Pets and People: The Ethics of Companion Animals
Christine Overall
Abstract
This book focuses on ethical issues connected to companion animals (“pets”), especially dogs and cats. Companion animals are both vulnerable to and dependent upon human beings. What kinds of human-animal relationships should humans seek to create? What responsibilities do humans owe to them, especially since they have the power and authority to make literal life-and-death decisions about them? And what might humans learn from cats and dogs about the nature and limits of their own morality? The book is divided into two parts. The first discusses the characteristics of moral relationships to com ... More
This book focuses on ethical issues connected to companion animals (“pets”), especially dogs and cats. Companion animals are both vulnerable to and dependent upon human beings. What kinds of human-animal relationships should humans seek to create? What responsibilities do humans owe to them, especially since they have the power and authority to make literal life-and-death decisions about them? And what might humans learn from cats and dogs about the nature and limits of their own morality? The book is divided into two parts. The first discusses the characteristics of moral relationships to companion animals, the foundations of human moral responsibilities to them, whether companion animals are moral beings, and what human relationships with companion animals can teach them. The second part explores specific ethical issues related to crucial aspects of companion animals’ lives and their relationships with human beings: reproduction, breeding, sterilization, cloning, adoption, feeding, training, working, sexual interactions, longevity, death and dying, and euthanasia. Contributors write from a variety of philosophical perspectives, including utilitarianism, care ethics, feminist ethics, phenomenology, and the genealogy of ideas.
Keywords:
companion animal,
human-animal relationship,
pet,
animal reproduction,
animal adoption,
animal feeding,
animal training,
working animal,
death and dying,
animal euthanasia
Bibliographic Information
| Print publication date: 2017 |
Print ISBN-13: 9780190456085 |
| Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: February 2017 |
DOI:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780190456085.001.0001 |
