Animal Ethics

Non-Human Animal Ethics and Rights

In this course Dr Steve Cooke (University of Leicester) examines a range of ethical issues involving non-human animals. In the first module, we explore animal ethics as a topic. In the second module we look at issues around intensive farming. In the third module, we discuss the ethics of scientific procedures conducted on non-human animals for different purposes, before turning to trophy hunting in the fourth module. In the fifth and sixth modules we look at animal ethics and rights in the context of political philosophy, examining both ideal and non-ideal theory.

Animal Ethics

In this module, we introduce what we mean by animal ethics, focusing in particular on (i) the question of the nature of moral wrongness regarding cruelty to animals (ii) differing philosophical perspectives (iii) sentience and suffering (iv) utilitarian and deontological views (v) the notions of property vs. rights regarding animal life.