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©2008. International Journal of Applied Philosophy 22:2. ISSN 0738-098X. pp. 177–188

Learning Ethics From Our Relationships with

Animals: Moral Imagination

Maurice HamingtonMetropolitan State College of Denver

ABSTRACT: The majority of animal advocacy discourse is unidirectional:

Humans are regarded as stewards of animal welfare, and humans control the

bestowal of rights and protections upon animals. This article offers a reversalof the typical moral reflection used in animal advocacy. I suggest that our

relationship with animals participates in the development of moral faculties

requisite for ethical behavior. In other words, we have a lot to learn from

animals, not in this instance by documenting their behavior, but from having

meaningful relationships with particular animals. Quality interactions with

animals can stimulate the imaginative basis for the care and empathy that

are crucial for social morality. To accomplish this task, I describe “embodied

care” as an extension of feminist care ethics that addresses the body’s role

in morality, and argue that our relationships with animals can provide the

imaginative foundation for improving human-to-human morality.

Imagination is fundamentally an embodied capacity of the mind.

—Catriona MacKenzie and Jackie Leach Scully

An ethics of care is faced with the dicult task of educating the moralimagination to perceive and interpret nature in such a way that nature is con-

sciously a presence in human life, rather than the absence it has become.

—Roger J. H. King

Interspecies care and empathy is an incredible phenomenon. The existentialgulf between animals and humans is enormous. For the most part, we don’tshare language, culture, or most of the physical qualities of animals and yet,humans are capable of overcoming these dierences to have aective responsesto species ranging from ferrets to whales. This interspecies empathy is a hopefulsign for humanity. If human beings are able to have compassionate feelings forother animals, there remains the prospect that despite our violent history we can

overcome social and cultural barriers to care for one another. This essay explores


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178 MAURICE HAMINGTON

the role other animals play in developing our moral imagination. The majority ofanimal advocacy discourse is unidirectional: Humans are regarded as stewards

of animal welfare, and humans control the bestowal of rights and protectionsupon animals. This article oers a reversal of the typical moral reection usedin animal advocacy. I suggest that our relationship with animals participates inthe development of moral faculties requisite for ethical behavior. In other words,we have a lot to learn from animals, not in this instance by documenting their

behavior, but from having meaningful relationships with particular animals.Quality interactions with animals can stimulate the imaginative basis for the careand empathy that are crucial for personal and social morality. To accomplish thistask, I employ “embodied care”: an extension of feminist care ethics that addressesthe body’s role in morality. Accordingly, because our relationships with animals

rely less on language and more on corporeal transactions, they can provide theimaginative foundation for improving human-to-human morality.

ANIMALS AND CARE ETHICS

The modern philosophical underpinnings of animal advocacy has been pioneered by the work of Tom Regan and Peter Singer1 who represent classic positions inethical theory: deontological and teleological morality respectively. Regan ar-ticulates a rights-based position so successfully that animal advocacy eorts areknown as the “animal rights” movement. He straightforwardly contends that if

animals have a natural right to life then consumption or human whim provideinsucient rationale to warrant that animals’ rights be abrogated: “We cannot be justied in killing any one or any number of animals for the intrinsic goodtheir deaths may bring to us.”2 In a complementary fashion, Singer employs autilitarian argument for the mitigation of unnecessary animal pain. In the intro-duction to Animal Liberation , Singer claims “the conclusions that are argued forin this book ow from the principle of minimizing suering alone.”3 The moralapproaches of Regan and Singer strike a popular and compelling note thus ef-fectively galvanizing animal advocates around such moral reasoning. However,feminist care theorists question whether rights-based and utilitarian arguments

provide an adequate foundation for defending animals.Care ethics emerged in the 1980s as an independent sphere of moral inquiry.

