Animal Rights: Current Debates and New Directions

Rating:
Summary: Posner vs. Singer ... and the winner is ...?!
Review: It's nice to see someone else besides a vivisector try to defend to the status quo re. animal use. Here lawyer and judge Richard Posner tries to do this and his essay makes for more one of the more fun and invigorating sections of the book. Watching Peter Singer - in his commentary -- utterly *demolish* Posner's case against taking animals' interests seriously from both moral and legal perspectives is a great pleasure. Fans of critical thinking will love to see such a careful and precise thinker as Singer run Posner's sloppy and unclear reasoning (about Singer's and Wise's positions and arguments for them) through the analytical grinder. It's good moral philosophy and practical logic at its best!

As well as some many of the standard contributors to these discussions (not "debates," unfortunately since there's just too little from anti-animal perspectives out there), there are some thinkers here challenging common thinking and prejudice against animals that, as far as I know, have not published (much) on these issues before. These essays are especially worthwhile for those quite familiar with the literature.

I suspect that the book might be most valuable to people in legal contexts. For more purely philosophical/ethical contexts (e.g., courses), and for the general reader, there are probably other collections that serve those interests better.


Rating:
Summary: The New Standard
Review: Nussbaum and Sunstein have put together something very special. This book mixes the standard animal rights fare of Singer, Wise, and Francione with exciting new contributions by thinkers like Catharine MacKinnon, Richard Posner, as well as Sunstein and Nussbaum themselves. The book is well edited, with the various chapters flowing from issue to issue, and responding to each others arguments. The work explores not only what we own to animals, but also what practical approaches might deliver. The animal rights issue show not merely to be a "for or against" issue. Instead, we see a nuanced debate about the place of animals in theory and practice.

This book is essential to academic audiences, but should also prove accessible to general audiences. I suspect this will become a standard text for future animal rights courses.

Rating:
Summary: The New Standard
Review: Nussbaum and Sunstein have put together something very special. This book mixes the standard animal rights fare of Singer, Wise, and Francione with exciting new contributions by thinkers like Catharine MacKinnon, Richard Posner, as well as Sunstein and Nussbaum themselves. The book is well edited, with the various chapters flowing from issue to issue, and responding to each others arguments. The work explores not only what we own to animals, but also what practical approaches might deliver. The animal rights issue show not merely to be a "for or against" issue. Instead, we see a nuanced debate about the place of animals in theory and practice.

This book is essential to academic audiences, but should also prove accessible to general audiences. I suspect this will become a standard text for future animal rights courses.