Respecting Animals: A Balanced Approach to Our Relationship with Pets, Food, and Wildlife - Softcover

Favre, David S.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1633884252 ISBN 13: 9781633884250

Verlag: Prometheus Books, 2018

Inhaltsangabe

A legal scholar and animal-rights expert argues for a practical approach to using animals respectfully.

In this fresh approach to the animal rights debate, a legal scholar and expert on the humane treatment of animals argues for a middle ground between the extreme positions that often receive the most public attention. Professor Favre advocates an ethic of respectful use of animals, which finds it acceptable for humans to use animals within limited boundaries. He looks at various communities where humans and animals interact: homes, entertainment, commercial farms, local wildlife, and global wildlife.
    
Balancing the interests of the animal against the interests of the human actor is considered in detail. The author examines the following questions, among others: Is it ethically acceptable to shoot your neighbor's dog for barking hours on end? Is it ethical for a zoo to keep a chimpanzee in an exhibit? Is it ethical to eat the meat of an animal?
    
Finally, he discusses how good ethical outcomes can best be transported into the legal system. The author suggests the creation of a new legal category, living property, which would enhance the status of animals in the legal system.
    
This thoughtful, well-argued, and elegantly written book provides readers with a comprehensive and practical context in which to consider their personal and social relationships with animals.

Über diesen Titel

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

David S. Favre is a professor of law at Michigan State University College of Law. His books include the casebook Animal Law: Welfare, Interest, and Rights (2nd ed.), Animal Law and Dog Behavior, and International Trade in Endangered Species. He introduced the concept of "Living Property" which was developed in a number of law review articles over the past decade. He is the creator and editor in chief of the largest animal legal web resource, www.animallaw.info. He was a founding officer of the Animal Legal Defense Fund for 22 years, serving as president of the board for the last two years. Presently he is a vice chair of the American Bar Association /TIPS Committee on Animal Law and in 2012 was chair of the AALS Animal Law Committee. He has received a lifetime achievement award from the Animal Legal Defense Fund, the America Bar Association Animal Law Section, and the American Association of Law Schools, Animal Law Section. Besides being a professor of law, he served as the dean of the College of Law for four years over two periods of time.

Auszug. © Genehmigter Nachdruck. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.

Introduction

Admittedly the title Respecting Animals might be a bit ambitious, but after having spent a lifetime peeling back the layers of the animal/human issues, at the core I found some simple but significant concepts that can be used to guide human decision-making about animals. The nature of the problem is that as I peeled back the onion, the concepts became rather sweeping in scope, but that is not my fault. It is clear when you get to the center of a real onion, there is no place else to go; but if you peel an idea-onion, the center can be an elusive space. It is impossible to know when there is only one more idea. Now my thoughts try to encompass all of life (at least all of life that is visible to me). I will not seek any more layers of the onion. With this book, I seek to describe what I have found as best I can.

Humans are enmeshed in a web of life that for most of us contains both wildlife and domestic animals. Millions of pets, companion animals, have a positive life. Unfortunately, for billions of commercial domestic animals, it is not a positive life. While the welfare and suffering of pets are clearly issues before us, as they are physically before us, the death and suffering of wildlife is neither seen nor contemplated by most humans. More and more wildlife are dying as a consequence of the human plague scouring across Earth.

We need a reset, a reconsideration of the relationship between human beings and the other living beings of this planet. Anyone viewing Earth from high above in time-lapse pictures would perceive that humans are seeking to kill the wildlife of the planet by either consuming them as food (e.g., tuna and sharks), destroying their living places (e.g., the growth of palm oil plantations), or transforming them into products for commercial consumption (e.g., elephants and ivory). It is not a pretty picture. Some of the significant factors that got us to this place include too many humans, capitalism running amok, unseen billions of animals killed every year (e.g., chickens and fish), and human ignorance of their impact on other beings that share this earth. This is a good planet; it is our only planet. Should we care about all of these other beings? Is there a path forward for the human individuals in our society who do care about these other beings?

