Animal Rights in Greece: Legislation and Perceptions

Abstract

Animal rights are a controversial issue that often causes ethical dilemmas within modern civilization. Philosophical thought plays a key role in this debate, through various theories that put forward the establishment of moral rights to animals. All this is also reflected in the adoption of strict legal frameworks in favor of animal protection throughout the Western world. In Greece, in recent years huge steps have been taken compared to the past and now a fairly strict legal framework has been adopted for the protection of animals (mainly companion animals) but also for the obligations of their owners. Nevertheless, animal abuse in Greece continues almost on a daily basis. To better understand the parameters that determine the human-animal relationship from an ethical point of view, an empirical study was conducted as part of an ongoing research investigating the perception and level of familiarity of university instructors on this topic. Research findings refer to four thematic categories: a) legal framework, b) animal rights-ethics, c) experimental animals, d) technology and animals and show that the academic background of the participants generally does not play a significant role in their answers.