Animal Ethics, Misc

In this paper, I intend to deny the morality and instrumentality of the behavior known as bestiality, or the use of non-human animals for sexual gratification by human beings. While to most modern peoples, this hardly even seems like it should be in question, it should be the nature of the human mind to occasionally question long-standing traditional moray in the hopes of finding solutions to problems and the disbanding of superstition. It has been proposed that the moral question, and (...) by extension the legal question, of bestiality is based on traditions long outlived and unnecessary. In an IceNews.is article written in 2008, Norwegian lawyers were growing concerned over the prevalence of animal brothels in Denmark and the precedent it set for Norway [http://www.icenews.is, 2008]. The article, when coupled with the 2001 article title “Heavy Petting” by prominent Utilitarian philosopher, Peter Singer, proves that the issue of bestiality is no longer the purview of jokes and psychological discussions. I will argue against bestiality as a socially acceptable practice based on five standard premises. The standard premises I will present will contain notes in regard to: instrumentality; consent; disease transmission; deviance; and morality. There is significant work available on the harm done to the beast, so aside from brief summary; the question of the good of the beast is not in the focus. I will also ignore any religious concerns, either surrounding morality or freedom of practice. Instead, these arguments are in support of the moral identity of the individual and of society as a whole. (shrink)

Regan appeals to the benefit of the doubt as a reason to include some animals within the scope of his arguments about the rights of animals. I think the informal appeal to the benefit of the doubt can be fleshed out and made more compelling. What I shall do differs from his project, however. It is narrower in scope, because I shall focus on a single issue, the dietary use of animals. On another dimension, though, I aim to do more. (...) Regan thinks that it is “not unreasonable” to extend the benefit of the doubt, and that it is better to do so. I shall be arguing that it is unreasonable not to do so. (shrink)

The study explored the motivations behind Australian wool producers’ intentions regarding mulesing; a surgical procedure that will be voluntarily phased out after 2010, following retailer boycotts led by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. Telephone interviews were conducted with 22 West Australian wool producers and consultants to elicit their behavioral, normative and control beliefs about mulesing and alternative methods of breech strike prevention. Results indicate that approximately half the interviewees intend to continue mulesing, despite attitudes toward the act of (...) mulesing being quite negative. This indicates that attitudes alone are unlikely to be good predictors of this goal directed behavior. Most respondents believed mulesing was more effective and involved less cost, time, and effort than the currently available alternatives to prevent breech strike. Further, they felt relatively little social pressure, as they believed few consumers were concerned about mulesing. However, they noted that if consumer sentiment changed they would likely change their practices. Thus, attitudes are likely to be only one of several factors influencing intentions to change farm practices to address societal concerns about animal welfare. Further, mulesing appears to be goal - directed behavior , suggesting that other factors depicted by the Model of Goal-directed Behavior (MGB; Perugini and Bagozzi In: Br J Soc Psychol, 40: 79–98, 2001 ) may be worth exploring in this context. Finally, these results provide insight into how policy makers may influence farmers to change practices in response to societal pressure for improving farm animal welfare. (shrink)

Many human-animal relationships closely resemble parent-child relationships. Yet, as I argue in this chapter, normatively speaking, parenting is not the kind of practice we should strive to mirror in our loving relationships with companion animals. Rather, we should strive to form friendships with animals. This is because friendships, unlike parent-child relationships, are characterized by mutuality, choice, equality, and respect for differences, and these are ideals we should try to foster in our loving relationships with all animals (human and nonhuman).

