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Author: Mark Rowlands
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190846046
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 256
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Book Description
Can animals be persons? To this question, scientific and philosophical consensus has taken the form of a resounding, 'No!' In this book, Mark Rowlands disagrees. Not only can animals be persons, many of them probably are. Taking, as his starting point, John Locke's classic definition of a person, as "a thinking intelligent being, that has reason and reflection, and can consider itself the same thinking thing, in different times and places," Rowlands argues that many animals can satisfy all of these conditions. A person is an individual in which four features coalesce: consciousness, rationality, self-awareness and other-awareness, and many animals are such individuals. Consciousness--something that is like to have an experience--is widely distributed through the animal kingdom. Many animals are capable of both causal and logical reasoning. Many animals are also self-aware, since a form of self-awareness is essentially built into the possession of conscious experience. And some animals are capable of a kind of awareness of the minds of others, quite independently of whether they possess a theory of mind. This is not just a book about animals, however. As well as being fascinating in their own right, animals, as Claude Levi-Strauss once put it, are "good to think." In this seamless interweaving of the empirical study of animal minds with philosophy and its history, this book makes a powerful case for the idea that reflection on animals allows us to better understand each of these four pillars of personhood, and so illuminates what means for any individual--animal or human--to be conscious, rational, self- and other-aware.
Author: Mark Rowlands
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190846046
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 256
Get Book Here
Book Description
Can animals be persons? To this question, scientific and philosophical consensus has taken the form of a resounding, 'No!' In this book, Mark Rowlands disagrees. Not only can animals be persons, many of them probably are. Taking, as his starting point, John Locke's classic definition of a person, as "a thinking intelligent being, that has reason and reflection, and can consider itself the same thinking thing, in different times and places," Rowlands argues that many animals can satisfy all of these conditions. A person is an individual in which four features coalesce: consciousness, rationality, self-awareness and other-awareness, and many animals are such individuals. Consciousness--something that is like to have an experience--is widely distributed through the animal kingdom. Many animals are capable of both causal and logical reasoning. Many animals are also self-aware, since a form of self-awareness is essentially built into the possession of conscious experience. And some animals are capable of a kind of awareness of the minds of others, quite independently of whether they possess a theory of mind. This is not just a book about animals, however. As well as being fascinating in their own right, animals, as Claude Levi-Strauss once put it, are "good to think." In this seamless interweaving of the empirical study of animal minds with philosophy and its history, this book makes a powerful case for the idea that reflection on animals allows us to better understand each of these four pillars of personhood, and so illuminates what means for any individual--animal or human--to be conscious, rational, self- and other-aware.
Author: Justin Leiber
Publisher: Hackett Publishing
ISBN: 9780872200029
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 102
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Book Description
"Written in a lively and entertaining style, this little book, which deals with topics such as 'personhood,' animal rights, and artificial intelligence . . . makes some rather difficult philosophical points clear in an unpedantic fashion." -- M E Winston, Trenton State College
Author: Paul F. Snowdon
Publisher: OUP Oxford
ISBN: 0191056804
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 272
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Book Description
The starting point for this book is a particular answer to a question that grips many of us: what kind of thing are we? The particular answer is that we are animals (of a certain sort)—a view nowadays called 'animalism'. This answer will appear obvious to many but on the whole philosophers have rejected it. Paul F. Snowdon proposes, contrary to that attitude, that there are strong reasons to believe animalism and that when properly analysed the objections against it that philosophers have given are not convincing. One way to put the idea is that we should not think of ourselves as things that need psychological states or capacities to exist, any more that other animals do. The initial chapters analyse the content and general philosophical implications of animalism—including the so-called problem of personal identity, and that of the unity of consciousness—and they provide a framework which categorises the standard philosophical objections. Snowdon then argues that animalism is consistent with a perfectly plausible account of the central notion of a 'person', and he criticises the accounts offered by John Locke and by David Wiggins of that notion. In the two next chapters Snowdon argues that there are very strong reasons to think animalism is true, and proposes some central claims about animal which are relevant to the argument. In the rest of the book the task is to formulate and to persuade the reader of the lack of cogency of the standard philosophical objections, including the conviction that it is possible for the animal that I would be if animalism were true to continue in existence after I have ceased to exist, and the argument that it is possible for us to remain in existence even when the animal has ceased to exist. In considering these types of objections the views of various philosophers, including Nagel, Shoemaker, Johnston, Wilkes, and Olson, are also explored. Snowdon concludes that animalism represents a highly commonsensical and defensible way of thinking about ourselves, and that its rejection by philosophers rests on the tendency when doing philosophy to mistake fantasy for reality.
