Perhaps its because I’m getting older and more reflective about the world and the life I’ve lived in it. Perhaps it’s because I’ve been paying closer attention to the news reported by Hounds Off about their struggles to stop illegal hunting practices in Britain. Perhaps it’s because of the loss of our beloved little Bebe this past year. Whatever the reason, I’ve been giving much more thought lately than I can ever recall doing before to the relationship between humans and non-human animals.
Looking over at the never-decreasing stack of books that is Mt. To-be-read, my vision lighted upon a book that, when it arrived, I hadn’t quite known how to approach: Prof. Christine Korsgaard‘s Fellow Creatures; Our Obligations to the Other Animals.
The Arthur Kingsley Porter Professor of Philosophy at Harvard, Dr. Korsgaard is renowned for her work in moral philosophy, and in this book she presents her arguments for the human understanding of non-human animals to be as ends-in-themselves (as we see ourselves) rather than as means-to-ends. It is a position filled with implications that, while perhaps in some ways being very difficult to incorporate into some of the most dominant social paradigms presently at work in the world, could be to the much greater good of all concerned – human and non-human alike.
