The Routledge Handbook of Religion and Animal Ethics

The ethical treatment of non-human animals is an increasingly significant issue, directly affecting how people share the planet with other creatures and visualize themselves within the natural world. The Routledge Handbook of Religion and Animal Ethics is a key reference source in this area, looking specifically at the role religion plays in the formation of ethics around these concerns.

Featuring thirty-five chapters by a team of international contributors, the handbook is divided into two parts. The first gives an overview of fifteen of the major world religions’ attitudes towards animal ethics and protection. The second features five sections addressing the following topics:

• Human Interaction with Animals
• Killing and Exploitation
• Religious and Secular Law
• Evil and Theodicy
• Souls and Afterlife

This handbook demonstrates that religious traditions, despite often being anthropocentric, do have much to offer to those seeking a framework for a more enlightened relationship between humans and non-human animals. As such, The Routledge Handbook of Religion and Animal Ethics is essential reading for students and researchers in religious studies, theology and animal ethics as well as those studying the philosophy of religion and ethics more generally.

Andrew Linzey is the director of the Oxford Centre for Animal Ethics; an honorary research fellow at St Stephen’s House, University of Oxford; and a member of the Faculty of Theology in the University of Oxford. He is a visiting professor of animal theology at the University of Winchester and a professor of animal ethics at the Graduate Theological Foundation in Indiana.

Clair Linzey is the deputy director of the Oxford Centre for Animal Ethics. She holds an MA in theological studies from the University of St Andrews and an MTS from Harvard Divinity School. She is currently pursuing a doctorate at the University of St Andrews on the ecological theology of Leonardo Boff, with special consideration of the place of animals.