Philosophy and Animal Welfare Movement

This work provides a Russian translation of Albert Schweitzer’s “Philosophy and Animal Welfare Movement” (Philosophie und Tierschutzbewegung, c. 1950, possibly 1936). There, Schweitzer considers the issue of the man’s proper attitude to the living beings around. At the same time, he analyzes the history of the formation of different approaches to the is­sue in the course of the development of western and eastern ethical thought. In particular, he examines briefly the attitude towards living beings in Chinese and Indian ethics, the ethics of early and modern Christianity, and European philosophy. Finally, Schweitzer highlights the inevitability of the convergence between universal human ethics and the principles of reverence for life and love for all life. In this convergence, he sees a complex task facing contemporary society.