FYS 1239 - Animals, Ethics & Policy

Credits: 4
Animal rights issues are receiving more and more public attention each year, with people increasingly questioning their relationship to animals and the environment. Is it wrong to eat animals? To experiment on them? To wear them as clothing? To display them in circuses, zoos, and aquariums? These are difficult moral questions. To answer them we consider contemporary readings, speeches, and films on animal rights, as well as readings in philosophy and ethics. And if we decide that society should change, how can that change be achieved? What tactics work? Education? Lobbying? Protest? Civil Disobedience? Direct action? This course looks for answers in political science, sociology, and the examples of past and present movements like Civil Rights and LGBT rights.
McDaniel Plan: First Year Seminar; Social, Cultural, and Historical Understanding