A New Basis for Animal Ethics: Telos and Common Sense

Bernard E. Rollin

Jan 2017 · University of Missouri Press

About this ebook

This book, the culmination of forty years of theorizing about the moral status of animals, explicates and justifies society’s moral obligation to animals in terms of the commonsense metaphysics and ethics ofAristotle’s concept of telos. Rollin uses this concept to assert that humans have a responsibility to treat animals ethically. Aristotle used the concept, from the Greek word for "end" or "purpose," as the core explanatory concept for the world we live in. We understand what an animal is by what it does. This is the nature of an animal, and helps us understand our obligations to animals.

About the author

Bernard E. Rollin, University Distinguished Professor at Colorado State University, is the 2016 recipient of the Lifetime Achievement Award given by the organization Public Responsibility in Medicine and Research. The founder of Animal Ethics, Rollin has served on the Pew National Commission on Industrial Farm Animal Production and on the Institute for Laboratory Animal Resources Council of the National Academy of Sciences. Rollin is also the author of titles, including The Unheeded Cry: Animal Consciousness, Animal Pain, and Science.