It began with the writing of several feminist theorists including Carol Gilligan,Nel Noddings, and Joan Tronto.4 Women’s experience was the impetus for caretheorizing and there is intriguing research about the relationship between ani-mals, gender, and empathy.5 It is a moral orientation that is less concerned withthe adjudication of individual acts and more concerned with the maintenance ofright relationships in particular contexts. Diemut Bubeck oers one denition ofcare: “Caring for is the meeting of the needs of one person by another person,where face-to-face interaction between carer and cared-for is a crucial element of

the overall activity and where the need is of such a nature that it cannot possibly be met by the person in need herself.”6 Care ethicists aend to aectations, condi -tions, relations, and consequences. Phenomenologically, the one cared-for and thecaregiver engage in a relationship marked by mutuality in terms of aentiveness


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LEARNING ETHICS FROM OUR RELATIONSHIPS WITH ANIMALS: MORAL IMAGINATION 179

and responsiveness. In this manner, care is an ethic that cannot be separated fromepistemology—we care about that which we know and it is dicult to care forthat which we have lile or no knowledge of. Although knowing is not a sucientcondition of caring, it is a prerequisite.

With the exception of Carol Adams’s work, formulations of care ethics have been largely anthrocentric. Applying care ethics to animal advocacy requiressucient knowledge of animals, not merely as abstract descriptive data, but asunique beings experienced through relationships. Care ethics challenges liberalassumptions about the nature of moral agency, just as animal advocacy challengedthe exclusive moral agency of humans. Rather than positing moral agents asthoroughly independent to make decisions based on principles or consequences,care ethics assumes that every moral agent is a social being existing in a web of

relationships that constitute a context which impinges on ethical decision mak-ing. Animals can participate in these relationships and are part of the experientialfabric that makes up the moral agent.

Care theory has matured over the past quarter century. In the early stages oftheorizing about care, feminists were mostly concerned with naming the previ-ously unnamed and thus care was sharply contrasted with existing accounts ofmorality, often categorized as “justice.” This period of identity formation fostereda false dichotomy between notions of “care” and “justice” that theorists subse-quently came to reconcile. Accordingly, care ethics is not posited as an alternative“system” of morality to other ethical approaches such as utilitarianism or Kantian

ethics. Instead, care reframes moral questions around the particulars of a givensituation and asks how they are signicant. As Virginia Held describes, “Therecan be care without justice . . . [but] There can be no justice without care.”7 Herclaim is based on the notion that care is such a pervasive aspect of human exis-tence, albeit analytically overlooked, that even the most eective system of justiceis underwrien by care for others in a manner that rules, principles, duties, andrights can never entirely account for. Ultimately, care ethicists are not antitheticalto the development and discussion of systems of justice such as those employed by Regan and Singer, but they point out that such systems do not encompass allthat is moral.

Another aspect of the maturing eld of care ethics is its growing concern fordiscussions of social and political philosophy. Much of the original work on careethics focused on interpersonal care as manifested in the reciprocal relations ofdyads, often idealizing mother-child relationships. Recently, the work of careethicists such as Noddings, Tronto, and Held have turned to theorizing about careas more than a personal ethic. Their work can be said to socialize care.8 Accord-ingly, care theorists are exploring the ways in which social institutions, policies,and practices can facilitate care. Part of the social and political extension of careethics has been to apply it to animal welfare.

In the 1990s theorists began adapting care ethics to animal advocacy. JosephineDonovan and Carol Adams contend that Regan and Singer’s approaches rely tooheavily upon conceptualizing animals as similar to humans whether the similarityis rooted in rationality or sentience. This continuity is dicult to sustain across


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specic aributes and species, but also ignores the position of human depen-dence that many animals nd themselves in.9 Donovan and Adams claim that

care ethics is a more appropriate moral approach for animal advocacy because ofits relational ontology, valorization of emotions, and emphasis on context. Theyconclude human-animal relationships should be “informed by an ethic of care,nurturance, sympathy, and love, and caring theory provides the basis for thisrealization.”10 Donovan and Adams argue eectively for the inclusion of careethics among the tools of the animal advocacy movement.

In the conclusion of “Caring about Suering: A Feminist Exploration,” Adamsoers a tantalizing albeit brief suggestion about the connection between careethics and embodiment:

Elaine Scarry observes that power “is always based on distance from the body.” A

relationship exists between reclaiming the body and its full range of feeling, andreclaiming animal’s bodies, including women’s. A feminist care ethic for the treat-ment of animals oers the possibility of such reclamation.11

It is precisely this connection between care ethics and embodiment that I minefor its implication in developing the moral imagination through animal-humanrelationships. It is my suggestion that animal associations can help humans fullyactualize their ethical abilities

