Explaining Support for Animal Rights: A Comparison of Two Recent Approaches to Humans, Nonhuman Animals, and Postmodernity

AbstractQuestions on "animal rights" in a cross-national survey conducted in 1993 provide an opportunity to compare the applicability to this issue of two theories of the socio-political changes summed up in "postmodernity": Inglehart's (1997) thesis of "postmaterialist values" and Franklin's (1999) synthesis of theories of late modernity. Although Inglehart seems not to have addressed human-nonhuman animal relations, it is reasonable to apply his theory of changing values under conditions of "existential security" to "animal rights." Inglehart's postmaterialism thesis argues that new values emerged within specific groups because of the achievement of material security. Although emphasizing human needs, they shift the agenda toward a series of lifestyle choices that favor extending lifestyle choices, rights, and environmental considerations. Franklin's account of nonhuman animals and modern cultures stresses a generalized "ontological insecurity." Under postmodern conditions, changes to core aspects of social and cultural life are both fragile and fugitive. As neighborhood, community,family,and friendship relations lose their normative and enduring qualities, companion animals increasingly are drawn in to those formerly exclusive human emotional spaces.With a method used by Inglehart and a focus in countries where his postmaterialist effects should be most evident, this study derives and tests different expectations from the theories, then tests them against data from a survey supporting Inglehart's theory. His theory is not well supported. We conclude that its own anthropocentrism limits it and that the allowance for hybrids of nature-culture in Franklin's account offers more promise for a social theory of animal rights in changing times.

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Buddhism and Animal Rights

10.1093/oxfordhb/9780198746140.013.32 ◽

2018 ◽

Author(s):

Paul Waldau

Keyword(s):

Animal Rights ◽

Companion Animals ◽

Ethical Reflection ◽

Animal Protection ◽

Buddhist Tradition ◽

Nonhuman Animals ◽

Food Animals

The Buddhist tradition is justifiably known for its commitment to the primacy of ethical reflection. On the issue of nonhuman animals, the tradition-wide commitment to an undertaking to refrain from killing, known as the First Precept, offers a moving example of humans’ abilities to apply ethics to nonhuman animals on questions about animal protection for companion animals, food animals, entertainment animals, wildlife, and captive animals. Buddhist reflections on humans’ relationship to nonhuman animals, including questions of non-lethal harms, also have features that are illuminated, as is the First Precept, by a comparison with contemporary animal rights and animal protection debates.

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Attitudes Toward Animal Rights in Palestine: A Quantitative Study

Society and Animals ◽

10.1163/15685306-00001671 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 28 (2) ◽

pp. 133-150

Author(s):

Erni Gustafsson ◽

Nabil Alawi ◽

Per Normann Andersen

Keyword(s):

Middle East ◽

University Students ◽

Quantitative Study ◽

Animal Rights ◽

Companion Animals ◽

Present Situation ◽

Attitude Scale ◽

Animal Protection ◽

Positive Attitudes ◽

Nonhuman Animals

Abstract This study investigates and compares attitudes of 205 Palestinian and Norwegian university students toward companion animals (pets) using the Pet Attitude Scale. In order to provide some background for the Palestinian attitudes toward nonhuman animals, we discuss canonical Islamic texts on their treatment, as well as the present situation for animal protection in the Middle East. The findings from the survey suggest differences between Palestinian and Norwegian students; however, both groups showed predominately positive attitudes.

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Canine Rescue as a Social Movement: The Politics of Love

Society and Animals ◽

10.1163/15685306-12341555 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 28 (5-6) ◽

pp. 670-687

Author(s):

Anna L. Peterson

Keyword(s):

Social Context ◽

Public Sphere ◽

Animal Rights ◽

Animal Advocacy ◽

The Social ◽

Human Animal Bond ◽

Nonhuman Animals ◽

Political Approach ◽

Human Animal ◽

Politics Of Love

Abstract Canine rescue is a growing movement that affects the lives of tens of thousands of nonhuman animals and people every year. Rescue is noteworthy not only for its numbers, but also because it challenges common understandings of animal advocacy. Popular accounts often portray work on behalf of animals as sentimental, individualistic, and apolitical. In fact, work on behalf of animals has always been political, in multiple ways. It is characterized both by internal political tensions, especially between animal rights and welfare positions, and by complex relations to the broader public sphere. I analyze canine rescue, with a focus on pit bull rescue, to show that an important segment of canine rescue movements adopts an explicitly political approach which blurs the divide between rights and welfare, addresses the social context of the human-animal bond, and links animal advocacy to social justice.

