Anthropocentrism and Its Discontents: The Moral Status of Animals in the History of Western Philosophy

[Recommended reading/Book reviews]

Anthropocentrism and Its Discontents by Professor Gary Steiner.

Gary Steiner sketches the terms of the current debates about animals and relates these to their historical antecedents, focusing on both the dominant anthropocentric voices and those recurring voices that instead assert a fundamental kinship relation between human beings and animals. He concludes with a discussion of the problem of balancing the need to recognize a human indebtedness to animals and the natural world with the need to preserve a sense of the uniqueness and dignity of the human individual