EMBODIED CARE

Throughout the history of philosophy, the body has been missing or denigratedin moral reection. Philosophers typically pursue abstract moral theories that riseabove bodily experience. Rene Descartes’s mind / body dualism as expressed inthe claim cogito ergo sum is but one example of the marginalization of corporealexistence. Some modern philosophers have begun to question this exclusion ofthe body from ethical analysis. For example, Gail Weiss argues that morality can-not be reduced to an intellectual endeavor. Weiss claims that, “the body’s role incalling us to respond ethically to one another has continued to be egregiouslyneglected.”12 In response to this neglect, I propose the notion of “embodied care”as a corrective to the abstraction of moral systems. This approach extends the

denition of care to include its corporeal dimension. As I describe it: “care denotesan approach to personal and social morality that shifts ethical considerations tocontext, relationships, and aective knowledge in a manner that can be fully un-derstood only if care’s embodied dimension is recognized. Care is commied tothe ourishing and growth of individuals; yet acknowledges our interconnected-ness and interdependence.”13 The starting point for care is knowledge of the othergiven that we can only care for that which we know. Accordingly, embodied carestems from embodied knowledge.

Philosopher Maurice Merleau-Ponty identies the notion of embodied knowl-edge: “The factual presence of other bodies could not produce thought or the idea

if its seed were not in my own body. Thought is a relationship with oneself andwith the world as well as a relationship with the other.”14 If Merleau-Ponty is cor -rect about the knowledge our body possesses, then by extension the body is also


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the basis for a key component of care: empathy. To be empathetic is to engage ourimaginations to understand someone else’s feelings, actions, or situation. However,we are incapable of empathizing in a vacuum. I cannot empathize with those Ihave no knowledge of. For example, if there is life on another planet, I have nofeelings for that life because I have no knowledge of it. Yet, observation revealsthat humans have an enormous capacity to empathize even for the unfamiliar.We can have feelings for strangers when they are suddenly hurt or we can shedtears for ctional characters in movies. The common denominator for human-to-human empathy is embodiment. If I see a stranger trip and fall, I can empathizewith them, perhaps even act on their behalf because I know something of thisexperience myself. The knowledge of similar experiences is in my body. I toohave a body and have experienced gravity and the weight of my body hiing a

surface unexpectedly. I may never have articulated this experience but my bodyknows of it. I know how I would care for my body in this situation and I havethe opportunity to care for someone else’s. I have the corporeal resources to giveight to my imagination of what the other might feel, even across our personaldierences. As Catriona MacKenzie and Jackie Leach Scully claim in their analysisof understanding disability: “It is important that we recognise that our responsesand judgements, and our capacities imaginatively to engage with the perspectivesof others who are dierently embodied, are likely to be shaped and constrained by the specics of our own embodiment.”15 Imagination is a crucial link betweenwhat the body knows, empathy, and care.

Of course, animals have bodies too. If proximal bodily relations provide expe-riential resources for empathy between humans, it follows that such experiencesalso occur with our interactions with other embodied beings. Certain species ofanimals such as cats and dogs have a history of strong embodied relations withhumans. The term “natural” is not one that philosophers invoke lightly, but thecontact between companion animals and humans often appears natural in termsof ease, frequency, and mutual enjoyment. The medical, hospice, and convales-cent communities have acknowledged the human-animal connection throughAnimal-Assisted Activities and Therapy (AAA / T) Programs. The stories of ani-mals mitigating the distress of patients through their presence and contact are

legion.16 Such animals play an aective role in a manner that no material object canin improving the quality of care for patients. There is a familiar comfort betweenthe bodies of humans and animals that does not require articulation to initiate.The feelings in such situations run high but translating the corporeal experienceinto an imaginative resource for empathy is not guaranteed as social constraintsconspire to isolate bodies.

With animals, as with women and people of color in the past, the challengeis to overcome powerful and long-lasting oppressive narratives that limit richrelations. If we acquiesce to narratives that label animals as “beasts of burden,”

“livestock,” “property,” or “meat,” then the relations we have with them willlack robustness and inhibit imaginative possibilities. However, if we allow our-selves to experience rich proximal and tactile interactions (discussed in the nextsection) with animals our appreciation for their nuanced existence will grow, as


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discussed in the next section. Through relations with nonhuman bodies we cannd our way to care for animals, and perhaps by imaginative extension, under-

stand unfamiliar humans.

