A Plea for the Animals
From Bodhicitta
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A Plea for the Animals: The Moral, Philosophical, and Evolutionary Imperative to Treat All Beings with Compassion
Book
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Description
Every cow just wants to be happy. Every chicken just wants to be free. Every bear, dog, or mouse experiences sorrow and feels pain as intensely as any of us humans do. In a compelling appeal to reason and human kindness, Matthieu Ricard here takes the arguments from his best-sellers Altruism and Happiness to their logical conclusion: that compassion toward all beings, including our fellow animals, is a moral obligation and the direction toward which any enlightened society must aspire. He chronicles the appalling sufferings of the animals we eat, wear, and use for adornment or “entertainment,” and submits every traditional justification for their exploitation to scientific evidence and moral scrutiny. What arises is an unambiguous and powerful ethical imperative for treating all of the animals with whom we share this planet with respect and compassion. (Source: Shambhala Publications)
Citation
Ricard, Matthieu. "A Plea for the Animals: The Moral, Philosophical, and Evolutionary Imperative to Treat All Beings with Compassion." Boulder, CO: Shambhala Publications, 2017.
Table of contents
- Translator's Preface xi
- Introduction 1
- 1. A Brief History of the Relations between Humans and Animals 5
- 2. Out of Sight, Out of Mind 41
- 3. Everybody Loses: Effects of Industrial Breeding and Meat Eating on Poverty, the Environment, and Health 55
- 4. The Real Face of Industrial Animal Breeding 71
- 5. Sorry Excuses 93
- 6. The Continuum of Life 115
- 7. The Mass Killing of Animals: Genocide versus Zoocide 147
- 8. A Little Side Trip into the Realm of Moral Judgment 159
- 9. The Dilemma of Animal Experimentation 167
- 10. Illegal Trade in Wildlife 187
- 11. Animals as Objects of Entertainment: The Will to Power 199
- 12. Animal Rights, Human Obligations 239
- Conclusion: An Appeal to Reason and Human Kindness 263
- Acknowledgments 273
- Notes 275
- Bibliography 322
- Index 330
- About Karuna-Shechen 342
Interconnections
1 Interviews
This Buddhist monk's plea may change the way you think and feel about animals.
