Animals, Ethics and Trade: The Challenge of Animal Sentience

* The complexities of animal behavior revealed in the last few decades are astonishing, but what are the implications?
* Do animals experience the world in a similar way to humans, and do they have a similar capacity for suffering and enjoyment? If they do, does it matter?
* Should we mind that farmed animals can be confined all their lives and are sacrificed for human consumption?
* Humans have long used animals for social and economic purposes, but should we, and can we afford to, think about it and make changes?
* The use of animals for meat, for hide, for their labor and in laboratories has been justified with the assumption that unlike humans, animals aren’t fully sentient beings.
* This book challenges that assumption with groundbreaking new research that brings into question everything we’ve ever thought about the ways animals experience the world.
* Over twenty contributions from internationally-renowned experts on animal behavior and agriculture, including big names such as Jane Goodall, Tim Lang, and Vandana Shiva

In this book, internationally respected contributors are brought together for the first time to debate and attempt to answer these questions. The first sections discuss scientific and ethical perspectives on the consciousness, emotions, and mental abilities of animals. Later sections address how human activities such as science, law, farming, food production, trade, development, and education respect or ignore animals’ sentience and welfare, and review the options for changes in our thinking, policies, and practices.

Published with Compassion in World Farming Trust.