The Normative Animal?

The Normative Animal? PDF Author: Neil Roughley
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 019084647X
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 360

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Book Description
It is often claimed that humans are rational, linguistic, cultural, or moral creatures. What these characterizations may all have in common is the more fundamental claim that humans are normative animals, in the sense that they are creatures whose lives are structured at a fundamental level by their relationships to norms. The various capacities singled out by discussion of rational, linguistic, cultural, or moral animals might then all essentially involve an orientation to obligations, permissions and prohibitions. And, if this is so, then perhaps it is a basic susceptibility, or proclivity to normative or deontic regulation of thought and behavior that enables humans to develop the various specific features of their life form. This volume of new essays investigates the claim that humans are essentially normative animals in this sense. The contributors do so by looking at the nature and relations of three types of norms, or putative norms-social, moral, and linguistic-and asking whether they might all be different expressions of one basic structure unique to humankind. These questions are posed by philosophers, primatologists, behavioral biologists, psychologists, linguists, and cultural anthropologists, who have collaborated on this topic for many years. The contributors are committed to the idea that understanding normativity is a two-way process, involving a close interaction between conceptual clarification and empirical research.

The Normative Animal?

The Normative Animal? PDF Author: Neil Roughley
Publisher: Foundations of Human Interacti
ISBN: 0190846461
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 393

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Book Description
It is often claimed that humans are rational, linguistic, cultural, or moral creatures. What these characterizations may all have in common is the more fundamental claim that humans are normative animals, in the sense that they are creatures whose lives are structured at a fundamental level by their relationships to norms. The various capacities singled out by discussion of rational, linguistic, cultural, or moral animals might then all essentially involve an orientation to obligations, permissions and prohibitions. And, if this is so, then perhaps it is a basic susceptibility, or proclivity to normative or deontic regulation of thought and behavior that enables humans to develop the various specific features of their life form. This volume of new essays investigates the claim that humans are essentially normative animals in this sense. The contributors do so by looking at the nature and relations of three types of norms, or putative norms-social, moral, and linguistic-and asking whether they might all be different expressions of one basic structure unique to humankind. These questions are posed by philosophers, primatologists, behavioral biologists, psychologists, linguists, and cultural anthropologists, who have collaborated on this topic for many years. The contributors are committed to the idea that understanding normativity is a two-way process, involving a close interaction between conceptual clarification and empirical research.

The Single-Minded Animal

The Single-Minded Animal PDF Author: Preston Stovall
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1000434001
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 398

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Book Description
This book provides an account of discursive or reason-governed cognition, by synthesizing research in the philosophy of language, the philosophy of mind, and evolutionary anthropology. Using the grasp of a natural language as a model for the autonomous or self-governed rationality of discursive cognition, the author uses a semantics for individual intentions, shared intentions, and normative attitudes as a framework for understanding what it is to be a rational animal. This semantics interprets claims about shared intentions and claims about what people ought and may do as the expression of plans of action that involve taking the points of view of other people within a community. This has important consequences for our understanding of both the natural basis and the social relevance of intentional and normative mental states. In order to distinguish the strong and weak modal force, which characterizes normativity but not shared intentionality, the author argues that a notion of single-minded practical cognition is necessary. This account of single-mindedness is then used to shed light on the autonomy or self-government characteristic of discursive cognition, as manifest in a linguistic community whose members are able to adopt the standpoints of others. Drawing together research in philosophy and the related sciences, the formal account of the semantic content of the claims we use to give expression to shared intentional and normative mental states integrates well with research in cognitive science, evolutionary anthropology, and social psychology concerning the ontogenetic and phylogenetic development of shared intentionality and norm psychology in human beings and other primates. The Single-Minded Animal will appeal to researchers and advanced students working on shared intentionality, normativity, rationality, cognitive science, social and developmental psychology, and evolutionary anthropology.

Personhood, Ethics, and Animal Cognition

Personhood, Ethics, and Animal Cognition PDF Author: Gary E. Varner
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 0199758786
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 334

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Book Description
The book also draws heavily on empirical research on consciousness and cognition in non-human animals as a way of approaching the question of which animals, if any, are "persons," or at least "near-persons".

