Beauchamp T.L. The Oxford Handbook of Animal Ethics

Oxford University Press, 2014. — 982 p. — (Oxford handbooks). — ISBN: 9780199351978, 019935197X.Humans encounter and use animals in a stunning number of ways. The nature of these animals and the justifiability or unjustifiabilitly of human uses of them are the subject matter of this volume.
Philosophers have long been intrigued by animal minds and vegetarianism, but only around the last quarter of the twentieth century did a significant philosophical literature begin to be developed on both the scientific study of animals and the ethics of human uses of animals. This literature had a primary focus on discussion of animal psychology, the moral status of animals, the nature and significance of species, and a number of practical problems. This Oxford Handbook is designed to capture the nature of the questions as they stand today and to propose solutions to many of the major problems. Several chapters in this volume explore matters that have never previously been examined by philosophers.
The authors of the thirty-five chapters come from a diverse set of philosophical interests in the History of Philosophy, the Philosophy of Mind, the Philosophy of Biology, the Philosophy of Cognitive Science, the Philosophy of Language, Ethical Theory, and Practical Ethics. They explore many theoretical issues about animal minds and an array of practical concerns about animal products, farm animals, hunting, circuses, zoos, the entertainment industry, safety-testing on animals, the status and moral significance of species, environmental ethics, the nature and significance of the minds of animals, and so on. They also investigate what the future may be expected to bring in the way of new scientific developments and new moral problems.
This book of original essays is the most comprehensive single volume ever published on animal minds and the ethics of our use of animals.Part I. History of Philosophy
Animals in Classical and Late Antique Philosophy
Animals and Ethics in the History of Modern Philosophy
Part II. Types of Ethical Theory
Interacting with Animals: A Kantian Approach
Virtue Ethics and the Treatment of Animals
A Humean Account of the Status and Character of Animals
Rights Theory and Animal Rights
The Capabilities Approach and Animal Entitlements
Part III. Moral Status and Person Theory
The Idea of Moral Standing
Animals, Fundamental Moral Standing, and Speciesism
Human Animals and Nonhuman Persons
Are Nonhuman Animals Persons?
Part IV. Animal Minds and Their Moral Significance
Animal Mentality: Its Character, Extent, and Moral Significance
Mindreading and Moral Significance in Nonhuman Animals
Minimal Minds
Beyond Anthropomorphism: Attributing Psychological Properties to Animals
The Relationship between Cognitive Sophistication and Pain in Animals
Animals that Act for Moral Reasons
The Moral Life of Animals
Part V. Species and the Engineering of Species
On the Origin of Species Notions and Their Ethical Limitations
On the Nature of Species and the Moral Significance of their Extinction
Are All Species Equal?
Genetically Modified Animals: Should There Be Limits to Engineering the Animal Kingdom?
Human/Nonhuman Chimeras: Assessing the Issues
Part VI. Practical Ethics
The Moral Relevance of the Distinction between Domesticated and Wild Animals
The Moral Significance of Animal Pain and Animal Death
The Ethics of Confining Animals: From Farms to Zoos to Human Homes
Keeping Pets
Animal Experimentation in Biomedical Research
The Application of Biotechnology to Animals in Agriculture
Environmental Ethics, Hunting, and the Place of Animals
Vegetarianism
The Use of Animals in Toxicological Research
What's Ethics Got to Do with It? The Roles of Government Regulation in Research-Animal Protection
Literary Works and Animal Ethics