Traditionally there has been a great divide between those practitioners of comparative religion who work on discrete and identifiably religious traditions (such as Confucianism, Judaism, Buddhism, Islam, Christianity, etc.) and those who work on identifying aspects of ‘religious’ life that often go unnoticed because they are less traditional and therefore less recognizable as religion. There has also long been a predisposition not to view Greek materials as religious, and thus to secularize one form of thriving polytheism about which we know (...) a great deal. Combining those two methodological insights in a study of contemporary North American religious life, Gary Laderman offers a fresh look at what I will call the ‘practical polytheism’ of modern US society, one that examines cultural arenas as diverse as sport, music, celebrity, sexuality and death in a riveting analysis of current spiritual trends in a more multicultural North America. (shrink)

In chapter 3 of Wild Animal Ethics Johannsen argues for a collective obligation based on beneficence to intervene in nature in order to reduce the suffering of wild animals. In the same chapter he claims that the non-identity problem is merely a “theoretical puzzle” which doesn’t affect our reasons for intervention. In this paper I argue that the non-identity problem affects both the strength and the nature of our reasons to intervene. By intervening in nature on a large scale we (...) change which animals come into existence. In doing so, we enable harmful animals to inflict harms on other animals, and we put other animals in harm’s way. The harms that these animals will inflict and endure are foreseeable. Furthermore, since non-human animals aren’t moral agents, harmful animals cannot be morally responsible for their harmful actions. I argue therefore that by causing animals to exist, knowing that they will inflict and suffer harms, we become morally responsible for those harms. By engaging in identity-affecting actions then we take on secondary moral duties towards the animals we have thereby caused to exist, and these secondary moral duties may be extremely demanding, even more so than the initial costs of intervention. Finally, these duties are duties of justice rather than duties of beneficence, and as such are more stringent than purely beneficence-based moral reasons. Furthermore, this conclusion flows naturally from several plausible principles which Johannsen explicitly endorses. (shrink)

Gary L. Francione is a law professor and leading philosopher of animal rights theory. Robert Garner is a political theorist specializing in the philosophy and politics of animal protection. Francione maintains that we have no moral justification for using nonhumans and argues that because animals are property—or economic commodities—laws or industry practices requiring "humane" treatment will, as a general matter, fail to provide any meaningful level of protection. Garner favors a version of animal rights that focuses on eliminating animal (...) suffering and adopts a protectionist approach, maintaining that although the traditional animal-welfare ethic is philosophically flawed, it can contribute strategically to the achievement of animal-rights ends. As they spar, Francione and Garner deconstruct the animal protection movement in the United States, the United Kingdom, Europe, and elsewhere, discussing the practices of such organizations as PETA, which joins with McDonald's and other animal users to "improve" the slaughter of animals. They also examine American and European laws and campaigns from both the rights and welfare perspectives, identifying weaknesses and strengths that give shape to future legislation and action. (shrink)

A prominent and respected philosopher of animal rights law and ethical theory, Gary L. Francione is known for his criticism of animal welfare laws and regulations, his abolitionist theory of animal rights, and his promotion of veganism and nonviolence as the baseline principles of the abolitionist movement. In this collection, Francione advances the most radical theory of animal rights to date. Unlike Peter Singer, Francione maintains that we cannot morally justify using animals under any circumstances, and unlike Tom Regan, (...) Francione's theory applies to all sentient beings, not only to those who have more sophisticated cognitive abilities. (shrink)

Health care is transitioning from genetics to genomics, in which single-gene testing for diagnosis is being replaced by multi-gene panels, genome-wide sequencing, and other multi-genic tests for disease diagnosis, prediction, prognosis, and treatment. This health care transition is spurring a new set of increased or novel liability risks for health care providers and test laboratories. This article describes this transition in both medical care and liability, and addresses 11 areas of potential increased or novel liability risk, offering recommendations to both (...) health care and legal actors to address and manage those liability risks. (shrink)

Browning and Kilmister review the nature and possibility of critical political economy in the light of recent post-modern and cultural theory. They provide an historical understanding of critical political economy, focusing on the development of the critical perspectives on capitalism of Hegel and Marx. They then review post-Marxist, post-structuralist, ecological and feminist standpoints that challenge notions of critical political economy sustained in the Hegelian-Marxist tradition. This study of critical and post-critical political economy concludes by arguing for the integration or these (...) standpoints within a revitalized critical perspective. (shrink)

