Respecting Animals: A Balanced Approach to Our Relationship with Pets, Food, and Wildlife

by David S. Favre

Overview

A legal scholar and animal-rights expert argues for a practical approach to using animals respectfully. In this fresh approach to the animal rights debate, a legal scholar and expert on the humane treatment of animals argues for a middle ground between the extreme positions that often receive the most public attention. Professor Favre advocates an ethic of respectful use of animals, which finds it acceptable for humans to use animals within limited boundaries. He looks at various communities where humans and animals interact: homes, entertainment, commercial farms, local wildlife, and global wildlife. Balancing the interests of the animal against the interests of the human actor is considered in detail. The author examines the following questions, among others: Is it ethically acceptable to shoot your neighbor's dog for barking hours on end? Is it ethical for a zoo to keep a chimpanzee in an exhibit? Is it ethical to eat the meat of an animal? Finally, he discusses how good ethical outcomes can best be transported into the legal system. The author suggests the creation of a new legal category, living property, which would enhance the status of animals in the legal system. This thoughtful, well-argued, and elegantly written book provides readers with a comprehensive and practical context in which to consider their personal and social relationships with animals.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781633884250
Publisher:	Prometheus Books
Publication date:	06/19/2018
Pages:	272
Sales rank:	1,107,983
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

David S. Favre is a professor of law at Michigan State University College of Law. His books include the casebook Animal Law: Welfare, Interest, and Rights (2nd ed.), Animal Law and Dog Behavior, and International Trade in Endangered Species. He introduced the concept of "Living Property" which was developed in a number of law review articles over the past decade. He is the creator and editor in chief of the largest animal legal web resource, www.animallaw.info. He was a founding officer of the Animal Legal Defense Fund for 22 years, serving as president of the board for the last two years. Presently he is a vice chair of the American Bar Association /TIPS Committee on Animal Law and in 2012 was chair of the AALS Animal Law Committee. He has received a lifetime achievement award from the Animal Legal Defense Fund, the America Bar Association Animal Law Section, and the American Association of Law Schools, Animal Law Section. Besides being a professor of law, he served as the dean of the College of Law for four years over two periods of time.

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Introduction
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Excerpted from "Respecting Animals"
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Copyright © 2018 David S. Favre.
Excerpted by permission of Prometheus Books.
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Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

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Table of Contents

Foreword Bernard E. Rollin, author of A New Basis for Animal Ethics 13

Acknowledgments 17

Introduction 19

Chapter 1 An Ethical Duty toward Animals 27

Chapter 2 The Fork in the Road: The Use of Beings 35

Chapter 3 Respectful Use 43

A Postscript 55

Chapter 4 The Property Status 57

The Jet Discussion 60

Interlude: Fence Row Farm 63

Chapter 5 Introduction to Communities 67

Two New Concepts 71

The Frog Pond 73

Chapter 6 Human Communities 77

Chapter 7 Human Communities with Animals 85

The Community of Companions (of Family) 86

Community with Working Animals 88

Community with Local Wildlife 89

Community with Global Wildlife 93

Community with Industrial Agricultural Animals versus Historical Agricultural Animals 95

The Community of Our Knowledge Seekers of Self and Society 97

Negative Communities 98

The Community of Genetic Creation 99

Chapter 8 We All Have Interests 103

If Something Is Alive, It Has interests 103

The Source of Biological Self-Interest 104

Human Interest 106

Community Interest 108

Environmental Interests 109

Conflicts of Interests between Humans 109

Conflicts of Interests between Humans and Animals 110

Chapter 9 Pause and Refocus 115

The Cat and the Cactus 116

Chapter 10 The Process of Making Judgments 119

How We Think 120

The Logical versus the Holist 121

Our Brains in Operation 123

Holistic Judgments within the Law 130

Judgments and Information 133

Limits of Logic 134

Habit versus Judgment 135

Chapter 11 Values 139

The Environment 143

Chapter 12 Ethical Judgments about Animals 149

Making Private Judgments 149

Making Collective Judgments 152

Impact of Money 156

Information 158

Weighing the Interests 159

The Ethics of Purchasing 161

Chapter 13 We Are the Gods of Old 165

How Has This Happened? 166

Humans as the Information Species 168

Professor Xybery Lecture 170

The Duties of the Gods 178

Being a Civitist 179

The Deer Park Problem 181

Individual Life 183

The DNA within Life 183

Ethical Context for Genetic Creation of New Animals 185

Chapter 14 Dealing with Death 189

A Few Difficult Deaths 190

End- of-Life Decisions 194

Zoo Question 195

Local Wildlife Question 196

The Act versus the Motivation for the Act 196

Death by Plant Production 198

The Death of Farm Animals in a Pasture-Based System 200

A Conversation with Karen 204

Death of Animals in Science and Testing Products 209

A Sad Sheep Story 211

Death by Hunter 211

The Airplane Food Dilemma 213

Chapter 15 Do Ethics Operate Within Or Upon Global Corporations And Governments? 215