Vermutlich ist nahezu jeder Tierethiker schon aufgefordert worden, sich nicht darüber mitzuteilen, wie es in moderner Massentierhaltung zugeht, denn das verdürbe doch die Möglichkeit, Fleisch weiterhin zu genießen. Diese Aufforderung ist reichlich merkwürdig. Denn sie kommt eigentlich zu spät. Der Mensch, der nicht mehr weiter über die Massentierhaltung hören will, hat offenkundig schon genug gehört, um zu wissen, dass eine erneute, eine tiefere Vergegenwärtigung eine ihm liebgewonnene Praxis verderben würde: Es ist mithin die (durch den Tierethiker nur bemerkbar gemachte) höchste (...) eigene Erkenntnis, die seinen Fleischgenuss bedroht. Es scheint als versuche hier ein Mensch, eine Erkenntnis und das dieser Erkenntnis nachlaufende Drängen in ihrem Sinne praktisch zu werden, wieder unerkannt zu machen. Mit diesem Ansinnen will ein Mensch, der eine Grenze überschritten hat, die er, wie er selbst erkannt hat, nicht hätte überschreiten sollen – woher auch immer diese Erkenntnis stammt – dennoch überschreitbar machen will. Dieser Mensch will den Zwang, der doch aus ihm selbst herauskommt, nicht kennen, nicht begreifen. Das Begriffene und das aus dem Begriffenen den Menschen selbst unmittelbar ergreifende Tunwollen wird zu annihilieren versucht. Das ist im wörtlichen Sinne ein Nihilismus, eine Selbstverstümmelung des eigenen Denkens und des eigenen Herzens. Gegen diesen Nihilismus möchten wir für den Veganismus argumentieren als (eine mögliche) praktische Konsequenz, die höchste eigene Abscheu gegen das Töten und zugleich sich selbst ernst zu nehmen; der Veganismus wird damit als ein Anti-Nihilismus begriffen. (shrink)

The prevalent view in animal ethics is that speciesism is wrong: we should weigh the interests of humans and non-humans equally. Shelly Kagan has recently questioned this claim, defending speciesism against Peter Singer’s seminal argument based on the principle of equal consideration of interests. This critique is most charitably construed as a dilemma. The principle of equal consideration can be interpreted in either of two ways. While it faces counterexamples on the first reading, it makes Singer’s argument question-begging on the (...) second. In response, Singer has grasped the first horn of this dilemma and tried to accommodate Kagan’s apparent counterexamples. In my opinion, this attempt is unpersuasive: the principle of equal consideration is inconsistent with common-sense intuitions on Kagan’s cases. Worse, Singer’s argument begs the question anyway. It therefore faces two serious objections. This is not to say that there is nothing wrong with speciesism, however. In the second half of the paper, I propose another, better argument against speciesism, which I argue is immune to both objections. According to this other argument, speciesism is wrong because it involves discriminating on the basis of a merely biological property. (shrink)

A review of David E. Cooper's book, "Animals and Misanthropy", which argues that reflection on awful treatment of animals justifies a negative critical judgment on human life and culture.

Animals have moral status, and we have corresponding obligations to take their interests into account. I argue that Stakeholder Theory provides a moderate, yet principled way for businesses to do so. Animals ought to be treated as stakeholders given that they affect and are affected by the achievement of the objectives of the businesses in which they are involved. Stakeholder Theory therefore requires taking those interests into account. It does not, however, require that they be given the same weight as (...) human interests. By taking the stakeholder approach, businesses can avoid merely reacting to (rapidly increasing) public outcry over the treatment of animals. Even those who hold extreme positions—that businesses have no obligations to animals, or that animal products and services are inherently immoral—can take the treatment of animals as stakeholders to provide an ethical realpolitik of sorts that is both better for animals and better for business. (shrink)

It is curious that the imperial Stoics, following a precedent of Diogenes the Cynic, employ so many wide-ranging examples of animal behavior. For example, what are we to make of the rigid dichotomy Seneca and Epictetus draw between rational and nonrational beings in relation to the diverse comparisons they make between human virtues and vices on the one hand and animal excellences and "bestial'behaviors on the other? Why are the most potent, diverse, and philosophically significant animal exempla found in Seneca (...) and Epictetus? I argue that it is because such exempla serve a variety of protreptic purposes. While appeals to the over-arching rationality of the cosmos may provide some theoretical understanding for the place of human beings in nature, from a pedagogical and rhetorical standpoint animal exempla provide particularly effective guidance for human conduct.Cleverly deployed animal exempla help cultivate aretaic affective dispositions. (shrink)

The keeping of captive animals in zoos and aquariums has long been controversial. Many take freedom to be a crucial part of animal welfare and, on these grounds, criticise all forms of animal captivity as harmful to animal welfare, regardless of their provisions. Here, we analyse what it might mean for freedom to matter to welfare, distinguishing between the role of freedom as an intrinsic good, valued for its own sake and an instrumental good, its value arising from the increased (...) ability to provide other important resources. Too often, this debate is conducted through trading intuitions about what matters for animals. We argue for the need for the collection of comparative welfare data about wild and captive animals in order to settle the issue. Discovering more about the links between freedom and animal welfare will then allow for more empirically informed ethical decisions regarding captive animals. (shrink)

