Download or read book Speciesism in Biology and Culture written by Brian Swartz and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2022-12-16 with total page 206 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This open access book explores a wide-ranging discussion about the sociopolitical, cultural, and scientific ramifications of speciesism and world views that derive from it. In this light, it integrates subjects across the natural sciences, social sciences, and humanities. The 21st-century western world is anthropocentric to an extreme; we adopt unreasonably self-centered and self-serving ideas and lifestyles. Americans consume more energy resources per person than most other nations on Earth and have little concept of how human ecology and population biology interface with global sustainability. We draw upon religion, popular culture, politics, and technology to justify our views and actions, yet remain self-centered because our considerations rarely extend beyond our immediate interests. Stepping upward on the hierarchy from “racism,” “speciesism” likewise refers to the view that unique natural kinds (species) exist and are an important structural element of biodiversity. This ideology manifests in the cultural idea that humans are distinct from and intrinsically superior to other forms of life. It further carries a plurality of implications for how we perceive ourselves in relation to nature, how we view Judeo-Christian religions and their tenets, how we respond to scientific data about social problems such as climate change, and how willing we are to change our actions in the face of evidence.

Download or read book Cultural and Biological Speciesism written by Brian Swartz and published by Independent Author. This book was released on 2023-05-10 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Homo sapiens compulsively create and label categories-of things and even of ideas. We identify and give names, for example, to mountain peaks, rocks, languages, religions, behaviors, books, subatomic particles, elements, and living creatures. By placing a semblance of order upon what otherwise might be inchoate complexity, communication becomes easier. And, in science, categorization and insight into process have historically advanced in tandem. In the living world, the widely used hierarchy of categories extends from the molecular and cellular subunits of individual organisms, through organs and other body parts, to the individual, the population, the species, and on up the taxonomic ladder through genus, family, order, class, phylum, kingdom, and then all of life, itself. Finer divisions arise as well, such as subfamilies, superfamilies, and subspecies, all with the same intent: to enhance communication and insight. There, near the midpoint in the categories of life, sits what is arguably the most widely discussed category of all, at least in biology: species. In the vernacular and in the scientific literature, it is species that exhibit distinct traits, species that go extinct, species we must protect, species that provide ecosystem services, species that need to migrate under global warming if they are to survive, and species that Darwin unraveled the "origin of". Species, species, species... Why? Does a fixation on that category truly abet understanding and communication? If not, what is the alternative? Those and related questions are the focus of this book. Linnaeus focused attention on species when he invented binomial nomenclature (a generic and a specific epithet that comprise a species name or binomen), and Darwin reified the concept in his classic work. Species are collections of twigs on the evolutionary tree of life that are considered different enough from other collections to be so designated-basically different "kinds" of organisms. It is generally agreed that sexually reproducing organisms that are sympatric (live together) without commonly interbreeding will be considered separate species. But judgments about allopatric populations (those geographically separated) are mostly matters of taste. Basically, species are arbitrary stages in a continuous evolutionary process of population differentiation. Sadly, there is a large silly literature on how to define species that does not recognize this evolutionary fact.

Download or read book The Evolution of Culture in Animals written by John Tyler Bonner and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2018-06-05 with total page 215 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Animals do have culture, maintains this delightfully illustrated and provocative book, which cites a number of fascinating instances of animal communication and learning. John Bonner traces the origins of culture back to the early biological evolution of animals and provides examples of five categories of behavior leading to nonhuman culture: physical dexterity, relations with other species, auditory communication within a species, geographic locations, and inventions or innovations. Defining culture as the transmission of information by behavioral rather than genetical means, he demonstrates the continuum between the traits we find in animals and those we often consider uniquely human.

Download or read book Politics of Species written by Raymond Corbey and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2013 with total page 595 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "The assumption that humans are cognitively and morally superior to other animals is fundamental to social democracies and legal systems worldwide. It legitimises treating members of other animal species as inferior to humans. The last few decades have seen a growing awareness of this issue, as evidence continues to show that individuals of many other species have rich mental, emotional and social lives. Bringing together leading experts from a range of disciplines, this volume identifies the key barriers to a definition of moral respect that includes nonhuman animals. It sets out to increase concern, empathy and inclusiveness by developing strategies that can be used to protect other animals from exploitation in the wild and from suffering in captivity. The chapters link scientific data with normative and philosophical reflections, offering unique insight into controversial issues around the ethical, political and legal status of other species"--

