Thoughts Regarding The Future State Of Animals

This unique book establishes potential future avenues within the law to enhance the welfare of animals and grant them recognised legal status. Charting the direction of the animal-human relationship for future generations, it explores the core concepts of property law to demonstrate how change is possible for domestic animals. As an ethical context for future developments the concept of a ‘right of place’ is proposed and developed.

Can animals really provide clues to the future of the world? In this intriguing work, George Hawkins Pember argues that the past and present behavior of animals can help us predict future events, from natural disasters to global political changes. With its unconventional approach to history and science, this book challenges readers to think outside the box and consider new ways of interpreting the world around us. This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the "public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.

Are animals mentally stuck in the present, unable to think beyond the here and now, or are they mental time travelers, capable of planning ahead in time? And why should this matter to us? "Planning for the Future" provides a thorough conceptual clarification of the most important but ambiguously used concepts in the debate and differentiates between two types of planning. In analyzing several influential studies with birds and apes, the book concludes that there is indeed evidence for anticipatory planning in some animals, but not for strategic planning so far. In a chapter of its own, ethical consequences regarding the wrongness of killing animals from utilitarian and animal rights perspectives are laid out. Do at least some animals have a strong interest in continuing to live? Should they even be ascribed with a right not to be killed? And why might the awareness of our own mortality hinder us in finding answers?