We submit this brief in support of the Nonhuman Rights Project’s efforts to secure habeas corpus relief for the elephant named Happy. The Supreme Court, Bronx County, declined to grant habeas corpus relief and order Happy’s transfer to an elephant sanctuary, relying, in part, on previous decisions that denied habeas relief for the NhRP’s chimpanzee clients, Kiko and Tommy. Those decisions use incompatible conceptions of ‘person’ which, when properly understood, are either philosophically inadequate or, in fact, compatible with Happy’s personhood.

This book is devoted to applied ethics. We focus on six popular and controversial topics: abortion, the environment, animals, poverty, punishment, and disability. We cover three chapters per topic, and each chapter is devoted to a famous or influential argument on the topic. After we present an influential argument, we then consider objections to the argument, and replies to the objections. The book is impartial, and set up in order to equip the reader to make up her own mind about (...) the controversial topics covered. (shrink)

Is there a moral requirement to assist wild animals suffering due to natural causes? According to the laissez-faire intuition, although we may have special duties to assist wild animals, there are no general requirements to care for them. If this view is right, then our positive duties toward wild animals can be only special, grounded in special circumstances. In this article I present the contribution argument which employs the thought that the receipt of benefits from wild animals is one such (...) kind of special circumstance. If this argument is correct, then the circle of moral agents required to assist some wild animals is significantly widened. (shrink)

Are we required to assist wild animals suffering due to natural causes? The laissez-faire intuition (LFI) says that we are not. On this view, although we may have special duties to assist wild animals, there are no general requirements to care for them. In this article I critically examine the origins of the LFI and assess its reliability. In particular, I attempt to provide answers to the questions such as how people who have come to endorse this intuition form it (...) and whether it is a genuine moral intuition. I conclude that the LFI is the result of various external factors that influence and overpower people’s genuine intuitive moral judgment and for that reason it should not be trusted. (shrink)

Though many ethicists have the intuition that we should leave nature alone, Kyle Johannsen argues that we have a duty to research safe ways of providing large-scale assistance to wild animals. Using concepts from moral and political philosophy to analyze the issue of wild animal suffering (WAS), Johannsen explores how a collective, institutional obligation to assist wild animals should be understood. He claims that with enough research, genetic editing may one day give us the power to safely intervene without perpetually (...) interfering with wild animals’ liberties.---------------Questions addressed include: In what way is nature valuable and is interference compatible with that value? Is interference a requirement of justice? What are the implications of WAS for animal rights advocacy? What types of intervention are promising?---------------Expertly moving the debate about human relations with wild animals beyond its traditional confines, Wild Animal Ethics is essential reading for students and scholars of political philosophy and political theory studying animal ethics, environmental ethics, and environmental philosophy. (shrink)

It is well-established that policy aiming to change individual consumption patterns for environmental or other ethical reasons faces a trade-off between effectiveness and public acceptance. The more ambitious a policy intervention is, the higher the likelihood of reactionary backlash; the higher the intervention’s public acceptance, the less bite it is likely to have. This paper proposes a package of interventions aiming for a substantial reduction of animal product consumption while circumventing the diagnosed trade-off. It couples stringent industry regulation, which lowers (...) output and raises prices, with a targeted universal income at a level which would allow typical households to maintain their animal product consumption even at the post-regulation price level. The change of opportunity costs of animal products, however, would induce a shift of consumption away from animal products while enhancing – rather than diminishing – consumer freedom and welfare. The policy package, which is further designed to cohere with traditional value orderings rather than relying exclusively on progressive concerns, is politically ambitious, but psychologically pragmatic. It constitutes an attempt to socialize the endeavour of bringing consumption patterns in line with ethical demands by empowering, rather than sanctioning, individuals, and relevant groups. (shrink)

En este artículo se explica en qué consisten las éticas centradas en el sufrimiento, presenta algunas de las principales razones a su favor y expone cuáles son sus implicaciones con respecto a la consideración moral de los animales. Se argumenta que conforme a estas éticas los usos como recursos de los animales lesivos para estos deberán ser rechazados. A continuación, se examinan las posiciones que aceptan el uso de los animales siempre que este tenga lugar reduciendo los daños infligidos a (...) estos. Se presentarán una serie de razones por las que tales posiciones resultan cuestionables y por las que van a entrar en conflicto con las implicaciones de las éticas centradas en el sufrimiento. (shrink)