ANIMALS AND STIMULATING THE MORAL IMAGINATION

Anthropologist and psychologist Barbara Smuts values individual encounterswith animals as a resource for animal advocacy. As a scientist, she is familiarwith exploring the truth of rational arguments but Smuts views the sympatheticunderstanding that comes from experience as an important aective corollary topropositional knowledge. She suggests “for the heart to truly share another’s be-ing, it must be an embodied heart, prepared to encounter directly the embodiedheart of another.”17 Smuts lived for months in close proximity with nonhuman

beings including gorillas, chimpanzees, baboons, and dolphins. While ostensi- bly collecting research data, her aective understanding of these animals wasenhanced by the embodied knowledge only possible through proximal relations.For example, Smuts describes living among baboons: “I came to know every oneas a highly distinctive individual.”18 Through ongoing contact, the baboons be-came more than a category of animal but individual beings with unique features.This process of concretization makes the potential for greater caring possible.Understanding the character of each baboon made them something more thanabstraction and led to aective relations. Smuts experience is not unusual. The

lack of social constraints makes for the possibility of greater tactile interactionswith many animals. Those with companion animals often experience a rich tactilerelationship, many times even more so than with other human friends. Enteringinto such relationships with animals provides the foundation for new caring andimaginative associations.

A crucial aspect of an ethic of care is the moral imagination. If we only careabout those whom we come in contact with, than caring is simply a justication of

biased behavior and therefore of limited moral usefulness. Care becomes a service-able moral orientation when we are able to extrapolate our proximal relations toothers outside our direct experiential eld. It is praiseworthy to care for families,

friends, and companion animals but not as morally praiseworthy as caring forthose for whom we are less familiar. That extension or reach to empathize withunfamiliar others requires an imaginary leap. Empathetic imagination needs a

basis for commonality that allows us to understand something of the stranger inorder to have an aective response. For example, if I were to hear about a droughtthat was devastating aboriginal Australians, the potential for my caring and ac-tion is low (but not nonexistent) given my lack of imaginative comprehension oftheir existence and context. If I read a novel, visit, or watch a documentary aboutaboriginal Australians, my imagination has more substance to work with andthe potential for concern increases. If I have direct personal experience with an

aboriginal Australian then the potential for an aective response becomes greater.In order to care, my imagination is asked to transcend physical distance, culture,and language to see the shared humanity and understand the experience of an“other.” The challenges to making such connections are great as witnessed by the


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horrendous atrocities humans have perpetrated against one another throughouthistory. Dehumanizing narratives participate in prejudice and oppression. Es-tablishing connections across species is more dicult than between humans, butperhaps more rewarding for its expansion of imaginative capabilities.

Philosopher Mark Johnson views the moral imagination as an overlooked yetessential aspect of ethical theorizing: “Unless we can put ourselves in the placeof another, unless we can enlarge our own perspective through an imaginativeencounter with the experience of others, unless we can let our own values andideals be called into question from various points of view, we cannot be morallysensitive.”19 My thesis hinges on the notion that moral imagination improveswith use. Like a physical skill, moral imagination develops when it is exercisedand it can atrophy if it is not utilized. For example, in Poetic Justice: The Literary

Imagination and Public Life , Martha Nussbaum claims that literature can similarlystimulate our moral imaginations.

Unlike most historical works, literary works typically invite their readers to putthemselves in the place of people of many dierent kinds and to take on theirexperiences. In their very mode of address to their imagined reader, they conveythe sense that there are links of possibility, at least on a very general level, betweenthe characters and the reader. The reader’s emotions and imagination are highlyactive as a result, and it is the nature of this activity, and its relevance for publicthinking, that interests me.20

Art and culture contributes to imagination but so do the many transaction we

have with diverse people, both human and nonhuman.Caring for animals requires imaginative work—more so than when humans

care for other humans. Animals not only do not share culture and language, butthey have dierent embodied existence, physical capacities, and brain structures.Although some animals have developed sophisticated partnerships with humans,the chasm between human and animal existence means that greater eort isrequired to come to a level of understanding. Part of the empathetic challengeis that the precision by which humans understand animals is not the same as itcan be between humans. The quality and quantity of contact between particu-lar humans and particular animals can foster caring relationships. Proximity is

crucial. Animals and humans living in close quarters can develop a trust andunderstanding. For the humans, the understanding fosters unique appreciationfor the animal. Smuts describes the potential for this connection:

My own life has convinced me that the limitations most of us encounter in ourrelations with other animals reect not their shortcomings, as we so often assume, but our own narrow views about who they are and the kinds of relationships wecan have with them. And so I conclude by urging anyone with an interest in animalrights to open your heart to the animals around and nd out for yourself what it’slike to befriend a nonhuman person.21

What I am suggesting is that not only does this kind of relationship foster greatercare for animals but also it exercises imagination in a manner that can help hu-mans extend care to other humans. One example of stimulating the imaginationis anthropomorphism.


