Taking Animals Seriously
Mental Life and Moral Status

This book offers the most judicious and well-balanced account yet available of the moral standing of animals.

David DeGrazia (Author)

9780521561402, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 13 July 1996

316 pages
23.5 x 15.7 x 2.5 cm, 0.57 kg

"...this book will be helpful to all of those concerned with the well-being of all sentient beings." Animals' Agenda

This book distinguishes itself from much of the polemical literature on these issues by offering the most judicious and well-balanced account yet available of animals' moral standing, and related questions concerning their minds and welfare. Transcending jejune debates focused on utilitarianism versus rights, the book offers a fresh methodological approach with specific and constructive conclusions about our treatment of animals. David DeGrazia provides the most thorough discussion yet of whether equal consideration should be extended to animals' interests, and examines the issues of animal minds and animal well-being with an unparalleled combination of philosophical rigor and empirical documentation. His book is an important contribution to the field of animal ethics and will be read with special interest by all philosophers teaching such courses, as well as biologists, those professionally involved with animals, and general readers concerned about animal welfare.

1. A short primer on animal ethics
2. The coherence model of ethical justification
3. Animals' moral status and the issue of equal consideration
4. Motivation and methods for studying animal minds
5. Feelings
6. Desires and beliefs
7. Self-awareness, language, moral agency, and autonomy
8. The basics of well-being across species
9. Back to animal ethics.

Subject Areas: Ethics & moral philosophy [HPQ]