The Human Use of Animals: Case Studies in Ethical Choice

by Tom L. Beauchamp, F. Barbara Orlans, Rebecca Dresser

The Human Use of Animals reports the facts about some of the most compelling and difficult issues about animal welfare that confront society today. Fully revised and with four new chapters, the 16 case studies in the present volume explore a variety of controversies about the human uses of animals that have emerged over the last 40 years or so. The book begins with a lengthy exploration of applicable ethical theory. It then presents the facts of the 16 cases, followed in each case by analysis of pertinent theoretical and practical ethical issues. This volume offers a discussion of controversies within a range of contexts that includes biomedical, behavioural, and wildlife research, cosmetic safety testing, education, entertainment (zoos and circuses) the food industry, commerce, companion animals and animal uses in religious practices.

Genres: Animals

287 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1998

About the author

Tom Lamar Beauchamp was an American philosopher specializing in the work of David Hume, moral philosophy, bioethics, and animal ethics. He was Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at Georgetown University, where he was Senior Research Scholar at the Kennedy Institute of Ethics.
Beauchamp authored or co-authored several books on ethics and on Hume, including Hume and the Problem of Causation (1981, with Alexander Rosenberg), Principles of Biomedical Ethics (1985, with James F. Childress), and The Human Use of Animals (1998, with F. Barbara Orlans et al). He was the co-editor with R. G. Frey of The Oxford Handbook of Animal Ethics (2011). He was also the co-editor of the complete works of Hume, The Critical Edition of the Works of David Hume (1999), published by Oxford University Press.