynamic and enduring self-conceptions. Rather than claim animal morality is the same as human morality, this book builds an appreciation of the variety and character of animal sensitivities and perceptions across multiple disciplines, moving animal welfarism in promising new directions.

This book critically examines how Walt Disney Animation Studios has depicted - and sometimes failed to depict - different forms of harming and objectifying non-human animals in their films. Each chapter addresses a different form of animal harm and objectification through the theories of speciesism, romanticism, and the 'collapse of compassion' effect, from farming, hunting and fishing, to clothing, work, and entertainment. Stanton lucidly presents the dichotomy between depictions of higher order, anthropomorphised and neotonised animal characters and that of lower-order species, showing furthermore how these depictions are closely linked to changing social attitudes about acceptable forms of animal harm. An engaging and novel contribution to the field of Critical Animal Studies, this book explores the use of animals not only in Disney's best known animated films such as 101 Dalmatians, but also lesser known features including Home on the Range and Fun and Fancy Free. A quantitative appendix supplying data on how often each animal species appears and the amount of times animal harm or objectification is depicted in over fifty films provides an invaluable resource and addition to scholars working in both Disney and animal studies.

This book is an interdisciplinary study centred on the political and legal position of animals in liberal democracies. With due concern for both animals and the sustainability of liberal democracies, The Open Society and Its Animals seeks to redefine animals' political-legal position in the most successful political model of our time. Advancements in modern science point out that many animals are sentient and that, like humans, they have certain elementary interests. The revised perception of animals as beings with elementary interests raises questions concerning the liberal democratic institutional framework: does a liberal democracy have a responsibility towards the animals on its territory, and if so, what kind? Do animals need legal animal rights and lawyers to represent them in court, and should they also be represented in parliament? And how much change of this kind could a liberal democracy really endure? Vink addresses these and other pressing questions relating to the political and legal position of animals in this persuasive and authoritative work, compelling us to reconsider the relationship between the open society and the animals in it.

This book examines trades in animals and animal products in the history of the Indian Ocean World (IOW). An international array of established and emerging scholars investigate how the roles of equines, ungulates, sub-ungulates, mollusks, and avians expand our understandings of commerce, human societies, and world systems. Focusing primarily on the period 1500-1900, they explore how animals and their products shaped the relationships between populations in the IOW and Europeans arriving by maritime routes. By elucidating this fundamental yet under-explored aspect of encounters and exchanges in the IOW, these interdisciplinary essays further our understanding of the region, the environment, and the material, political and economic history of the world.

The Culture of Animals in Antiquity provides students and researchers with well-chosen and clearly presented ancient sources in translation, some well-known, others undoubtedly unfamiliar, but all central to a key area of study in ancient history: the part played by animals in the cultures of the ancient Mediterranean. It brings new ideas to bear on the wealth of evidence - literary, historical and archaeological - which we possess for the experiences and roles of animals in the ancient world. Offering a broad picture of ancient cultures in the Mediterranean as part of a wider ecosystem, the volume is on an ambitious scale. It covers a broad span of time, from the sacred animals of dynastic Egypt to the imagery of the lamb in early Christianity, and of region, from the fallow deer introduced and bred in Roman Britain to the Asiatic lioness and her cubs brought as a gift by the Elamites to the Great King of Persia. This sourcebook is essential for anyone wishing to understand the role of animals in the ancient world and support learning for one of the fastest growing disciplines in Classics.

In her heartwarming New York Times bestsellers Unlikely Friendships and last year s Unlikely Loves, Jennifer Holland revealed the surprising emotional bonds that exist between animals of different species. Her books spent dozens of weeks on bestseller lists and caught the attention of major media from CBS This Morning to USA Today. Why? Because she opened our eyes to the rich inner lives of animals, showing us that the power of love and friendship is not for humans only. In Unlikely Heroes, Ms. Holland uncovers and celebrates yet another side of animals that we often think belongs primarily to people heroism, that indefinable quality of going above and beyond, often for altruistic reasons, often at great personal risk. These 37 inspiring true tales show animals whose quick acts have saved lives, like the pod of dolphins who protected swimmers in New Zealand from a great white shark by forming a screen around them. There are stories of animals who simply and unselfishly give, like Rojo the llama, who shines his very special light of lovingkindness on the elderly patients in an Oregon rehab center. And there are compelling stories of heroic resilience: like Naki o, the abandoned puppy who lost all four paws to frostbite but found the grit not only to overcome that terrible hardship but to reclaim the joy of life that s him, smiling on the cover of the book."

