Asian Perspectives on Animal Ethics ― Rethinking the Nonhuman

To date, philosophical discussions of animal ethics and Critical Animal Studies have been dominated by Western perspectives and Western thinkers. This book makes a novel contribution to animal ethics in showing the range and richness of ideas offered to these fields by diverse Asian traditions.

Asian Perspectives on Animal Ethics is the first of its kind to include the intersection of Asian and European traditions with respect to human and nonhuman relations. Presenting a series of studies focusing on specific Asian traditions, as well as studies that put those traditions in dialogue with Western thinkers, this book looks at Asian philosophical doctrines concerning compassion and nonviolence as these apply to nonhuman animals, as well as the moral rights and status of nonhuman animals in Asian traditions. Using Asian perspectives to explore ontological, ethical and political questions, contributors analyze humanism and post-humanism in Asian and comparative traditions and offer insight into the special ethical relations between humans and other particular species of animals.

This book will be of interest to students and scholars of Asian religion and philosophy, as well as to those interested in animal ethics and Critical Animal Studies.

Neil Dalal is Assistant Professor of South Asian Philosophy and Religious Thought in the Philosophy Department and Religious Studies Program at the University of Alberta, Canada. He holds a PhD from the Department of Asian Studies at the University of Texas at Austin.

Chloe Taylor is Assistant Professor of Philosophy and Women’s and Gender Studies at the University of Alberta, Canada. She has a PhD in Philosophy from the University of Toronto and was a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada and Tomlinson postdoctoral fellow in Philosophy at McGill University.