Animalkind: What We Owe to Animals

Animal lovers in today’s world are a curious breed. Many dote on their dogs and cats, demand equal rights for horses and apes – and then happily devour pigs and chickens. So how are we truly supposed to think of and treat animals? Animalkind:What We Owe to Animals explores the crucial ethical differences between humans and animals. Occupying the middle ground between extreme egalitarianism and outright dismissal, the book instead advocates a position of respect for animals, treatment not afforded to the current inhabitants of factory farms and animal labs.

Starting from the beginning, when animals were first used as resources, Kazez takes us on a fascinating journey through the history of animal exploitation. After illustrating how the relatively benign exploitation of animals became malignant, she reveals the startling fact that livestock and feedcrops now occupy a full third of the earth’s land surface. With so many animals at our mercy – and the environment hanging in the balance – there is more reason than ever to take a fresh look at our complex and contradictory relationship with animals.

While providing a serious philosophical discussion of a sensitive issue, the book also covers lighter topics, from Descartes’s dinner menu to Montezuma’s albino zoo and the author’s personal dietary struggles. Animalkind ultimately urges us to revere all forms of life, the human kind as well as the animal kind, while respecting important differences.