Animal welfare versus animal abolitionism: a comparison of the theories by Peter Singer and Tom Regan and their influence on the Brazilian Federal Constitution

With the emergence of environmental concerns and the awakening regarding animal treatment issues, the anthropocentric paradigm has begun to shift, causing many countries to review their position on the legal status of animals. Within the movement for animals, there are two mainly followed philosophical theories: the animal welfare perspective, which has Peter Singer as its leading author, and the animal rights theory, likewise known as the abolitionist movement, with Tom Regan as its central theorist. Utilizing the method of comparative analysis, this article seeks to analyze each author’s thought process and compare theories, contrasting each viewpoint’s moral and philosophical foundations and which principle each author has determined as most fundamental. The main differences between them will also be compared, as well as their conclusions and effects on society, with a particular focus on their influences on the Brazilian Federal Constitution of 1988.

Methane Dispensers and Bio-Dynamic Beings: Cattle as Polysemous Symbols in Environmental Religious Discourse // // ¿Dispensadores de metano o seres bio-dinámicos? Significados polisémicos de los bovinos rumiantes domesticados

This paper approaches thinking animals via the animal humanities, focusing on the conflicting meanings ascribed to domesticated cattle: are they destroyers of the environment, or saviors of the planet? By investigating narrative tropes, especially those grounded within the at times competing and overlapping worldviews of religious environmentalism, biodynamic agriculture, and sustainable agriculture, this paper explores the iterative interaction between how cows are conceived, and thus managed, in relation to human-nature interactions. Management questions may include: Who can kill a cow, when, why, and for what purpose? How should cows be raised and treated? Do cows have their own form of intelligence, and even spiritual intelligence? Are cows a leading cause of climate destabilization and deforestation, or can they help avert runaway climate change? Should cows be the entry point into animal abolitionism? Investigating the competing answers to these and other such questions is important, for if humans are to have any form of functional habitat that enables the flourishing of human and non-human lifeforms in the coming decades, then how humans conceive of, manage, and interact with other lifeforms, especially in the context of religion and agriculture, matters. Emerging metrics suggests that the narrative, ethical, religious, and biological understandings of non-human evolutionary kin in the dawning Anthropocene will be fluid and contested. Therefore, scholars must be prepared to interpret and analyze emergent meanings that will be ascribed to other lifeforms on a climate changed planet. Investigating cows—their labor, their environmental impacts, their role in shaping human societies and providing calories, the art of interacting with them on agricultural fields—presents a chance to rethink the human in a world of limits. Resumen Este trabajo analiza los animales pensantes a través de las humanidades animales, centrándose en los significados conflictivos atribuidos al ganado domesticado: ¿son destructores del medio ambiente, o salvadores del planeta? Al investigar los tropos narrativos, especialmente aquellos basados en las visiones del mundo, a veces rivales y superpuestas, del ecologismo religioso, la agricultura biodinámica y la agricultura sostenible, se explora la interacción iterativa entre cómo las vacas son concebidas y gestionadas en relación con las interacciones entren el ser humano y la naturaleza. Las preguntas de gestión pueden incluir: ¿Quién puede matar a una vaca, cuándo, por qué, y con qué propósito? ¿Cómo deben ser criadas y tratadas las vacas? ¿Tienen las vacas su propia forma de inteligencia, e incluso de inteligencia espiritual? ¿Son las vacas la principal causa de la desestabilización del clima y la deforestación, o pueden ayudar a evitar el cambio climático? ¿Deberían ser las vacas ser el punto de entrada en el abolicionismo animal? La investigación de las respuestas conflictivas a estas y otras preguntas es importante, ya que si los seres humanos han de tener algún tipo de hábitat funcional que permita el florecimiento de las formas de vida humanas y no humanas en las próximas décadas, es importante cómo los seres humanos conciben, gestionan e interactúan con otras formas de vida, especialmente en el contexto de la religión y la agricultura. Métricas emergentes sugieren que la narrativa, los entendimientos éticos, religiosos, familiares y biológicos de la evolución no humana en el Antropoceno naciente será fluida y controvertida. Por lo tanto, los especialistas deben estar preparados para interpretar significados emergentes que se pueden atribuir a otras formas de vida en un planeta frente al cambio climático. La investigación de las vacas—su trabajo, sus impactos ambientales, su papel en la conformación de las sociedades humanas y la disponibilidad de calorías, el arte de interactuar con ellos en los campos agrícolas—presenta la oportunidad de reconsiderar al ser humano en un mundo de límites.