Ethics and Animals

Ethics and Animals PDF Author: Lori Gruen
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521717731
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
In this fresh and comprehensive introduction to animal ethics, Lori Gruen weaves together poignant and provocative case studies with discussions of ethical theory, urging readers to engage critically and empathetically reflect on our treatment of other animals. In clear and accessible language, Gruen provides a survey of the issues central to human-animal relations and a reasoned new perspective on current key debates in the field. She analyses and explains a range of theoretical positions and poses challenging questions that directly encourage readers to hone their ethical reasoning skills and to develop a defensible position about their own practices. Her book will be an invaluable resource for students in a wide range of disciplines including ethics, environmental studies, veterinary science, women's studies, and the emerging field of animal studies and is an engaging account of the subject for general readers with no prior background in philosophy.

The Oxford Handbook of Animal Ethics

The Oxford Handbook of Animal Ethics PDF Author: Tom L. Beauchamp
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0195371968
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 997

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Book Description
This text is designed to capture the nature of the questions as they stand today and to propose solutions to many of the major problems in the ethics of how we use animals.

Animal Individuality

Animal Individuality PDF Author: Elisa Aaltola
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Animals
Languages : en
Pages : 336

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Book Description
The moral value of animals has become a prominent issue. Various theories have been offered to define the moral relation between humans and other animals, and in a more political context, various viewpoints are in conflict over how animals ought to be treated. At the core of the issue is individuality. Can animals be "individuals"? Can animals have individual moral value? Elisa Aaltola explores these questions on three levels: animal definitions, ethical theory, and context. Firstly, she analyses what type of ethical understandings common cultural definitions of animals have lead to, and whether they should be defined as such, and what the practical consequences would be. Aaltola maintains that "animal individuality" is not only a feasible concept, but also one that is necessary both in the ontological and the normative analyses concerning other animals. --

Subhuman

Subhuman PDF Author: T. J. Kasperbauer
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190695811
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 249

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Book Description
How do we think about animals? How do we decide what they deserve and how we ought to treat them? Subhuman takes an interdisciplinary approach to these questions, drawing from research in philosophy, neuroscience, psychology, law, history, sociology, economics, and anthropology. Subhuman argues that our attitudes to nonhuman animals, both positive and negative, largely arise from our need to compare ourselves to them.

Animals and Ethics 101

Animals and Ethics 101 PDF Author: Nathan Nobis
Publisher: Open Philosophy Press
ISBN: 0692471286
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 125

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Book Description
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. Includes a bonus chapter, "Abortion and Animal Rights: Does Either Topic Lead to the Other?"

Fellow Creatures

Fellow Creatures PDF 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

The Oxford Handbook of Animal Ethics

The Oxford Handbook of Animal Ethics PDF Author: Tom L. Beauchamp
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199707340
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 997

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Book Description
Humans encounter and use animals in a stunning number of ways. The nature of these animals and the justifiability or unjustifiabilitly of human uses of them are the subject matter of this volume. Philosophers have long been intrigued by animal minds and vegetarianism, but only around the last quarter of the twentieth century did a significant philosophical literature begin to be developed on both the scientific study of animals and the ethics of human uses of animals. This literature had a primary focus on discussion of animal psychology, the moral status of animals, the nature and significance of species, and a number of practical problems. This Oxford Handbook is designed to capture the nature of the questions as they stand today and to propose solutions to many of the major problems. Several chapters in this volume explore matters that have never previously been examined by philosophers. The authors of the thirty-five chapters come from a diverse set of philosophical interests in the History of Philosophy, the Philosophy of Mind, the Philosophy of Biology, the Philosophy of Cognitive Science, the Philosophy of Language, Ethical Theory, and Practical Ethics. They explore many theoretical issues about animal minds and an array of practical concerns about animal products, farm animals, hunting, circuses, zoos, the entertainment industry, safety-testing on animals, the status and moral significance of species, environmental ethics, the nature and significance of the minds of animals, and so on. They also investigate what the future may be expected to bring in the way of new scientific developments and new moral problems. This book of original essays is the most comprehensive single volume ever published on animal minds and the ethics of our use of animals.