The research subject in the study is conducted on the members of Consumers¡¦ Foundation, and the study intends to realize their behavior intention of ethical consumerism. The study derives from the theory of planned behavior of Ajzen, by utilizing questionnaires and surveys to verify those pre-factor variables for the inclusion of personal aspect toward the behavior (AT), subject norm (SN), and perceived behavior control (PBC), and those post-factor variables are identified by personal behavior intention of ethical consumerism. Ultimately statistical analysis is performed based on information obtained from the survey. 75 copies of valid questionnaires are acquired from those 100 published, among them 23 copies from males (30.7%) and 52 from female (69.3%) in the study. The statistical analysis finds that the factors which affect the members to take action in behavior intention of ethical consumerism include ¡§subject norm (SN, £]=0.471)¡¨, ¡§attitude toward the behavior (AT, £]=0.454)¡¨, and ¡§perceived behavior control (PBC, £]=0.387)¡¨ and that subject norm being the most influential. Furthermore, the result also finds the participants agree on the following conclusions: 1. Ethical consumerism manifests to be most effective in minimizing the damage to the natural environment. 2. Organizations of consumer protection concur on ethical consumerism and it is executed based on their opinions and inputs. 3. Relevant information related to ethical consumerism can be difficult to acquire; therefore, the key factor is rather informational rather than financial. 4. Information on ethical consumerism is obtainable from organization of consumer protection, magazines, periodicals and experts. Nevertheless, 11.7% of the surveyed participants are unfamiliar with the terminology and practice. 5. The anticipation of willingness to adopt ethical consumerism will elevate.

The city of Palitana, India, has become the first region known to legally install de facto meat bans, essentially making Palitana a vegetarian city by law. These legal steps seem to be the direct result of social pressure put on local legislators in the form of a mass hunger strike performed by local Jain monks. This thesis is aimed at discussing the background of this case, its connections to a broader general discussion of moral and ethical vegetarianism, and arguments in favor of and against the legal installment of a meat ban in the Palitana case. It is concluded that although the meat ban is ideologically and theoretically speaking ethically justifiable and defensible it is in practice, at least in its current form, not ethically desirable.

Despite growing academic interest in the human–animal relationship, little research has been directed toward the political regulation of animal treatment. Even less attention has been accorded to the emergence of the long dominant paradigm in this policy area, namely, the ideology of animal welfare. This book attempts to address this gap by chronicling the early history of animal politics in Sweden with the aim of producing a critical, deconstructive genealogy of animal cruelty and animal welfare. The study ranges from the first political debates about animal cruelty in 1844 to the institution of Sweden’s first comprehensive animal protection act in 1944. Taking a post-Marxist and psychoanalytically informed approach to discourse analysis, the study focuses on how the “problem” of animal cruelty was articulated in the parliamentary debates and government documents throughout the period: What was the problem of animal (mis)treatment represented to be? What kinds of animal (ab)use were rendered uncontroversial? What kind of affective investments and ideological fantasies underpinned these discursive constructions, and how did the problematizations change over time? The book contains six empirical chapters that deal with the most important legal revisions in the period as well as the parallel debates about animal experimentation and slaughter. Two major discursive regimes—an early “anti-cruelty regime” and a later “animal welfare regime”—are identified in the material, and the transition between them is theorized in terms of discursive antagonism and dislocation. Focusing on the conflict between competing discursive logics, the study charts a century of ideological struggles through which our modern attitudes toward animals were born. The book also offers a critical reinterpretation of the success story of animal welfare. Against the assumption that modern animal welfarism progressively grew out of the preceding anti-cruelty regime, the central claim of this book is that the “welfarist turn” that took place in the 1930s and 1940s also functioned to re-entrench society’s speciesist values and de-problematize the exploitation of animals for human purposes.

