article thumbnail

Leonard Nelson (1882-1927) on Duties to Animals

Animal Ethics

If we examine the arguments on the basis of which the existence of direct duties to animals has been denied, we are compelled to conclude regretfully that most of these arguments are sophistical—indeed, they are so threadbare that we find it surprising that they could be advanced by people who claim to be schooled in scientific method.

Animal 45
article thumbnail

From the Mailbag

Animal Ethics

Dear Animal Ethics bloggers: We posted a story today about Matthew Hiasl Pan. Thanks, and all best, Jessica Bennett Blog Editor Beacon Press I hope you’ll take a look.

Insiders

Sign Up for our Newsletter

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Trending Sources

article thumbnail

Leonard Nelson (1882-1927) on Animal Rights

Animal Ethics

Leonard Nelson , System of Ethics , trans. Norbert Guterman [New Haven: Yale University Press, 1956], 141 [first published in German in 1932]) The fact that man has other beings in his power, and that he is in a position to use them as means to his own ends, is purely fortuitous.

article thumbnail

Leonard Nelson (1882-1927) on Interspecific Justice

Animal Ethics

In no event is it permissible to regard the animal's interest as inferior without good reason, and to proceed to injure it. Leonard Nelson , System of Ethics , trans. Norbert Guterman [New Haven: Yale University Press, 1956], 142 [first published in German in 1932])

Ethics 40
article thumbnail

Plant Rights

Animal Ethics

Some ideologues even compare the Nazi death camps to normal practices of animal husbandry. For example, Charles Patterson wrote in Eternal Treblinka —a book specifically endorsed by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals—that "the road to Auschwitz begins at the slaughterhouse." It is one of the best books I've read.

Rights 40
article thumbnail

A Vindication of the Rights of Brutes

Animal Ethics

Taylor's book Respect for Nature: A Theory of Environmental Ethics (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1986), in which his namesake defends biocentrism (a life-centered, as opposed to human-centered, ethic). It's a good thing Taylor didn't live to see Paul W. Some of it is obscure to the point of incomprehensibility.

Rights 40
article thumbnail

R. G. Frey on Egoism and Utilitarianism

Animal Ethics

For, at least as both are usually construed, the only major difference between ethical egoism and act-utilitarianism is that the egoist is concerned with maximizing utility in his own case, so that only consequences which affect him bear upon the rightness and wrongness of his acts.

Bears 40