The Nobel Prize in Literature laureate Mario Vargas Llosa (2020) praises the legal protection of bullfighting by a Peruvian law that prohibits the torture of animals except in case of cultural traditions, such as bullfighting and cockfighting. He claims that his defense of bullfighting follows from his liberal point of view, and advances three reasons in favor of its preservation: It is a tradition, it is a fine art, and the individuals should be constitutionally free to choose what to see (...) and where to go. I argue that his arguments are morally irrelevant and logically unsound. (shrink)

An adequate theory of rights ought to forbid the harming of animals (human or nonhuman) to promote trivial interests of humans, as is often done in the animal-user industries. But what should the rights view say about situations in which harming some animals is necessary to prevent intolerable injustices to other animals? I develop an account of respectful treatment on which, under certain conditions, it’s justified to intentionally harm some individuals to prevent serious harm to others. This can be compatible (...) with recognizing the inherent value of the ones who are harmed. My theory has important implications for contemporary moral issues in nonhuman animal ethics, such as the development of cultured meat and animal research. (shrink)

In a recent article, Corey Wrenn argues that in order to adequately address injustices done to animals, we ought to think systemically. Her argument stems from a critique of the individualist approach I employ to resolve a moral dilemma faced by animal sanctuaries, who sometimes must harm some animals to help others. But must systemic critiques of injustice be at odds with individualist approaches? In this paper, I respond to Wrenn by showing how individualist approaches that take seriously the notion (...) of group responsibility can be deployed to solve complicated dilemmas that are products of injustice. Contra Wrenn, I argue that to adequately address injustice, acting individually, often within groups, is significantly more important than thinking systemically. (shrink)

This volume presents a framework of general principles for animal research ethics together with an analysis of the principles' meaning and moral requirements. Tom L. Beauchamp and David DeGrazia's comprehensive framework addresses ethical requirements pertaining to societal benefit and features a thorough, ethically defensible program of animal welfare. The book also features commentaries on the framework of principles by eminent figures in animal research ethics from an array of relevant disciplines: veterinary medicine, biomedical research, biology, zoology, comparative psychology, primatology, law, (...) and bioethics. (shrink)

A review of Christine M. Korsgaard, Fellow Creatures (OUP, 2018). Offers a brief summary of the book, and commentary on its treatment of other minds and of grounds for conferring value.

Proponents of humane or traditional husbandry, in contrast to factory farming, often argue that maintaining meaningful relationships with animals entails working with them. Accordingly, they argue that animal liberation is misguided, since it appears to entail erasing our relationships to animals and depriving both us and them of valuable opportunities to live together. This chapter offers a critical examination of defense of animal husbandry based on the value of labour, in particular the view that farm animals could be seen as (...) workers, and what it entails. It then considers ways in which our relationships to domesticated species could be made meaningful, including through work, without entailing the premature killing of animals raised for food. Meaningful animal lives depend on a proper analysis of the meaning, and value, of labour, which this chapter argues is missing from labour-based defenses of humane husbandry. (shrink)

Urban animals can benefit from living in cities, but this also makes them vulnerable as they increasingly depend on the advantages of urban life. This article has two aims. First, I provide a detailed analysis of the concept of captivity and explain why it matters to nonhuman animals—because and insofar as many of them have a (non-substitutable) interest in freedom. Second, I defend a surprising implication of the account—pushing the boundaries of the concept while the boundaries of cities and human (...) activities expand. I argue for the existence of the neglected problem of pervasive captivity, of which urban wildlife is an illustration. Many urban animals are confined, controlled and dependent, therefore often captive of expanding urban areas. While I argue that captivity per se is value-neutral, I draw the ethical and policy implications of harmful pervasive captivity. (shrink)

