Beyond Animal Rights: A Feminist Caring Ethinc for the Treatment of Animals

Feminists have criticized contemporary animal advocacy theory for its reliance on natural rights doctrine and utilitarianism, which, they claim, have a masculine bias (rights and rules) that denies the morality of responsibility (caring). In eight scholarly essays, writers explore the ethics of care as applied to animals. To Deane Curtin, eco-feminism is the position that there are important connections between the domination of women and the domination of nature. Brian Luke finds that justice-based arguments for animal liberation have failed. On the treatment of companion and domestic animals, Rita Manning says the appropriate moral attitude is humility and care. Kenneth Shapiro profiles an animal rights activist; Josephine Donovan discusses sympathy as a basis for ethical treatment of animals; and Carol Adams looks beyond animal rights. Readers versed in feminist literature may find this volume a valuable addition to the genre; it may be too abstruse for others. (Jan.)