Online research in philosophy

This article examines Jean-Jacques Rousseau's views on the need for an ethical treatment of animals, placing them within the context of the early modern debate on this topic, and the tradition of "love of animals" known as "theriophily." It discusses the broad extent of Rousseau's views on this issue, and their importance, specifically because of his wide influence. However, an emphasis is put on the clear anthropocentric limits of Rousseau's sensitivity to animals, and of a similar limit discernible in the (...) history of theriophilic attitudes toward animals in general. (shrink)

Abstract This article examines the consideration of animals by various eighteenth-century Scottish philosophers, with special attention given to the physician and philosopher John Gregory, who utilized the comparison of human beings with animals as a starting point for a discussion about human moral and social improvement. In so doing Gregory, like most of his contemporary fellow Scottish philosophers, exemplified the basic anthropocentrism of the common early modern consideration of animals.