Peter Singer famously argues that speciesism, like racism and sexism, is based on a preju-dice. As Singer argues, since we reject racism and sexism, we must also reject speciesism. Since Singer articulated this line of reasoning, it has become a widespread argument against speciesism. Shelly Kagan has recently critiqued this argument, claiming that one can endorse speciesism with-out doing so on the basis of a prejudice. In this paper, I defend Kagan’s conclusion (that one can endorse speciesism without being prejudiced). (...) However, many philosophers have found Kagan’s argument deeply unsatisfactory; so, I advance an alternative argument, different from Kagan’s, in support of his conclusion. My argument runs as follows: I argue that, if there is epistemic peer dis-agreement about a view, then the parties to this disagreement cannot reasonably label each other as prejudiced in their beliefs about this view. Then, I argue that there is epistemic peer disagreement about the truth of speciesism, from which it follows that the parties to this disagreement cannot rea-sonably label each other as prejudiced. Thus, one can affirm speciesism without being prejudiced. If I am correct that one can affirm speciesism without being prejudiced, then Singer’s argument (that if one rejects racism, one must reject speciesism) is unsound. (shrink)

Dressing up animals in ridiculous costumes, shaming dogs on the internet, playing Big Buck Hunter at the local tavern, feeding vegan food to cats, and producing and consuming “knockout” animals, what, if anything, do these acts have in common? In this article, I develop two respect-based arguments that explain how these acts are morally problematic, even though they might not always, if ever, affect the experiential welfare of animals. While these acts are not ordinary wrongs, they are animal dignitary wrongs.

There is a widespread belief that for their own safety and for the protection of wildlife, cats should be permanently kept indoors. Against this view, I argue that cat guardians have a duty to provide their feline companions with outdoor access. The argument is based on a sophisticated hedonistic account of animal well-being that acknowledges that the performance of species-normal ethological behavior is especially pleasurable. Territorial behavior, which requires outdoor access, is a feline-normal ethological behavior, so when a cat is (...) permanently confined to the indoors, her ability to flourish is impaired. Since cat guardians have a duty not to impair the well-being of their cats, the impairment of cat flourishing via confinement signifies a moral failing. Although some cats assume significant risks and sometimes kill wild animals when roaming outdoors, these important considerations do not imply that all cats should be deprived of the opportunity to access the outdoors. Indeed, they do not, by themselves, imply that any cat should be permanently kept indoors. (shrink)

Creepiness and the emotion of the creeps have been overlooked in the moral philosophy and moral psychology literatures. We argue that the creeps is a morally significant emotion in its own right, and not simply a type of fear, disgust, or anger (though it shares features with those emotions). Reflecting on cases, we defend a novel account of the creeps as felt in response to creepy people. According to our moral insensitivity account, the creeps is fitting just when its object (...) is agential activity that is insensitive to basic moral considerations. When, only when, and insofar as someone is disposed to such insensitivity, they are a creep. Such insensitivity, especially in extreme forms, raises doubts about creeps’ moral agency. We distinguish multiple types of insensitivity, respond to concerns that feeling the creeps is itself objectionable, and conclude with a discussion of epistemic issues relating to the creeps. (shrink)

In diesem Beitrag wird die tierethische Debatte um die moralisch richtige Reaktion auf Wildtierleid, die vornehmlich aus der analytischen Philosophie stammt, kritisch analysiert. Dabei steht die häufig vertretene Pflicht in die Wildnis zu intervenieren (Interventionspflicht), um Wildtierleid zu verhindern, im Fokus. Da bisher keine herrschaftskritische Auseinandersetzung mit dieser Position vorliegt, wird ein erster Ansatz in diesem Beitrag skizziert. Das heißt, es wird untersucht, inwiefern die Interventionspflicht ungerechte Machtbeziehungen erzeugen oder fördern kann. Die Analyse deutet daraufhin, dass die Rechtfertigung der Interventionspflicht (...) auf einer problematischen anthropozentrischen Logik beruht. Dadurch wird der Erfolg von Interventionen nicht nur in Frage gestellt, sondern die Interventionen könnten es sogar erleichtern, wilde Tiere zu unterdrücken. Daher sollten zuerst die problematischen anthropozentrischen Einflüsse auf die Interventionspflicht aufgedeckt und kritisiert werden, um Interventionen zu ermöglichen, die kein Risiko für menschliche Zwecke ausgenutzt zu werden, mit sich bringen. (shrink)