Bovine growth hormone is a protein that occurs naturally in cattle. A chain of 190 amino acids, bGH is produced by the pituitary gland and helps to regulate a cow’s lactational cycle; generally speaking and up to a certain point, the more bGH a cow has, the more milk she gives. Using the techniques of genetic engineering, researchers at Monsanto Company have isolated the gene that produces the protein and devised low-cost techniques to manufacture it. Bacteria are placed into fermentation (...) chambers where they multiply rapidly; lab technicians then extract and purify the final product, which is identical to the naturally occurring protein in 189 of the 190 amino acids; and the product is then injected into cows. (shrink)

Gary Steiner argues that ethologists and philosophers in the analytic and continental traditions have largely failed to advance an adequate explanation of animal behavior. Critically engaging the positions of Marc Hauser, Daniel Dennett, Donald Davidson, John Searle, Martin Heidegger, and Hans-Georg Gadamer, among others, Steiner shows how the Western philosophical tradition has forced animals into human experiential categories in order to make sense of their cognitive abilities and moral status and how desperately we need a new approach to animal (...) rights. Steiner rejects the traditional assumption that a lack of formal rationality confers an inferior moral status on animals vis-à-vis human beings. Instead, he offers an associationist view of animal cognition in which animals grasp and adapt to their environments without employing concepts or intentionality. Steiner challenges the standard assumption of liberal individualism according to which humans have no obligations of justice toward animals. Instead, he advocates a "cosmic holism" that attributes a moral status to animals equivalent to that of people. Arguing for a relationship of justice between humans and nature, Steiner emphasizes our kinship with animals and the fundamental moral obligations entailed by this kinship. (shrink)

We submit this brief in support of the Nonhuman Rights Project’s efforts to secure habeas corpus relief for the elephant named Happy. We reject arbitrary distinctions that deny adequate protections to other animals who share with protected humans relevantly similar vulnerabilities to harms and relevantly similar interests in avoiding such harms. We strongly urge this Court, in keeping with the best philosophical standards of rational judgment and ethical standards of justice, to recognize that, as a nonhuman person, Happy should be (...) released from her current confinement and transferred to an appropriate elephant sanctuary, pursuant to habeas corpus. (shrink)

A History of Modern Political Thought analyzes the ways of interpreting modern political thought and interpretations of particular modern political thinkers. It analyses prominent schemes of interpretation such as deconstruction, hermeneutics and contextualism and provides a critical reading of how particular thinkers including Machiavelli, Hobbes, Locke, Hegel, Rousseau, Marx, Bentham, Mill, Nietzsche, and Beauvoir are interpreted in the light of these schemes. The book addresses the question of why there are so many reinterpretations of political thinkers and how we can (...) understand past thinkers. It concludes by developing an interpretive pluralism which recognises the merits of several schemes of interpretation, while furnishing a critical overview which maintains a dialectical perspective that provides an integral overview of the subject. (shrink)

Of the theologians and philosophers now writing on biblical narrative, Hans Frei and Paul Ricoeur are probably the most prominent. It is significant that their views converge on important issues. Both are uncomfortable with hermeneutic theories that convert the text into an abstract philosophical system, an ideal typological structure, or a mere occasion for existential decision. Frei and Ricoeur seem knit together in a common enterprise; they appear to be building a single narrative theology. I argue that the appearance of (...) symmetry is an illusion. There is a fundamental conflict between the ‘pure narrativism’ of Frei and the ‘impure narrativism’ of Ricoeur. I give reasons for thinking that Ricoeur’s is the stronger position. (shrink)

Agricultural biotechnology refers to a diverse set of industrial techniques used to produce genetically modified foods. Genetically modified (GM) foods are foods manipulated at the molecular level to enhance their value to farmers and consumers. This book is a collection of essays on the ethical dimensions of ag biotech. The essays were written over a dozen years, beginning in 1988. When I began to reflect on the subject, ag biotech was an exotic, untested, technology. Today, in the first year of (...) the millenium, the vast majority of consumers in the United States have taken a bite of the apple. Milk produced by cows injected with a GM protein called recombinant bovine growth hormone (bGH), is found, unlabelled, on grocery shelves throughout the US. In 1999, half of the soybeans and cotton harvested in the US were GM varieties. Billions of dollars of public and private monies are being invested annually in biotech research, and commercial sales now reach into the tens of billions of dollars each year. Whereas ag biotech once promised to change American agriculture, it now is in the process of doing so. (shrink)

Sam, your newborn son, has been suffocating in your arms for the past 15 minutes. You’re as certain as you can be that he is going to die in the next 15.

