HABRI Central

Animal training sits toward the uncomfortably overt end of human dominance. It can involve familiar kinds of harms, but, as commentators such as Vicki Hearne and Donna Haraway have pointed out, it can also enhance animal contentment, capabilities and autonomy. However, unlike socialization, it is not a basic requirement for animal flourishing. The extent and circumstances under which it is legitimate are, consequently, an area for human-animal negotiation rather than a domain in which a strict paternalism is legitimate. The chapter adopts a broadly genealogical approach toward the ethics of training in order to illuminate both how humans have arrived at their current predicament of dominance over nonhuman creatures and the vague sense of unease that accompanies a broadly liberal response to it.

Researchers should cite this work as follows:

1. Ability
2. Animal-assisted activities
3. Animal roles
4. Animals
5. Animals in culture
6. Animal welfare
7. contentment
8. Dominance
9. Harm
10. Health
11. paternalism
12. Pet ownership
13. Pets and companion animals
14. Social Environments
15. Socialization
16. training