动物伦理学研究

为了构建动物伦理学，笔者考察并概括了西方动物伦理研究的本质和关键问题，认为：动物伦理学是关于人与动物关系的伦理信念、道德态度和行为规范的理论体系，是一门尊重动物的价值和权利的新的伦理学说。它的产生具有坚实的科学基础、伦理基础和现实迫切性。     

芏大学生中开展环境伦理教育课程研究

从环境伦理教育的价值出发,论述高校在大学生中开展环境伦理教育的重要性和现实意义,结合贵州大学人才培养目标,探讨如何在大学生中开展环境伦理教育,并有针对性地设计出相关的教育途径。     

动物权利之华山论剑——评《动物权利论争》

“我们为什么要保护动物？”对此，现代环境伦理学提供了四种伦理思考：其一，审慎理论。保护动物对人类有利；其二，仁慈理论。对动物麻木不仁和残酷成性是人性发育不完整和有欠缺的表现；其三，动物解放论。能够感受苦乐是拥有利益和获得关怀的充分条件，动物拥有感觉能力，人类需要从道德上关怀动物；其四，动物权利论。动物拥有权利，人类不能仅仅将它们当作工具。     

“拒绝皮草”中的消费伦理

"皮草"议题已经成为今日中国动物保护运动中的一个热点。然而,拒绝皮革及其所蕴含的消费伦理却未能得到更为深入的开展和推广。为此,国内外的动物保护组织需要更多的沟通与合作,以普及消费时代的道德理念。     

网络时代加强高校思想政治教育工作初探

加强网络文化建设以占领网络思想政治工作阵地，建立高素质的高校思想政治教育师资队伍，加强大学生的网络道德和网络伦理教育，以开创网络时代高校思想政治教育工作的新局面。     

动保力量整合的可贵尝试

在人与自然的关系中,人与动物的关系是非常重要一方面。在一定程度上,人对动物的态度是人对自然态度的一个缩影。而随着人们环保意识的逐步强化,我们不仅需要整合各界动物保护力量,更需要深入思考"我们应该如何对待动物,以及我们为什么保护动物"。     

生态体验下的动物福利教育

生态体验是动物福利教育的本体,而生态体验下动物福利教育的基本理念是：秉持三重生态圆融互摄核心理念,追求人与动物和谐相处、互惠共生的核心理念,凸显“尊重、感恩、责任、善待”的道德价值观,以体验的方式实施和推进动物福利教育实践。     

向动物学习

我们有时会听到一句这样的骂人话:禽兽不如!是,人是这世上主宰一切的万物之灵,怎能与动物为伍?可见此话骂得是何等狠毒。但是我要说,此话骂得并不公平。因为,动物有许多方面是值得我们人类学习的,在教育子女方面,就堪为我们的榜样。     

动物权利思想历史考察

动物权利问题是西方环境伦理学中的一个重要问题,本文根据人类历史过程中自然观的变化及生产方式的变化对人与动物关系的影响,把动物权利思想观念分为古代朴素的动物权利思想、近代动物权利思想以及现代动物权利观三种理论形态.     

因素食而诞生的动物伦理学名著

彼得·辛格和汤姆·雷根都是素食者,他们从关注素食问题开始,走上了动物伦理学的研究道路,创立了关于动物解放和动物权利的学说。作为动物伦理学领域的权威学者,二者的研究进路有很大不同,辛格是效用主义者,雷根是权利论者,但他们都主张一种比较彻底的动物保护观,主张动物与人类平等,反对为了人类的贪欲和利益而伤害动物。他们的观点给了动物保护以强大的推动力。     

Fundamental Moral Attitudes to Animals and Their Role in Judgment: An Empirical Model to Describe Fundamental Moral Attitudes to Animals and Their Role in Judgment on the Culling of Healthy Animals During an Animal Disease Epidemic

In this paper, we present and defend the theoretical framework of an empirical model to describe people’s fundamental moral attitudes (FMAs) to animals, the stratification of FMAs in society and the role of FMAs in judgment on the culling of healthy animals in an animal disease epidemic. We used philosophical animal ethics theories to understand the moral basis of FMA convictions. Moreover, these theories provide us with a moral language for communication between animal ethics, FMAs, and public debates. We defend that FMA is a two-layered concept. The first layer consists of deeply felt convictions about animals. The second layer consists of convictions derived from the first layer to serve as arguments in a debate on animal issues. In a debate, the latter convictions are variable, depending on the animal issue in a specific context, time, and place. This variability facilitates finding common ground in an animal issue between actors with opposing convictions.     

