scholarly journals In Defense of Direct Action

2021 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 1
Author(s):  
Ivar Hardman
Keyword(s):  
Coercive Force ◽  
Animal Rights ◽  
Animal Ethics ◽  
Direct Action ◽  
Prima Facie ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Animal Rights Movement ◽  
Widespread Agreement ◽  
Direct Support ◽  
Common Sense Morality

There is widespread agreement that coercive force may be used to prevent people from seriously and wrongfully harming others. But what about when those others are non-human animals? Some militant animal rights activists endorse the use of violent coercion against those who would otherwise harm animals. In the philosophical literature on animal ethics, however, theirs is a stance that enjoys little direct support. I contend that such coercion is nevertheless prima facie morally permissible. I defend this contention by arguing (a) that from the point of view of common sense morality, it is prima facie permissible to use coercive force to prevent puppies from being wrongfully mutilated and (b) that this point clearly extends to other kinds of animals and to other kinds of seriously harmful practices. I then show that there is, as a result of (b), presumptive moral justification for some of the highly controversial instances of direct action undertaken by the Animal Liberation Front and similar groups of militant animal rights activists. I close by arguing that pragmatic considerations override most proposals to undertake direct action, even when the proposed actions are prima facie morally permissible. Indeed, I conclude that although the use of violent coercion to prevent harm to animals may occasionally be ultima facie permissible, its use is in tension with (and tends to undermine) the broader agenda of the animal rights movement.

scholarly journals Changing Philosophical Perspectives: "Turn to Animals" in the New Anthropology

2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 64-79
Author(s):  
Maria Kozyreva ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Animal Rights ◽  
Popular Science ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
First Century ◽  
The Other ◽  
The Political ◽  
Animal Rights Movement ◽  
Science Project ◽  
History Of

The period of the end of the twentieth — the beginning of the twenty-first century can be called the heyday of human rights movements that advocate the inclusion of new agencies in the political, ethical, social and other fields. Among them arose the animal rights movement, which later developed into a philosophical turn called animal turn, which is now one of the most popular in the Western philosophical and anthropological discourse. Being mostly a media and popular science project, animal turn has been little studied and criticized from an academic point of view. In this article, it is proposed to explore the history of the turn, its development and, most importantly, how the ideas about man, animal and their relationships changed within the framework of animal turn. The new anthropology, which also includes the turn under discussion, inextricably links the concept of man with the concept of boundary, stating it as a necessary element for the constitution of the human self. As a part of a general philosophical trend to expand the discourse of the Other, animal turn suggests to consider the animal as a universal example of Otherness, which can not only coexist with a human, but also be an integral part of his self-perception. The article proposes to consider how the transition from the recognition of animals as "also feeling" was gradually made to the idea of maximum inclusiveness, openness and hospitality. It is also proposed to critically comprehend the new concept of man as a being who strives for maximum positive harmony with himself and the material world. As examples, the texts of the most famous representatives of animal turn are analyzed: P. Singer, T. Regan, J. Derrida, B. Massumi, P. Godfrey-Smith and V. Despre.

The Oxford Group and the Emergence of Animal Rights

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert Garner ◽  
Yewande Okuleye
Keyword(s):  
Animal Rights ◽  
Intellectual Development ◽  
Peter Singer ◽  
Animal Rights Movement ◽  
Friendship Group ◽  
University Of Oxford ◽  
Short Period ◽  
New Ideas ◽  
Oxford Group ◽  
The University

This book is an account of the life and times of a loose friendship group (later christened the Oxford Group) of ten people, primarily postgraduate philosophy students, who attended the University of Oxford for a short period of time from the late 1960s. The Oxford Group, which included—most notably—Peter Singer and Richard Ryder, set about thinking about, talking about, and promoting the idea of animal rights and vegetarianism. The group therefore played a role, largely undocumented and unacknowledged, in the emergence of the animal rights movement and the discipline of animal ethics. Most notably, the group produced an edited collection of articles published as Animals, Men and Morals in 1971 that was instrumental in one of their number—Peter Singer—writing Animal Liberation in 1975, a book that has had an extraordinary influence in the intervening years. The book serves as a case study of how the emergence of important work and the development of new ideas can be explained, and, in particular, how far the intellectual development of individuals is influenced by their participation in a creative community.

scholarly journals On Kaufmann's theory of the impact of the pianoforte hammer

1920 ◽  
Vol 97 (682) ◽  
pp. 99-110 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Initial Conditions ◽  
Practical Importance ◽  
Prima Facie ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Infinite Length ◽  
Modes Of Vibration ◽  
Rigorous Treatment ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Set Up ◽  
The Impact

