Augusto Vitale - Human/Animal Relationships in Transformation: Scientific, Moral and Legal Perspectives

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More information about this series at http://www.palgrave.com/gp/series/14421

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Ethics of Human/Animal Relationships is a growing field of academic research and a topic for public discussion and regulatory interventions from law-makers, government and private institutions (such as scientific societies and farming industries). In our societies human/animal relationships are in transformation and understanding the nature of this process is crucial for all those who believe that the enlargement of moral and legal recognition to non-human animals is part of contemporary civilization and moral/political progress. Understanding the nature of this process means analysing and critically discussing the philosophical/scientific/legal concepts and arguments embedded in it. This book aims at contributing to such analysis by means of collecting ideas and reflections from leading experts in the fields from different disciplinary approaches and theoretical/scientific perspectives. Scopes of this book are both depicting the state of the art of the transformation of Human/Animal Relationships and presenting ideas to foster this process. In pursuing those aims the approach of this book is plural in a double meaning. First, contributors are plural in their backgrounds and expertise in order to provide a rich interpretation of the questions at stake. Second, plurality regards the subject matter of the various analyses: Human/Animal Relationships (and transformations affecting them) are not a monolith. Animal species are many and different and human interactions with them are equally many and different. The various contributions to the book move from the awareness of the great variety of human/animal relationships in order to foster the theoretical debate and the public discussion about the scientific and ethical reasons underlying the changes in our approaches to animals, a fact that nowadays irreversibly characterizes our societies.

This is a new book series for a new field of inquiry: Animal Ethics.

In recent years, there has been a growing interest in the ethics of our treatment of animals. Philosophers have led the way, and now a range of other scholars have followed, from historians to social scientists. From being a marginal issue, animals have become an emerging issue in ethics and in multidisciplinary inquiry.

In addition, a rethink of the status of animals has been fuelled by a range of scientific investigations which have revealed the complexity of animal sentiency, cognition and awareness. The ethical implications of this new knowledge have yet to be properly evaluated, but it is becoming clear that the old view that animals are mere things, tools, machines or commodities cannot be sustained ethically.

But it is not only philosophy and science that are putting animals on the agenda. Increasingly, in Europe and the United States, animals are becoming a political issue as political parties vie for the green and animal vote. In turn, political scientists are beginning to look again at the history of political thought in relation to animals, and historians are beginning to revisit the political history of animal protection.

As animals grow as an issue of importance, so there have been more collaborative academic ventures leading to conference volumes, special journal issues, indeed new academic animal journals as well. Moreover, we have witnessed the growth of academic courses, as well as university posts, in Animal Ethics, Animal Welfare, Animal Rights, Animal Law, Animals and Philosophy, Human-Animal Studies, Critical Animal Studies, Animals and Society, Animals in Literature, Animals and Religiontangible signs that a new academic discipline is emerging.