Download or read book Biological and Cultural Evolution written by Mary Midgley and published by . This book was released on 1984 with total page 36 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Critical Ethology and Post Anthropocentric Ethics written by Roberto Marchesini and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2021-05-22 with total page 270 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The primary purpose of this book is to contribute to an overcoming of the traditional separation between humanties and life sciences which, according to the authors, is required today both by the developments of these disciplines and by the social problems they have to face. The volume discusses the theoretical, epistemological and ethical repercussions of the main acquisitions obtained in the last decades from the behavioral sciences. Both the authors are inspired by the concept of a “critical ethology”, oriented to archive the nature/culture and human/animal dichotomies. The book proposes a theoretical and methodological restructuring of the comparative study of the animal behavior, learning, and cultures, focused on the fact that thought, culture and language are not exclusively human prerogatives. The proposed analysis includes a critique of speciesism and determinism in the ethical field, and converge with the Numanities, to which the series is dedicated, on a key point: it is necessary to arrive at an education system able to offer scientific, social and ethical skills that are trasversal and transcendent to the traditional humanities/life sciences bipartition. Skills that are indispensable for facing the complex challenges of the contemporary society and promoting a critical reflection of humanity on itself.

Download or read book Speciesism Discrimination of animals written by Duc Minh Vu and published by GRIN Verlag. This book was released on 2021-04-12 with total page 16 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Essay from the year 2021 in the subject Philosophy - General Essays, Eras, grade: 1,7, University of Kent, language: English, abstract: This essay will apply various theories from social psychology to the human-animal relationship and argue that speciesism is a form of prejudice. It will conclude by using the findings to develop intervention concepts to reduce speciesism. Human relationships with non-human animals are complicated. On the one hand, certain animals are valued as pets, loved and given a standard of living that is better than that of humans in poor countries. Archaeologists even found that at one point in human history, dogs were buried with humans for sentimental reasons in some cultures, highlighting the close bond between humans and their companion animals. On the other hand, farm animals are slaughtered so that their bodies provide meat that humans can consume. The term speciesism emerged and in particular parallels other forms of unjustified discrimination such as racism and sexism. Philosophers realised the inconsistency in our treatment of animals a while ago, now it is time for social psychology to bring the human- animal relationship into its theoretical framework, as this relationship is strongly social and intergroup based.

Download or read book Perspectives in Ethology written by Nicholas S. Thompson and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2013-06-29 with total page 326 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The relations between behavior, evolution, and culture have been a subject of vigorous debate since the publication of Darwin's The Descent of Man (1871). The latest volume of Perspectives in Ethology brings anthropologists, ethologists, psychologists, and evolutionary theorists together to reexamine this important relation. With two exceptions (the essays by Brown and Eldredge), all of the present essays were originally presented at the Fifth Biannual Symposium on the Science of Behavior held in Guadalajara, Mexico, in February 1998. The volume opens with the problem of the origins of culture, tackled from two different viewpoints by Richerson and Boyd, and Lancaster, Kaplan, Hill, and Hurtado, respectively. Richerson and Boyd analyze the possible relations between climatic change in the Pleistocene and the evo lution of social learning, evaluating the boundary conditions under which social learning could increase fitness and contribute to culture. Lancaster, Kaplan, Hill, and Hurtado examine how a shift in the diet of the genus Homo toward difficult-to-acquire food could have determined (or coe volved with) unique features of the human life cycle. These two essays illus trate how techniques that range from computer modeling to comparative behavioral analysis, and that make use of a wide range of data, can be used for drawing inferences about past selection pressures. As culture evolves, it must somehow find its place within (and also affect) a complex hierarchy of behavioral and biological factors.

Download or read book Speciesism Painism and Happiness written by Richard D. Ryder and published by Andrews UK Limited. This book was released on 2017-01-16 with total page 169 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Richard Ryder created the term speciesism in early 1970 and shared the idea with Peter Singer, who popularised it in his classic work Animal Liberation (1975). A key figure in the modern animal rights revival Ryder appeared on the first-ever televised discussion of animal rights (The Lion's Share, Scottish Television) in December 1970. He further promoted the ideas around speciesism in recorded discussions with Bridget Brophy, for the Open University, and in his contribution to the seminal philosophical work Animals Men and Morals edited by the Oxford philosophers Stanley and Roslind Godlovitch and John Harris in 1971. From 1969 Ryder organised protests against animal experiments and bloodsports. He continued to promote his ideas about speciesism in leaflets and broadcasts, culminating in the publication of his Victims of Science in 1975 - a book that provoked debates in Parliament and on television and was described by The Spectator at the time as "a morally and historically important book". Dr Ryder was elected to the RSPCA Council in 1971, first becoming Chairman in 1977. In 1980 he was founding Chairman of the Liberal Democrat Animal Protection Group, and later ran for Parliament, was Director of the Political Animal Lobby and then Mellon Professor in the Department of Philosophy at Tulane University. Ryder coined the term painism to describe his wider moral theory in 1990. He has several times broadcast on the BBC's Moral Maze.

