The Feminist Care Tradition in Animal Ethics

Ten years after the foundational collection of essays moving Beyond Animal Rights to a feminist ethic of care for all animal species, the work in this field has doubled in size and scope. Collected in this volume are essays calling for a feminist animal care ethic that is political and activist in orientation. Here are the paths to interspecies justice, with arguments that appeal equally to reason and emotion, logic and empathy. They prove that true emotional intelligence requires a compassionate ethical response to animal suffering and human complicity alike. -- Greta Gaard, author of Ecofeminism: Women, Animals, Nature Every scholar interested in social (in)justice should read this book. As a compelling examination of the workings of power, prejudice, and ideology, this powerful anthology lays down a challenge to all progressive scholarship and politics--whether 'animal-identified' or not. As a nuanced and sophisticated framework for a feminist approach to social relationships, the articulation of a 'care tradition' in human-animal relations is transformative. The editors do a tremendous service by bringing together some of the classic essays in the field with some of the sharpest new criticism and commentary. This collection is an invaluable source and resource that every feminist should have on her bookshelf. -- Joni Seager, professor and dean of the Faculty of Environmental Studies, York University, Toronto

Presents the portrait of the evolution of the feminist-care tradition. This volume argues for ethical attentiveness and sympathy in our relationships with animals and propose a link between the subjugation of women and the human domination of nature. It includes an introduction that situates feminist animal care theory within feminist theory.In Beyond Animal Rights, Josephine Donovan and Carol J. Adams introduced feminist "ethic of care" theory into philosophical discussions of the treatment of animals. In this new volume, seven essays from Beyond Animal Rights are joined by nine new articles-most of which were written in response to that book-and a new introduction that situates feminist animal care theory within feminist theory and the larger debate over animal rights. Contributors critique theorists' reliance on natural rights doctrine and utilitarianism, which, they suggest, have a masculine bias. They argue for ethical attentiveness and sympathy in our relationships with animals and propose a link between the continuing subjugation of women and the human domination of nature. Beginning with the earliest articulation of the idea in the mid-1980s and continuing to the theory's most recent revisions, this volume presents the most complete portrait of the evolution of the feminist-care tradition.