The Sighing Pig

German-language animal ethics long stood in the shadow of the Anglo-Saxon discussion, which began earlier and continues to be widely debated today. Helene Röcklinsberg takes up the German-language discussion.

She focuses her observations on the animal ethical models of Michael Schlitt, Erich Gräßer, Ursula Wolf, Günter Altner, and Klaus Michael Meyer-Abich. In doing so, she examines five groundbreaking models, whose basic positions range from anthropocentrism to ecocentrism, thus completely covering the spectrum of animal ethical argumentation.

A key focus of the examination is the question of what philosophical and theological animal ethics intends and is able to achieve in practice. Helena Röcklinsberg investigates this question with reference to the example of pig farming. Ethological aspects are used in an attempt to describe acceptable forms of husbandry, and the different animal ethical models must stand up to a comparison of theoretical demands and statements regarding practical husbandry.

At the end of her remarks, Röcklinsberg presents her own theocentric animal ethical concept, whose demands can be summarized as follows: "Humans may only keep animals if they offer them a species-appropriate life, and may only kill animals - as gently as possible and without prior transport - if they are either terminally ill or have reached their biological dying age."

Since a justifiable "species-appropriate husbandry," as Röcklinsberg describes it, provides for enormously land-intensive free-range farming, which would quickly reach its limits for ecological reasons, this conclusion ultimately amounts to a demand to cease pig farming for the purpose of meat production.

Overview of contents: Introduction · Ethology of Pig Farming · A Theologically Anthropocentric Animal Ethic · A Theologically Pathocentric Animal Ethic · A Philosophically Pathocentric Animal Ethic · A Theologically Biocentric Animal Ethic · A Philosophically Ecocentric Animal Ethic · Comparison of Key Concepts · Comparison of Theological and Philosophical Aspects and the Theory-Practice Relationship · Critical Discussion · Fundamentals of a Theocentric Animal Ethic

 On Theory and Practice in German Models of Animal Ethics

(Animal Rights - Human Duties, Vol. 6)

Helena Röcklinsberg 

 Publisher: Harald Fischer, Erlangen 

ISBN 3-89131-405-1