Justice for Animals
Our Collective Responsibility
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- $4.99
Publisher Description
A “brilliant” (Chicago Review of Books), “elegantly written, and compelling” (National Review) new theory and call to action on animal rights, ethics, and law from the renowned philosopher Martha C. Nussbaum.
Animals are in trouble all over the world. Whether through the cruelties of the factory meat industry, poaching and game hunting, habitat destruction, or neglect of the companion animals that people purport to love, animals suffer injustice and horrors at our hands every day.
The world needs an ethical awakening, a consciousness-raising movement of international proportions. In Justice for Animals, one of the world’s most renowned philosophers and humanists, Martha C. Nussbaum, provides “the most important book on animal ethics written to date” (Thomas I. White, author of In Defense of Dolphins).
From dolphins to crows, elephants to octopuses, Nussbaum examines the entire animal kingdom, showcasing the lives of animals with wonder, awe, and compassion to understand how we can create a world in which human beings are truly friends of animals, not exploiters or users. All animals should have a shot at flourishing in their own way. Humans have a collective duty to face and solve animal harm. An urgent call to action and a manual for change, Nussbaum’s groundbreaking theory directs politics and law to help us meet our ethical responsibilities as no book has done before.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Animal rights can and should be protected, according to this lucid analysis from University of Chicago law professor Nussbaum (The Monarchy of Fear). "No non-human animal escapes human domination," she writes, and, in fact, "much of the time, that domination inflicts wrongful injury on animals." And while humans harming animals is nothing new, Nussbaum argues that such harm is currently inflicted on a much greater scale than ever, and that almost every human is culpable in polluting the planet. Moreover, scientific discoveries have established that animals are capable of feeling pain and have rich emotional lives and complex forms of social organization. Nussbaum reviews and dismisses prior frameworks for articulating the rights owed to animals—such as the Utilitarian approach (which takes into account primarily pleasure and pain, and is "too simple") and the Kantian (which, in essence, suggests treating animals better in service of humans' "own improvement")—and puts forth her own theory called the "Capabilities Approach," which asserts that "each sentient creature... should have the opportunity to flourish in the form of life characteristic for that creature." As well, Nussbaum suggests a government-designated welfare agency be granted "for each type of animal." This trenchant and masterful blend of political analysis, philosophical study, and call to action is a must-read.
