Document Type

Conference Proceeding

Publication Date

1986

Abstract

In the space I have at my disposal here I can only sketch, in the barest outline, some of the main features of the book Its main themes-and we should not be surprised by this-involve asking and answering deep, foundational moral questions about what morality is, how it should be understood, and what is the best moral theory, all considered. I hope I can convey something of the shape I think this theory takes. The attempt to do this will be (to use a word a friendly critic once used to describe my work) cerebral, perhaps too cerebral. But this is misleading. My feelings about how animals are sometimes treated run just as deep and just as strong as those of my more volatile compatriots. Philosophers do-to use the jargon of the day have a right side to their brains. If it's the left side we contribute (or mainly should), that's because what talents we have reside there.

Comments

Reprinted by permission from In Defense of Animals, Basil Blackwell, Oxford, England. Paper presented at the national conference, ''Animals and Humans: Ethical Perspectives," Moorhead State University, Moorhead, MN, April 21-23, 1986.

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