scholarly journals Animal Protectionist or Animal Anti-protectionist? : Towards a Liberation of Animals from Human Oppression/ Patriarchy: A Textual Reading of Benjamin Zephaniah’s

2021 ◽  
Vol 04 (12) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ignatius Nsaidzedze ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Animal Rights ◽  
Animal Suffering ◽  
Good Music ◽  
Human Animal ◽  
The Relationship

The purpose of this paper is to examine whether Benjamin Zephaniah’s famous poem “Talking Turkeys” can be labeled an animal protectionist or an animal anti-protectionist poem. Using natural and utilitarian theories of animal rights defenders, the paper argues that in the human animal relationship, the humans are the cause of the problem in the relationship not the animals and that they will benefit more if they make animals their friends. At the end of the study it has been found out that when one reads the poem Talking Turkeys’, one unique vocabulary labels Benjamin Zephaniah as an animal protectionist who shows his admiration for animals which prompts his anthropomorphism towards them as well as his pointing of accusing fingers at us humans/patriarchy for being the cause of the animal suffering and killing. The poet advocates friendship with animals to replace our killing and eating their flesh/meat. On the contrary he advocates we become vegans/vegetarians implicitly when he urges us to feed turkeys with green and beans. He reminds us that turkeys have rights, feel pain and have mums, associations which we should join and they should not be artificially manufactured and should also be allowed to enjoy Christmas like receiving gifts and listening to good music. Humans we are told spoiled Christmas.

Does Beast Suffering Count for Kant

2004 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 375-390 ◽  
Author(s):  
Heike Baranzke ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Virtue Ethics ◽  
Human Dignity ◽  
Animal Rights ◽  
Animal Ethics ◽  
Emotional Needs ◽  
Animal Suffering ◽  
Moral Concepts ◽  
Perfect Duties ◽  
Human Animal ◽  
Human Responsibility

Ever since Schopenhauer´s accusation, it has been disputed whether Kant´s few remarks concerning the ethical human-animal-relationship in the Lectures and in the Doctrine of Virtue fail to support ethical arguments on behalf of animals. One critique that plays a central role is whether Kant would have forbidden cruelty to brutes for educational purposes. In addition to these old objections, Kant´s ethics is charged to be speciesistic by animal ethicists and animal rights philosophers at present.The following article examines especially §17 of the Doctrine of Virtue, which is the only animal ethical text authorized by Kant himself. The interpretation starts by taking the context of §17 into account, particularly the “Episodic Section on an Amphiboly in Moral Concepts”. The systematic output of the cruelty-account and of the duty classes is then analyzed. Central for the understanding of Kant´s argumentation relating to animals are the perfect duties to oneself, which are linked to Kant´s foundation of human dignity. Finally the roles of the physical and emotional needs of brutes and humans in Kant´s ethics are compared with each other. Some conclusions are then drawn concerning human and animal rights in relation to a duty-based argumentation. The article therefore appreciates Kant´s integration of animal suffering into the very core of his virtue ethics, an integration that may be able to open the door for an enlightened animal ethics based on human responsibility.

scholarly journals ANIMAL-BASED MEASURES: A STEP TOWARDS RIGHTS FOR FARM ANIMALS?

2020 ◽  
Vol 3 (3) ◽  
pp. 159-166
Author(s):  
SACHA LUCASSEN
Keyword(s):  
Legal System ◽  
Animal Rights ◽  
Moral Consideration ◽  
Farm Animals ◽  
Repetitive Behaviour ◽  
Human Animal ◽  
Sentient Beings ◽  
On Farm ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Living Being

