Zoos

KEEKOK LEE is currently Visiting Chair in Philosophy at the Institute for Environment, Philosophy and Public Policy, Lancaster University, UK. Her research interests include environmental philosophy, philosophy of technology, and the relationship between the environment and technology from the ontological perspective. Published works include Philosophy and Revolutions in Genetics (2002), The Natural and the Artefactual (1999) and Social Philosophy and Ecological Scarcity (1989).

In this book, Keekok Lee asks the question, 'what is an animal, and how does our treatment of it within captivity affect its status as a being ?' This ontological treatment marks the first such approach in looking at animals in captivity.In this book, Keekok Lee asks the question, 'what is an animal, and how does our treatment of it within captivity affect its status as a being ?' This ontological treatment marks the first such approach in looking at animals in captivity. Engaging with the moral questions of zoo-keeping (is it morally justified to keep a wild animal in captivity?) as well as the ontological (what is it that we conserve in zoos after all? A wild animal or its shadow?), Lee develops her own original hypothesis, centred around the concept of 'immuration' - defining this in contrast to domestication - and thereby provides a unique addition to the growing body of work on animal ethics.