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 edited collection offers a comprehensive overview of the different aspects of human-animal interactions in Asia throughout history. With twelve thematically-arranged chapters, this book examines the diverse roles that beasts, livestock, and fish - real and metaphorical- have played in Asian history, society, and culture. Ranging from prehistory to the present day, the authors address a wealth of topics including the domestication of animals, dietary practices and sacrifice, hunting, the use of animals in war, and the representation of animals in literature and art. Providing a unique perspective on human interaction with the environment, the volume is cross-disciplinary in its reach, offering enriching insights to the fields of animal ethics, Asian studies, world history and more.

Taxidermy, once the province of natural history and dedicated to the pursuit of lifelike realism, has recently resurfaced in the world of contemporary art,culture, and interior design. In Speculative Taxidermy, Giovanni Aloi offers a comprehensive mapping of the discourses and practices that have enabled the emergence of taxidermy in contemporary art. Drawing on the speculative turn in philosophy and recovering past alternative histories of art and materiality from a biopolitical perspective, Aloi theorizes speculative taxidermy: a powerful interface that unlocks new ethical and political opportunities in human-animal relationships and speaks to how animal representation conveys the urgency of climate change, capitalist exploitation, and mass extinction. A resolutely nonanthropocentric take on the materiality of one of the most controversial mediums in art, this approach relentlessly questions past and present ideas of human separation from the animal kingdom. It situates taxidermy as a powerful interface between humans and animals, rooted in a shared ontological and physical vulnerability. Carefully considering a select number of key examples including the work of Nandipha Mntambo, Maria Papadimitriou, Mark Dion, Berlinde De Bruyckere, Roni Horn, Oleg Kulik, Steve Bishop, Snaebjornsdottir/Wilson, and Cole Swanson,Speculative Taxidermy contextualizes the resilient presence of animal skin in the gallery space as a productive opportunity to rethink ethical and political stances in human-animal relationships.

Animals fall in love, establish rules for fair play, exchange valued goods and services, hold "funerals" for fallen comrades, deploy sex as a weapon, and communicate with one another using rich vocabularies. Animals also get jealous and violent or greedy and callous and develop irrational phobias, just like us. Monkeys address inequality, wolves miss each other, elephants grieve for their dead, and prairie dogs name the humans they encounter. Human and animal behavior is not as different as once believed. In Not So Different, the biologist Nathan H. Lents argues that the same evolutionary forces of cooperation and competition have shaped both humans and animals. Identical emotional and instinctual drives govern our actions. By acknowledging this shared programming, the human experience no longer seems unique, but in that loss we gain a fuller appreciation of such phenomena as sibling rivalry and the biological basis of grief, helping us lead more grounded, moral lives among animals, our closest kin. Through a mix of colorful reporting and rigorous scientific research, Lents describes the exciting strides scientists have made in decoding animal behavior and bringing the evolutionary paths of humans and animals closer together. He marshals evidence from psychology, evolutionary biology, cognitive science, anthropology, and ethology to further advance this work and to drive home the truth that we are distinguished from animals only in degree, not in kind.

Can horses feel shame? Do deer grieve? Why do roosters deceive hens? We tend to assume that we are the only living things able to experience feelings but have you ever wondered what's going on in an animal's head? From the leafy forest floor to the inside of a bee hive, The Inner Life of Animals opens up the animal kingdom like never before. We hear the stories of a grateful humpback whale, of a hedgehog who has nightmares, and of a magpie who commits adultery; we meet bees that plan for the future, pigs who learn their own names and crows that go tobogganing for fun. And at last we find out why wasps exist.

