Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Missouri-Columbia, 2005. / The entire dissertation/thesis text is included in the research.pdf file; the official abstract appears in the short.pdf file (which also appears in the research.pdf); a non-technical general description, or public abstract, appears in the public.pdf file. Title from title screen of research.pdf file viewed on (May 25, 2006) Vita. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Toronto, 2004. / Adviser: Jack Miller.

2 ABSTRACT The thesis deals with ethics-relevant thinking and attitudes of workers at animal rescue stations, with the way they perceive nature as a phenomenon, and aims at discovering the various reasons that lead to the workers' choice for their job. Animal rescue stations are an example of protection of nature via voluntary work; thus, discovering the attitudes of workers at these facilities might lead to better understanding of their motivations for this job. The theoretical part of the thesis consists of three chapters. The first chapter introduces concepts of environmental ethics focused on ethical behaviour of humans towards animals. The second chapter discusses the approach to nature, presented in the book Contested Natures by Phil Macnaghten and John Urry, together with that of environmental psychology. The last chapter is focused on animal rescue stations themselves and their activities. The practical part of the work presents a research on the topics above that took place at animal rescue stations and was done by interviewing their staff. The data acquired from these interviews are set in a theoretical framework, accordingly elaborated on and further categorized. It can be seen how the statements of the respondents correlate with the concepts presented in the theoretical part. Key words: animal...