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Nonhuman Animal Rights, Alternative Food Systems, and the Non-Profit Industrial Complex

PhaenEx ◽

10.22329/p.v8i2.4093 ◽

2013 ◽

Vol 8 (2) ◽

pp. 209 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Corey Lee Wrenn

Keyword(s):

Animal Rights ◽

Food Production ◽

Food Systems ◽

Nonhuman Animal ◽

Alternative Food ◽

Industrial Complex ◽

Alternative Food Systems ◽

Non Profit ◽

Alternative Systems ◽

Nonhuman Animals

Alternative food systems (namely the humane product movement) have arisen to address societal concerns with the treatment of Nonhuman Animals in food production. This paper presents an abolitionist Nonhuman Animal rights approach (Francione, 1996) and critiques these alternative systems as problematic in regards to goals of considering the rights or welfare of Nonhuman Animals. It is proposed that the trend in social movement professionalization within the structure of a non-profit industrial complex will ultimately favor compromises like “humane” products over more radical abolitionist solutions to the detriment of Nonhuman Animals. This paper also discusses potential compromises for alternative food systems that acknowledge equal consideration for Nonhuman Animals, focusing on grassroots veganism as a necessary component for consistency and effectiveness.

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KESADARAN GENDER YANG ISLAMI

Marwah Jurnal Perempuan Agama dan Jender ◽

10.24014/marwah.v13i2.892 ◽

2016 ◽

Vol 13 (2) ◽

pp. 253

Author(s):

Nurdeni Dahri

Keyword(s):

Gender Bias ◽

Gender Gap ◽

Cultural Construction ◽

Men And Women ◽

Male And Female ◽

Roles And Responsibilities ◽

Cultural Life ◽

Changing Times ◽

Biological Differences

Biological differences between men and women have in the implementation of social and cultural life. There has been a gender gap due to the multiplicity of interpretations of the notion of gender itself. In-depth research is needed to determine the cause of the gap, let alone Islam declared the doctrine that leads to gender bias. Based on the discussion in this paper is declared Gender division of roles and responsibilities between women and men as a result of socio-cultural construction of society, which can be changed according to the demands of the changing times. While sex (gender: male and female) are not changed and the nature of God. In the teachings of Islam there is no difference between women and men in all its aspects, distinguishing only charity and piety

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“Animals Like Us”: Identifying with Nonhuman Animals and Support for Nonhuman Animal Rights

Anthrozoös ◽

10.1080/08927936.2018.1434045 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 31 (2) ◽

pp. 165-177

Author(s):

Courtney N. Plante ◽

Stephen Reysen ◽

Sharon E. Roberts ◽

Kathleen Gerbasi

Keyword(s):

Animal Rights ◽

Nonhuman Animal ◽

Nonhuman Animals

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Perambulating Mice and the Confluence of Sympathy and Moral Education

Essays in Romanticism ◽

10.3828/eir.2021.28.1.4 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 28 (1) ◽

pp. 25-40

Author(s):

Shawna Lichtenwalner

Keyword(s):

Eighteenth Century ◽

Animal Welfare ◽

Moral Education ◽

Animal Rights ◽

Critical Role ◽

Mary Wollstonecraft ◽

Late Eighteenth Century ◽

Anna Letitia Barbauld ◽

Nonhuman Animals ◽

Late Eighteenth

The late eighteenth century was the locus of a burgeoning interest in animal rights. This essay examines the critical role that children’s literature had in the evolution of more consideration for animal welfare. The use of animals in the works of writers such as Sarah Trimmer, Mary Wollstonecraft, Anna Letitia Barbauld, and Dorothy Kilner helped create a form of animal subjectivity as a means of teaching children compassion through the creation of sympathy for nonhuman animals. By fostering compassion for the needs of so-called “dumb creatures” children could also be taught, by extension, to have more consideration for other people. In particular, Dorothy Kilner’s animal autobiography The Life and Perambulations of a Mouse offers a new way of viewing animals who are neither physical nor affectional slaves as worthy of both consideration and compassion.

