The animal question : why nonhuman animals deserve human rights / Paola Cavalieri ; translated by Catherine Woollard.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Cavalieri, Paola, 1950-

Standardized Title:

Questione animale. English

Language:

English

Italian

Subjects (All):

Animal rights.

Speciesism.

Physical Description:

viii, 184 pages ; 22 cm

Place of Publication:

Oxford [England] ; New York : Oxford University Press, 2001.

Language Note:

Translated from the Italian.

Summary:

How much should animals count, morally? Can we defend the continued use of nonhuman animals for food, labor, entertainment, and research? In this landmark contribution to a debate that has raged since the 1970s, ethicist Paola Cavalieri argues not only that many animals should be granted full moral status but also that we are compelled to do so by the most powerful, widely held moral doctrine in existence.

Cavalieri proposes that we extend basic human rights to most of the nonhuman animals that we currently treat as mere things. She contends that the logic of universal human rights doctrine -- a set of beliefs about what human beings are owed morally that nearly all of us accept -- points in the direction of including many nonhuman animals.

In framing her deeply controversial argument, she traces the roots of the animal rights debate in the fields of contemporary ethics and science and examines precedents for it in mainstream Western philosophy. Next she considers the current leading proposals for reforming the way we think about the moral status of animals. Emphasizing that these proposals all derive their core premises from a specific, rather than broadly shared, ethical perspective, she then develops her own radical view that in spite of the phrase that defines them, human rights are not the prerogative of the species Homo sapiens.

The history of what we call moral progress, argues Cavalieri, can for the most part be seen as the history of replacing hierarchical visions with presumptions in favor of equality. The animal question, then, is a profoundly important one -- and our pursuit of answers is part of a vital, ongoing cultural evolution.

Greeted with acclaim on its release in Italy in 1999, The Animal Question is sure to stimulate vigorous debate in the English-speaking world. It makes essential reading for animal rights advocates and will engage all those concerned with the nature, scope, and language of contemporary ethics and the legal system.

Contents:

1 The Cultural Premises 3

A Problem for Political Philosophy: How to Establish Human Equality 4

Bioethical Dilemmas: Who Is Human? 7

After Behaviorism, or How Animal Minds Started to Exist Again 12

2 The Problem of Moral Status 23

Moral Agents and Moral Patients 28

In Search of the Criteria 31

Inclusion in the Moral Community 32

3 The Traditional Accounts 41

Absolute Dismissal, or Descartes and God's Clocks 41

The Superiority of Rational Nature: How Kant Created Humanism 47

Ethics Makes a Turn: Utilitarianism 59

After the Inclusion 67

4 Speciesism 69

Traditional Speciesism: Attributing Weight to Biological Characteristics 71

The Correspondence Approach: Species as a Mark of the Morally Relevant Characteristics 73

An Attempt to Grant Paradigmatic Status to Nonparadigmatic Humans 76

Retreat: Comparable Status, Different Treatment 79

5 Welfare and the Value of Life 87

Welfare 88

When Killing Is Wrong 101

The Value of Life: Qualitative Theories 105

The Value of Life: Quantitative Theories 109

Internal Perspectives on Prudential Value 113

An Open Problem 116

The Notion of Person as an Alternative Solution? 117

6 A Minimal Normative Proposal 125

Human Rights: Sphere of Reference 125

Human Rights: Essential Characteristics 128

Human Rights: Justification 131

For an Expanded Theory of Human Rights 137.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 165-174) and index.

ISBN:

0195143809

OCLC:

47658824