Andrew Linzey, director of the Oxford Centre for Animal Ethics, has a new book called Why Animal Suffering Matters: Philosophy, Theology, and Practical Ethics, reviewed by Marilyn Matevia at the Englewood Review of Books:
Traditional ethics treats the suffering of nonhuman animals as less morally relevant than human suffering, because animals differ from humans in ways that humans consider to be morally significant. Further, traditional ethics considers moral solicitude for animals as an “emotional,” “non-rational” response to a suffering that is qualitatively different from that which humans experience. But why are the differences between humans and animals morally relevant? That is, how do they justify differential treatment? Linzey argues that when some of these allegedly crucial differences are reconfigured, they in fact make a “rational” case for reducing/preventing the suffering of animals.
Continue reading at the Englewood Review of Books.