Morality's Progress: Essays on Humans, Other Animals, and the Rest of Nature

by Dale Jamieson

Overview

Morality's Progress is the summation of nearly three decades of work by a leading figure in environmental ethics and bioethics. The twenty-two papers here are invigoratingly diverse, but together tell a unified story about various aspects of the morality of our relationships to animals and to nature. Jamieson's direct and accessible essays will convince sceptics that thinking about these relations offers great intellectual reward, and his work here sets a challenging, controversial agenda for the future.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780199251452
Publisher:	Oxford University Press
Publication date:	03/13/2003
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	400
Product dimensions:	9.20(w) x 6.20(h) x 0.80(d)

About the Author

Dale Jamieson is Professor of Environmental Studies and Philosophy and Affiliated Professor of Law at New York University.

Table of Contents

Preface
1. Morality's Progress
2. Is Applied Ethics Worth Doing?
3. Great Apes and the Human Resistance to Equality
4. Science, Knowledge, and Animal Minds
5. On Aims and Methods of Cognitive Ethology (with Marc Bekoff)
6. Cognitive Ethology at the End of Neuroscience
7. Pain and the Evolution of Behaviour
8. On the Ethics of the Use of Animals in Science (with Tom Regan)
9. Experimenting on Animals: A Reconsideration
10. Ethics and the Study of Animal Cognition (with Marc Bekoff)
11. Against Zoos
12. Zoos Revisited
13. Wild/Captive and Other Suspect Dualisms
14. Animal Liberation is an Environmental Ethic
15. Ecosystem Health: Some Preventive Medicine
16. Values in Nature
17. The City Around Us
18. Ethics, Public Policy, and Global Warming
19. Global Environmental Justicw
20. Discourse and Moral Responsibility in Biotechnical Communication
21. Sustainability and Beyond
22. Afterword: Child of the Sixties
Bibliography
Index

Editorial Reviews

"All of his articles...exhibit a commendable clarity of writing, close argumentation and an accessible style...Jamieson's book challenges both the philosopher and the non-philosopher to explore what is involved in a consistent set of beliefs about how humans relate to animals and nature. He often shows that this consistency takes us to conclusions that many of us will be uncomfortable with...Whether or not we fully agree with him on what constitutes morality's progress, his book certainly constitutes progress in our understanding of morality." —Peter G. Woolcock, Biology and Philosophy

"[T]he book is important because it is full of compassion and ethical insight. From a methodological point of view, the book is interesting both because of its readability and because it offers a window on how a 'philosophically naturalist, morally consequentialist, and metaethically constructivist' person might do practical ethics...Because Jamieson's book relies on his rich understanding of a wealth of literature, he is able to bring new arguments for animal liberation out of old texts that others may have misread or left unread... because of his blend of philosophical argument, insight, and good prose, Jamieson's volume is one to be enjoyed by students, philosophy professors, animal-rights activists, and thoughtful policymakers." —Kristin Shrader-Frechette, Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews

"Dale Jamieson has produced ground-breaking work over several decades...Jamieson's work constitutes a significant contribution to both the theory and practice of environmental ethics."—Hallvard Lillehammer, Studies in History and Philosophy of the Biological and Biomedical Sciences

"Jamieson's style of philosophical analysis...combines commonsense thinking and rigid philosophical analysis and is scientifically informed...his philosophical essays are exceptionally accessible to and interesting for philosophers and non-philosophers alike. In brief, what one may expect of environmental ethics at its best."—Markuu Oksanen, Environmental Values

From the Publisher