This book engages with the changing ways in which we as a society and culture look upon and interact with animals stressing how much animals differ among themselves. An invitation to appreciate the peculiar role of animals in telling important if uncomfortable truths about who we are and where we are heading â namely towards a world so much poorer in cultural moral and biological diversity â as a result of the ongoing decimation of so many other species. Drawing on a variety of thought ranging from that of Midgley Plumwood and Murdoch to Levinas Derrida and Habermas from ecophilosophers to conservation biologists Animal Lives and Why They Matter asks how we have come to this and what an alternative less destructive approach to our now precarious coexistence with animals might look like. Spanning the disciplines of philosophy psychology and anthropology this enquiry into various cross-species relationships and encounters will appeal to scholars and students across the humanities and social sciences with interests in philosophy ethics human-animal interaction and environmental thought. . Language: English