Animal Rights: What Everyone Needs to Know® - Softcover

Waldau, Paul

Softcover

ISBN 10: 019973996X ISBN 13: 9780199739967

Publisher: Oxford University Press, 2011

Synopsis

In this compelling volume in the What Everyone Needs to Know® series, Paul Waldau expertly navigates the many heated debates surrounding the complex and controversial animal rights movement.

Organized around a series of probing questions, this timely resource offers the most complete, even-handed survey of the animal rights movement available. The book covers the full spectrum of issues, beginning with a clear, highly instructive definition of animal rights. Waldau looks at the different concerns surrounding companion animals, wild animals, research animals, work animals, and animals used for food, provides a no-nonsense assessment of the treatment of animals, and addresses the philosophical and legal arguments that form the basis of animal rights. Along the way, readers will gain insight into the history of animal protection-as well as the political and social realities facing animals today-and become familiar with a range of hot-button topics, from animal cognition and autonomy, to attempts to balance animal cruelty versus utility. Chronicled here are many key figures and organizations responsible for moving the animal rights movement forward, as well as legislation and public policy that have been carried out around the world in the name of animal rights and animal protection. The final chapter of this indispensable volume looks ahead to the future of animal rights, and delivers an animal protection mandate for citizens, scientists, governments, and other stakeholders.

With its multidisciplinary, non-ideological focus and all-inclusive coverage, Animal Rights represents the definitive survey of the animal rights movement-one that will engage every reader and student of animal rights, animal law, and environmental ethics.

What Everyone Needs to Know® is a registered trademark of Oxford University Press.

About this title

About the Author

Paul Waldau is Associate Professor and Principal Faculty Member for the online graduate program in Anthrozoology at Canisius College and President of the Religion and Animals Institute. He has served four times as the Bob Barker Lecturer on Animal Law at Harvard Law School and will again do so in 2012.

Reviews

The emotionally, legally, and morally fraught subject of animal rights is given a clear-eyed examination in this volume of Oxford’s What Everyone Needs to Know series. Using a question-and-answer format, scholar Waldau guides the reader through all of the thorny elements of the animal-rights movement. A chapter covering the animals themselves, including various classifications of animals and how they are categorized, sets the stage for discussion of the philosophical, historical, and cultural arguments for animal rights that have led to the current legal protections for animals. An exploration of political realities covers all elements of this essentially human-centered subject, while social realities, education, the professions, and the arts all provide arenas for humans to look outside themselves and make informed choices. The natural and social sciences are shown to have a role in creating levels of awareness about animals. The final two chapters introduce major figures, both familiar and unfamiliar, in the animal-rights movement and examine the future for animal rights. A chronology of important events, glossary of animal-rights terminology, and suggestions for further reading complete this compact yet rich volume. --Nancy Bent

Edition details

• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Publication date: 2011
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 019973996X
• ISBN 13: 9780199739967
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 256