Bioethicist Jessica Pierce’s new book Who’s a Good Dog?; And How to Be a Better Human, publishing this month from University of Chicago Press, is “an invitation to nurture more thoughtful and balanced relationships with our canine companions,’ presenting her readers with both the biology as well as the psychology of dogs, and guiding them toward a better informed understanding of what dogs need in their relationships with us.
Perhaps its because I’m getting older and more reflective about the world and the life I’ve lived in it. Perhaps it’s because I’ve been paying closer attention to the news reported by Hounds Off about their struggles to stop illegal hunting practices in Britain. Perhaps it’s because of the loss of our beloved little Bebe this past year. Whatever the reason, I’ve been giving much more thought lately than I can ever recall doing before to the relationship between humans and non-human animals.
When it comes right down to it, science communication is a modern development in the ancient art of rhetoric. However as rhetoric is, at its heart, interested in how an audience may be convinced of a writer’s or speaker’s argument, the question eventually must be asked as to what ethical considerations must be taken into account when communicating scientific information to an audience.