Human/Animal Relationships in Transformation. Scientific, Moral and Legal Perspectives.

Ethics of Human/Animal Relationships is a growing field of academic research and a topic for public discussion and regulatory interventions from law-makers, government and private institutions (such as scientific societies and farming industries). In our societies human/animal relationships are in transformation and understanding the nature of this process is crucial for all those who believe that the enlargement of moral and legal recognition to non-human animals is part of contemporary civilization and moral/political progress. Understanding the nature of this process means analysing and critically discussing the philosophical/ scientific/legal concepts and arguments embedded in it. This book aims at contributing to such analysis by means of collecting ideas and reflec- tions from leading experts in the fields from different disciplinary approaches and theoretical/scientific perspectives. Scopes of this book are both depicting the state of the art of the transformation of Human/ Animal Relationships and presenting ideas to foster this process. In pur- suing those aims the approach of this book is plural in a double meaning. First, contributors are plural in their backgrounds and expertise in order to provide a rich interpretation of the questions at stake. Second, plural- ity regards the subject matter of the various analyses: Human/Animal Relationships (and transformations affecting them) are not a monolith. Animal species are many and different and human interactions with them are equally many and different. The various contributions to the book move from the awareness of the great variety of human/animal relation- ships in order to foster the theoretical debate and the public discussion about the scientific and ethical reasons underlying the changes in our approaches to animals, a fact that nowadays irreversibly characterizes our societies.