The Feminist Care Tradition in Animal Ethics - by Josephine Donovan & Carol Adams

Book Synopsis

In Beyond Animal Rights, Josephine Donovan and Carol J. Adams introduced feminist "ethic of care" theory into philosophical discussions of the treatment of animals. In this new volume, seven essays from Beyond Animal Rights are joined by nine new articles-most of which were written in response to that book-and a new introduction that situates feminist animal care theory within feminist theory and the larger debate over animal rights. Contributors critique theorists' reliance on natural rights doctrine and utilitarianism, which, they suggest, have a masculine bias. They argue for ethical attentiveness and sympathy in our relationships with animals and propose a link between the continuing subjugation of women and the human domination of nature. Beginning with the earliest articulation of the idea in the mid-1980s and continuing to the theory's most recent revisions, this volume presents the most complete portrait of the evolution of the feminist-care tradition.

Review Quotes

At the center of feminist inquiry, forcing us to face hard and interesting questions.-- "Women's Review of Books"

This book is dubbed a reader and is without peer in that capacity. Serious students in (feminist) animal ethics should read it closely.--David Sztybel "Journal of Animal Ethics"

About the Author

Josephine Donovan is professor emerita at the University of Maine and the author of Feminist Theory: The Intellectual Traditions and Women and the Rise of the Novel, 1405-1726, among other books.Carol J. Adams is an independent scholar whose focus is on interrelated oppressions and whose books include The Sexual Politics of Meat, Prayers for Animals, and The Inner Art of Vegetarianism. Please visit her web site at www.caroljadams.com.