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Speciesism And Sexism, Emma Munro

Animal Issues

On a global scale the most exploited humans are women and in factory farming the most exploited animals are female. Women are severely exploited through the non-recognition of unpaid subsistence activities and home-maker services as ‘real work’. By ‘real work’ I mean a fiscally responsive operation, within current Western economic systems. Consequently, as Marilyn Waring argues, this 'hidden economy' means that women are under-counted in the labour forces and their contributions are not recognised in national accounts

Babe: The Tale Of The Speaking Meat - Part Ii, Val Plumwood

Animal Issues

Part II discusses the moral ambiguities of the human-animal contract, the conceptual traps of pet/meat and person /property dualism, and why we need a politics of animal justice.

Animal Issues - Complete Issue 1(1) 1997, Denise Russell

Animal Issues

Complete issue of Animal Issues volume 1, number 1, 1997.

Contents, Editor's Introduction, Denise Russell

Animal Issues

During the 1990's in Western culture a range of animal issues have become important. Some old ones have taken on a new urgency and some new questions have emerged. The key philosophical question in relation to non-human animals has been how are they distinct from humans. The criteria of sentience, reason, tool-making, language, free will and culture have all had their philosophical supporters. Yet the recent studies of free ranging apes and monkeys challenge all these criteria. The research on captive bonobos2 dolphins3 and parrots4 has also raised questions about the uniqueness of language as a human trait. This has …

Living With Animals, Freya Mathews

Animal Issues

'Without animals,' says Peter, a Maasai nomad interviewed in the New Internationalist1, 'life isn't worth living'. Sitting here in my inner-city backyard writing this, with a circle of attentive little upturned canine and feline faces surrounding me, and my cranky duck tugging at my shoelaces, I could not be in more heartfelt agreement. But how many people today would share this sentiment? For how many would it be football that makes life worth living, or cars, or opera, or ice-skating? Is there anything to ground the conviction that I want to defend here, that the company of non-human animals is …

Book Reviews / Book Notes, Denise Russell

Animal Issues

* Candland, Douglas Keith, Feral Children and Clever Animals: Reflections on Human Nature, xiii + 411pp. (Oxford University Press, Oxford,1993). * Rollin, Bernard E., The Frankenstein Syndrome: Ethical and Social Issues in the Genetic Engineering of Animals, xiv + 241pp. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1995. * Masson, Jeffrey and McCarthy, Susan,When Elephants Weep: The Emotional Lives of Animals , 268pp. (Jonathan Cape, London,1994). * Adams Carol J. and Donovan, Josephine, editors, Animals and Women: Feminist Theoretical Explorations, ix + 381pp., (Duke University Press, Durham, 1995. * Noble, William and Davidson, Iain, Human Evolution, Language and Mind: A Psychological and Archaeological …

Hybrids, Rights And Their Proliferation, Lynda Birke, Mike Michael

Animal Issues

Working out the concept of rights is a complicated business, which at least keeps philosophers occupied. Not so long ago, one of us would have been denied the right to vote, on the grounds of her gender. Yet now, at the turn of the millennium, she is far from sure that we have come very far on the question of women's rights. And if women, or minorities, or anyone else who is human can sometimes be denied rights, then how much more likely that non-humans will be? Yet extending the concept of rights to non-human animals is increasingly being taken …

Interview With Julia Bell, Patsy Hallen, Julia Bell

Animal Issues

Interview with Julia Bell by Patsy Hallen.

Book Reviews, Book Notes, Announcements, Denise Russell, Emily Ballou

Animal Issues

* Garber, Marjorie. Dog Love. 341 pp. (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1996).

* DeGrazia, David, Taking Animals Seriously: Mental Life and Moral Status, x + 302pp. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1996.

* Linzey, Andrew, Animal Theology, vii +214pp., Illinois Press, 1995.

Beck, Alan and Katcher, Aaron, Between Pets and People: The Importance of Animal Companionship, revised edition, xiii + 316pp., Purdu University Press, Indiana, 1996.

* Bavidge, Michael and Ground, Ian, Can we understand animal minds? vii + 176pp., Bristol Classical Press, London, 1994.

Groves, Julian McAllister, Hearts and Minds: The controversy over laboratory animals viii + 230pp., Temple …

Animal Issues - Complete Issue 1(2) 1997, Denise Russell

Animal Issues

Complete issue, volume 1, number 1, 1997.

Babe: The Tale Of The Speaking Meat - Part I, Val Plumwood

Animal Issues

I would like somebody somewhere to endow an annual prize for a work of art which takes a group of the most oppressed subjects and makes an effective and transformative representation of their situation. The work would make its audience care about what happens to those oppressed subjects and to understand something of the audience's own role in maintaining their oppression. It would foster recognition of the subjectivity and creativity of the oppressed group and consciousness of the need for redistribution of respect and of cultural and material goods. Above all, it would help to support and protect them. If …

Science And Animals - Or, Why Cyril Won't Win The Nobel Prize, Lynda Birke

Animal Issues

There have always been animals in my life. I have long had a love affair with horses; dogs, too, feature strongly in my emotions and in my house. And not only companion animals, but also the wild creatures that surround us all. Even in London, in the postwar devastation I witnessed while growing up, I learned the joy of watching the birds in the trees. In what sometimes seems another life, I trained as a scientist. Ambivalent though I was about doing biology (surely I could not bear the thought of cutting up dead animals?), I ended up studying just …

An Interview With Professor Peter Singer, Denise Russell, Peter Singer

Animal Issues

An interview conducted by Denise Russell with Professor Peter Singer.

Ethics, Conflict And Animal Research, Andrew Brennan

Animal Issues

The three Rs of Russell and Burch - Reduce, Replace, Refine - are widely agreed maxims of animal-based science. The morally-concerned researcher tries to reduce both the number of animals used in science, and the impacts of procedures on them. Animals are to be replaced, wherever possible, by techniques that do not use animals. Techniques and procedures are to be refined as much as possible to minimise harms. Implementing these maxims is desirable given that much animal-based science seeks to promote knowledge through the deliberate and intentional infliction of harms on other living things, often for the sake of studying …

Two Different Approaches To Gene Technology In Animals, Birgitta Forsman

Animal Issues

Gene technology on animals has increased enormously in Sweden during the 1990s. Most of it has to do with transgenic laboratory animals. Before this increase began, there was an official investigation of potential ethical problems of animal biotechnology, in which it was said: ‘We have the possibility to set the limits "from the beginning".’ And it also tried to do it. This investigation was set up in 1989, when the Swedish government appointed a Principal Administrative Officer of the Ministry of Agriculture to make a so-called one-man investigation about gene technology used on animals and plants. A white paper from …