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Description Putting the Horse before Descartes: My Life's Work on Behalf of Animals by Bernard E. Rollin 4.6 of 5 stars 4.60 · rating details · 10 ratings · 4 reviews Hardcover, 304 pages Published January 14th 2011 by Temple University Press Jon Stout Oct 19, 2011 Jon Stout rated it 5 of 5 stars Recommends it for: relativists and animal lovers Recommended to Jon by: Bob Nichols Shelves: philosophy Bernie Rollin resembles an old testament prophet, and I don’t mean because of his curly beard that evokes his Brooklyn Jewish background. There is no fire and brimstone, and there is no spiritual aura, but Bernie Rollin has repeatedly used nothing but reason and ethics to call people to account for the mistreatment of animals, and the reaction seems to be awestruck acceptance and wholehearted reform, even among the most resistant. Let me describe how it is possible. Bernie Rollin was a graduate student at Columbia University, in the philosophy department, at the same time as I was, and he had the same advisor, Arthur Danto, as I had. But he left New York City to write his dissertation the same year that I arrived, and I never met him. I wish I had. He had asthma and he loved animals, so he went to Colorado State University to teach. At CSU, a leading agriculture and veterinary school, Rollin reacted to how animals were treated for teaching purposes, for example, repeatedly operated upon with minimal anesthesia. When he confronted his veterinary colleagues for the first time, with courage and anger, he instinctively asked why they had become veterinarians in the first place. Their answer was that they loved animals, which then provided a rational basis for him to question why they would want to impose gratuitous pain on animals. From there on the discussion was rational and progress was achieved. This basic story was repeated on larger and larger scales with various professional groups, with humane societies, with legislators, and with the public at large. Added to a simple start of courageous caring is a follow-through of enormous scholarship. Bernie Rollin provides the best introductory exposition of ethics that I have seen, so that in a world where even ethics for humans is regarded as subjective and relativistic, he provides a solid basis for a rational discussion of ethics as it pertains to animals. His basic approach to ethics is largely descriptive, and only at the margins revisionist. We all make moral judgments all the time. The job of the ethical philosopher is to render those judgments consistent and to elucidate the hierarchies of principles from which the judgments flow. When he argues for changes at the margins of current practices, for example for changes in the treatment of lab animals, he does so by extending the logic of established practices, such as laws pertaining to the treatment of pets, and by showing that ethically speaking the situations are comparable. I cannot do justice to the complexity of his accomplishments. This guy is my hero, not only for what he has done for animals, but also for showing the power of philosophy. The facts that he rides a Harley-Davidson and is a weight-lifter are endearing embellishments, but are nothing compared to his towering moral and intellectual stature.  Bernard E. Rollin Author profile gender male About this author edit data Professor Bernard E. Rollin is University Distinguished Professor, Professor of Philosophy, Professor of Biomedical Sciences, Professor of Animal Sciences and University Bioethicist at Colorado State University. His scholarly interests include both traditional philosophy and applied philosophy and much of his research is focused on animal welfare. He has been a valued member of the Voiceless Scientific Expert Advisory Council since 2009. Bernard has a Bachelor’s Degree from the City College of New York and a PhD from Columbia. He is the author of over 400 papers and fourteen books including Science and Ethics and Animal Rights and Human Morality which won an Outstanding Book of the Year Award from the American Association of University Libraries. He has consulted for the US Department of Agriculture and for a number of multinational corporations including United Airlines, PETCO, DuPont and the US Soybean Association on a variety of agricultural and animal welfare issues. He served on the Pew National Commission on Industrial Farm Animal Production (PCIFAP) and on the Institute for Laboratory Animal Resources (ILAR) Council of the National Academy of Sciences. In 2008, he mediated a historic agreement between the Humane Society of the U.S. and Colorado agriculture resulting in legislation advancing the welfare of farm animals. Rollin was named to the Distinguished Faculty Gallery by the College of Veterinary Medicine at CSU in 1992. He has twice been awarded the Brownlee Award for outstanding achievement in Animal Welfare Science by the Animal Welfare Foundation of Canada and is a recipient of the Distinguished Service Award from the Colorado Veterinary Medical Association. In 2005, he was awarded the Henry Spira Award in Animal Welfare by Johns Hopkins University Centre for Alternatives to Animal Testing and received the Humane Award from the American Veterinary Medical Association in 2007. He recently contributed to the documentary film The Superior Human? which challenges the Cartesian duality which hierarchically divides humans from other animals Related Torrents
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