Author: Gary Lawrence Francione
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 0231139500
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 254
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Book Description
Gary L. Francione explains our historical and contemporary attitudes about animals by distinguishing the issue of animal use from that of animal treatment. He then presents a theory of animal rights that focuses on the need to accord all sentient nonhumans the right not to be treated as property.
Author: Stephan Blatti
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 019960875X
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 343
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Book Description
What are we? What is the nature of the human person? Animalism has a straightforward answer to these long-standing philosophical questions: we are animals. Fifteen philosophers offer new essays exploring this increasingly popular view, some defending animalism, others criticizing it, and others exploring its more philosophical implications.
Author: Mark Rowlands
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 0190846038
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 233
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Book Description
Can animals be persons? To this question, scientific and philosophical consensus has taken the form of a resounding, 'No!' In this book, Mark Rowlands disagrees. Not only can animals be persons, many of them probably are. Taking, as his starting point, John Locke's classic definition of a person, as "a thinking intelligent being, that has reason and reflection, and can consider itself the same thinking thing, in different times and places," Rowlands argues that many animals can satisfy all of these conditions. A person is an individual in which four features coalesce: consciousness, rationality, self-awareness and other-awareness, and many animals are such individuals. Consciousness--something that is like to have an experience--is widely distributed through the animal kingdom. Many animals are capable of both causal and logical reasoning. Many animals are also self-aware, since a form of self-awareness is essentially built into the possession of conscious experience. And some animals are capable of a kind of awareness of the minds of others, quite independently of whether they possess a theory of mind. This is not just a book about animals, however. As well as being fascinating in their own right, animals, as Claude Levi-Strauss once put it, are "good to think." In this seamless interweaving of the empirical study of animal minds with philosophy and its history, this book makes a powerful case for the idea that reflection on animals allows us to better understand each of these four pillars of personhood, and so illuminates what means for any individual--animal or human--to be conscious, rational, self- and other-aware.
Author: Mark Rowlands
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 019024030X
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 272
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Book Description
Can animals act morally? Philosophical tradition answers "no," and has apparently convincing arguments on its side. Cognitive ethology supplies a growing body of empirical evidence that suggests these arguments are wrong. This groundbreaking book assimilates both philosophical and ethological frameworks into a unified whole and argues for a qualified "yes."
Author: Christine Marion Korsgaard
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0198753853
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 267
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Book Description
Presents a compelling new view of our moral relationships to the other animals
Author: Alasdair MacIntyre
Publisher: Open Court
ISBN: 0812697057
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 163
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Book Description
"MacIntyre--one of the foremost ethicists of the past half-century--makes a sustained argument for the cetnrality, in well-lived human lives, of both virtue and local communities of giving and receiving. He criticizes the mainstream of Western ethics, including his own previous position, for not taking seriously the dependent and animal sides of human nature, thereby overemphasizing the powers of reason and the pursuit of reason and the pursuit of autonomy. . . . This important work in ethics is essential for the professional philosopher and is highly readable for students at all levels and for thoughtful citizens." --Choice
Author: Carl Safina
Publisher: Macmillan
ISBN: 0805098887
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 480
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Book Description
Hailed conservationist Carl Safina examines animal personhood as told through the inspired narrative portraits of elephants, wolves, and dolphins