A path forward does exist, and it has a signpost. Written upon the signpost is: Respectful Use. The destination is an indeterminable distance and time away, but it is a place and time where humans will use animals only in the context of respectful use. While it is a simple phrase, it provides a powerful limitation on action when interwoven into the minds of human beings. The idea of respect has a logical, rational component, but it also has an emotional, holist one with roots in human judgments about fairness and justice. This book shall consider why we should think about animals, how we got where we are, and how to walk down the path of respectful use.

Something that this book does not do is consider the realm of religion and whether it plays a role in how humans got to this point of planetary risk or whether religion can play a role in moving us forward. My simple answer is that even though religion is a powerful force in the lives of millions, even billions, of humans, it may or may not be helpful for where we are today or for our future on this planet. Western religions are personal with a focus on living an appropriate life in the eyes of their god and a primary concern about what will happen after the death of the individual. While many religious-based voices have spoken up about the environment and animal issues, it seems to have had only a modest effect. I am without sufficient information to understand Eastern religions. Notwithstanding centuries of religious teaching, countries of the East have significant human overpopulation issues as well as levels of pollution and resource consumption that are not good for humans or animals. Their legal systems barely touch upon the welfare of animals. Therefore, even though a call to respectful use of living beings will hopefully have a positive resonance in many of the religions of the world, those paths will not be considered in these pages. Perhaps others might take up such a task.

The question of animal/human relationships will be contemplated at two levels. The first is in an individual ethical context of how to lead an individual life. The second is a social context in which the law comes into play. No individual human has total freedom to act on personal judgment; the social rules of ethics step in to prevent it. Adoption of law is an outcome of social judgment. Thus, humans are in theory constrained by law to not murder other human beings, even if a particular human, after thoughtful consideration, believes it is acceptable and necessary to murder another human. The restraints of law allow us the freedom to live our daily lives by acknowledging the presence and legal rights of others. The concept of respectful use will need to be transferred into the legal system, since many humans seem incapable of respecting animals. However, development of personal ethics usually precedes adoption of legal standards.

The ethics of philosophy or religion seek to organize our thoughts and help us structure our daily activities within a worldview with which we are comfortable. Within this book the focus is upon animals. Most Americans interact daily with animals, be it the food we eat, the cat we pet, the bird we observe in a tree, or the entertainment we enjoy. How do we think about these animals? How ought we to think about these animals? Ethics presumes we have choices in our lives, and an ethical framework seeks to help us make those choices. Usually, choices turn into habits, which are repetitive actions that do not require thinking about the appropriateness of the action. But often the actions of an individual are based not upon ethical considerations, but upon community or family culture, which is a set of unexamined but acted-upon premises.

The tail of the dog is docked or the cat declawed because others do it, or your family did it in the past. You go hunting or to the zoo because you did so as a child, and may well have positive memories surrounding such events. Individuals seldom have deep conversations with themselves about these habit-based activities unless a trigger event occurs. Something arises to bring into question why you are doing or are about to do something. Others may raise a question that you cannot get out of your head, or an event might occur that causes self-reflection. Perhaps a law is passed that causes difficulties or prohibits what you did in the past.

Consider your family trip to the local zoo. It’s a nice day; the family is together; and the environment is pleasant. You pass by the exhibits, a chimpanzee in one, a group of flamingos in another, or perhaps a building with snakes of all sizes that young children find greatly interesting. Perhaps you spend more than thirty seconds before the chimpanzee and actually look at the animal. You see sadness, stress, a limp, and an other-wise-empty cage. It might be enough to trigger internal questions: “What is this animal doing here? Is this good for the animal?” Will that seed of thought take root and result in a contemplation of the issue of whether it is acceptable to use wild animals as zoo exhibits so that human families can have a pleasant afternoon? Maybe, maybe not.

For the average person, the issue may arise as a less formal question, but still a powerful one: “Should that chimpanzee (bird or snake) be in that cage?” In the more formal world of ethics, the presence of animals in a zoo gives rise to formal statements of the issue, such as “Are the limitations of life and well-being for animals in a zoo ethically justified by humans...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Prometheus Books
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2018
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 1633884252
• ISBN 13: 9781633884250
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Anzahl der Seiten: 272
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: Nicht verfügbar