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IN PRAISE OF ANTHROPOMORPHISM

Typically, anthropomorphizing animals is conceived as an error. Ascribing hu-

man qualities to nonhumans appears patently incorrect. Tom Tyler, for example,describes, “Anthropomorphism, as the reckless assignation of human traits to the brutes, is a projection a kind of fetishism entirely inappropriate in any genuinelyanalytic enterprise. The very suggestion that a theory or approach is anthropo-morphic is, implicitly always an accusation.”22 Nevertheless, anthropomorphizinganimals is a pervasive human activity. For example, we live with a dog that is a basset hound mix and because of the extra skin around the eyes, when she laysher head on the oor, it appears that she is sad. This is a confusion between thephysical appearance of the dog and human physiognomy. Although wrong, suchanthropomorphizing is understandable: It is the mapping of the known onto theunknown. Such mapping tells us nothing about the truth of animals’ existence, andis therefore not useful for the development of scientic data on animal behavior,however, it is not arbitrary. Anthropomorphism often represents an imaginativeor playful aempt to understand animals. I claim that to the extent that anthro -pomorphism facilitates caring for unknown others, “humanizing” animals can be morally benecial.

Anthropomorphizing can also represent an imaginative starting point: begin-ning with the familiar and moving to the less familiar. Philosophers Richard Holtonand Rae Langton dismiss imagining the position of unfamiliar animals such as

slugs, sea anemones, or locusts because “the dierences are too great.”23

Holtonand Langton are correct. To jump from our human existence to these species istoo much of an imaginative leap. However, this model of imagination does nottake into account metaphoric chains of understanding. To move to empathizingwith the unfamiliar, rst we understand the familiar and extrapolate from there.Although they are enormously dierent than me, I understand my companionanimals more than other animals. If I aend to this relationship carefully, andallow my imagination to roam and develop, the potential for empathizing withother animals grows. Playful anthropomorphizing is not an end, but an imagina-tive exercise that creates possibilities.

Several authors have applied psychologist Albert Bandura’s theory of moraldisengagement to try to understand the cruel treatment of animals by humans.24 Bandura aempts to account for those occasions when people’s behaviors arenot consistent with their moral standards or what he refers to as “moral disen-gagement.” In applying Bandura’s theory to animal cruelty, Vollum, et al. oer“dehumanization aitudes” as one of the independent variables in their eortto determine what factors inuence people’s behavior toward animal cruelty.They conclude,

Dehumanization and property aitudes were the strongest predictors of concern both about animal cruelty and punitiveness toward those who commit acts of

violence against animals. It is not surprising individuals who are able to separatethemselves from nonhuman animals by marginalizing them through such mecha-nisms of moral disengagement would be less concerned about them as victims ofviolence. These two forms of aitudes have predominated throughout history as


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rationales for relegating non-human animals to a position unworthy of compassionand consideration.25

This is an intriguing conclusion given the fundamental misaribution of an-thropomorphism: our ability to nd continuity between animals and humans ispredictive of concern for animal cruelty. My suggestion is that if this imaginativeability can cross to beings of other species then it can only help us extend thatimagination to other humans as well.

