Animal Rights

Do animals have moral rights? If so, what does this mean? What sorts of mental lives do animals have, and how should we understand welfare? By presenting models for understanding animals' moral status and rights, and examining their mental lives and welfare, David DeGrazia explores the implications for how we should treat animals in connection with our diet, zoos, and research. Animal Rights distinguishes itself by combining intellectual rigour with accessibility, offering a distinct moral voice with a non-polemical tone.

Millions of people live with cats, dogs, and other pets, which they treat as members of their families. But through their daily behavior, people who love those pets, and greatly care about their welfare, help ensure short and painful lives for millions, even billions of animals that cannot easily be distinguished from dogs and cats. Today, the overwhelming percentage of animals with whom Westerners interact are raised for food. Countless animals endure lives of relentless misery and die often torturous deaths. The use of animals by human beings, often for important human purposes, has forced uncomfortable questions to center stage: Should people change their behavior? Should the law promote animal welfare? Should animals have legal rights? Should animals continue to be counted as "property"? What reforms make sense? Cass Sunstein and Martha Nussbaum bring together an all-star cast of contributors to explore the legal and political issues that underlie the campaign for animal rights and the opposition to it. Addressing ethical questions about ownership, protection against unjustified suffering, and the ability of animals to make their own choices free from human control, the authors offer numerous different perspectives on animal rights and animal welfare. They show that whatever one's ultimate conclusions, the relationship between human beings and nonhuman animals is being fundamentally rethought. This book offers a state-of-the-art treatment of that rethinking. Contributors include: Elizabeth Anderson Cora Diamond Richard A. Epstein David Favre Gary L. Francione Gisela Kaplan Catharine A. MacKinnon Richard A. Posner James Rachelsl Lesley J. Rogers Peter Singer Mariann Sullivan Stephen M. Wise David J. Wolfson

What is the difference between animal rights and animal welfare? What inspires people to take on the different causes of non-human animals? How do people vary in their views on the rights of animals? Students will be encouraged to think critically as they discover there are no black and white answers to these and other questions. This fascinating collection of profiles is written by and about those who are actively involved in the pro/con aspects of the animal rights and animal welfare movements.

From the use of animals in experiments to develop medicine for people, to the preservation of endangered species in zoos, human beings' responsibility to and for their fellow animals has become an increasingly controversial subject. This book, which Jane Goodall in her foreword calls "unique, informative, and exciting," provides a provocative overview of the many different perspectives on the issues of animal rights and animal welfare in an easy-to-use encyclopedic format. Students, teachers, and interested readers can explore the ideas of well-known philosophers, biologists, and psychologists in this field, such as Peter Singer, Tom Regan, and over 125 others, all of whom have contributed original entries.

Larry Carbone, a veterinarian who is in charge of the lab animal welfare assurance program at a major research university, presents this scholarly history of animal rights. Biomedical researchers, and the less fanatical among the animal rights activists will find this book reasonable, humane, and novel in its perspective. It brings a novel, sociological perspective to an area that has been addressed largely from a philosophical perspective, or from the entrenched positions of highly committed advocates of a particular position in the debate.

This book offers a powerful response to what Varner calls the "two dogmas of environmental ethics"--the assumptions that animal rights philosophies and anthropocentric views are each antithetical to sound environmental policy. Allowing that every living organism has interests which ought, other things being equal, to be protected, Varner contends that some interests take priority over others. He defends both a sentientist principle giving priority to the lives of organisms with conscious desires and an anthropocentric principle giving priority to certain very inclusive interests which only humans have. He then shows that these principles not only comport with but provide significant support for environmental goals.

This books examines the ethics of keeping animals in zoos. It argues that animal rights can be reconciled with the continuing existence of zoos. It has a fascinating amount of details about zoos in history and examines the most pressing issue for this debate, the role of zoos in conservation.

Rattling the Cage explains how the failure to recognize the basic legal rights of chimpanzees and bonobos in light of modern scientific findings creates a glaring contradiction in our law. In this witty, moving, persuasive, and impeccably researched argument, Wise demonstrates that the cognitive, emotional, and social capacities of these apes entitle them to freedom from imprisonment and abuse.

The Proliferation of Rights explores how the assertion of rights has expanded dramatically since World War II. Carl Wellman illuminates for the reader the historical developments in each of the major categories of rights, including human rights, civil rights, women's rights, patient rights, & animal rights. He concludes by assessing where this proliferation has been legitimate & helpful, cases where it has been illusory & unproductive, & alternatives to the appeal to rights. Contents: The Development of Human Rights. The Civil Rights Movement. Women's Rights & Feminist Theory. The Animal Rights Debate. New Medical Rights.

First published in 1994, Going Wild offers a probing examination of the ways in which different conceptions of nature shape our responses to specific environmental issues. In this revised edition, Jan E. Dizard adds a thoughtful and extensive new chapter, updating the controversy over the state-managed deer hunt at the Quabbin Reservoir in Massachusetts and placing it in a broader national context.