Description
Book SynopsisThis is the first multidisciplinary book that addresses the ethics of fur. Whatever might have been true of the past, the production of fur is now morally problematic in terms of both necessity and suffering. There is no necessity in killing animals for nonessential purposes, such as adornment, fashion, or vanity. The argument for utility simply doesn’t hold up. Alternative clothing is now readily available, enduring, and less costly. Worse still, since we know that the animals exploited are sentient, causing them suffering or making animals liable to suffering is arguably intrinsically wrong.
The purpose of this volume is to open up and advance further the ethical, political, and specifically legislative endeavors now moving at pace and to encourage the anti-fur movement. That said, there is much to learn from this book about the history, culture, and political arguments for and against fur that should interest scholars and students, as well as those engaged on either side of the debate. It is not common for academics to engage with pressing and contentious moral issues, and we pay tribute to our eighteen contributors for leading the way.
Table of ContentsIntroduction: Increasing Ethical Sensitivity around Fur
Andrew Linzey and Clair Linzey
Part I: Historical and Religious Perspectives
Chapter 1: From the Pleistocene to COVID-19: A Brief History of Fur
Adam Bridgen
Chapter 2: “Thou Shalt Not Use the Skins of Any Living Creature”: The Original Anti-Fur Activist, Thomas Tryon (1634–1703)
Adam Bridgen
Chapter 3: The New England Fur Trade: The Ethics of Puritan Dress in a Portrait of Lieutenant Governor William Stoughton
Linda M. Johnson
Chapter 4: The Nineteenth-Century Boycott against Feathered Hats
Robyn Hederman
Chapter 5: Corpse “Contamination” as a Religious Approach to Fur
Sidney Blankenship
Chapter 6: Of Ermines, Cats, and “the Best-Dressed Pontiff Ever”: The Ethics of Fur-Trimmed Clerical Garb
Kurt Remele
Part II: Ethical and Cultural Perspectives
Chapter 7: A Case of Wrongful Use: An Ethical Analysis of the Use of Animal Fur
Frances M. C. Robinson
Chapter 8: If a Fox Could Talk: Wittgenstein and the Calculated Silencing of Animals in Industrial Fur Production
K. York
Chapter 9: “All Fur Coat and No Knickers!” The Speciesism of Fur in Disney Media
Rebecca Rose Stanton
Chapter 10: Bringing Nonhuman Animals into Anthropologies of Fur
Jen Clements
Chapter 11: Video Killed the Animal for Fur: An Analysis of the Influence of Pop Music Culture on Perceptions about Fur
Ambrose Tinarwo
Part III: Political and Legal Perspectives
Chapter 12: Politics, Law, and Grasping the Evidence in Fur Farming: A Tale of Three Continents
Simon Brooman
Chapter 13: Legislation against Animals Reared for Fur in Brazil
Letícia Albuquerque and Gabriela Franziska Schoch Santos Carvalho
Chapter 14: Animal Welfare Standards in European Fur Production and the “WelFur” Assessment Program
Heather Pickett
Chapter 15: The Ethics of Marketing Fur to Children
Kimberly Moore
Chapter 16: Fur and Free Speech
Justin Marceau, Jess Beaulieu, Kate Sanford, and Chloe Gleichman
Chapter 17: The Myth That “Fur Is Green” and the Real Impact of the Fur Industry on the Environment
Kimberly Moore
About the Contributors
