Literature Review

This paper explores how disability is built into the functionality of industrialized farming practices but is not discussed in disability justice discourse. By analyzing works by Sunaura Taylor, Thomas Bretz, Temple Grandin, and Cary Wolfe, I examine ways to condemn the disability-causing functions of industrialized agriculture as well as address the rift between the animal rights and disability justice community caused by Singer’s Animal Liberation without detracting from the work done by disability activists to destigmatize disability. The driving question for this article grapples with how to celebrate disability while simultaneously acknowledging that disability-causing structures like factory farming are bad. Through a posthumanist approach, this paper contends that by rejecting human exceptionalism and moving past agency as a qualifier for moral consideration, the two communities can be reconciled and ensure their rights.

This article is embraced in a series of publications for a new thematic issue of the journal entitled: ‘Animals as partners: cultural, ecological, therapeutic implications.’ It offers a critical exploration of how a shifting cultural, aesthetic, political and media-shaped landscape assigns various roles and values attributed to animals in contemporary society, and the consequences for living conditions of animals and humans alike. It integrates research from innovative critical animal studies and a range of areas such as ecology, sociology, philosophy, and cultural studies, and considers human-animal relationship from the post-human, environmental humanity and eco-human perspectives. In order to grasp the relevance of the deeply intertwined relationship between human and animal, or between the culture/ nature dichotomy, the nexus between science and contemporary art is discussed and illustrated with artworks of some renowned artists.

With the emergence of environmental concerns and the awakening regarding animal treatment issues, the anthropocentric paradigm has begun to shift, causing many countries to review their position on the legal status of animals. Within the movement for animals, there are two mainly followed philosophical theories: the animal welfare perspective, which has Peter Singer as its leading author, and the animal rights theory, likewise known as the abolitionist movement, with Tom Regan as its central theorist. Utilizing the method of comparative analysis, this article seeks to analyze each author’s thought process and compare theories, contrasting each viewpoint’s moral and philosophical foundations and which principle each author has determined as most fundamental. The main differences between them will also be compared, as well as their conclusions and effects on society, with a particular focus on their influences on the Brazilian Federal Constitution of 1988. The whimsy of this method is intentional; the researcher offers readers the shared experiences of feeling overwhelmed and making mistakes while creating an approachable entrance to thinking more critically about the world humans are currently building.

The location and presentation of an object establish layered narratives about the object, which habit and familiarity protect. This shield obscures an object’s effects on people and places that originate in that object’s materials and manufacturing. Recontextualizing objects and investigating their physical forms within novel frameworks can counteract these narratives.This project replaces an object’s expected context with an imagined future full of confusion and curiosity. Through a photo essay and a fictitious research journal, it describes a likely environmental scenario in 2200 and imagines a researcher discovering a bag of objects in the wilderness. The bag includes an artificial plant, a toilet brush, a bottle opener, a clothespin, a clothes hanger, and a stuffed animal. But the researcher is only familiar with two of these objects, and so tries to deduce the function of the remaining objects via their materials and by consulting oral histories from their era of origin. Through naïve misunderstanding, the researcher reveals often overlooked cultural norms and histories of extraction, manufacturing, and use.

Under the age of animal rights, which is experiencing rapid expansion of regulation and public awareness, the question arises: is the veterinarian aware of the administrative and/or judicial consequences of his interventions and is he capable of responding to them in a scientific and clear? Therefore, if that measure would be appropriate in favor of the collective interest, the answer could even be yes. But the collective interest overlaps with the individual, and one can add, for example, that it is "necessary to the collective interest as a means of reducing disease risks", because, in Law, an apparent conflict of norms can be resolved through the criterion of collective interest, which overrides the individual.

An incorrect human-animal relationship represents a real social stress in cattle. Since cows are subjected to numerous manipulations during their productive life, both in conventional and extensive breeding, various risky situations are created for both man and animal. Knowing how the cow perceives the surrounding world, how information is transmitted between mates, and which easy practices to adopt to improve this relationship, is useful for ensuring human safety and animal welfare.

The purpose of this article is to reflect on the implications of recognizing the intrinsic value of life in forests and, to this end, it proposes a forestry vision beyond timber; it takes as a reference the contributions of the Colombian philosopher Carlos Maldonado and complements them with the contributions of the process "Towards a new Forestry Policy for Peru" in which the author acted as a systematiser. It is found that the denomination of forest resources obeys an economicist con­ception sustained by a disjunctive form of human relationship with forests. The currents of nature conservation indicate that there is a biocentric turn that overcomes the anthropocentric ethic that has prevailed to date. Hence the need to broaden the forest concept reduced to timber. From the reflection it is concluded that the incorporation of an expanded vision of forest sciences includes the recognition of the value of non-human life in forests, a novel and transforming process in ac­cordance with the evolution of the understanding of the relationships between nature (forests) and human beings. The maintenance, on the one hand, of a strongly reductionist, disjunctive, mecha­nistic, deterministic forestry science, and on the other hand the timber bias, has deprived further development in other important fields of human welfare and human security, in tune with the advancement of the recognition of the rights of nature, animal rights and the recognition of sensi­tivity and intelligence in plants.