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Wildlife as Property

Wildlife Criminology ◽

10.1332/policypress/9781529204346.003.0002 ◽

2020 ◽

pp. 19-36

Author(s):

Angus Nurse ◽

Tanya Wyatt

Keyword(s):

Animal Welfare ◽

Animal Rights ◽

Companion Animals ◽

Wildlife Trade ◽

Entertainment Industry ◽

Short Discussion ◽

Criminological Perspective ◽

Psychological Harm ◽

Human Animal ◽

Animal Welfare Legislation

This chapter examines the notion of wildlife as property or ‘things’ and critically analyses the extent to which anthropocentric notions of wildlife as a resource for human exploitation determines harm caused to non-human animals. This chapter examines how anthropocentric notions of morality and human-centred values underpin the exploitation of non-human animals and the sense in which they are owned. Employing a green criminological perspective, the chapter examines the use and abuse of wildlife within the animal ‘entertainment’ industry. The chapter examines the use of wildlife within aquariums, zoos, and circuses and examines both the legality of this use and the non-human animal harm contained within such uses. Evidence exists, for example, of psychological harm caused to wildlife in zoos that would likely be unlawful if experienced by companion animals. Yet, zoos and safari parks are ostensibly legal operations, thus animal welfare legislation is often the only mechanism through which action can be taken in respect of what would otherwise be deemed unlawful captivity (see also Chapter 7 on animal rights). We end the chapter by touching on how wildlife come to be property – that is a short discussion of wildlife trade, including the online market.

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Bestiality

Criminalizing Sex ◽

10.1093/oso/9780197507483.003.0018 ◽

2020 ◽

pp. 327-350

Author(s):

Stuart P. Green

Keyword(s):

Animal Rights ◽

Nonhuman Animals ◽

Nonconsensual Sex ◽

Do So

The focus of this chapter is on bestiality, involving sex between humans and nonhuman animals. Some animal rights and feminist scholars have suggested that bestiality should be thought of as a form of nonconsensual sex. But to do so presupposes that animals can be harmed or wronged within the meaning of the liberal harm and wrong principles, which is far from clear. And even assuming that it does make sense to think of bestiality as involving nonconsensual sex, it needs to be asked if there is a coherent justification for criminalizing such conduct while so many other serious harms and wrongs to animals, including with respect to their sexual functions (such as breeding, neutering, spaying, and castrating) go unrestricted. Central here is the question of whether bestiality fits within the narrow sliver of animal mistreatment that is, under current law, considered sufficiently cruel to merit criminalization.

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Familiarity and Interest in Working with Livestock Decreases the Odds of Having Positive Attitudes towards Non-Human Animals and Their Welfare among Veterinary Students in Italy

Animals ◽

10.3390/ani8090150 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 8 (9) ◽

pp. 150 ◽

Cited By ~ 5

Author(s):

Chiara Mariti ◽

Federica Pirrone ◽

Mariangela Albertini ◽

Angelo Gazzano ◽

Silvana Diverio

Keyword(s):

Animal Welfare ◽

Animal Rights ◽

Positive Attitude ◽

Companion Animals ◽

Attitude Scale ◽

Veterinary Students ◽

Normal Behaviour ◽

Positive Attitudes ◽

Species Type ◽

Potential Impact

We investigated the attitudes of veterinary students towards animals and their welfare in Italy. Regression analyses revealed predictors that are significant in differentiating students’ scoring tendency based on their gender, familiarity, and intention to work with a specific animal species, type of diet, and membership in an animal rights association. Female students, who were mostly familiar with pets and aspired to work with species other than livestock, following an animal-free diet and being a member of an animal rights association, had a significantly greater odds of having a high Animal Attitude Scale score (AAS), i.e., very positive attitude towards animals, versus a less positive attitude. Conversely, the familiarity with livestock and preference for working with livestock significantly increased the odds of a low AAS. Overall, students considered all of the Brambell Report’s Five Freedoms important for animal welfare protection. However, students scored higher for companion animals than for livestock, particularly regarding the freedom to express normal behaviour and the absence of fear and distress. This study suggests that veterinary students place less importance on the psychological aspects of welfare for livestock, and there is a tendency for students who are mostly familiar, or aspire to work, with livestock to have a less positive attitude towards non-human animals and their welfare. These findings should be considered within the veterinary educational curriculum due to their potential impact on animal welfare.

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