Overview

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.

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9781350331662

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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 *

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 *

Author Information

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).

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