ABSTRACT
This chapter examines nonviolence in regard to human-animal relations through the prisms of worldview, normative ethics, and personal choices. It presents a few select examples of human-animal relations in Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism. The chapter considers Gandhi’s sources and influences. It points toward sources in Western religion, including Adventists and other nonviolent Christianities. The chapter focuses on the convergence of worldviews that is helping a new global ethic of nonviolence to emerge in regard to animals and their relationship with the human order. It also focuses on the status of animals as objects of utilitarian use in the mainstream of Western civilization. The chapter explores how the view toward animals in Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism has been shaped by a worldview, a metaphysics that sees continuity between human experience and the experience of nonhuman animals.