According to the latest figures, the number of vegans in the UK has more than quadrupled since 2014, now representing over 1 per cent of the total population. With the rise in plant-based foods and cruelty-free products showing no sign of stopping, Think Like a Vegan explores how vegan ethics can be applied to every area of our daily lives. We all want to live more healthily and ethically, and this book is certainly not just for vegans. It's for anyone interested in veganism, its ideals and what even non-vegans can learn from its practice. Through a personal and often irreverent lens, the authors explore a variety of contemporary topics related to animal use: from the basics of vegan logic to politics, economics, love and other aspects of being human, each chapter draws you into a thought-provoking conversation about your daily ethical decisions. Why should we adopt animals? What's the problem with organic meat? What are the economics of plant-based foods? What about honey? What is the relationship between veganism and feminism? What is vegansexualism?

Human-animal studies is an academic field that has grown exponentially over the past decade. It explores the whys, hows, and whats of human-animal relations: why animals are represented and configured in different ways in human cultures and societies around the world; how they are imagined, experienced, and given significance; what these relationships might signify about being human; and what about these relationships might be improved for the sake of the individuals as well as the communities concerned. The Routledge Handbook of Human-Animal Studies presents a collection of original essays from artists and scholars who have established themselves internationally on the basis of specific and significant new contributions to human-animal studies. This international, interdisciplinary handbook will be of interest to students and scholars of human-animal studies, sociology, anthropology, biology, environmental studies, geography, cultural studies, history, philosophy, media studies, gender studies, literature, psychology, ethology, and visual studies.

In the Company of Animals is an original and very readable study of human attitudes to the natural world. It contrasts the way we love some animals while ruthlessly exploiting others; it provides a detailed and fascinating account of ways in which animal companionship can influence our health; and it provides a key to understanding the moral contradictions inherent in our treatment of animals and nature. Its scope encompasses history, anthropology, and animal and human psychology. Along the way, the author uncovers a fascinating trail of insights and myths about our relationship with the species with which we share the planet. James Serpell is the editor of The Domestic Dog: Its Evolution, Behavior and Interactions With People (CUP, 1995).

This book examines C. S. Lewis's writings about animals, and the theological bases of his opposition to vivisection and other cruelties. It argues Genesis is central to many of these ethical musings and the book's organization reflects this. It treats in turn Lewis's creative approaches to the Garden of Eden, humanity's "dominion" over the earth, and the loss of paradise with all the catastrophic consequences for animals it presaged. The book closes looking at Lewis's vision of a more inclusive community. Though he left no comprehensive summary of his ideas, the Narnia adventures and science fiction trilogy, scattered poems and his popular theology inspire affection and sympathy for the nonhuman. This study challenges scholars to reassess Lewis as not only a literary critic and children's author but also an animal theologian of consequence, though there is much here for all fans of Mr. Bultitude and Reepicheep to explore.

How should we treat non-human animals? In this immensely powerful and influential book (now with a new introduction by Sapiens author Yuval Noah Harari), the renowned moral philosopher Peter Singer addresses this simple question with trenchant, dispassionate reasoning. Accompanied by the disturbing evidence of factory farms and laboratories, his answers triggered the birth of the animal rights movement. 'An extraordinary book which has had extraordinary effects... Widely known as the bible of the animal liberation movement' Independent on Sunday In the decades since this landmark classic first appeared, some public attitudes to animals may have changed but our continued abuse of animals in factory farms and as tools for research shows that the underlying ideas Singer exposes as ethically indefensible are still dominating the way we treat animals. As Yuval Harari's brilliantly argued introduction makes clear, this book is as relevant now as the day it was written.

This book explores why animals, at some point, disappeared from the realm and scope of sociology. The role of sociology in the construction of a science of the 'human' has been substantial, building representations of the human sphere of life as unique. Within the sociological tradition however, animals have often been invisible, even non-existent. Through in-depth comparisons of the texts of prominent early sociologists Emile Durkheim and Edward Westermarck, Tuomivaara shows that despite this exclusion, representations of animals and human-animal relations were far more varied in early works than in the later sociological cannon. Addressing a significant gap in the interdisciplinary field of animal studies, Tuomivaara presents a close reading of the historical treatment of animals in the works of Durkheim and Westermarck to determine how the human-animal boundary was established in sociological theory. The diverse forms in which animals and 'the animal' appear in the works of early classical sociology are charted and explored, alongside the sociological themes that bring animals into these texts. Situated in contemporary theory, from critical animal studies to posthumanism, this important book lays the groundwork for a disciplinary shift away from this sharp human-animal dualism.