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Animals and Ethics 101: Thinking Critically About Animal Rights
Animals and Ethics 101 helps readers identify and evaluate the arguments for and against various uses of animals, such: - Is it morally wrong to experiment on animals? Why or why not? - Is it morally permissible to eat meat? Why or why not? - Are we morally obligated to provide pets with veterinary care (and, if so, how much?)? Why or why not? And other challenging issues and questions. Developed as a companion volume to an online "Animals & Ethics" course, it is ideal for classroom use, discussion groups or self study. The book presupposes no conclusions on these controversial moral questions about the treatment of animals, and argues for none either. Its goal is to help the reader better engage the issues and arguments on all sides with greater clarity, understanding and argumentative rigor. Nathan Nobis, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor of Philosophy at Morehouse College in Atlanta, GA USA. NathanNobis.com
126 pages, Paperback
Published October 11, 2016
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About the author
Nathan Nobis
13 books9 followersNathan Nobis, Ph.D. is an Associate Professor of Philosophy at Morehouse College, Atlanta, GA. He has taught courses, given lectures and published articles and chapters on a wide variety of topics concerning ethics and animals, bioethics, ethical theory and other topics in philosophy.
His web page is at www.NathanNobis.com
His web page is at www.NathanNobis.com
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May 23, 2021
I'd wish I could give it more than three stars because I'm obsessed with ethics, metaethics, sentiocentrism, whatchamacallit, but... Geezus.
To start, yes, I'm well aware that this is an introductory book, so he's supposed to give the basics, therefore I shouldn't expect nothing too fancy, still... It's precisely in an introductory book that one must give the basis/foundaments for the thesis one is defending!!!
I mean, his points are overall obvious (even for an introductory book... I would argue that this is for teens), he relies too much in the fact that the reader must agree with sentiocentrism and he seems unwilling to give a fair chance to competing arguments. To be fair, he gives space to other views, he just quickly dismiss them. Now, I'll be honest here, I tend to be VERY lenient towards author/philosophers/scientists who have that "I know better than you" attitude AS LONG AS they make a good case for their views. They might strike me as annoying or arrogant, but, hey, whatever... if they make a good case, then so be it. But, you see... That's the issue here... Nobis doesn't even strike me as arrogant, it's just that this book presents absolutely no moral ontology nor epistemology whatsoever... And if that's the case, then, why should I agree with him?
This book reads as a companion mostly to Peter Singer's magnum opus Animal Liberation (which I have read... and yes, it is a good book, Singer doesn't assume the reader will automatically have the same moral ontology than he does), Mark Rowlands' Animals Like Us (which I haven't read) and to a lesser degree a few other books on sentiocentrism/animal ethics. (I repeat: THIS BOOK IS BASICALLY A COMPANION BOOK, NOT REALLY AN INTRODUCTION.)
The issue here is that... not all of these authors reach the conclussion (i.e. "using animals is wrong") in the same way. Not only that, but some of those views are mutually exclusive; so I'm reluctant to accept as a "possitive/good" (or even "permissible") the fact that he doesn't go deeper in the reasons why X theory holds X view.
To start, yes, I'm well aware that this is an introductory book, so he's supposed to give the basics, therefore I shouldn't expect nothing too fancy, still... It's precisely in an introductory book that one must give the basis/foundaments for the thesis one is defending!!!
I mean, his points are overall obvious (even for an introductory book... I would argue that this is for teens), he relies too much in the fact that the reader must agree with sentiocentrism and he seems unwilling to give a fair chance to competing arguments. To be fair, he gives space to other views, he just quickly dismiss them. Now, I'll be honest here, I tend to be VERY lenient towards author/philosophers/scientists who have that "I know better than you" attitude AS LONG AS they make a good case for their views. They might strike me as annoying or arrogant, but, hey, whatever... if they make a good case, then so be it. But, you see... That's the issue here... Nobis doesn't even strike me as arrogant, it's just that this book presents absolutely no moral ontology nor epistemology whatsoever... And if that's the case, then, why should I agree with him?
This book reads as a companion mostly to Peter Singer's magnum opus Animal Liberation (which I have read... and yes, it is a good book, Singer doesn't assume the reader will automatically have the same moral ontology than he does), Mark Rowlands' Animals Like Us (which I haven't read) and to a lesser degree a few other books on sentiocentrism/animal ethics. (I repeat: THIS BOOK IS BASICALLY A COMPANION BOOK, NOT REALLY AN INTRODUCTION.)
The issue here is that... not all of these authors reach the conclussion (i.e. "using animals is wrong") in the same way. Not only that, but some of those views are mutually exclusive; so I'm reluctant to accept as a "possitive/good" (or even "permissible") the fact that he doesn't go deeper in the reasons why X theory holds X view.
Displaying 1 of 1 review