The Nature of Large Corporations 217

Corporate Motivation 220

Rules of Capitalism 221

Corporate Leadership 223

Code of Responsibility for Animal-Owning Corporations 230

Chapter 16 A Foray into the Law 233

Legal Personality 234

Living Property: Animalhood 238

Wills and Trust 240

Human Divorce 241

Equitable Self-Ownership 242

What about Wild Animals? 243

Welfare versus Rights 246

Postscript: Final Thoughts 251

Notes 255

Index 265

Editorial Reviews

""A reasoned approach to the ethical use of animals that weaves a path between the radicals on both sides of many animal ethics issues.” —Temple Grandin, author, Animals Make Us Human “A refreshing and practical perspective on how we should treat the creatures with which we share our world. Combining moral philosophy, logic, and law with personal stories and even poetry, noted legal scholar David S. Favre raises the big questions and offers some surprising answers.” —Hal Herzog, author of Some We Love, Some We Hate, Some We Eat: Why It’s So Hard to Think Straight about Animals “Favre is one of the nation’s leading thinkers on animal rights. What sets him apart is his attempt to find a middle ground between the extreme positions of no rights for animals and a full ‘personhood’ status. I found his decades of work incredibly informative in preparing my own book on the evolving social and legal status of cats and dogs, and I think his book will become a must-read for anyone interested in the evolving status of animals in society.” —David Grimm, PhD, online news editor at Science and author of Citizen Canine: Our Evolving Relationship with Cats and Dogs “Building on four decades of legal and ethical scholarship, in Respecting Animals, Favre carefully constructs a middle way between the exploitation of animals and abolition of their use. While so many within the animal movement scream for attention, Favre provides a quieter and thoughtful vision of the way forward, advocating for the creation of positive ethical obligations.” —Joyce Tischler, founder and general counsel, Animal Legal Defense Fund “Today’s discussions surrounding humans’ treatment of animals, especially for food, is fraught with polarized accusations and counter-accusations. Favre’s is a calm, informed, and necessary voice, shedding much light, rather than heat, on this important and timely subject.” —Nicolette Hahn Niman, author, Righteous Porkchop and Defending Beef “The beauty and challenge of this excellent volume is that the arguments found here about ethics and animals do not fit neatly into the categories of either free use of animals or total abolition of their use. Therefore, Favre’s journey does not permit the reader to utilize ready-made definitions, assumptions, goals, and conclusions as he explores the personal, legal, and ethical implications of ‘living property.’ Even central concepts such as ‘use,’ ‘community,’ and ‘respect’ take on important and expanded meaning.” —John P. Gluck, PhD, Professor Emeritus, University of New Mexico; faculty affiliate, Kennedy Institute of Ethics, Georgetown University; and author, Voracious Science and Vulnerable Animals: A Primate Scientist’s Ethical Journey “In an ever more polarized debate over different forms of animal use, Favre carves out an important middle position that he calls ‘respectful use.’ Adopting a highly engaging and accessible style, he defends the morally legitimate use of animals in contexts such as companionship and small-scale farming, developing these ideas in tandem with his influential related idea of animals as ‘living property.’” —Peter Sandøe, professor of bioethics, University of Copenhagen

From the Publisher

05/01/2018
Favre (law, Michigan State Univ.; Animal Law: Welfare, Interests, and Rights; "Animals as Living Property," The Oxford Handbook of Animal Studies) has authored a number of works about animal welfare and the law, encompassing topics related to companion animals, wildlife, and the treatment of animals in scientific testing. Widely cited on these subjects, he serves on the Advisory Council of the Animal Legal Defense Fund. In this book, Favre explores how humans can respect animals, weighing animals' interests against those of the humans who use them for food, entertainment, companionship, and more. In recognizing the strong views of animal rights advocates and the powerful economic motivations of corporations (e.g., pharmaceutical companies, factory farming), Favre seeks a middle ground, acknowledging that what is ethical to one person will not be ethical for all. For the most part, the author provides arguments for readers' consideration rather than prescriptions for ethical and legal actions. VERDICT With a tone and style more suited to academic audiences, this nuanced, philosophical investigation of human use of animals supplies new ways to think about our relationships with them, even for readers who are well informed about the subject.—Meagan Storey, Virginia Beach

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