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In this substantially revised and updated new edition of Animal Rights: Moral Theory and Practice, Mark Rowlands provides a lucid defence of the moral claims of animals. Animal Rights: Moral Theory and Practice examines each of the major ethical traditions: utilitarianism and Peter Singer's defence of animal liberation; natural rights doctrine and Tom Regan's case for animal rights, virtue ethics; and the Rosalind Hursthouse/Roger Scruton dispute on blood sports. It also provides the most detailed, sophisticated and comprehensive contractarian defence of animals ever developed.
Examining each of these ethical theories in turn, Animal Rights: Moral Theory and Practice serves as an exceptionally clear and useful introduction to the major ethical traditions. Rowlands argues that all of these theories entail that we have far more substantial moral commitments to animals than most of us would care to admit. This new edition includes a new introduction, a new chapter on virtue ethics and animals, and new material on contractarianism and animal minds.
- Animal Rights and Moral Theories
- Arguing for One's Species
- Utilitarianism and Animals: Peter Singer's Case for Animal Liberation
- Tom Regan: Animal Rights as Natural Rights
- Virtue Ethics and Animals
- Contractarianism and Animal Rights
- Animal Minds
- Index
Mark Rowlands is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Miami, USA. He is author of a dozen books, translated into more than twenty languages. These include The Body in Mind (1999), The Nature of Consciousness (2001), Animals Like Us (2002) and Body Language (2006). His autobiography, The Philosopher and the Wolf was published in 2008.
"Those concerned with animal ethics owe a debt of gratitude to Mark Rowlands. He has written what is without doubt the best defense of animal rights from a contractarian position, or perhaps from any position. Rowlands writes in an admirably clear and engaging manner, guaranteed to lure the reader into joining the spirited conversation."
– Susan J. Armstrong, Professor Emerita, Department of Philosophy, Humboldt State University, Arcata, Canada
"Philosophers, in particular, and those interested in animal rights issues, in general, should be grateful for the publication of this book for several reasons. First, familiar defenses of the animal rights position offered by Peter Singer and Tom Regan are examined anew, such that even those who are very familiar with these defenses see them in a new light. Second, the more recent debate in virtue ethics regarding treatment of animals (between Rosalind Hursthouse and Roger Scruton) is treated very insightfully. Third, Rowlands develops his own powerful version of a contractarian account of animal rights based on Rawlsian principles. And fourth, he also treats the animal rights issue in novel terms in light of recent debates in philosophy of mind and in relation to a fantastic thought experiment wherein brilliant aliens start farming and eating human beings because of their intellectual inferiority. This is not a book to be ignored!"
– Daniel A. Dombrowski, Professor of Philosophy, Seattle University, USA
