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

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Cavalieri, Paola, 1950- author.

Contributor:

Woollard, Catherine, translator.

Standardized Title:

Questione animale. English

Language:

English

Italian

Subjects (All):

Animal rights.

Speciesism.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (viii, 184 pages)

Other Title:

Why nonhuman animals deserve human rights

Place of Publication:

Oxford : Oxford University Press, 2001.

Language Note:

Translated from the Italian.

Summary:

This book tackles the controversial question: should human rights be granted to animals? Cavalieri's defence of the rights of nonhuman animals questions the nature, scope and language of contemporary ethics and the legal system.

Contents:

1. The cultural premises

A problem for political philosophy : how to establish human equality

Bioethical dilemmas : who is human

After behaviorism, or How animal minds started to exist again

2. The problem of moral status

Moral agents and moral patients

In search of the criteria

Inclusionin the moral community

3. The traditional accounts

Absolute dismissal, or Descartes and God's clocks

The superiority of rational nature : how Kant created humanism

Ethics makes a turn : utilitarianism

After the inclusion

4. Speciesism

Traditional speciesism : attributing weight to biological characteristics

The correspondence approach : species as a mark of the morally relevant characteristics

An attempt to grant paradigmatic status to nonparadigmatic humans

Retreat : comparable status, different treatment

5. Welfare

When killing is wrong

The value of life : qualitative theories

The value of life : quantitative theories

Internal perspectives on prudential value

An open problem

The notion of person as an alternative solution

6. A minimal normative proposal

Human rights : sphere of reference

Human rights : essential characteristics

Human rights : justification

For an expanded theory of human rights.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on print version record.

ISBN:

1-281-94357-6

9786611943578

0-19-972259-5