Daniel Dombrowski discusses the core issues of a popular argument of animal liberationists. This book covers the most prominent philosopher's arguments for and against the argument from marginal cases. He discusses the main issues without getting into non-animal philosophical discussions--you don't have to be a utilitarian, contractualist, or any other brand to listen to his arguments. Also, while presenting his case for liberation, he avoids the dogmatism that is prevalent amongst proponents and opponents of animal liberation. This is an excellent book and I recommend it to everyone--for everybody is affected if we agree with his thesis. That is, we should stop eating, experimenting, or wearing animals.

Dombrowski effectively presents a coherent and illuminative picture of the philosophy of Stephen R. L. Clark. I read this book without having had any prior experience of Clark's philosophy and have come away with a treasure of thought-provoking insights. While I must agree with Clark's critics that his style is not as systematic as one would like, his prosaic writing (numerous passages are quoted by Dombrowski) is itself an enjoyable experience. I agree with Dombrowski against those critics who find no coherency in Clark's treatment of the various areas of religion, duties toward animals and politics. His vision of the world and humanity's place in it, which Dombrowski presents in the last chapter, is philosophically interesting (rooted in neo-Platonism) and effectively demonstrates the coherency of Clark's philosophy in terms of his main project to avoid both extremism and anthropocentrism while preserving traditional religious ideals.

Every vegetarian society should have one of these in theirlibrary. If you thought vegetarianism started with PeterSinger or even Henry Salt, think again. The ancient Greeks have already said it all: the health argument, the ethics argument, the religious argument, they're all there. If you're a vegetarian and you really want to know why, this is where you start, not Animal Liberation or Animal Rights. Instead, take Dombrowski's advice and look up Porphyry's On Abstinence, which you can also order from Amazon Books!

This piece of pro-abortion propaganda, charading as scholarship, is seriously misleading. Some problems:

1) The authors ignore the anti-abortion position of the early, patristic church. The Didache, Tertullian, and Athenagoras categorically condemn all abortion, regardless of what stage at which it is performed.

2) The authors rightly show that Augustine and Aquinas supported the theory of delayed animation, but they fail to show that these authors also categorically condemned abortion at all stages. Later abortion was more gravely evil than an early abortion (just as first-degree murder is more evil than second-degree murder), but all abortion was condemned as wrong. The canon law of the same period showed the same graded but clear condemnation of all abortion.

3) The authors fail to explain to the reader the absurd biology on which delayed animation was based. Aquinas (following Aristotle), thought the female fetus became "human" later than a male fetus because the woman contributed nothing to conception! He also thought that the early human fetus was some sort of vegetable! No one today disputes the fact that from the moment of conception a huam fetus is purely human. It is not a tiny grapefruit or cat that suddenly becomes human at some later stage of gestation.

4) From the beginning of its existence the Catholic Church has strongly condemned abortion at every stage. While its reasons for condemnation and the degree of condemnation have varied, its position has remained remarkably consistent. Its strengthened opposition to abortion at every stage is completely justified by new knowledge in genetics and gestation. Every human person's history has a radical beginning at the moment of conception.

The authors of this book go into great detail on the history of abortion in the Catholic Church and Catholic tradition. They look at the views of St. Augustine and Thomas Aquinas and trace thinking on abortion throughout history. They show how Catholic thinking has changed as scientific and medical knowledge increased and changed as well as looking at the views of society. Although the book can be slow in places, the author's points are very interesting and show that the abortion debate within the Catholic Church is not a simple, clear-cut issue. While the authors are not theologians, and do not pretend to be, their discussion is interesting, informative and relevant.

It's enlightening to learn the gradual ensoulment of the fetus was Catholic dogma before the 17th cent, taught by Augustine & Thomas Aquinas.After that time the immediate infusion of the human soul was taught to occur at conception. A strong case can be made for a vegetative soul, then an animal soul, preceding to the human soul in the last trimester. "the moral permissibility of abortion in the early stages of pregnancy is, AT THE VERY LEAST, an intellectually respectable view when the history of Catholic thought on abortion is considered in its relation to the history of science" the philosopher authors conclude. While some of this is difficult to follow, it is well worth the effort.