The agricultural professionals are ethically obligated to provide good care for the animals under their care. We analysed Brazilian agricultural science students’ profiles based on their perceptions of animal welfare (AW). The survey included 239 students from agronomy, animal science, and veterinary courses in 44 universities. A factor analysis and a cluster analysis identified four students’ profiles. “The farm animal stewards” group (n= 79) focused their perceptions of AW on basic health and functioning as a basis for meat, wool, egg, and dairy production, while the “the industrial view” group (n= 15), in the profitability and economic factors. “The animal rights position” (n= 76), in the face of conflicting interests (animals vs. owners), perceive that the animal’s interest should prevail and give an equal treatment for all species. ”The balanced” group (n= 69) incorporates concepts from animal and human to explain their perceptions. The students’ perception of AW is multifaceted and influenced by value-based ideas about what is important or desirable for animals and all stakeholders. Scientific fields focusing on AW need to be emphasized within agricultural science curriculum.

Questions related to the protection of animals can be approached from the perspectives of animal welfare or animal rights. The legal status of animals is affected by their rote as an object of property law. In the Finnish legislative culture, animal welfare has been considered to be a protected legal good and animals are protected legal objects. On the other hand, in the European perspective the animal welfare can be seen as a public good that is protected by the public authorities. Animal rights can also be estimated from the perspective of legal subjectivity. Because an animal cannot defend itself, it would need the power of speech by humans to fulfil its legal subjectivity. The intrinsic value of animals and animal rights have been the subject of wide discussion. Our current basic rights system is based on human rights, but it has been suggested that animals may also have some basic rights.

With the approval of the Chamber of Deputies, the constitutional reform that provides for the amendment of article 9 and article 41 of the Italian Constitution (const. law n. 1/2022) represents an important turning point in terms of protection of the environment, ecosystems, and animal rights. Although this achievement sets an important benchmark for environmental constitutionalism, the peculiarities of the modifications made to the Constitution and their impact on the legislature's decision-making process based on the established legal reserve need to be investigated. The following paper proposes to explore the protection of animals integrated into the fundamental principles of the constitutional text, through a comparison of the amendments regarding articles 9 and 41 of the Italian Constitution with those made in 1992 through article 120 in the Federal Constitution of the Swiss Confederation, the first country in the world to constitutionalise the principle of the dignity of animals. Through the comparative study of the two legal systems mentioned, the concepts of 'dignity', 'integrity' and 'creature' will be examined to outline the material applicability in the short-term, and the possible long-term effects which can be reasonably expected as a consequence of the amendments to the Italian constitutional text. In this regard, a comparison is proposed by visualising the results obtained in the years following the approval of article 120 of the Swiss Constitution. Through the comparative study of the two constitutional texts with respect to the environmental issue and the legal status of animals and their rights, the objective seeks to investigate how climate change impacts legal systems and in what manner the law enforcement process can represent an efficient vehicle through which to address climate and environmental challenges.

Animals and Business Ethics is an edited book that applies business ethical theory to nonhuman animals. It explores the ethics of commodifying animals in a business context, how stakeholder and social contract theories relate to animals, how business can be regulated to improve conditions for animals, how to create more humane jobs for humans and animals, and the linkages between human and animal well-being, in the context of human workers and consumers who interact with animals in business. Business ethics literature has underrepresented animals, although this is beginning to change. This book is an introduction to how business ethics theory can be applied, through a range of theoretical chapters and case studies. Animals and Business Ethics is a valuable contribution to the literature, which opens space for additional research.

Animal ethicists have worried that hoping for the success of the animal rights movement is epistemically irrational because it contradicts our best evidence and practically irrational because it makes animal rights advocates complacent. Against these worries, this article defends the claim that animal rights advocates can rationally hope for the success of their movement despite grim prospects. To this end, the article draws on Philip Pettit's (2004) account of hope to articulate the novel notion of “careful substantial hope.” Hope in this sense is a cognitive strategy of thinking as if movement success is likely because the right strategies and tactics will be employed. The article concludes with suggestions for how philosophers can encourage this kind of hope.