| Summary: | Humans encounter and use animals in a stunning number of ways. The nature of these animals and the justifiability or unjustifiabilitly of human uses of them are the subject matter of this volume. Philosophers have long been intrigued by animal minds and vegetarianism, but only around the last quarter of the twentieth century did a significant philosophical literature begin to be developed on both the scientific study of animals and the ethics of human uses of animals. This literature had a primary focus on the discussion of animal psychology, the moral status of animals, the nature and significance of species, and a number of practical problems. The Oxford Handbook of Animal Ethics is designed to capture the nature of the questions as they stand today and to propose solutions to many of the major problems
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