The theory of the vibrations of the pianoforte string put forward by Kaufmann in a well-known paper has figured prominently in recent discussions on the acoustics of this instrument. It proceeds on lines radically different from those adopted by Helmholtz in his classical treatment of the subject. While recognising that the elasticity of the pianoforte hammer is not a negligible factor, Kaufmann set out to simplify the mathematical analysis by ignoring its effect altogether, and treating the hammer as a particle possessing only inertia without spring. The motion of the string following the impact of the hammer is found from the initial conditions and from the functional solutions of the equation of wave-propagation on the string. On this basis he gave a rigorous treatment of two cases: (1) a particle impinging on a stretched string of infinite length, and (2) a particle impinging on the centre of a finite string, neither of which cases is of much interest from an acoustical point of view. The case of practical importance treated by him is that in which a particle impinges on the string near one end. For this case, he gave only an approximate theory from which the duration of contact, the motion of the point struck, and the form of the vibration-curves for various points of the string could be found. There can be no doubt of the importance of Kaufmann’s work, and it naturally becomes necessary to extend and revise his theory in various directions. In several respects, the theory awaits fuller development, especially as regards the harmonic analysis of the modes of vibration set up by impact, and the detailed discussion of the influence of the elasticity of the hammer and of varying velocities of impact. Apart from these points, the question arises whether the approximate method used by Kaufmann is sufficiently accurate for practical purposes, and whether it may be regarded as applicable when, as in the pianoforte, the point struck is distant one-eighth or one-ninth of the length of the string from one end. Kaufmann’s treatment is practically based on the assumption that the part of the string between the end and the point struck remains straight as long as the hammer and string remain in contact. Primâ facie , it is clear that this assumption would introduce error when the part of the string under reference is an appreciable fraction of the whole. For the effect of the impact would obviously be to excite the vibrations of this portion of the string, which continue so long as the hammer is in contact, and would also influence the mode of vibration of the string as a whole when the hammer loses contact. A mathematical theory which is not subject to this error, and which is applicable for any position of the striking point, thus seems called for.

The Philosophy behind the Movement: Animal Studies versus Animal Rights

2011 ◽  
Vol 19 (4) ◽  
pp. 393-406 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elisa Aaltola
Keyword(s):  
Animal Rights ◽  
Animal Studies ◽  
Animal Rights Movement

AbstractRecently, many pro-animal thinkers have expressed critical views on the animal rights movement. In particular, the movement has been criticized for being philosophically uninformed, politically regressive, and practically unpersuasive. This paper investigates these criticisms and seeks to map out the philosophy behind the grassroots animal rights movement, specifically. It concludes that the criticism presented by animal studies scholars is often misplaced due to a lack of understanding of the philosophical notions within the movement, but that the critics are right to argue that the movement needs to place more emphasis on persuasion.

scholarly journals Ambivalent Speciesism Scale: Development, Validity and Reliability

2020 ◽  
Vol 8 (18) ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Animal Rights ◽  
Social Dominance ◽  
Animal Ethics ◽  
High Reliability ◽  
Social Dominance Orientation ◽  
Three Dimensions ◽  
Validity And Reliability ◽  
The Social ◽  
Orientation Scale ◽  
Animal Use

The aim of this study is to develop a scale compatible with current animal ethics studies to measure the phenomenon of speciesism, that is marginalization of animals and prejudice and discrimination against animals. In order to develop the Ambivalent Speciesism Scale, an item pool was created by examining the animal ethics literature and social psychology studies on human-animal relations, and then the items were edited by taking the opinions of people studying animal rights and experts in measurement and evaluation in psychology. The scale is designed in 7-point Likert type. The trial form was applied to the participants together with the Speciesism Scale, the Social Dominance Orientation Scale and the Basic Empathy Scale. Participants were selected from individuals representing different lifestyles in the context of animal use, using the snowball sampling technique. The study was conducted with 288 participants; 64 men, 217 women and, 7 of whom are not of both genders. While there were 24 items in the trial form of the scale, nine of these items were eliminated as a result of the factor analysis. The final form of the scale with 15 items has a high reliability (.90). The items of the scale are divided into three dimensions: belief in human superiority, protective speciesism, and speciesism in language. It was determined that the scores obtained from the scale were in positive correlation with the scores obtained from the other scale measuring speciesism and the social dominance orientation scale, as expected. The scores obtained from the scale are distributed as expected among the groups that include lifestyles related to animal use. These data were evaluated as findings showing the validity of the scale. Keywords Speciesism, ambivalent speciesism scale, animal rights, discrimination, animal ethics

Animals in Political Theory

2015 ◽  
pp. 42-64
Author(s):  
Sue Donaldson ◽  
Will Kymlicka
Keyword(s):  
Political Theory ◽  
Animal Rights ◽  
Moral Status ◽  
Animal Ethics ◽  
Moral Rights ◽  
The Public ◽  
History Of ◽  
Human Animal ◽  
Animal Question ◽  
Blind Spots

Western political theorists have largely ignored the animal question, assuming that animals have no place in our theories of democracy, citizenship, membership, sovereignty, and the public good. Conversely, animal ethicists have largely ignored political theory, assuming that we can theorize the moral status and moral rights of animals without drawing on the categories and concepts of political theory. This chapter traces the history of this separation between animals and political theory, examines the resulting intellectual blind spots for animal ethics, and reviews recent attempts to bring the two together. Situating animal rights within political theory has the potential to identify new models of justice in human-animal relations, and to open up new areas of scholarship and research.

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