Animals and Misanthropy
This engaging volume explores and defends the claim that misanthropy is a justified attitude towards humankind in the light of how human beings both compare with and treat animals. Reflection on differences between humans and animals helps to confirm the misanthropic verdict, while reflection on the moral and other failings manifest in our treatment of animals illuminates what is wrong with this treatment. Human failings, it is argued, are too entrenched to permit optimism about the future of animals, but ways are proposed in which individual people may accommodate to the truth of misanthropy through cultivating mindful, humble and compassionate relationships to animals. Drawing on both Eastern and Western philosophical traditions David E. Cooper offers an original and challenging approach to the complex field of animal ethics.
David E. Cooper is Emeritus Professor of Philosophy at Durham University, UK. He has been a Visiting Professor at universities in several countries, including the USA and Sri Lanka. His many books include The Measure of Things: Humanism, Humility and Mystery, A Philosophy of Gardens, Convergence with Nature: A Daoist Perspective, and Senses of Mystery: Engaging with Nature and the Meaning of Life.