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Download Animals and Ethics 101: Thinking Critically About Animal Rights (Free)

in Books, Philosophy| March 20th, 2017 Leave a Comment

FYI: Nathan Nobis, a philosophy professor at Morehouse College in Atlanta, recently published Animals and Ethics 101: Thinking Critically About Animal Rights. A well-reviewed introduction to animal ethics, the textbook (created to accompany an online course on the same subject) evaluates the arguments for and against various uses of animals, including:

• Is it morally wrong to experiment on animals? Why or why not?
• Is it morally permissible to eat meat? Why or why not?
• Are we morally obligated to provide pets with veterinary care (and, if so, how much)? Why or why not?

You can buy the paperback on Amazon for $5.99 or Kindle for $2.99. But Nobis has also made the text available free online, under a Creative Commons license. You can download it in multiple formats here.

Ethics 101: Thinking Critically About Animal Rights will be added to our list of Free Textbooks.

Open Access TextBooks & Educational Resources

A library presentation on Open Educational Resources, such as Animals & Ethics 101.

Simple Arguments

Some very simple arguments, to form into syllogisms:

1. Her shoes are new so they must be expensive.

2. He must drive a sports car; after all, he is having a mid-life crisis.

3. They are very sad because they lost their dog.

4. We should help poor people because we can.

5. Abortion is wrong since fetuses are living.

What's the conclusion of each argument? What's the stated premise? What premise to you have to add to make the argument a syllogism? 

Answers are below the "fold," but don't look until you try yourself.

Carl Cohen's 'kind' arguments FOR animal rights and AGAINST human rights

I wrote this article in 2004:

"Carl Cohen's ‘kind’arguments FOR animal rights and AGAINST human rights." Journal of applied philosophy 21.1 (2004): 43-59.

An updated discussion of similar issues is available here:

"Tom Regan on ‘Kind’ Arguments Against Animal Rights and For Human Rights," in The Moral Rights of Animals, ed. Engel and Comstock (Lexington, 2016).

Full paper below: