The Normative Animal?
Title | The Normative Animal? PDF eBook |
Author | Neil Roughley |
Publisher | Foundations of Human Interacti |
Pages | 393 |
Release | 2019 |
Genre | Language Arts & Disciplines |
ISBN | 0190846461 |
It is often claimed that humans are rational, linguistic, cultural, or moral creatures. What these characterizations may all have in common is the more fundamental claim that humans are normative animals, in the sense that they are creatures whose lives are structured at a fundamental level by their relationships to norms. The various capacities singled out by discussion of rational, linguistic, cultural, or moral animals might then all essentially involve an orientation to obligations, permissions and prohibitions. And, if this is so, then perhaps it is a basic susceptibility, or proclivity to normative or deontic regulation of thought and behavior that enables humans to develop the various specific features of their life form. This volume of new essays investigates the claim that humans are essentially normative animals in this sense. The contributors do so by looking at the nature and relations of three types of norms, or putative norms-social, moral, and linguistic-and asking whether they might all be different expressions of one basic structure unique to humankind. These questions are posed by philosophers, primatologists, behavioral biologists, psychologists, linguists, and cultural anthropologists, who have collaborated on this topic for many years. The contributors are committed to the idea that understanding normativity is a two-way process, involving a close interaction between conceptual clarification and empirical research.
The Single-Minded Animal
Title | The Single-Minded Animal PDF eBook |
Author | Preston Stovall |
Publisher | Routledge |
Pages | 398 |
Release | 2021-09-16 |
Genre | Philosophy |
ISBN | 1000434001 |
This book provides an account of discursive or reason-governed cognition, by synthesizing research in the philosophy of language, the philosophy of mind, and evolutionary anthropology. Using the grasp of a natural language as a model for the autonomous or self-governed rationality of discursive cognition, the author uses a semantics for individual intentions, shared intentions, and normative attitudes as a framework for understanding what it is to be a rational animal. This semantics interprets claims about shared intentions and claims about what people ought and may do as the expression of plans of action that involve taking the points of view of other people within a community. This has important consequences for our understanding of both the natural basis and the social relevance of intentional and normative mental states. In order to distinguish the strong and weak modal force, which characterizes normativity but not shared intentionality, the author argues that a notion of single-minded practical cognition is necessary. This account of single-mindedness is then used to shed light on the autonomy or self-government characteristic of discursive cognition, as manifest in a linguistic community whose members are able to adopt the standpoints of others. Drawing together research in philosophy and the related sciences, the formal account of the semantic content of the claims we use to give expression to shared intentional and normative mental states integrates well with research in cognitive science, evolutionary anthropology, and social psychology concerning the ontogenetic and phylogenetic development of shared intentionality and norm psychology in human beings and other primates. The Single-Minded Animal will appeal to researchers and advanced students working on shared intentionality, normativity, rationality, cognitive science, social and developmental psychology, and evolutionary anthropology.
Personhood, Ethics, and Animal Cognition
Title | Personhood, Ethics, and Animal Cognition PDF eBook |
Author | Gary E. Varner |
Publisher | Oxford University Press, USA |
Pages | 334 |
Release | 2012-08-23 |
Genre | Nature |
ISBN | 0199758786 |
The book also draws heavily on empirical research on consciousness and cognition in non-human animals as a way of approaching the question of which animals, if any, are "persons," or at least "near-persons".
Ethics and Animals
Title | Ethics and Animals PDF eBook |
Author | Lori Gruen |
Publisher | Cambridge University Press |
Pages | 0 |
Release | 2011-02-03 |
Genre | Medical |
ISBN | 9780521717731 |
In this fresh and comprehensive introduction to animal ethics, Lori Gruen weaves together poignant and provocative case studies with discussions of ethical theory, urging readers to engage critically and empathetically reflect on our treatment of other animals. In clear and accessible language, Gruen provides a survey of the issues central to human-animal relations and a reasoned new perspective on current key debates in the field. She analyses and explains a range of theoretical positions and poses challenging questions that directly encourage readers to hone their ethical reasoning skills and to develop a defensible position about their own practices. Her book will be an invaluable resource for students in a wide range of disciplines including ethics, environmental studies, veterinary science, women's studies, and the emerging field of animal studies and is an engaging account of the subject for general readers with no prior background in philosophy.
The Oxford Handbook of Animal Ethics
Title | The Oxford Handbook of Animal Ethics PDF eBook |
Author | Tom L. Beauchamp |
Publisher | Oxford University Press |
Pages | 997 |
Release | 2011-11-17 |
Genre | Medical |
ISBN | 0195371968 |
This text is designed to capture the nature of the questions as they stand today and to propose solutions to many of the major problems in the ethics of how we use animals.
Fellow Creatures
Title | Fellow Creatures PDF eBook |
Author | Christine Marion Korsgaard |
Publisher | Oxford University Press |
Pages | 267 |
Release | 2018 |
Genre | Philosophy |
ISBN | 0198753853 |
Presents a compelling new view of our moral relationships to the other animals
Animal Individuality
Title | Animal Individuality PDF eBook |
Author | Elisa Aaltola |
Publisher | |
Pages | 336 |
Release | 2006 |
Genre | Animals |
ISBN |
The moral value of animals has become a prominent issue. Various theories have been offered to define the moral relation between humans and other animals, and in a more political context, various viewpoints are in conflict over how animals ought to be treated. At the core of the issue is individuality. Can animals be "individuals"? Can animals have individual moral value? Elisa Aaltola explores these questions on three levels: animal definitions, ethical theory, and context. Firstly, she analyses what type of ethical understandings common cultural definitions of animals have lead to, and whether they should be defined as such, and what the practical consequences would be. Aaltola maintains that "animal individuality" is not only a feasible concept, but also one that is necessary both in the ontological and the normative analyses concerning other animals. --