While more than ever we are discussing animal rights and considering the possibility to extend the circle of our moral consideration, we are also more than ever inflicting suffering on more animals than in any time in history. This is especially the case for farm animals. This article aims to demonstrate that introducing animal-based measures into the legal system can be a practical and realistic step towards changing the familiar perspective of farm animals as mere commodities into the sentient beings they are. Currently, legislation on farm animals builds on what are called resource-based measures. These measures are not based on the animals but on their environment and the conditions in which the animals are living. They are very compatible with the legal system being relatively easy to assess, less subjective and highly repeatable. However, compliance with resource-based measures does not always mean good animal welfare, since these measures are generally considered to be less well correlated to the experiences of the animal. Animal-based measures, on the other hand, measure the state of the animal based on the actual animal, its behaviour (e.g. repetitive behaviour, human-animal relationship) and/or appearance (posture, facial expression, body condition). A change where laws on animals actually require looking at the animals has the potential to improve the relationship to the animals and is an essential shift towards farm animals being regarded as someone and not something. By acknowledging animals as whole sentient beings, we do not just see a complex system of ‘behaviours’ (e.g. walking), but first and foremost we see a “behaver”, a dynamic living being, whose movements are always meaningful and psychological expressive. In conclusion, animal-based measures force us to look at animals and recognize that they are able to feel pain, love, joy, loneliness and fear. Implementing animal-based measures for farm animals makes us, in a practical and realistic way, take those animals that are mostly considered as mere commodities, into our moral consideration, and unveils aspects of their sentience, which are currently hidden by the law.

Meat without Animals: Outcast Objects and the Improvement of London

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ted Geier
Keyword(s):  
Animal Rights ◽  
Legal Reform ◽  
Meat Production ◽  
History Of ◽  
Relationship Of ◽  
The Relationship

Covers the long history of the Smithfield animal market and legal reform in London. Shows the relationship of civic improvement tropes, including animal rights, to animal erasure in the form of new foodstuffs from distant meat production sites. The reduction of lives to commodities also informed public abasement of the butchers.

scholarly journals Kantian Ethics and the Animal Turn. On the Contemporary Defence of Kant’s Indirect Duty View

Animals ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 512
Author(s):  
Samuel Camenzind
Keyword(s):  
Animal Rights ◽  
Ethical Framework ◽  
Arthur Schopenhauer ◽  
Kantian Ethics ◽  
Turn On ◽  
Conceptual Clarity ◽  
Moral Relationship ◽  
Human Animal ◽  
Kant's Ethics ◽  
Animal Question

Criticism of Kant’s position on our moral relationship with animals dates back to the work of Arthur Schopenhauer and Leonard Nelson, but historically Kantian scholars have shown limited interest in the human-animal relationship as such. This situation changed in the mid-1990s with the arrival of several publications arguing for the direct moral considerability of animals within the Kantian ethical framework. Against this, another contemporary Kantian approach has continued to defend Kant’s indirect duty view. In this approach it is argued, first, that it is impossible to establish direct duties to animals, and second, that this is also unnecessary because the Kantian notion that we have indirect duties to animals has far-reaching practical consequences and is to that extent adequate. This paper explores the argument of the far-reaching duties regarding animals in Kant’s ethics and seeks to show that Kantians underestimate essential differences between Kant and his rivals today (i.e., proponents of animal rights and utilitarians) on a practical and fundamental level. It also argues that Kant’s indirect duty view has not been defended convincingly: the defence tends to neglect theory-immanent problems in Kant’s ethics connected with unfounded value assumptions and unconvincing arguments for the denial of animals’ moral status. However, it is suggested that although the human-animal relationship was not a central concern of Kant’s, examination of the animal question within the framework of Kant’s ethics helps us to develop conceptual clarity about his duty concept and the limitations of the reciprocity argument.

scholarly journals Development and Application of the Owner-Bird Relationship Scale (OBRS) to Assess the Relation of Humans to Their Pet Birds

2020 ◽  
Vol 7 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anne-Kathrin Burmeister ◽  
Katrin Drasch ◽  
Monika Rinder ◽  
Sebastian Prechsl ◽  
Andrea Peschel ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Quantitative Research ◽  
Animal Studies ◽  
Online Survey ◽  
Major Influence ◽  
Four Dimensions ◽  
Sociological Approach ◽  
Pet Birds ◽  
Human Animal ◽  
Relationship Of ◽  
The Relationship