Animal Agriculture: Symbiosis, Culture, or Ethical Conflict?

Several writers on animal ethics defend the abolition of most or all animal agriculture, which they consider an unethical exploitation of sentient non-human animals. However, animal agriculture can also be seen as a co-evolution over thousands of years, that has affected biology and behavior on the one hand, and quality of life of humans and domestic animals on the other. Furthermore, animals are important in sustainable agriculture. They can increase efficiency by their ability to transform materials unsuitable for human consumption and by grazing areas that would be difficult to harvest otherwise. Grazing of natural pastures is essential for the pastoral landscape, an important habitat for wild flora and fauna and much valued by humans for its aesthetic value. Thus it seems that the environment gains substantially when animals are included in sustainable agricultural systems. But what about the animals themselves? Objections against animal agriculture often refer to the disrespect for animals’ lives, integrity, and welfare in present intensive animal production systems. Of the three issues at stake, neither integrity nor animal welfare need in principle be violated in carefully designed animal husbandry systems. The main ethical conflict seems to lie in the killing of animals, which is inevitable if the system is to deliver animal products. In this paper, we present the benefits and costs to humans and animals of including animals in sustainable agriculture, and discuss how to address some of the ethical issues involved.     

The Price of Responsibility: Ethics of Animal Husbandry in a Time of Climate Change

This paper examines the challenges that climate change raises for animal agriculture and discusses the contributions that may come from a virtue ethics based approach. Two scenarios of the future role of animals in farming are set forth and discussed in terms of their ethical implications. The paper argues that when trying to tackle both climate and animal welfare issues in farming, proposals that call for a reorientation of our ethics and technology must first and foremost consider the values that drive current livestock production. This paper sets forth and discusses the broader societal values implicit in livestock production. We suggest that a virtues approach would improve our thinking and practice regarding animal agriculture, facilitating a move from livestock production to animal husbandry. This change in animal agriculture in a time of climate change would stress virtues such as attentiveness, responsibility, competence, and responsiveness as central elements in any mitigation or adaptation program.     

Deliberating Animal Values: a Pragmatic—Pluralistic Approach to Animal Ethics

Debates in animal ethics are largely characterized by ethical monism, the search for a single, timeless, and essential trait in which the moral standing of animals can be grounded. In this paper, we argue that a monistic approach towards animal ethics hampers and oversimplifies the moral debate. The value pluralism present in our contemporary societies requires a more open and flexible approach to moral inquiry. This paper advocates the turn to a pragmatic, pluralistic approach to animal ethics. It contributes to the development of such an approach in two ways. It offers a pragmatist critique of ethical monism in animal ethics and presents the results of a qualitative study into the value diversity present in the different ways of thinking about animals in the Netherlands. Carefully arranged group discussions resulted in the reconstruction of four distinctive moral value frameworks that may serve as instruments in the future process of moral inquiry and deliberation in the reflection on animal use.     

Animal Rearing as a Contract?