In _Animals and the Limits of Postmodernism_, Gary Steiner illuminates postmodernism's inability to produce viable ethical and political principles. Ethics requires notions of self, agency, and value that are not available to postmodernists. Thus, much of what is published under the rubric of postmodernist theory lacks a proper basis for a systematic engagement with ethics. Steiner demonstrates this through a provocative critique of postmodernist approaches to the moral status of animals, set against the background of a broader indictment of (...) postmodernism's failure to establish clear principles for action. He revisits the ideas of Derrida, Foucault, Nietzsche, and Heidegger, together with recent work by their American interpreters, and shows that the basic terms of postmodern thought are incompatible with definitive claims about the moral status of animals--as well as humans. Steiner also identifies the failures of liberal humanist thought in regards to this same moral dilemma, and he encourages a rethinking of humanist ideas in a way that avoids the anthropocentric limitations of traditional humanist thought. Drawing on the achievements of the Stoics and Kant, he builds on his earlier ideas of cosmic holism and non-anthropocentric cosmopolitanism to arrive at a more concrete foundation for animal rights. (shrink)

Should the law recognize an elephant’s right to be released from solitary confinement? The New York State Court of Appeals—the highest court in the State of New York—will consider this question on May 18. At issue is an Asian elephant named Happy. But happy she is not. Every human being has a right to bodily liberty because they have strong interests that this right protects. Since Happy has the same strong interests, the Court should recognize Happy’s right to be freed (...) from solitary confinement. (shrink)

Oakeshott sets out philosophical and historical views of the state. They are distinct, and their distinctiveness harmonizes with his notion of the exclusivity of philosophical and historical perspectives. The modal distinctness of philosophy, history, and practice is established in Experience and Its Modes and is then rehearsed in subsequent publications, notably in essays in Rationalism and Politics. History is a way of seeing the past that is at odds with practical thought and philosophy. It is the sign of ideology, and (...) its misperceptions of the relations between philosophy and practice that ideologists such as Lenin and Thatcher invoke abstractions of communism and the market to frame practical political decision-making. However, in considering art in the essay “The Voice of Poetry in the Conversation of Mankind,” Oakeshott imagines art to be independent of other activities and yet to maintain a conversational relationship between the modes of experience. What is meant by a conversation? For Oakeshott, a conversation does not preclude the independence of modes of experience from one another. The closeness between philosophy, practice, and history is also assumed and yet underplayed by the argument of On Human Conduct, which imagines theory to be separate from history and practice. In this paper, it is argued that the connections between practical, historical, and philosophical modes of understanding the state in Oakeshott’s work are closer than is suggested by the metaphor of conversation and at odds with the separation that is maintained in Experience and its Modes. (shrink)

Crump et al.’s contribution to assessing whether decapods feel pain raises an important question: Is pain distributed unevenly across the order? The case for pain appears stronger in Pleocyemata than in Dendrobranchiata. Some studies report pain avoidance behaviors in Dendrobranchiata (Penaeidae) shrimp, but further studies are needed to determine whether the chemicals used are acting as analgesics to relieve pain, or as soporifics to reduce overall alertness. If the latter, the most farmed shrimp species may not require the same level (...) of protection as crabs, crayfish, and lobsters. (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.

In this paper I argue for the following six claims: 1) The problem is that some think metacognition and consciousness are dissociable. 2) The solution is not to revive associationist explanations; 3) …nor is the solution to identify metacognition with Carruthers’ gatekeeping mechanism. 4) The solution is to define conscious metacognition; 5) … devise an empirical test for it in humans; and 6) … apply it to animals.

