Fellow creatures Our obligations to the other animals

This book offers an important defense of the claim that nonhuman animals are ends in themselves and so have moral standing--in other words, that people have moral obligations toward them. Korsgaard grounds this claim in the fact that animals, like people, have a good of their own. Their lives can go well or poorly, they can flourish or fail to do so. But she also distinguishes between two ways in which a thing can be an end in itself, such that humans' obligations to other humans and those toward animals are not symmetrical. In part 2, she suggests that Kant misunderstood how his own moral theory applied to animals. In part 3, she looks at the practical implications of her views for issues in environmental ethics and animal ethics, such as eating and hunting animals and using them as work and service animals. Korsgaard offers compelling arguments for these views. She is one of the preeminent contemporary scholars of Kantian moral theory, so this is a significant book that will need to be referenced by anyone working on these issues. It is a must have for any college or university library. Summing Up: Essential. Advanced undergraduates through faculty and professionals. --Mark A. Michael, Austin Peay State University