Dolphins Are Social Mammals, Capable Of Enjoying

If Zoos Are Like Arks, Then Rare Animals Are Like Passengers On A Voyage Of The Damned, Never To Find A Port That Will Let Them Dock Or A Land In Which They Can Live In Peace. The Real Solution, Of Course, Is To Preserve The Wild Nature That Created These Animals And Has The Power To Sustain Them. But If It Is Really True That We Are Inevitably Moving Towards A World In Which Mountain Gorillas Can Survive Only In Zoos, Then We Must Ask Whether It Is Really Better For Them To Live In Artificial Environments Of Our Design Than Not To Be Born At All.

We Ought To Consider The Interests Of Animals Because They Have Interests And It Is Unjustifiable To Exclude Them From The Sphere Of Moral Concern; To Make This Consideration Depend On Beneficial Consequences For Human Beings Is To Accept The Implication That The Interests Of Animals Do Not Warrant Consideration For Their Own Sakes.

Of All The Arguments Against Voluntary Euthanasia, The Most Influential Is The Slippery Slope: Once We Allow Doctors To Kill Patients, We Will Not Be Able To Limit The Killing To Those Who Want To Die.

...chimpanzees, Bonobos, Gorillas, And Orangutans Are Thinking, Self-aware Beings, Capable Of Planning Ahead, Who Form Lasting Social Bonds With Others And Have A Rich Social And Emotional Life. The Great Apes Are Therefore An Ideal Case For Showing The Arbitrariness Of The Species Boundary. If We Think That All Human Beings, Irrespective Of Age Or Mental Capacity, Have Some Basic Rights, How Can We Deny That The Great Apes, Who Surpass Some Humans In Their Capacities, Also Have These Rights?

At The Descriptive Level, Certainly, You Would Expect Different Cultures To Develop Different Sorts Of Ethics And Obviously They Have; That Doesn't Mean That You Can't Think Of Overarching Ethical Principles You Would Want People To Follow In All Kinds Of Places.