Literature Review

This article examines the handling of snakes for ritual and religious purposes, namely a “tradition” that some groups consider “good to think”, as well as “necessary” for the survival and moral identification of the group itself. For at least four centuries, the inhabitants of Cocullo (a tiny village in the province of L’Aquila) have been capturing and handling non-venomous snakes in honor of Saint Dominic Abbot, who resided in the area in the eleventh century. The extra-ordinary tradition of using snakes in a Catholic rite has been handed down to the present day, with the difference that the snakes are not killed now but released in the same spot where they were captured, in compliance with a zoological monitoring plan (snakes are becoming extinct) sponsored by the Italian Ministry of the Environment. This is the result of a three-decade mediation managed by collaborative anthropologists. In this case, the macroscopic tensions between local traditions and animal rights are overcome by the moral obligation to respect the environment that originated the village’s ritual, and which is a cultural legacy of collective interest. From a cultural point of view, Cocullo represents a biodiversity and a cultural diversity where tradition helps safeguard nature. This path towards an anti-speciesism dimension embodies a true moral examination of humanity in an equal relationship with animals and plants. Here lies the main cultural device of humankind, so much so that all the others derive from it.

The paper focuses on the growing problem of human–wildlife conflicts that are reported in urbanized areas in the Republic of Poland. The twenty-first century is the period of increased synanthropization and synurbanization of animals. The presence of animals in urbanized areas has both advantages and disadvantages. On the one hand, contact with nature is considered beneficial for our psyche, but on the other hand wild animals damage property, participate in road collisions and sometimes pose threat to human health of life. Once the problems occur, citizens expect the authorities take some action. The aim of the paper is to present frequently conflicting social expectations concerning the problem at hand, legal solutions available and laws of nature. The research methods applied included: the analysis of legal provisions binding in the Republic of Poland combined with the interviews with representatives of institutions enforcing law in that respect, empirical observation of social attitudes and analyses of pertinent literature. The results reveals that inhabitants of cities in general opt for solutions that seem to be non-lethal for animals as they do not realize the risks involved for humans and animals. At the same time legal provisions are not sufficiently exhaustive to enable efficient problem solution.

This research examines the public discussion around animal production in Finland. Applying a dialogical approach to social representations theory, we elucidate the hotly debated nature of animal production by analysing news articles (N = 50) and the related reader-produced comments (N = 1501) in Finnish newspapers. We employed qualitative methods for analysing multivoicedness and dialogue to identify ego–alter pairs constructed in the material in relation to the object of animal production. Four prevalent ego–alter pairs were identified: advocates for animal rights–animal production defenders, producers–consumers, orthodox–unorthodox Christians and provincials–urban dwellers. The study contributes to the study of everyday knowledge by showing how various contradictory understandings of the same topic are generated in public discourse. The research also demonstrates how the theoretical concept of ego–alter embedded in the social representations theory can be empirically utilised in analysing debates in contemporary media environments and to shed light on the dialogical dynamics around the discussions.

The article considers the influence of I. Kant’s ideas on the development of philosophical and bioethical discourse on animal rights. The doctrine of I. Kant, with its inherent anthropocentric attitude, is usually regarded as opposed to the spirit of the biocentric po­sition that has been characteristic of Anglo-Saxon utilitarianism since the time of I. Ben­tham. The Kantian approach is supposed to ignore the issue of animal rights. In the arti­cle, the author argues that the teachings of I. Kant had a significant impact on the for­mation of the discourse on animal rights not only in the sense that animal rights activists perceived the ideas of I. Kant as arguments of their ideological opponent, which should be questioned, but also in the sense that they were accepted and developed in the 20th cen­tury as part of the biocentric discourse and were used to protect animal rights.

Activism in favor of non-human animals is on the rise throughout Mexico despite ongoing and episodic violence. Activists, also known as animalistas, represent themselves as the “voice” of non-human animals as they seek rights and well-being for animals. In Ciudad Juárez, a border city once considered the most dangerous city in the world (2008–2012), animalistas engage in complex ways with non-human bodies as they seek to “speak” for them. This article analyzes the relationship between injured bodies and voice in Ciudad Juárez’s animalista movement, with the act of the rescue as the point of inception. Injured animal bodies prove central for activists because anthropogenic violence transforms dogs’ bodies. Non-human injured bodies, and their visual representations, allow animalistas to position themselves as the voice of an animal that survived an abuse while also individualizing and depolitizicing—through the discourse of pathology—violence against dogs.

