ABSTRACT

This engaging volume explores and defends the claim that misanthropy is a justified attitude towards humankind in the light of how human beings both compare with and treat animals. Reflection on differences between humans and animals helps to confirm the misanthropic verdict, while reflection on the moral and other failings manifest in our treatment of animals illuminates what is wrong with this treatment. Human failings, it is argued, are too entrenched to permit optimism about the future of animals, but ways are proposed in which individual people may accommodate to the truth of misanthropy through cultivating mindful, humble and compassionate relationships to animals. Drawing on both Eastern and Western philosophical traditions David E. Cooper offers an original and challenging approach to the complex field of animal ethics.

chapter 1|15 pages

Misanthropy

chapter 2|14 pages

Introducing Animals

chapter 3|17 pages

Human and Animal Lives

chapter 4|13 pages

Human Failings

chapter 5|17 pages

Animal Vices and Virtues

chapter 6|17 pages

Treatment of Animals

chapter 7|16 pages

‘A Fundamental Debacle’

chapter 8|14 pages

Responding to Misanthropy

chapter 9|18 pages

Being with Animals