Download or read book Ecocriticism and the Idea of Culture written by Helena Feder and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-04-29 with total page 212 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Ecocriticism and the Idea of Culture: Biology and the Bildungsroman draws on work by Kinji Imanishi, Frans de Waal, and other biologists to create an interdisciplinary, materialist notion of culture for ecocritical analysis. In this timely intervention, Feder examines the humanist idea of culture by taking a fresh look at the stories it explicitly tells about itself. These stories fall into the genre of the Bildungsroman, the tale of individual acculturation that participates in the myth of its complete separation from and opposition to nature which, Feder argues, is culture’s own origin story. Moving from Voltaire’s Candide to Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein and from Virginia Woolf’s Orlando to Jamaica Kincaid’s Lucy, the book dramatizes humanism’s own awareness of the fallacy of this foundational binary. In the final chapters, Feder examines the discourse of animality at work in this narrative as a humanist fantasy about empathy, one that paradoxically excludes other animals from the ethical community to justify the continued domination of both human and nonhuman others.

Download or read book Biology and Culture in Modern Perspective written by and published by . This book was released on 1956 with total page 441 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Biology and Culture in Modern Perspective written by Joseph G. Jorgensen and published by W.H. Freeman. This book was released on 1972-01-01 with total page 441 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Animals and Ethics 101 written by Nathan Nobis and published by Open Philosophy Press. This book was released on 2016-10-11 with total page 125 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Animals and Ethics 101 helps readers identify and evaluate the arguments for and against various uses of animals, such: - Is it morally wrong to experiment on animals? Why or why not? - Is it morally permissible to eat meat? Why or why not? - Are we morally obligated to provide pets with veterinary care (and, if so, how much?)? Why or why not? And other challenging issues and questions. Developed as a companion volume to an online "Animals & Ethics" course, it is ideal for classroom use, discussion groups or self study. The book presupposes no conclusions on these controversial moral questions about the treatment of animals, and argues for none either. Its goal is to help the reader better engage the issues and arguments on all sides with greater clarity, understanding and argumentative rigor. Includes a bonus chapter, "Abortion and Animal Rights: Does Either Topic Lead to the Other?"

Download or read book The Culture of Animals and Humans written by David Basckin and published by . This book was released on 1986 with total page 26 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book The Biology of Traditions written by Dorothy M. Fragaszy and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2003-07-03 with total page 476 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In exploring socially-maintained behavioral traditions in animals other than humans, this study treats traditions as biological phenomena amenable to comparative evaluation in the same way as other biological phenomena. Concerned with how widely shared features of social life and learning abilities can lead to traditions in many species, it differs from other books in its emphasis on explicit evaluation of alternative theories and methods, and in the breadth of species covered. It is essential reading for students and researchers in animal behavior, anthropology and psychology.

Download or read book Anthropocentrism written by Rob Boddice and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2011-07-14 with total page 370 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Anthropocentrism is a charge of human chauvinism and an acknowledgement of human ontological boundaries. Anthropocentrism has provided order and structure to humans’ understanding of the world, while unavoidably expressing the limits of that understanding. This collection explores the assumptions behind the label ‘anthropocentrism’, critically enquiring into the meaning of ‘human’. It addresses the epistemological and ontological problems of charges of anthropocentrism, questioning whether all human views are inherently anthropocentric. In addition, it examines the potential scope for objective, empathetic, relational, or ‘other’ views that trump anthropocentrism. With a principal focus on ethical questions concerning animals, the environment and the social, the essays ultimately cohere around the question of the non-human, be it animal, ecosystem, god, or machine.

Download or read book The Heart of the Wild written by Ben A. Minteer and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2024-08-13 with total page 280 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "How do we keep a love of nature and the wild alive in our increasingly human-dominated world? According to the scientists and writers in this book, doing so is of paramount significance; however, the answer is not necessarily blanket preservation of wild places, which is increasingly unrealistic. Rather, the answer to "how to care for nature" is more nuanced and often entails acceptance of a broader definition of wild as well and what it means to experience nature. This book will be divided into two parts. In the first part, authors will explore and complicate what wildness means. For example, science writer Emma Marris argues that spontaneous vegetation and free-roaming animals in cities actually possess more autonomy than the wolves or pines of Yellowstone; biologist Jonathan Losos asks whether invasive species are necessarily detrimental and may even play a role in restoring ecosystems; and psychologist Susan Clayton discusses new ways of experiencing nature, particularly via technology, and what the benefits and limitations may be. In the second half of the book, essays will reflect on the roles of naturalism, natural history, and nature education & communication in helping us connect with wild species and landscapes at a time when many of those connections have frayed or even lost altogether"--