Craniate with well-defined heads, thus excluding members of the chordate subphyla Tunicata (tunicates) and Cephalochordata (lancelets), but including Myxini, which have cartilaginous skulls and tooth-like structures composed of keratin. Craniata also includes all lampreys and armoured jawless fishes, armoured fish, sharks, skates, and rays, and teleostomians: spiny sharks, bony fish, lissamphibians, temnospondyls and protoreptiles, sauropsids and mammals. The craniate head consists of a brain, sense organs, including eyes, and a skull. In addition to distinct crania (sing. "cranium"), craniates possess many derived characteristics, which have allowed for more complexity to follow. Molecular-genetic analysis of craniates reveals that, compared to less complex
Political Animals and Animal Politics that if animals are excluded from basic justice, as John Rawls held, they can be defended on metaphysical grounds (what Rawls refers to as on the basis of "comprehensive doctrines", as opposed to the "public reasons" which must be used for arguments in the political realm). This is potentially liberating for animal advocates. Nonetheless, Flanders argues, animal issues may be matters of basic justice insofar as they affect humans or that animals themselves have rights. Alternatively, the wrongness of animal cruelty may be a "fixed point" in our political reasoning. Flanders concludes that Rawlsianism provides a good starting point for