The argument for vegetarianism from overlapping species goes like this. Every individual who is the subject of a life has a right to life. Some humans—e.g., the severely congenitally cognitively limited—lack language, rationality, autonomy, and self-consciousness, and yet they are subjects of a life. Severely congenitally cognitively limited humans have a right to life. Some animals—e.g., all mammals—lack language, rationality, autonomy, and self-consciousness, and yet they are subjects of a life. We ought to treat like cases alike. The cases of (...) some humans are like the cases of some animals. Therefore, some animals have a right to life. -/- The argument seems not to have moved many people to change their diets. The reason, I suggest, is not because the argument is unsound but because our ability to change our dietary practices is difficult and we lack the imaginative resources to see the world from a nonhuman perspective. -/- I suggest that creative artists are of great value here, and I provide an example by referring to the work of the American novelist, Cormac McCarthy. (shrink)

This paper argues that there are two camps in narrative theology, "pure" (e.g., Hans Frei) and "impure" (e.g., Paul Ricoeur) narrative theologians. Narrative theology, reflection on religious claims embedded in stories, is one of the most significant currents of late twentieth century thought. H. Richard Niebuhr initiated the conversation when he wrote in 1941 of "The Story of Our Lives." If his theme lay undeveloped for several decades, it burst onto the theological scene in the early 1970s. Demurrers followed, and (...) we now recognize the limits of the metaphor" narrative." Still, scholarly interest has not waned. Books and articles keep coming: on narrative in the Bible, narrative and theology, narrative and morality, narrative tradition, narrative practice, even narrative truth. The conversation, it appears, is as lively as ever. And if it has produced lasting contributions, it is because of the quality of the minds it has managed to attract: Paul Ricoeur, Hans Frei, David Tracy, George Lindbeck, Stanley Hauerwas, Julian Hartt, Sallie McFague, Johann Baptist Metz. (shrink)

In his 'Of the Standard of Taste' David Hume seems to make the paradoxical claim that even though the sentiments an agent feels in response to an artwork are subjective and unique, and it cannot be said that such sentiments are either correct or incorrect, there is a standard upon which art can be judged, which is at least partly determined by these sentiments.

The volume contains papers and commentaries presented to the _Boston Area Colloquium in Ancient Philosophy_ during the academic year 2015-16. Works: Phaedrus, Republic, Apology, Laws, Seventh Letter, Stoic texts. Topics: Stoic blending, reciprocal eros, perception in tripartite soul, Stoic identity, Plato’s politics and events.

Volume 31 contains papers and commentaries presented to the Boston Area Colloquium in Ancient Philosophy during academic year 2014-15. Works: _Symposium_, _Republic_, _Euthyphro_, Proclus’s _De malorum_, _Sophist_, _Statesman_; topics: eros, tripartite soul, what the gods love, evil, Homeric motifs.

The volume contains papers and commentaries presented to the _Boston Area Colloquium in Ancient Philosophy_ during the academic year 2015-16. Works: Phaedrus, Republic, Apology, Laws, Seventh Letter, Stoic texts. Topics: Stoic blending, reciprocal eros, perception in tripartite soul, Stoic identity, Plato’s politics and events.

Written by a former student of Heidegger, this book examines the relationship between the philosophy and the politics of a celebrated teacher and the allure that Nazism held out for scholars committed to revolutionary nihilism.

“Care robots” offer technological solutions to increasing needs for care just as economic imperatives increasingly regulate the care sector. Ethical critiques of this technology cannot succeed without situating themselves within the crisis of social reproduction under neoliberal capitalism. What, however, constitutes “care” and its status as a potential critical resource, and how might care robots damage this potential? Although robots might threaten norms of care, I argue that they are by no means necessarily damaging. Critiques of care robots must not (...) entrench exclusionary images of the ideal carer. Instead, critical reflection on their use should trouble dominant paradigms of care. (shrink)

I worked for many years constructing my version of the global case but, as I continued to try to strengthen it, I slowly began to lose confidence. My unease began with several personal experiences. One of our children had a common but annoying physical ailment, for which our pediatrician prescribed a very expensive nasal spray. When I inquired about its cost, the pharmacist informed me that it was a new, genetically engineered, product. The spray worked, and Karen and I never (...) batted an eye. (shrink)

Thus the extrinsic argument against ag biotech. In considering whether it is a good argument, I believe we should simply assume that is true. Substantially risky technologies, perhaps by definition, should not be developed. Seeing no reason to contest, therefore, I will focus on.

A copy of the book is available from my website.

How should universities help their life science faculty members to integrate discussions of ethics into their courses? The Iowa State University Model Bio-ethics Institutes offer one model.

Educational Theory, Volume 71, Issue 3, Page 371-388, June 2021.