In light of the extent of wild animal suffering, some philosophers have adopted the view that we should cautiously assist wild animals on a large scale. Recently, their view has come under criticism. According to one objection, even cautious intervention is unjustified because fallibility is allegedly intractable. By contrast, a second objection states that we should abandon caution and intentionally destroy habitat in order to prevent wild animals from reproducing. In my paper, I argue that intentional habitat destruction is wrong (...) because negative duties are more stringent than positive duties. However, I also argue that the possible benefits of ecological damage, combined with the excusability of unintended, unforeseeable harm, suggest that fallibility should not paralyse us. (shrink)

David. E. Cooper’s claim in Animals and Misanthropy is that honest reflection on the ways human beings treat and compare with animals encourages a dark, misanthropic judgment on humankind. Treatment of animals manifests a range of vices and failings that are ubiquitous and entrenched in our practices, institutions, and forms of life, organized by Cooper into five clusters. Moreover, comparisons of humans and animals reveals both affinities and similarities, including a crucial difference that animals are capable of virtues while being (...) vice-free, whereas humans are both virtuous and vicious. Various familiar ways of thinking morally and scientifically about animal life are criticized for being overly abstract, occluding richer ways of engaging with animals that are better able to disclose the fundamental wrong of their treatment by humans. The book offers a concise, lucid challenge to mainstream ways of thinking morally about animals and to comfortably optimistic estimations of the moral performance of humankind. (shrink)

For over 40 years, Mary Midgley has been celebrated for the sensibility with which she approached some of the most challenging and pressing issues in philosophy. Her expansive corpus addresses such diverse topics as human nature, morality, animals and the environment, gender, science, and religion. While there are many threads that tie together this impressive plurality of topics, the thread of relationality unites much of Midgley's thought on human nature and morality. This paper explores Midgley's pursuit of a relational notion (...) of the self and our connections to others, including animals and the natural world. (shrink)

Some animal research is arguably morally wrong, and some animal research is morally bad but could be improved. Who is most likely to be able to identify wrong or bad animal research and advocate for improvements? I argue that philosophical ethicists have the expertise that makes them the likely best candidates for these tasks. I review the skills, knowledge and perspectives that philosophical ethicists tend to have which makes them ethical experts. I argue that, insofar as IACUCs are expected to (...) ensure that research is ethical, they must have philosophical ethicists as members. (shrink)

In their daily practices, many ethical vegans choose what to eat, wear, and buy among a range that is limited to the exclusion of animal products. Rather than considering and then rejecting the idea of using such products, doing so often does not occur to them as a possibility at all. In other cases, when confronted with the possibility of consuming animal products, vegans have claimed to reject it by saying that it would be impossible for them to do so. (...) I refer to this phenomenon as ‘moral impossibility’. An analysis of moral impossibility in animal ethics shows that it arises when one’s conception of ‘what animals are’ shifts—say through encounter with other animals. It also arises when individuals learn more about animals and what happens to them in production facilities. This establishes a link between increased knowledge, understanding, and imaginative exploration on the one hand, and the exclusion of the possibility of using animals as resources on the other. Taking moral impossibility in veganism seriously has two important consequences: one is that the debate around veganism needs to shift from choice and decision, to a prior analysis of concepts and moral framing; the other is that moral psychology is no longer seen as empirical psychology plus ethical analysis, but the contents of psychological findings are understood as being influenced and framed by moral reflection. (shrink)

Peter Singer argues, on consequentialist grounds, that individuals ought to be vegetarian. Many have pressed, in response, a causal impotence objection to Singer’s argument: any individual person’s refraining from purchasing and consuming animal products will not have an important effect on contemporary farming practices. In this paper, I sketch a Singer-inspired consequentialist argument for vegetarianism that avoids this objection. The basic idea is that, for agents who are aware of the origins of their food, continuing to consume animal products is (...) morally bad because it leads to not appropriately disvaluing the origins of their food. That is a morally bad outcome that can be avoided by becoming vegetarian. (shrink)

