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Fellow Creatures Christine M. Korsgaard (Arthur Kingsley Porter Professor of Philosophy, Arthur Kingsley Porter Professor of Philosophy, Harvard University)

Fellow Creatures By Christine M. Korsgaard (Arthur Kingsley Porter Professor of Philosophy, Arthur Kingsley Porter Professor of Philosophy, Harvard University)

Summary

Christine M. Korsgaard presents a compelling new view of our moral relationships to the other animals. She offers challenging answers to such questions as: Are people superior to animals, and does it matter morally if we are? Is it all right for us to eat animals, experiment on them, make them work for us, and keep them as pets?

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Fellow Creatures Summary

Fellow Creatures: Our Obligations to the Other Animals by Christine M. Korsgaard (Arthur Kingsley Porter Professor of Philosophy, Arthur Kingsley Porter Professor of Philosophy, Harvard University)

Christine M. Korsgaard presents a compelling new view of humans' moral relationships to the other animals. She defends the claim that we are obligated to treat all sentient beings as what Kant called "ends-in-themselves". Drawing on a theory of the good derived from Aristotle, she offers an explanation of why animals are the sorts of beings for whom things can be good or bad. She then turns to Kant's argument for the value of humanity to show that rationality commits us to claiming the standing of ends-in-ourselves, in two senses. Kant argued that as autonomous beings, we claim to be ends-in-ourselves when we claim the standing to make laws for ourselves and each other. Korsgaard argues that as beings who have a good, we also claim to be ends-in-ourselves when we take the things that are good for us to be good absolutely and so worthy of pursuit. The first claim commits us to joining with other autonomous beings in relations of moral reciprocity. The second claim commits us to treating the good of every sentient creature as something of absolute importance. Korsgaard argues that human beings are not more important than the other animals, that our moral nature does not make us superior to the other animals, and that our unique capacities do not make us better off than the other animals. She criticizes the "marginal cases" argument and advances a new view of moral standing as attaching to the atemporal subjects of lives. She criticizes Kant's own view that our duties to animals are indirect, and offers a non-utilitarian account of the relation between pleasure and the good. She also addresses a number of directly practical questions: whether we have the right to eat animals, experiment on them, make them work for us and fight in our wars, and keep them as pets; and how to understand the wrong that we do when we cause a species to go extinct.

Fellow Creatures Reviews

...this book contributes to a new era for animals, based on yet another firm moral foundation. * Nathan Nobis, society & animals *
a clear statement by someone who has spent much of her life working on these themes, continually trying to strip away inessential details that might prevent us getting to the heart of the matter * Peter Godfrey-Smith, Aeon *
an interesting, well-argued book. It should be read by any philosopher who works on animal ethics. * Toby Svoboda, Environmental Values *
Christine Korsgaard has written an admirable book, accessible, cogently-argued, and thoughtful. She writes with bravery and humility, and perhaps most notably, with passion. It is evident that Korsgaard cares about the plight of animals, and yet the work is void of mawkish sentimentalism. All philosophers would benefit from a close reading; for any who are even remotely interested in animal ethics, reading Fellow Creatures is obligatory. . . . she is swimming against the tide. She is an outstanding swimmer, one of the most worthy animal advocates in the last half-century. . . . I strongly recommend reading this book. You and, I hope, your fellow creatures, will be better off for it. * Mark H. Bernstein, Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews *
[Korsgaard] is one of the preeminent contemporary scholars of Kantian moral theory, so this is a significant book that will need to be referenced by anyone working on these issues. It is a must have for any college or university library. * CHOICE *
... his book offers an important defense of the claim that nonhuman animals are ends in themselves and so have moral standing ... his is a significant book that will need to be referenced by anyone working on these issues. It is a must have for any college or university library. * M A Michael Austen, Choice *

About Christine M. Korsgaard (Arthur Kingsley Porter Professor of Philosophy, Arthur Kingsley Porter Professor of Philosophy, Harvard University)

Christine M. Korsgaard is Arthur Kingsley Porter Professor of Philosophy at Harvard University, where she has taught since 1991. She is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and a Corresponding Fellow of the British Academy in 2015. Before coming to teach at Harvard she held positions at Yale University, the University of California at Santa Barbara, and the University of Chicago, and visiting positions at Berkeley and UCLA. She is the author of The Sources of Normativity (1996), Creating the Kingdom of Ends (1996), The Constitution of Agency: Essays on Practical Reason and Moral Psychology (2008), and Self-Constitution: Agency, Identity, and Integrity (2009).

Table of Contents

Part One: Human Beings and the Other Animals 1: Are People More Important than the Other Animals? 2: Animal Selves and the Good 3: What's Different about Being Human? 4: The Case Against Human Superiority Part Two: Immanuel Kant and the Animals 5: Kant, Marginal Cases, and Moral Standing 6: Kant Against the Animals, Part 1: The Indirect Duty View 7: Kant Against the Animals, Part 2: Reciprocity and the Grounds of Obligation 8: A Kantian Case for Our Obligations to the Other Animals 9: The Role of Pleasure and Pain Part Three: Consequences 10: The Animal Antinomy, Part 1: Creation Ethics 11: Species, Communities, and Habitat Loss 12: The Animal Antinomy, Part 2: Abolition and Apartheid

Additional information

CIN0198753853G
9780198753858
0198753853
Fellow Creatures: Our Obligations to the Other Animals by Christine M. Korsgaard (Arthur Kingsley Porter Professor of Philosophy, Arthur Kingsley Porter Professor of Philosophy, Harvard University)
Used - Good
Hardback
Oxford University Press
2018-07-05
272
N/A
Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.
This is a used book - there is no escaping the fact it has been read by someone else and it will show signs of wear and previous use. Overall we expect it to be in good condition, but if you are not entirely satisfied please get in touch with us

Customer Reviews - Fellow Creatures