THE MORAL CHALLENGE OF OUR AGE

The relationship between human cruelty toward animals and human crueltytoward other humans has been intuited by some in society for ages. In EmilyBrontë’s 1847 classic, Wuthering Heights , the male protagonist, Heathcli, dem-onstrates extraordinary cruelty toward animals. In a scene that is not includedin lm adaptations of the novel, Heathcli hangs Isabella’s dog, Fanny, whichforeshadows the subsequent domestic abuse Heathcli heaps on Isabella. Writ-ing in an era when organized concern for animals was in its infancy (the BritishSociety for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, for example, formed in 1824),Brontë found continuity between various forms of violence.26

Contemporary social scientic research appears to vindicate Brontë’s suspicionin a theory of violence that criminologist Piers Beirne describes as the “progres-sion thesis” or the notion that violence against animals has a causal link to vio-

lence against humans.27

Beirne is concerned that because the concept is relativelynew, rst being used in the 1980s, the progression thesis is not always carefullyemployed and thus more longitudinal and specic studies are needed. Neverthe-less, based on the large and growing body of evidence, Beirne concludes that ifcareful study is done: “In reducing abusers’ compassion, animal abuse might befound to increase tolerance or acceptance of pro-violent aitudes and, thereby, tofoster interhuman violence.”28 Beirne’s conclusions are supported by a numberof studies including the research of sociologist Clifton P. Flynn who surveyeduniversity students to determine if killing or torturing animals as a child waspredicative of later aitudes regarding violence commied against women and

children. Flynn describes “a statistically signicant result was obtained [which]suggests that the relationship is a fairly powerful one.” Based on these ndings,Flynn proposes, “Ending animal abuse will have important consequences for thewell-being of children and women.”29 Recent social science has indicated thereis momentum for nding a causal link between animal abuse and violence com-mied against humans. Thus, violence commied against animals may facilitatethe “immoral imagination,” but is there a positive corollary to this research? Canhuman care and kindness toward animals through meaningful relationships fos-ter moral abilities that lead to improved human interactions? Beirne speculatesthat, “Indeed, a plausible corollary of the progression thesis, if found to be true,

is that children who have, or who are taught to have, compassion for animalsmight be more likely to become adults who act more sensitively and more gentlytoward humans.”30


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Just as there exists a widespread belief that cruelty toward animals is linkedto cruelty toward humans, there is a general perception that animals can and do

have a positive impact on human interaction. Today, therapeutic animal programsexist for the physically handicapped, terminally ill, residents of long-term carefacilities, at-risk youth, and prisoners. Social science can again provide some cluesto the role animals can play in developing the moral imagination. Like Beirne,psychologists Kelly L. Thompson and Eleonara Gullone are concerned that in-adequate study has been done. They aribute some of the paucity of research toa historical bias against valuing human-animal interaction.31 Despite these con-cerns, Thompson and Gullone cite a number of studies that indicate a positivecorrelation between children having positive experiences with animals and theirability to empathize with humans. One such study provided 4th and 5th graders

with a 40-hour program of contact and education with animals. These studentsdemonstrated “higher levels of human-directed empathy” than a control groupthat did not have the training and higher levels were maintained when a one-yearfollow-up study was conducted.32 Nevertheless, Thompson and Gullone pointout that much more study is needed on such issues as the quality and characterof animal contact as well as the nature of the empathy created.

Care ethics, and more specically, embodied care, provides a theoretical frame-work for understanding the role of animals in fostering moral imagination. Thecharacter of interaction with companion animals is physical—touching, walking,playing, peing. The experience is embodied, and it adds to our moral resources.

Empathizing with unfamiliar others may be the moral challenge of the twenty-rst century. Technology has made the world smaller than ever but the new-found intimacy has not translated into widespread sympathetic understanding.Violent conict continues to permeate a world separated into “us” and “them.”Although some continue to delude themselves that the next act of aggressionwill make the world safer, peace may ultimately hinge on our ability to empa -thize with others. Certainly, animals must depend on human empathy to avoidviolence and extinction but maybe they can also be part of a solution. If we cansee our way to care for non-human creatures, not as property, but as extensionsof ourselves, perhaps we can also come to care for and about one another. Deep

empathy—really allowing the internalization of care for particular embodied beings of any kind—is no trivial maer. Taken seriously, it entails altering be-havior, changing cultural norms, and reorienting social systems. For example,there is a moral contradiction in empathizing with animals and consumingthem.33 Yet, if I have the moral will not to participate in violence perpetuatedagainst animals, the challenge to care for bipedal animals that are a lot like medoes not seem so great.

Endnotes

This essay is dedicated to Snoopy and Woodstock, four-legged members of the family.

1. Tom Regan, The Case for Animal Rights (Berkeley: University of California Press,1983). Peter Singer, Animal Liberation (New York: New York Review, 1975).