Can animals, and especially cattle, be the subject ofmoral concern? Should we care about their well-being?Two competing ethical theories have addressed suchissues so far. A utilitarian theory which, inBentham's wake, extends moral consideration to everysentient being, and a theory of the rights orinterests of animals which follows Feinberg'sconceptions. This includes various positions rangingfrom the most radical (about animal liberation) tomore moderate ones (concerned with the well-being ofanimals). Notwithstanding their diversity, theseconceptions share some common flaws. First, as anextension of primarily anthropocentric theories (aboututility or rights) they still participate in the flawsof the original setting. Second, extending them tonon-human beings raises the problem of the borderwhich is to be drawn between what can be included inthe purview of moral consideration and what is leftoutside. Third, such theories are not able to distinguishbetween an ethics of wildlife and an ethics ofdomestic life, which too often leads to preposterousstatements. We would like to argue (i) that we should distinguishbetween environmental ethics (concerned withpopulations, species, biotic communities) and animalethics (where animals are taken into consideration individually);(ii) that individualist animal ethics are not relevantfor animal rearing; (iii) that animal rearing is a hierarchicalrelationship which rules are to be found in the fiction of a domesticcontract. Hence, we would like to construct a new conception ofthe ethics of the relation between men and the cattlethey breed based on the idea of a domestic contract.Our main assumption is Mary Midgleys's anthropologicalassumption, according to which human communities,since the Neolithic age, have always included variousanimals, so that relations of sociability have alwaysexisted between human beings and animals within thedomestic community (a mixed community). In order tospecify the hierarchical and non-egalitarian, butinclusive reciprocal obligations and relations insidesuch a community, we will elaborate on the notion ofa ``domestic contract'', an implicitly assumedidea traced back to Lucretius and whichwe will follow up to the physiocrats and Adam Smith.We will show that such an idea relies upon theassumption of communication between cattle farmer andanimals, of shared experience and exchanges betweenthe two parties. We will then show how modern factory,or battery animal farming, can be seen as unilaterallybreaking this domestic contract, forsaking ourduties towards domestic animals.     

Animal Care Ethics, ANZCCART, and Public Perceptions of Animal Use Ethics

The public attitude to animal use in Australia and New Zealandcan be inferred from survey results and political activity. The publicis concerned about the rights of animals as far as any uses causing painare concerned, but takes a more utilitarian view of the taking of lifewhere no suffering is involved. Many of the participants in two recentANZCCART conferences fall short in their knowledge of and attitudetoward these concerns. Animal welfare legislation and standards need tobe reformed so that painful animal use is eliminated, even if economicgrowth suffers as a result.     

Zoo Animal Welfare

The continuing existence of zoos and their good purposes such as conservation, science, education, and recreation, can be ethically justified only if zoos guarantee the welfare of their animals. The usual criteria for measuring animal welfare in zoos are physical health, long life, and reproduction. This paper looks at these criteria and finds them insufficient. Additional criteria are submitted to expand the range of welfare considerations: natural and abnormal behavior; freedom and choice; and dignity. All these criteria should play a role in analyzing zoo animal welfare and interests but dignity has the overriding part because it impacts on both animal and human interests.     

Does Organic Farming Face Distinctive Livestock Welfare Issues? – A Conceptual Analysis

The recent development and growth oforganic livestock farming and the relateddevelopment of national and internationalregulations has fueled discussions amongscientists and philosophers concerning theproper conceptualization of animal welfare.These discussions on livestock welfare inorganic farming draw on the conventionaldiscussions and disputes on animal welfare thatinvolve issues such as different definitions ofwelfare (clinical health, absence of suffering,sum of positive and negative experiences,etc.), the possibility for objective measuresof animal welfare, and the acceptable level ofwelfare. It seems clear that livestock welfareis a value-laden concept and that animalwelfare science cannot be made independent ofquestions of values and ethics. The questioninvestigated here is whether those values thatunderpin organic farming, in particular, alsoaffect the interpretation of livestock welfare,and, if so, how. While some of the issuesraised in connection with organic farming arerelatively uncontroversial, others are not. Theintroduction of organic farming values seems tointroduce new criteria for what counts as goodanimal welfare, as well as a different ethicalbasis for making moral decisions on welfare.Organic farming embodies distinctive systemicor communitarian ethical ideas and the organicvalues are connected to a systemic conceptionof nature, of agriculture, of the farm, and ofthe animal. The new criteria of welfare arerelated to concepts such as naturalness,harmony, integrity, and care. While the organicvalues overlap with those involved in theconventional discussion of animal welfare, someof them suggest a need to set new prioritiesand to re-conceptualize animal welfare – forexample, with respect to ``naturalness,' inrelation to the possibilities for expression ofnatural behavior and in relation to animalintegrity as a concept for organismic harmony.The organic perspective also seems to suggest awider range of solutions to welfare problemsthan changes in farm routines or operations onthe animals. The systemic solutions include thechoice and reproduction of suitable breeds,changes in the farm structure, and changes inthe larger production and consumption system – including consumer perceptions andpreferences. But the organic values may alsocall for sacrifices of individual welfare in aconventional sense in order to advance welfarefrom the perspective of organic farming.Whether this is good or bad cannot be decidedwithout entering into an inquiry and discussionof the values and ethics involved.