Only a few birds besides domestic pigeons and poultry can be described as domesticated. Therefore, keeping a pet bird can be challenging, and the human-avian relationship will have a major influence on the quality of this cohabitation. Studies that focus on characterizing the owner-bird relationship generally use adapted cat/dog scales which may not identify its specific features. Following a sociological approach, a concept of human-animal relationship was developed leading to three types of human-animal relationship (impersonal, personal, and close personal). This concept was used to develop a 21-item owner-bird-relationship scale (OBRS). This scale was applied to measure the relationship between pet bird owners (or keepers) (n = 1,444) and their birds in an online survey performed in Germany. Factor analysis revealed that the relationship between owner and bird consisted of four dimensions: the tendency of the owner to anthropomorphize the bird; the social support the bird provides for the owner; the empathy, attentiveness, and respect of the owner toward the bird; and the relationship of the bird toward the owner. More than one quarter of the German bird owners of this sample showed an impersonal, half a personal, and less than a quarter a close personal relationship to their bird. The relationship varied with the socio-demographic characteristics of the owners, such as gender, marital status, and education. This scale supports more comprehensive quantitative research into the human-bird relationship in the broad field of human-animal studies including the psychology and sociology of animals as well as animal welfare and veterinary medicine.

Canine Rescue as a Social Movement: The Politics of Love

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.

scholarly journals ETNOGRAFÍA DEL CONFLICTO SOCIOCULTURAL EN TORNO A LOS BURROS-TAXI DE MIJAS

2020 ◽  
pp. 125-152
Author(s):  
Huan Porrah Blanko
Keyword(s):  
Animal Rights ◽  
Western Mediterranean ◽  
Local Service ◽  
Ethnographic Methodology ◽  
The Village ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Ways Of Life ◽  
Case Based ◽  
Western Ethnocentrism

These pages attempt to contribute ethnographic material to the discussions and contextual circumstances of a peculiar sociocultural conflict over the relationship between humans and animals in the village of Mijas-Miha (Andalusia, Western Mediterranean), where the existence over six decades of a local service of Donkey-Taxi for tourists has recenly unleashed an abolitionist campaign by animal rights activists. Through the use of ethnographic methodology, this fundamentally descriptive and case-based article is originated around the contradictions of the urban-animalist ideology regarding the ways of life and the Andalusian peasantry culture. Processes which sometimes places us in the urban vs. rural traditional dialectic, or as a result of a globalizing Western ethnocentrism in relation to how to apprehend the nature and the human.

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.

Wildlife as Property

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.

scholarly journals Therianthropy: Wellbeing, Schizotypy, and Autism in Individuals Who Self-Identify as Non-Human

2019 ◽  
Vol 27 (4) ◽  
pp. 403-426
Author(s):  
Helen Clegg ◽  
Roz Collings ◽  
Elizabeth C. Roxburgh
Keyword(s):  
Social Relationships ◽  
Social Factors ◽  
Protective Factor ◽  
Autism Spectrum ◽  
Cognitive Factors ◽  
Psychological Wellbeing ◽  
Autism Spectrum Quotient ◽  
Health And Wellbeing ◽  
Human Animal ◽  
The Relationship

AbstractTherianthropy is the belief that one is at least part non-human animal. This study aimed to address the dichotomization surrounding therianthropy in relation to mental health and wellbeing. One hundred and twelve therians and 265 non-therians completed Ryff’s Scales of Psychological Wellbeing, the O-LIFE questionnaire, and the Autism Spectrum Quotient. The results showed that therians scored lower on variables that are associated with positive social relationships. Such findings may be explained by cognitive factors and/or social factors that are associated with the stigmatization of cross-species identities. However, being a therian moderated the relationship between both autism and introverted anhedonia in relation to autonomy. Thus, a therian identity may act as a protective factor for those experiencing higher levels of autism and schizotypy.

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