Putting the Horse before Descartes: My Life's Work on Behalf of Animals (Animals and Ethics)

305 Pages·2011·1.36 MB·English

by  Bernard Rollin

Putting the Horse
before Descartes
In the series Animals and Ethics,
edited by Marc Bekoff
Also In tHIs serIes:
Leslie Irvine, Filling the Ark: Animal Welfare in Disasters
Marc Bekoff, Animals at Play
Bernard e. roLLIn
Putting the Horse
before Descar tes
My Life’s Work on Behalf of Animals
TeMpLe UnIversITy press
philadelphia
TeMpLe UnIversITy press
philadelphia, pennsylvania 19122
www.temple.edu/tempress
Copyright © 2011 by Temple University
all rights reserved
published 2011
Illustration on p. xii: Courtesy of M. Lynne Kesel
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-publication data
rollin, Bernard e.
putting the horse before descartes : my life’s work on behalf of animals /
Bernard e. rollin.
p. cm. — (animals and ethics)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
IsBn 978-1-59213-825-8 (cloth : alk. paper)
IsBn 978-1-59213-827-2 (electronic)
1. rollin, Bernard e. 2. animal welfare—Moral and ethical aspects.
3. ethicists—United states—Biography. I. Title.
Hv4716.r66a3 2011
179'.3092—dc22
[B] 2010030142
The paper used in this publication meets the requirements of the american
national standard for Information sciences—permanence of paper for printed
Library Materials, ansI Z39.48-1992
printed in the United states of america
2 4 6 8 9 7 5 3 1
To my mother, who died during the writing of
this book at age 101 and who believed, as did
many Catholic theologians who opposed Descartes
and St. Thomas Aquinas, that “heaven would not
be heaven without animals”

Morality is not a single-shot shotgun.
— Cowgirl student in animal sciences, CsU,
responding to the question “How can we worry
about animals when people are starving?”

Contents
preface xi
prologue: The Beginning xiii
1 Life in new york 1
2 Coming to CsU: The start of My animal Career 10
3 veterinary Medicine 17
4 ethics, veterinary Medical ethics, and emerging animal ethics 30
5 The new social ethic for animals: a philosophical approach
to animal ethics 44
6 Companion animals and animal advocates 53
7 Creating Law for animal research 69
8 The deeper Meaning of the Laws 77
9 a philosopher Looks at scientific Ideology 91
10 Ideology and Consciousness 109
11 ethical Issues in animal research and the research-animal
Laws: successes and Inadequacies 125
12 pain and Ideology 139