This book is a detailed view of animal ethics based on two intellectual sources: pragmatism (primarily John Dewey and Charles Sanders Peirce, but also Jane Addams and Alaine Locke) and ecofeminism (also ecowomanism, which emphasizes the insights of women of color). One of the chief virtues of the book is the emphasis placed on negotiating provisional responses to issues regarding animals in the midst of competing claims, in pragmatist fashion. The author highlights the fact that being human is wrapped up in living and dying with other animal beings. As a result, McKenna finds ethical issues regarding animals other than humans to be more complicated than either animal rightists or anthropocentrists imagine.
McKenna does not shy away from some controversial conclusions, as in the claim that we should not necessarily eliminate all painful or lethal research on nonhuman animals or that vegetarianism/veganism are not nonnegotiable positions for those who are...
