Teaching Philosophy

Volume 37, Issue 2, June 2014

Recent Texts in Animal Ethics

This is a comparative review of four books for classroom and instructor use: Ethics and Animals, by Lori Gruen; Wild Justice: The Moral Lives of Animals, by Marc Bekoff and Jessica Pierce; Animal Ethics in Con­text, by Clare Palmer; and Anthropocentrism and Its Discontents: The Moral Status of Animals in the History of Western Philosophy, by Gary Steiner. The books range from original scholarship in ethics suitable for the undergraduate and graduate level, to broad historical surveys and analysis of thought about animals in the Western philosophical tradition that could be used as research tools for professors, to books squarely pitched at the undergraduate classroom. Each book is different and worthwhile, and suited to different purposes and student populations.