How do we understand the dignity and value of non-human animals? Leading philosophers, ethnologists and writers contribute to this interdisciplinary and wide-ranging account of animal dignity.
With a foreword by world-leading primatologist, Dr. Jane Goodall DBE, essays collected here make the case for applying the concept of dignity beyond its usual humanist framework and introduce readers to animal dignity in history, law, science, philosophy, and literature. United in recognizing the dignity of non-human animals, these essays suggest how we might ensure a flourishing environment in times of ecological destruction and climate breakdown. Historians, primatologists, philosophers, novelists and artists approach the concept of animal dignity creatively, offering interpretations that are academically rigorous, alongside ones that are personal and literary. This variety of engagement knits together a fruitful way forward for progressive relations between all species.
Edited by:
Melanie Challenger
Imprint: Bloomsbury Academic
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Dimensions:
Height: 216mm,
Width: 138mm,
ISBN: 9781350331662
ISBN 10: 135033166X
Pages: 296
Publication Date: 30 November 2023
Audience:
Professional and scholarly
,
Undergraduate
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active
List of Figures List of Contributors Foreword, Memories of Greybeard, Dame Jane Goodall Acknowledgements Introduction Prelude I: Frogs, Simon Rich (Independent Scholar, USA) Laughing with Dignity, Melanie Challenger (Nuffield Council on Bioethics and RSPCA, UK) Part I. Defining the Concept. What is Dignity? Prelude II: 33,000 Birds, Jonathan Safran Foer (Independent Scholar, USA) 1. A Place for Animals? Rethinking the history of human dignity, Remy Debes (University of Memphis, USA) 2. Philosophical Approaches to Dignity, and their Applicability to Non-human Animals, Suzanne Killmister (Monash University, Australia) Part II. Approaches to Dignity. What are the Grounds of Animal Dignity? Prelude III: Ways of Seeing an Octopus, Sy Montgomery (Independent Scholar, USA) 3. On Standing, Harriet Ritvo (MIT, USA) 4. Wild Dignity, Lori Gruen (Wesleyan University in Middletown, USA) 5. Dignity in Dogs, Alexandra Horowitz (Barnard College, USA) 6. The Heart of the Scorpion, Kathleen Dean Moore (Oregon State University, USA) 7. An Old Joy: Ways of Attending to Dignity, Deborah Slicer (University of Montana, USA) 8. Dignity in their World, Danielle Celermajer (University of Sydney, Australia) Part III. Forms of Dignity. Are There Separate Cultural Conceptions Of Animal Dignity? Prelude IV: Lead Me into Thy Nest, Nelson Bukamba (Gorilla Doctors, Uganda) 9. Killing Dogs in Zambia: Prospects for ubuntu, Julius Kapembwa (University of Zambia, Zambia) 10. Let all Beings Be happy: Dignity and Prana, the vital force in Indian thought, Meera Baindur (RV University, Bangalore, India) 11. Two-Eyed Seeing: Animal dignity through Indigenous and Western lenses, Cristina Eisenberg (Oregon State University, USA) and Michael Paul Nelson (Oregon State University, USA) 12. Dignity in Non-humans: A theological perspective, Michael Reiss (University College London, UK) Part IV. Dignity in Practice. What Work Can Animal Dignity Do? Prelude V: The Last Safe Habitat, Craig Santos Perez (University of Hawai?i at Manoa, USA) Losing 13. A Capabilities Approach to Dignity, Martha Nussbaum , Martha Nussbaum (University of Chicago, USA) 14. Beyond Animal Welfare, Eva Bernet Kempers (University of Antwerp, Belgium) 15. Animal Dignity as More-Than-Welfarism, Visa Kurki (University of Helsinki, Finland) 16. Dignity: A Concept for All Species, Lori Marino (The Kimmela Center for Scholarship-based Animal Advocacy, USA) 17. Four Legs Good, Three Legs Bad? An Aesthetics of Animal Dignity, Samantha Hurn (University of Exeter, UK) 18. Looking Up to Animals and Other Beings: What the fishes taught us, Becca Franks (New York University, USA), Monica Gagliano (Southern Cross University, Australia), Barbara Smuts (University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, USA), and Christine Webb (Harvard University, USA) 19. Dignity, Indignity, and the Education of Biologists, David George Haskell (Sewanee: The University of the South, USA) Afterthoughts Prelude VI: Characteristics of Life, Camille Dungy (Colorado State University, USA) Ways Forward, Melanie Challenger (Nuffield Council on Bioethics and RSPCA, UK) Index
Melanie Challenger is a writer, researcher and broadcaster on environmental history and philosophy of science, Deputy Co-Chair of the Nuffield Council on Bioethics, and a Vice President of the RSPCA, UK. Her books include How to Be Animal: What it Means to Be Human (2021).
Reviews for Animal Dignity: Philosophical Reflections on Non-Human Existence
How best to think about and do justice to the dignity of animals? As Challenger’s superb collection demonstrates, this task involves not simply extending traditional notions of dignity to animals but also considering how the lives and deaths of animals themselves might challenge us to conceive of dignity in new and unanticipated ways. * Matthew Calarco, Professor of Philosophy, California State University, USA * Melanie Challenger has earned a place as an essential, foundational thinker on topics of animal capacity for experiencing life and the world, and in calling us to consider our appropriate response to the beings cohabiting this planet. In this consideration of dignity and its ramifications and imperatives, Challenger has gathered the best, brightest, highest, and deepest other thinkers and convened them for us between the covers of this daring and pathfinding book. * Carl Safina, Ecologist and Author of books including Alfie and Me (2023), USA * Animal Dignity is a bold, modern effort to ascribe to non-human beings a concept that heretofore has eluded them. These forceful essays also awakened me to the idea when we deny other animals their dignity, we corrupt our own. * Jonathan Balcombe, Ethologist and Author of What a Fish Knows (2016) and Super Fly (2020), Canada *