Lodges a number of challenges to the threshold argument on the basis of which some consequentialists have objected to consumer meat purchases. Maintains that the argument misunderstands relevant market dynamics.

Should people include beef in their diet? This chapter argues that the answer is “no” by reviewing what is known and not known about the presence in cattle of three psychological traits: pain, desire, and self-consciousness. On the basis of behavioral and neuroanatomical evidence, the chapter argues that cattle are sentient beings who have things they want to do in the proximal future, but they are not self-conscious. The piece rebuts three important objections: that cattle have injury information but not (...) pain; that cattle have goal-directed behavior but not desire; and that the absence of evidence for bovine self-consciousness should not be taken as evidence that cattle lack self-consciousness. In sum, what is known about cattle cognition shifts the moral burden of proof on to the beef eaters. (shrink)

The crisis of Covid‐19 has forced us to notice two things: our human interdependence and American society's tolerance for what Nancy Krieger has called “inequalities embodied in health inequities,” reflected in data on Covid‐19 mortality and geographies. Care is integral to our recovery from this catastrophe and to the development of sustainable public health policies and practices that promote societal resilience and reduce the vulnerabilities of our citizens. Drawing on the insights of Joan Tronto and Eva Feder Kittay, we argue (...) that the ethics of care offers a critical alternative to utilitarian and deontological approaches and provides a street‐ready framework for integration into public health deliberations to anchor public policy and investments concerning the recovery and future well‐being of America's citizens and society. (shrink)

This article considers Helmholtz’s relation to philosophy, including Fichte’s philosophy. Recent interpreters find Fichtean influence on Helmholtz, especially concerning the role of voluntary movement in distinguishing subject from object, or “I” from “not-I.” After examining Helmholtz’s statements about Fichte, the article describes Fichte’s ego-doctrine and asks whether Helmholtz could accept it into his sensory psychology. He could not accept Fichte’s core position, that an intrinsically active I intellectually intuits its own activity and posits the not-I as limiting and determining that (...) activity, because that account requires cognitive abilities that conflict with Helmholtz’s claim that the development of spatial perception relies primarily on associative memory and involves no direct awareness of the ego’s activity as such. Helmholtz would have known various accounts of the distinction between subject and object, or self and world, from sensory physiology, including associative accounts invoking voluntary motor movements and accounts describing checks on the perceiver’s activity. Some of the accounts cite Fichte on the I and not-I, but most do not, and none adopt Fichte’s Idealism. Finally, the article examines Helmholtz’s relation to metaphysics, finding that in all periods he rejected Fichtean Idealism and that the modest metaphysics of his mature period is a version of structural realism. (shrink)

As the health care system transitions to a precision medicine approach that tailors clinical care to the genetic profile of the individual patient, there is a potential tension between the clinical uptake of new technologies by providers and the legal system's expectation of the standard of care in applying such technologies. We examine this tension by comparing the type of evidence that physicians and courts are likely to rely on in determining a duty to recommend pharmacogenetic testing of patients prescribed (...) the oral anti-coagulant drug warfarin. There is a large body of inconsistent evidence and factors for and against such testing, but physicians and courts are likely to weigh this evidence differently. The potential implications for medical malpractice risk are evaluated and discussed. (shrink)

Seeking to avoid the typical binary choices between symbolic representations and no representations, or between functionally decomposable psychological processes and no psychological processes, or between direct perception of mind-independent physical properties and indirect perception of sense data, this article proposes that even a clear-thinking friend of Gibson can accept that perception of the environment is mediated by appearances and that such appearances are produced by functionally decomposable, rule-instantiating psychological processes. In so doing, it avoids both hyper-intellectualization of the perceptual process (...) and the positing of sense data as immediate objects of perception. It considers notions of perceptual mediation from classical Gestalt psychology, while referencing recent phenomenological arguments showing that perception does not simply conform to mind-independent physical properties. Perception presents objects and scenes under a phenomenal aspect, in a manner suitable to be action-guiding. Finally, it examines neuroscientific decompositions of Gibsonian information pickup mechanisms, finding that such mechanisms are reasonably described as effecting processes of construction. As a separate point, such mechanisms are usefully described as including subpersonal, non-symbolic representations and processes of information integration. (shrink)

This chapter contains section titled: Status of Animals Origins of Animals Life, Health, and Function Sense and Cognition Are Descartes's Animals Unfeeling Machines? Descartes's Legacy References and Further Reading.