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- Review of Jeff Sebo's Saving Animals, Saving Ourselves
Authors: Angus Taylor
Abstract: Review of Saving Animals, Saving Ourselves by Jeff Sebo
PubDate: Fri, 19 May 2023 15:42:50 PDT
- Review of Animal Ethics: A Contemporary Introduction
Authors: Christopher A. Bobier
PubDate: Fri, 19 May 2023 15:42:46 PDT
- Religion: A Repertoire of Earth Ethics – A Study on the Ecospiritual
Dimensions in Refuge: An Unnatural History of Family and Place by Terry
Tempest Williams
Authors: Nissi Karunya Ms. et al.
Abstract: Ecological crisis, a contemporary reality has triggered a paradigm shift in human thinking and discourse. Greening of religion is a novel approach to the interpretation of religious literature. The purpose of this study is to identify how literature reflects religious ethics centred on ecology and it brings out perspectives of religion regarding environmental conservation. Through a close reading of the literary text Refuge: An Unnatural History of Family and Place by Terry Tempest Williams, this paper aims to validate how the ecological ethics of religions can be a solution to environmental crisis and how this ecological reformation in spirituality should be given the intellectual respect it deserves.
PubDate: Fri, 19 May 2023 15:42:38 PDT
- Review of Animals, Ethics and Us
Authors: Teddy Duncan Jr.
Abstract: In Animals, Ethics, and Us, Dr. Madeleine L.H. Campbell offers insight into the moral landscape of human-animal relations through a specific ethical framework that rejects the rights of non-human animals, opting instead for a “qualified utilitarian approach” (2019, 9). For Campbell, animal ethics should not be bound to animal rights or the autonomy of individual animals; she asserts that animal rights should not factor into the moral consideration of animals at all. Since she does not confer animals a moral status or form of rights and instead relies on the utilitarian approach, Campbell attempts to locate the justifying logic of necessity (or non-necessity) in each of these issues and demonstrate how the human use of animals in a particular situation is, or is not, legitimate. There are some notable issues with this approach: Campbell’s moral framework can essentially justify anything done to animals—if it is ‘beneficial’ to humans in any capacity. In this review, I briefly summarize her argument and its applications, then delve into some criticisms of her views.
PubDate: Fri, 19 May 2023 15:42:35 PDT
- Has the philosophical case for animal liberation been proved' A systematic
and narrative review of the philosophical literature 1975-2020.
Authors: Michael Morris
Abstract: I test the hypothesis proposed by Peter Singer that the philosophical case for animal liberation has been won, through a systematic review of papers published by philosophers between 1975 and 2020.There was a slight but statistically significant correlation between support for an animal liberation vegan position, with year of publication. Support for a better treatment of animals than currently sanctioned by society increased significantly among papers discussing general principals of animal ethics.Findings support a weaker version of Singer's hypothesis. Among the philosophical community there is greater support for animal liberation, but the debate has not been ‘won’.
PubDate: Fri, 19 May 2023 15:42:30 PDT
- Centering Animality in Law and Liberation: The Zoopolitics of Reclaiming
the Animal in Personhood
Authors: Paulina Siemieniec
Abstract: Although there is widespread agreement that the property status of nonhuman animals is indefensible, the debate about how to remedy their situation is ongoing. This paper explores three possibilities for approaching the issue of legal status: (1) extending the existing concept of personhood beyond the human to other animals; (2) developing an alternative legal subjectivity for nonhuman animals that is neither property nor personhood; (3) redefining personhood in animal terms while retaining the rights-bearing significance of personhood and decentering the human from animal subjectivity in law. I offer a critique of the first two strategies and defend the third on both conceptual and political grounds, as most responsive to the requirements of a genuinely liberatory politics. I call this the "centering animality" approach and apply it to the legal context through my proposal of animal personhood.
PubDate: Fri, 19 May 2023 15:42:25 PDT
- Animal-Rights Primitivism: A Vital Needs Argument Against Modern
Technology
Authors: James Robert Schultz
Abstract: In this essay, I argue that those who embrace animal rights should also embrace primitivism—the view that humans should abandon modern technology and take up something like hunter-gatherer technology instead. I call my view “animal-rights primitivism” to distinguish it from human-centered arguments for primitivism. In particular, I employ a vital-needs framework to make my argument. I argue that hunter-gatherer technology is the least harmful kind of technology, it is sufficient to meet human vital needs, and it is possible for humans to make the transition to hunter-gatherer technology while still meeting their vital needs. Alternatively, I argue that even if humans cannot make the transition while still meeting their vital needs, they are responsible for putting themselves in that situation and therefore forfeit the right to aggress against other sentient species to do so.
