Kristin Andrews

Philosophy and Animals

Fall/Winter 2004-2005

Friday 11:30-2:30

In this course we will look at some of the philosophical issues arising from the existence of nonhuman animals. We will look at the ethical implications of animals, both with respect to animals' moral standing and what our evolutionary relationship to other animals has to say about the grounding of ethics more generally. As a philosophy of mind question we will study the other minds problem applied to the case of nonhuman animals. There are also ontological questions about the nature and reality of species that we will investigate. And from the perspective of philosophy of language we can examine the linguistic abilities of chimpanzees, dolphins, and parrots.