The Question of the Animal: Why Now?

Abstract

In 1923, as the Dale Lecturer at Mansfield College at Oxford, Albert Schweitzer predicted that “[t]he time is coming ... when people will be astonished that mankind [sic] needed so long a time to regard thoughtless injury to life as incompatible with ethics” (qtd. in Oxford Centre 2007). In anticipation of the time it might take to “be astonished” and despite ubiquitous media reports of “thoughtless injury” to non-human animals, one might still be encouraged by the increasing influence of national and international organizations, including the Animal Alliance of Canada, PETA and now the Oxford Centre for Animal Ethics. One may be encouraged to believe that the time envisioned by Schweitzer has come. Only now does the question of the non-human animal appear to be a matter of public knowledge and, increasingly, of ethical concern leading to action at the individual, public and institutional levels.1