This book defends an account of justice to nonhuman beings – i.e., to animals, plants etc. – also known as ecological or interspecies justice, and which lies in the intersection of environmental political theory and environmental ethics. More specifically, against the background of the current extinction crisis this book defends a global non-ranking biocentric theory of distributive ecological/interspecies justice to wild nonhuman beings, because the extinction crisis does not only need practical solutions, but also an account of how it is (...) the outcome of large-scale injustice. This book not only provides a novel theoretical framework that supports such a claim, but it also develops the theoretical tools to find just compromises between the entitlements of intraspecies and intra-human global distributive justice to ecological space for the purpose of working towards a vision of just conservation. -/- Content: 1. Introducing Ecological Justice 2. Political Non-Ranking Biocentrism 3. The Community of Justice 4. The Currency of Distributive Justice 5. The Principles of Distributive Justice 6. Ecological Justice and the Capabilities Approach 7. Biodiversity Loss: An Injustice? 8. Who Owns the Earth? 9. Visions of Just Conservation 10. Outlook for Implementation . (shrink)

Because factory-farmed meat production inflicts gratuitous suffering upon animals and wreaks havoc on the environment, there are morally compelling reasons to become vegetarian. Yet industrial plant agriculture causes the death of many field animals, and this leads some to question whether consumers ought to get some of their protein from certain kinds of non factory-farmed meat. Donald Bruckner, for instance, boldly argues that the harm principle implies an obligation to collect and consume roadkill and that strict vegetarianism is thus immoral. (...) But this argument works only if the following claims are true: all humans have access to roadkill, roadkill would go to waste if those who happen upon it don’t themselves consume it, it’s impossible to harvest vegetables without killing animals, the animals who are killed in plant production are all-things-considered harmed by crop farming, and the best arguments for vegetarianism all endorse the harm principle. As I will argue in this paper, each claim is deeply problematic. Consequently, in most cases, humans ought to strictly eat plants and save the roadkill for cats. (shrink)

Ethical veganism is the view that raising animals for food is an immoral practice that must be stopped because of the harm it causes to the animals, the environment, and our health. Carlo Alvaro argues the only way to stop that harm is to acquire the virtues that enable us to act justly and benevolently toward animals.

According to the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics’ influential position statement on vegetarianism, meat and seafood can be replaced with milk, soy/legumes, and eggs without any negative effects in children. The United States Department of Agriculture endorses a similar view. The present paper argues that the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics ignores or gives short shrift to direct and indirect evidence that vegetarianism may be associated with serious risks for brain and body development in fetuses and children. Regular supplementation with (...) iron, zinc, and B12 will not mitigate all of these risks. Consequently, we cannot say decisively that vegetarianism or veganism is safe for children. (shrink)

Commentary on Neuhaus and Parent, 'Gene doping--In Animals?' (2019).

I revisit the divide between environmental and animal ethics and explore the role that territory—a recently theorized subject in political theory—could play in this dispute. Specifically, I contend that a concept of state territory and territorial rights informed by values shared by environmental and animal ethics would greatly strengthen the case of non-anthropocentric ethics against the pervasive form of anthropocentrism that shapes current state policies and institutions. I propose what I dub an ecological account of territorial sovereignty and contend that (...) a state’s territorial rights are, significantly, a function of its commitment to respecting the value of non-human organisms inhabiting the geographical area over which it claims these rights. I argue that respecting the natural world entails a commitment to the development of state policies and practices that are in line with some central tenets of animal ethics and, at the same time, requires embracing a kind of holistic moral standpoint that conforms to a plausible version of environmental ethics. If successful, my proposal will show how the dispute between animal and environmental ethics could be softened if viewed through the lens of territorial rights, and contribute to an articulation of territorial rights and sovereignty that is sensitive to the environmental challenges we face today. (shrink)

Persson and Savulescu are advocates for moral bioenhancement—i.e., using drug treatments and genetic engineering to enhance our core moral dispositions. Among other things, they suggest that moral bioenhancement would improve how we treat animals. My goal here is to argue that we have little reason to think that moral bioenhancement will help in this regard. What’s more, it may make things worse. This is because there are cognitive mechanisms that lead us to discount animal interests relative to human interests—mechanisms not (...) overridden by increased altruism and a stronger sense of justice—and there are deep tensions between the interests of humans and animals that moral bioenhancement may well exacerbate. (shrink)

I present a neopragmatist theory of animal ethics. The two key elements of animal neopragmatism are 'relational hedonism' and an expressivist analysis of animal rights vocabulary. The theory can avoid the pitfalls faced by orthodox analytic animal rights theories and solves two pressing problems: the so-called changing the subject problem and the political problem of welfare.