Tiriamojo darbo tikslas - išanalizuoti gyvūnų teises filosofinių ir socialinių diskursų kontekste, pagrindžiant jas kaip antropocentrinės tradicijos kritikos išraišką. Tyrimo eigoje paaiškėjo, kad gyvūnų teisių teorinę koncepciją galima skirti į dvi kryptis: gyvūnų gerovė ir gyvūnų teisės. Gyvūnų gerovės kryptis reikalauja humaniškesnio elgesio su gyvūnais praktikos, tuo tarpu gyvūnų teisių ideologija reikalauja gyvūnams prigimtinių teisių: į gyvybę ir į laisvę. Praktinis šių koncepcijų įgyvendinimas globaliu mastu prasidėjo tik prieš kelis šimtmečius ir šiandiena tebėra aktualus. Vis didėjantis vegetarų, judėjimų už gyvūnų teises pasaulyje skaičius rodo efektyvią tokių tarptautinių organizacijų kaip PETA prevencinę ir švietėjišką misiją kelti žmonių sąmoningumą ir ieškoti gyvūnų išnaudojimo problemų sprendimo būdų. Deja, mūsų šalyje dar trūksta ir pilietinių iniciatyvų, ir valstybinių institucijų noro spręsti šias problemas. Todėl visuomenė vis dar skeptiškai vertina norą gyvūnams suteikti kokias nors teises, nes įsisenėjusi antropocentrinė pasaulio tvarka kai homo sapiens traktuodamas save kaip didžiausią vertybę ir iškeldamas virš visų kitų būtybių pavertė jas savo interesų tenkinimo šaltiniu. Todėl pagarba ne-žmogaus gyvybei, t.y. pripažinus gyvūno pagrindines prigimtines teises yra suspenduojamas žmogaus veiklos laukas ir gyvūnų eksploatacija trukusi ištisus amžius pripažįstama kaip neteisinga ir nemorali. / The purpose of this work is to analyze the rights of animals in the context of philosophical and sociological discussions and discourses, justifying these rights as an aspect of traditional anthropocentric critique. Research divides the theoretical concept of the rights of animals into two aspects: the “welfare of animals” and the “rights of animals”. The “welfare of animals” requires humane treatment of animals while the “rights of animals” are endowed at birth – to live and to be free. The practice of these two aspects globally started just a few centuries ago and is still relevant today. An increase in the number of vegetarians and the number of animal rights groups show the effectiveness of organizations such as PETA in their mission to educate, prevent animal cruelty, increase awareness, and to search for solutions against animal exploitation. Unfortunately, in our country there is still of shortage of initiative from citizens and willingness from government institutions to resolve animal exploitation issues. Society for the most part is still both skeptical and uncaring if animals have rights because of an ingrained anthropocentric hierarchical view where Homo sapiens esteem themselves with the highest value and raise themselves above other creatures rendering them merely as a resource to fulfill their needs. The honoring of all species with equal value would result in acknowledging animal rights endowed at birth. This in turn must call for a cessation of animal... [to full text]

In der Dissertation wird die Frage untersucht, ob es gerechtfertigt ist, Tieren Rechte zuzuschreiben. Die Theorie der Tierrechte des amerikanischen Philosophen Tom Regan zählt zu den bedeutendsten Ansätzen der Tierethik. Die Idee der Tierrechte findet jedoch nicht nur Befürworter, sondern auch Gegner. Es gibt vier Positionen, die man oft zur Argumentation gegen Tierrechte verwendet. Diese vier Positionen sind: (1) die Lehre der Tierautomaten von Descartes, (2) die Lehre der indirekten Pflichten von Kant, (3) der Kontraktualismus von John Rawls und (4) der Präferenz-Utilitarismus von Peter Singer. Aus der Diskussion mit diesen vier Positionen ergibt sich, dass keine von ihnen einer kritischen Prüfung standhalten kann. Somit ist die Möglichkeit, dass Tiere Rechte haben, nicht ausgeschlossen. Es gelingt Regan jedoch nicht, eine solide Grundlage für seine Theorie der Tierrechte zu bieten. Das bedeutet nicht, dass man auf die Idee der Tierrechte verzichten muss. Es wird gezeigt, dass man mit der Theorie der Gerechtigkeit im Sinne von Aristoteles moralische Rechte der Tiere begründen kann.

