Animal ethics is generating growing interest both within academia and outside it. This book focuses on ethical issues connected to animals who play an extremely important role in human lives: companion animals ("pets"), with a special emphasis on dogs and cats, the animals most often chosen as pets. Companion animals are both vulnerable to and dependent upon us. What responsibilities do we owe to them, especially since we have the power and authority to make literal life-and-death decisions about them? What kinds of relationships should we have with our companion animals? And what might we learn from cats and dogs about the nature and limits of our own morality?
The contributors write from a variety of philosophical perspectives, including utilitarianism, care ethics, feminist ethics, phenomenology, and the genealogy of ideas. The eighteen chapters are divided into two sections, to provide a general background to ethical debate about companion animals, followed by a focus on a number of crucial aspects of human relationships to companion animals. The first section discusses the nature of our relationships to companion animals, the foundations of our moral responsibilities to companion animals, what our relationships with companion animals teach us, and whether animals themselves can act ethically. The second part explores some specific ethical issues related to crucial aspects of companion animals' lives--breeding, reproduction, sterilization, cloning, adoption, feeding, training, working, sexual interactions, longevity, dying, and euthanasia.

Christine Overall is Professor Emerita of Philosophy and University Research Chair, Queen's University, Ontario.

Table of Contents
Preface
Acknowledgements
List of Contributors
Introduction
PART I: The Nature of the Human/Companion Animal Relationship and its Ethical Foundations
1. Companion and Assistance Animals: Benefits, Welfare Safeguards, and Relationships Jean Harvey
2. Friendship with Companion Animals Cynthia Townley
3. Building a Meaningful Social World between Human and Companion Animals through Empathy Antonio Calcagno
4. Care, Moral Progress, and Companion Animals Maurice Hamington
5. A Two-Level Utilitarian Analysis of Relationships with Pets Gary Varner
6. "I Don't Want the Responsibility": The Moral Implications of Avoiding Dependency Relations with Companion Animals Kathryn Norlock
7. Ethical Behavior in Animals Bernard Rollin
PART II: Living with Companion Animals
8. Our Whimsy, Their Welfare: On the Ethics of Pedigree-Breeding John Rossi
9. Does Preventing Reproduction Make for Bad Care? Katherine Wayne
10. "Lassie, Come Home!": Ethical Concerns about Companion Animal Cloning Jennifer Parks
11. Reproducing Companion Animals Jessica du Toit and David Benatar
12. For Dog's Sake, Adopt! Tina Rulli
13. The Animal Lovers' Paradox? On the Ethics of "Pet Food" Josh Milburn
14. The Ethics of Animal Training Tony Milligan
15. Animal Assisted Intervention and Citizenship Theory Zipporah Weisberg
16. "Sex without All the Politics"? Sexual Ethics and Human-Canine Relations Chloë Taylor
17. Throw Out the Dog? Death, Longevity, and Companion Animals Christine Overall
18. The Euthanasia of Companion Animals Michael Cholbi