Global environmental law is characterized by Eurocentric cultural paradigms that perceive humanity as external and superior to Nature. This supremacy over Nature reflects a legacy of Western colonial domination. Accordingly, environmental regulations have been complicit in sustaining the paradigms that have given rise to the Anthropocene. It is against this backdrop that this article seeks to investigate how global environmental law could engage in transformative reform by embracing Southern epistemologies, particularly through the legal subjectivisation of Nature, i.e. by conceptualizing Nature as subjects of rights. Rooted in Indigenous worldviews, the emerging Rights of Nature movement provides a critical opportunity to re-envision global environmental law through historically colonized and marginalized forms of knowledge. In particular, this article explores the instrumentality of litigation to act as a catalyst for diffusing Southern conceptions in Eurocentric legal cultures to decolonize international law. This article specifically analyzes the animal rights dimension of the broader Rights of Nature paradigm. It argues that the recent wave of litigation awarding rights to animals - primarily in the Global South - reflects an evolving inter-judicial dialogue between domestic judges, whose interactions could potentially feed into a cosmopolitan global jurisprudence for animal rights in a bottom-up manner, which captures the plurality of ways of understanding and conceptualizing Nature.

The idea of rethinking speciesism beyond the quarrel of utilitarianism and animal rights, which invaded the cause and generated continuous dissensions, has as its central objective to show that the animal cause is also, in depth, a human cause, because the struggle for animal goes through the profound confrontation of our tyranny, which is responsible for also destroying our own species. This understanding of the extension of what the animal cause itself is depends, and this is what we intend to show here, on going deeper into the meaning and direction of the concept of speciesism, from the British psychologist Richard Ryder. Intuited as a “selfish emotional argument, instead of a rational one” that leads us to believe that we have legitimate rights to subject all species to our interests, the concept lacked, however, greater elaboration, greater consistency, that is, it needed to go through rigid stages of a conceptual construction and, this, who provided it was not Ryder himself, but the Australian philosopher Peter Singer in the pioneering work, in the classic of the cause, Animal Liberation. It is here that the concept becomes popular and causes very significant changes, such as the exponential growth of veganism itself as an ethical way of existing that says a generalized “no” to the exploitation of lives, but which, at the same time, generated disagreements by such a concept will be activated and develop on utilitarian soil. Decidedly, we think that such a quarrel can be minimized in view of the perception that speciesism is much more than a prejudice that can be overcome by humanity and compassion. It is something that is intrinsically linked to a type of power that gave rise to a specific type of man (which concerns all of us who live under this structure of power) that needs to be uncovered and deconstructed with the utmost urgency.

This paper presents an exploration of the conceptual terms within vegetarianism and veganism, tracing their historical context and theevolution of their meanings in ethical discourse. We delve into the originsand development of these dietary practices, from ancient religious tenets to modern animal rights movements, to understand the multifaceted motivations behind them. The study critically examines the conceptual delimitation of veganism and vegetarianism, highlighting the behavioral heterogeneity and terminological multiplicity that pose challenges for scholarly research. Through a review of the literature, we identify a taxonomy of adoption processes and motivations, including health,environmental, ethical, and social justice considerations. We propose theuse of two novel terminological approaches, 'use-animalism' and omnitarianism' to better capture the ideological nuances and behavioral implications of human-animal relationships. The paper argues for the importance of precise conceptualization in understanding the varied pathways and reasons individuals adopt VEG* lifestyles. It contributes tothe ethical consumption and VEG* literature by providing clarity on the different practices and their underlying moral and philosophical orientations, with implications for both researchers and practitioners in the field of sustainable and ethical consumption.

The issue of ethics arises frequently in the discussions of conservation-related resettlement as it affects indigenous peoples world-wide. Ethics are the moral codes and principles by which societies are supposed to live. Ethics can also be seen as the rules which organizations and individuals are supposed to follow. Ethical principles are laid out in religious treatises and are the subject of discussions by institutions and individuals. They provide guidance as to what one is supposed to do and not supposed to do. Ethical principles have to do with fairness and justice. The values and standards of cultures differ but all of them deserve respect. Species, too, differ significantly. Ethics have been addressed in religion, philosophy, conservation, and anthropology, and codes of ethics have been produced by virtually all disciplines including ecology. All peoples, including those who are indigenous, have ethical standards they seek to follow. This chapter considers codes of ethics proposed by international organizations and institutions including the United Nations and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and discussions of animal rights by various organizations.

https://jer.znu.ac.ir/article_708581.html

The Five Domains Model is a tool to evaluate the state of animal welfare in captivity through the monitoring of subjective, both negative and positive experiences. There are four physical and functional domains: nutrition, environment, health and behavior; while the fifth domain called mental state is an affective experience. In cases where all domains reach an optimal state, the animal is said to be in good health. In this report, The Five Domains Model was applied to evaluate the management of animal welfare of a resident lion of the Simón Bolívar National Zoological Park and Botanical Garden, Costa Rica, during osteoarthritis treatment received between May and December 2016.