This thesis examines the emotion-based strategies employed by activists for the purpose of persuading individuals to participate directly in social movements. In particular, the emphasis is placed on getting people involved in ‘altruistic’ mobilisation; a descriptive utilised in order to distinguish these movements from previous research done in which a tangible material gain is presented as an inducement for participation. The thesis investigates the animal rights movement as it pertains to the issue of animal vivisection, and endeavours to identify the linguistic strategies employed by these activists with the goal of understanding how to facilitate ‘altruistic’ movements more generally. A textual analysis, which was consistent with Halliday’s (2004) systemic functional linguistics, was conducted on mobilisation pamphlets written by groups seeking support for either animal vivisection or animal rights. To this end, the analysis considered both the original movement (i.e. the anti-vivisection movement) and the counter-movement (i.e. the pro-research movement). The analysis considers the linguistic and visual strategies used by movement organisers in placing a moral onus on the reader to support the movement. From this analysis it is argued that the success of the animal rights movement stems from its ability to present graphic visual imagery that supplies evidential support for the claims being made in text. In addition, the animal rights texts have been able to frame the issue of animal vivisection in terms of emotional appeals designed to elicit feelings of moral outrage in the reader. It is posited that the animal rights movement has been able to effectively combine images and emotion-based linguistic strategies in order to facilitate the consideration of the issue in terms of an ‘ethical identity’ that helps generate moral outrage in the reader and thereby encouraging participation in the movement. / http://proxy.library.adelaide.edu.au/login?url= http://library.adelaide.edu.au/cgi-bin/Pwebrecon.cgi?BBID=1339773 / Thesis (Ph.D.) - University of Adelaide, School of Psychology and School of Humanities, 2008

Major animal welfare concerns existed about mortalities which occurred among the two million sheep transported by sea from Victoria, Australia to the Middle East each year during the 1980s. Research was undertaken to better define the extent of the mortalities, to establish the causes of death, and to prioritise and methodically unravel the underlying causes and risk factors involved. / An analysis of five years of existing industry data on 100 sheep shipments from Victoria (1984/85-1988/89) showed that mortality rates ranged mostly between 1% and 4%, with an average of around 2 ½%. These analyses also showed that sporadic episodes of sudden, high mortality occurred in association with hot and humid conditions in Middle Eastern waters. Heat stress was the presumptive diagnosis. While the occurrences were rare, they accounted for 9% of all deaths. / Observational studies undertaken on 8 research voyages with sheep to the Middle East showed that two other causes of death – an inanition syndrome and salmonellosis – accounted for the majority of all mortalities. Together, these two conditions caused around three quarters of all deaths. / The following risk factors associated with these two major diseases were identified: poor feeding behaviour in the assembly feedlot; physiologic stress at the point of arrival of sheep at the feedlot; and the physical location of sheep on board ships, whereby sheep in the upper tier of pens on every deck of a ship suffered substantially higher mortality rates than those in the lower tier. / Specific studies on the inanition syndrome showed that affected sheep were persistent poor consumers of the pelleted shipboard ration. A problem of severe weight loss was detected in an additional 5% of sheep, which appeared to be associated with inanition. Sheep with the syndrome still had an appetite for familiar food such as hay. An hypothesis was developed that the syndrome may be caused by the failure of affected sheep to recognise or accept the pelleted ration as food. / The epidemiology of salmonellosis outbreaks in the live sheep trade was elucidated. The outbreaks occurred as rise and fall epidemics starting with a large increase in faecal salmonella excretion from sheep immediately after their arrival in the assembly feedlot near the port of embarkation. Epidemics of mortalities from salmonellosis peaked one to two weeks later, then declined before the voyage was completed. Evidence was obtained that salmonella infections persisted in the feedlot environment between consecutive batches of sheep initiating new epidemics in subsequent consignments. / The differences in shipboard mortality rates between upper and lower tier pens (the “tier’ effect) was investigated with observational studies and a major field trial. An hypothesis that the effect was caused by higher light intensity in upper tier pens was tested and rejected. A remaining hypothesis is that the sheep’s fear of elevation in upper tier pens may be the cause. / Overall, the research has advanced knowledge substantially on animal health in the live sheep trade. The findings will influence the debate on animal welfare in the trade, they will be of practical use to the industry, and they have focussed research direction for the future.

Thesis (Doctoral)--Tierärztliche Hochschule Hannover, 1997. / Includes summaries in German, English and Spanish. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (M.M.S.), Memorial University of Newfoundland, 1999. / Includes: Appendix 1.1. Information package for holders of seal fishing licences / Fisheries and Oceans; Appendix 1.2. Atlantic seal harvest 1998 management plan; Appendix 1.3: Seal protection regulations. Bibliography: p. 53-55.

Thesis (Ph.D. (Education)) - Rhodes University, 2009.