Beyond Animal Rights: Food, Pets and Ethics

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A&C Black, Dec 9, 2010 - Philosophy - 168 pages

Issues to do with animal ethics remain at the heart of public debate. In Beyond Animal Rights, Tony Milligan goes beyond standard discussions of animal ethics to explore the ways in which we personally relate to other creatures through our diet, as pet owners and as beneficiaries of experimentation. The book connects with our duty to act and considers why previous discussions have failed to result in a change in the way that we live our lives.


The author asks a crucial question: what sort of people do we have to become if we are to sufficiently improve the ways in which we relate to the non-human? Appealing to both consequences and character, he argues that no improvement will be sufficient if it fails to set humans on a path towards a tolerable and sustainable future. Focussing on our direct relations to the animals we connect with the book offers guidance on all the relevant issues, including veganism and vegetarianism, the organic movement, pet ownership, and animal experimentation.

 

Contents

The Depth of MeatEating
1
An Unwritten Contract?
22
Vegetarianism and Puritanism
41
Diet and Sustainability
64
The Impossible Scenario
85
Love for Pets
106
Experimentation in Context
126
Notes
150
Bibliography
159
Index
165
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About the author (2010)

Tony Milligan is an Honorary Research Fellow in Philosophy at the University of Aberdeen, UK. He has published in a number of academic and popular journals, including Philosophy, Ratio, the Journal of Applied Ethics, Think and Philosophy Now.

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