Tuesday, August 28, 2007

Pg. 69: Thomas I. White's "In Defense of Dolphins"

Today's feature at the Page 69 Test: Thomas I. White's In Defense of Dolphins: The New Moral Frontier.

About the book, from the official website:

This book explores two questions:

  1. What kind of beings are dolphins? That is, what does scientific research reveal about their cognitive and affective abilities, and what are the philosophical implications of these findings?
  2. In light of the kind of beings they are, is the current state of human/dolphin interaction ethically acceptable? This book argues that dolphins have intellectual and emotional abilities sophisticated enough to grant them “moral standing”; they should be regarded at least as “nonhuman persons”; and the current state of human/dolphin interaction (characterized by the deaths and injuries of dolphins in connection with the human fishing industry and the use of captive dolphins by the entertainment industry for therapeutic purposes and by the military) is ethically indefensible. Accordingly, this book lays the foundation for the claim that the current relationship between humans and dolphins is, in effect, equivalent to the relationship between whites and Black slaves two centuries ago.
Read a sample chapter and learn more about In Defense of Dolphins at the book's website.

Thomas I. White is the Hilton Professor of Business Ethics and Director of the Center for Ethics and Business at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles, California. His other publications include four books (Right and Wrong, Discovering Philosophy, Business Ethics, and Men and Women at Work) and numerous articles on topics ranging from sixteenth-century Renaissance humanism to business ethics.

The Page 69 Test: In Defense of Dolphins.

--Marshal Zeringue