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2. Tom Regan, “Do Animals Have A Right To Life?” in Tom Regan and Peter Singer Animal Rights and Human Obligations (Englewood Clis, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1976).

3. Peter Singer, Writings on Ethical Life (New York: Harper Collins, 2000), 46.

4. Carol Gilligan, In A Dierent Voice: Psychological Theory and Women’s Development(Cambridge: Harvard University, 1982); Nel Noddings, Caring: A Feminine Approach toEthics and Moral Education (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984); and Joan C.Tronto, Moral Boundaries: A Political Argument for An Ethic of Care (New York: Routledge,1993).

5. Bill C. Henry, “Bullying and Animal Abuse: Is There a Connection?” Society & Animals 15 (2007): 124

6. Diemut Bubeck, Care, Gender, and Justice (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995),29.

7. Virginia Held, The Ethics of Care: Personal Political, and Global (Oxford: Oxford Uni-

versity Press, 2006), 17.

8. Maurice Hamington and Dorothy C. Miller, Socializing Care: Feminist Ethics and SocialIssues (Langham, MD: Rowman & Lileeld, 2006).

9. Josephine Donovan and Carol J. Adams, eds., Beyond Animal Rights: A Feminist CaringEthic for the Treatment of Animals (New York: The Continuum Publishing Company, 1996),14–15.

10. Ibid., 16.

11. Carol J. Adams, “Caring about Suering: A Feminist Exploration” in Beyond AnimalRights: A Feminist Caring Ethic for the Treatment of Animals , ed. Josephine Donovan and Carol

J. Adams, 193.

12. Gail Weiss, Body Images: Embodiment as Intercorporeality (New York: Routledge, 1999),161.

13. Maurice Hamington, Embodied Care: Jane Addams, Maurice Merleau-Ponty and FeministEthics (Urbana, Il: University of Illinois Press, 2004), 3.

14. Maurice Merleau-Ponty, The Visible and the Invisible , trans. Alphonso Lingis (Evanston,IL: Northwestern University Press, 1968), 145.

15. Catriona MacKenzie and Jackie Leach Scully, “Moral Imagination, Disability andEmbodiment,” Journal of Applied Philosophy 24:4 (2007), 348.

16. Andrea Leigh Ptak and Ann R. Howie, “Healing Paws & Tails: The Case for Animal-Assisted Therapy in Hospitals, Interactions 22:2 (2004): 9.

17. Barbara Smuts, “Reections” in J. M Coeee, The Lives of Animals , ed. Amy Gutman(Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1999), 108.

18. Ibid., 111.

19. Mark Johnson, Moral Imagination: Implications of Cognitive Science for Ethics (Chicago:University of Chicago Press, 1993), 199.

20. Martha Nussbaum, Poetic Justice: The Literary Imagination and Public Life , (Boston:Beacon Press, 1995), 5.

21. Ibid., 120.

22. Tom Tyler, “If Horses Had Hands . . .” Society & Animals 11:3 (2003): 270.

23. Richard Holton and Rae Langton, “Empathy and Animal Ethics,” in Dale Jamieson,Singer and his Critics (Blackwell, 1999), 225.

24. Sco Vollum, Jacqueline Bungton-Vollum, and Dennis R. Longmire, “Moral Disen-gagement and Aitudes about Violence toward Animals” Society & Animals 12:3 (2004).


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25. Ibid., 228

26. Maureen Adams, “Emily Bronte and Dogs: Transformation Within the Human-DogBond,” Bronte Studies 29 (March 2004): 43–52.

27. Piers Beirne, “From Animal Abuse to Interhuman Violence? A Critical Review ofthe Progression Thesis,” Society & Animal 12:3 (2004), 40.

28. Ibid., 55.

29. Clifton P. Flynn, “Animal Abuse in Childhood and Later Support for InterpersonalViolence in Families,” Society & Animals 7:2 (1999), 161–72.

30. Beirne, “From Animal Abuse to Interhuman Violence?” 55.

31. Kelly L. Thompson and Eleonara Gullone, “Promotion of Empathy and ProsocialBehavior in Children through Humane Education,” Australian Psychologist 36:3 (November2003): 177.

32. Ibid., 180. 33. Michael Allen Fox, “Why We Should Be Vegetarians,” International Journal of AppliedPhilosophy 20:2 (2006): 295–310.

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