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Since the beginnings of the twentieth century social work has exhibited a thoroughgoing moral indifference to the needs and wellbeing of our fellow animals. This indifference is all the more remarkable given that animals have always been part and parcel of the human world within which social workers practice. Their invisibility is odder still given our own species embeddedness within the natural world.
Social Work and Animals represents a pioneering contribution to the literature of social work ethics and moral philosophy. Lucidly and cogently arguing why it is that animals ought to matter morally to social workers, it engages in a sustained critique of the key moral principles that are deemed to underpin practice. It articulates an alternative moral principle that respects individuals irrespective of species membership. This principle informs a revised code of ethics, one which has profound theoretical and practical implications for social work and its practitioners.
Series Editors' Foreword
- Animals in the Social Work Tradition: Past and Present
- Social Work, Subjectivity, and the Moral World
- Social Work's Kindred Creatures: Biological Continuity and Moral Kinship
- Social Work and Respect for Individuals
- A Morally Inclusive Social Work
Appendix: New Beginnings, Other Ends: An Inclusive Social Work Code of Ethics
Bibliography
Index
Thomas Ryan has been a social worker in rural communities in North Queensland and north-east Tasmania, Australia for 18 years. Completing a Bachelor of Social Work degree with Honours in 1993, he was awarded a PhD in 2006. He is an Associate Fellow of the Oxford Centre for Animal Ethics.
