This thesis examines questions concerning the place of animals within our moral thought. In particular it is an investigation of the rationale behind extending our ethical systems to encompass the inclusion of animals. The thesis begins with a presentation of a general framework defining rights and their relationship to obligations. It then includes an assessment of whether or not animals, according to the general framework, can properly be called rights bearers. In order to do this, the questions of whether or not animals have value independent of their value to human beings and whether or not animals have interests are examined. / Though the thesis concerns itself with animals it is not merely an examination of animal rights. In order to investigate fully the place of animals within our moral thought, many concepts which are central to ethics such as "rights", "equality", "value", and "affinity" are examined. The thesis concludes with the implications its findings have on human actions.

Thesis (M.A.)--Villanova University, 2009. / Political Science Dept. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Th. M.)--Regent College, 2000. / Abstract and vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 125-129).

Thesis (Th. M.)--Regent College, 2000. / Abstract and vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 125-129).

Thesis (Th. M.)--Regent College, 2000. / Abstract and vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 125-129).

The contemporary animal rights movement, in extending moral consideration to nonhuman animals, has in diverse ways already contributed to an expansion of the boundaries of the ethical community and what that may constitute. However, many environmentalists argue there is a failure within animal ethics to adequately address wider animal advocacy concerns, and that consideration of broader ecosystemic challenges elicit at best moot response from mainstream animal rights advocates. In taking an individualistically based biocentric approach, the essential aims of animal ethics can, I argue, be readily embraced into a theory of value that can address this wider remit. In aligning the applicability of a developed form of biocentric individualism with the ethical underpinning of notions of the 'illegitimacy of animal use' extrapolated from normative animal advocacy perspectives, my proposition is that these shortcomings can be ameliorated and that such an alignment forms a complimentary and useful fusion. Biocentrism as a value theory asks for moral considerability to be centred upon a respect for individual nonhuman (and human) life and the possession/continuation of a flourishing individual life - neither of which, I contend, is at odds with the essential spirit of animal ethics. In this sense, I submit that a developed biocentric individualism 'bridges the gap' between animal ethics and environmental ethics.

The following research explores the growing stability of the relationship between the modern American animal rights and environmental movements in the aftermath of the 1960s counterculture. The movements have traditionally been considered by scholars in their separate contexts, because the movements had a tenuous and inconsistent relationship throughout their early histories. While the separate consideration of the movements may have been more appropriate for research prior to the 1960s, the movements became increasingly intertwined through various influences of the counterculture. The counterculture introduced new philosophies, utilitarianism and deep ecology, to the movements that united them through their mutual distaste for anthropocentrism and industrialization. The counterculture also provided animal rights and environmental advocates with alternative lifestyles with which to promote their goals and affect real change. The movements began to most clearly unite in their mutual campaigns against the intensive animal farming industry, more controversially and widely known as “factory farming.” Both movements utilized the philosophies introduced to their movements to argue against the moral ills of the industry. Hence, they identified a need to actively combat the effects of the meat industry and have since advocated a widespread adoption of the vegetarian lifestyle among the American public.

The purpose of this action research project was to develop and implement in a sixth grade class, a unit focusing on animals. It was the present researcher’s belief that by exposing children to the problems concerning animals this exposure would in turn develop more sympathetic attitudes toward animals. With this change of attitude and awareness, as well as the thoughtful production of possible solutions, there is hope for the animal, his kingdom, and our own survival and preservation.

In this dissertation I illustrate the existence of anthropocentric social and legal configurations that are maintained through the embodiment of a belief system in which animals occupy a space as sacrificial beings, and philosophically examine and call into question the way in which we relate to animals within these schemata of domination. These sacrificial structures or arrangements contain animals in an identity which marks them as Other and I subsequently call for a problematisation and destabilisation of these structures. I employ a critical approach that seeks to move beyond the traditional rights-based approach that has come to dominate animal liberation discourse. Such an approach emphasises the significance of deconstruction for animal ethics and highlights the way in which the animal is subjected to marginalisation within anthropocentric schemata of domination. From this perspective, I argue that we need a deconstruction and ensuing displacement of the human (subject) as phallogocentric structure and that we need to embrace a mode of being that facilitates the development of an ethical relation to the animal Other. To this end, I advance veganism as a form of deconstruction and ethical way of being that allows us to criticise and resist repression of the animal Other. I also contemplate animal subjugation as a relation to the law and examine the ideological underpinnings of animal welfare theory and animal rights theory, the two most prominent theories aimed at transforming the human-animal relation. I proceed to critically engage with the philosophical presuppositions of animal rights theory as a possible foundation for animal liberation by addressing, like others have done before me, the historical and theoretical gaps of rights theory. I argue that animal rights theory invokes dichotomies and rigid identities that replicate and perpetuate anthropocentric relations of subordination by (paradoxically) confirming a certain interpretation of the human subject that lies at the very core of animal subjugation. I ultimately argue that such an approach must be rejected if we are to hold open the possibility of recalibrating the animal's status as sacrificial being. / Dissertation (LLM)--University of Pretoria, 2012. / Jurisprudence / unrestricted

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