Living with Animals

Our relationship with other animal species has a long and complex history.  Our history ha been deeply affected by our relationship with various species--typically as objects of use.  Horses and other beasts of burden enabled many accomplishments that would have been beyond the reach of unassisted human beingw.  We have formed complex relationships with other species, such as dogs, that are central to our identity in many cases.  And, of course, we have made animals suffer and die--usually for food, sometimes merely for our own entertainment. 

We have also begun to realize that some species of animals are more like us than we previously realized.  Our growing appreciation of both animal intelligence and the complex interplay of animal emotions have contributed to an on-going reassessment of our relationships with those species. 

The new edition of Contemporary Moral Issues seeks to bring more clearly into focus the complexity of these relartionships and, in particular, to explore the ways in which animals are much richer and complex than many of us realize--and to explore the moral implications of this evolving understanding of the cognitive and emotional complexity of the lives of animals.