PubDate: Fri, 19 May 2023 15:42:19 PDT
- The Intuitiveness of Animal Rights: Audi's Epistemology, Kantian
Ethics, and Regan's Case
Authors: Andrew Nesseler
Abstract: In this paper, I will argue that ethical intuitionism and Robert Audi’s work on its moral epistemology as applied to Kant’s formula of humanity can offer grounding and support for an animal rights position that approaches that of a view articulated by Tom Regan. The combination of these positions will be done by testing our intuitions concerning non-rational individuals—leading one, I argue, to an animal rights view. Then I will briefly note the skeptical concerns about the role of intuitions in our knowledge of the moral status of human animals and non-human animals alike. Ultimately, I will conclude that intuitions can support a case for animal rights.
PubDate: Fri, 19 May 2023 15:42:13 PDT
- The Question of Veganism, the Dangers of Moral Extensionism, and a
Pragmatist Ecofeminist Alternative
Authors: Erin McKenna
Abstract: In this paper I argue that the framework of moral extensionism relies on human exceptionalism and human centeredness. I discuss the dangers of human exceptionalism and human centeredness using the work of ecofeminist philosophers Val Plumwood, Carol Adams, Lori Gruen, A. Breeze Harper, and Lisa Kemmerer. These ecofeminists each articulate alternative approaches to human relations with other animal beings. There are tensions among these alternatives, though, and I use a pragmatist perspective to interrogate their different positions on how other animal beings should or should not figure into the diets of human beings. I will argue that we need a contextual approach of ethical pluralism that is rooted in a broadened understanding of the human continuity with the rest of life and deeper acknowledgment of human dependency (and interdependency) with the rest of nature.
PubDate: Fri, 19 May 2023 15:42:08 PDT
- What it’s like, or not like, to Bee
Authors: Cheryl E. Abbate
Abstract: In his recent work, David DeGrazia (2020) explores the possibility of insect sentience, focusing on bees as a case study. He advances a novel evolutionary approach, arguing that, from an evolutionary perspective, it’s more likely that bees are sentient than insentient., insofar as bees (allegedly) would have a selective advantage if they are motivated—in the form of feeling—to achieve their aims. His argument assumes two questionable claims: (1) if X is a selective advantage for an organism, then the organism likely has X, and (2) conscious creatures would have a selective advantage if they are sentient. I challenge both claims, and consequently call into question DeGrazia’s claim that we have an evolutionary-based reason to attribute sentience to bees (and other insects).
PubDate: Fri, 19 May 2023 15:42:03 PDT
- Jati Kutta: the street dog, the servant, and me
Authors: Lisa Warden PhD
Abstract: Caste, class, race, and species collide in this narrative nonfiction piece about an injured street dog, his foreign rescuer, and her Dalit housekeeper in Ahmedabad, India.
PubDate: Sun, 10 Apr 2022 19:36:40 PDT
- Review of Federico Zuolo's Animals, Political Liberalism and Public
Reason
Authors: Josh Milburn
PubDate: Sun, 10 Apr 2022 19:36:37 PDT
- Review of How to Count Animals, more or less
Authors: Benjamin A. Elmore
Abstract: In How to Count Animals, more or less, Shelly Kagan sketches and argues for a hierarchical account of moral status. Although the book is fairly lengthy at 304 pages of text, Kagan is correct in calling it a sketch, since what this book provides us with is a foray into one aspect that a comprehensive ethical theory must include, in his view, if it is to be plausible. Even so, the work that he does, if one accepts hierarchy, opens up many different avenues to be further pursued in animal ethics.
PubDate: Sun, 10 Apr 2022 19:36:33 PDT
- Skill or Slaughter in ‘Fair Chase:’ What does Animal Resistance Tell
us about Modern Sports Hunting
Authors: Erica von Essen et al.
Abstract: In philosophy of sport, the internal justification for sports hunting is often that the chase empowers hunters to become skilled performers. However, this internal justification for sport hunting is challenged by two factors. One is the growing awareness that the hunted non-human animals themselves are skilled performers, demonstrating agency is resisting their hunters. Another is that recent developments in hunting practice undermine the internal justification by reducing the necessity for hunters to refine their performance skills, in effect allowing them to rely on technology and shortcuts in place of sportsmanship. Both factors reveal important justificatory deficits in modern sports hunting as closer to slaughter than skill.
PubDate: Sun, 10 Apr 2022 19:36:27 PDT
- Animal Morality: Control Without Reflective Self-Awareness
Authors: Sabina M. Schrynemakers
Abstract: Non-human animals can act morally by acting on the basis of moral emotions such as concern without being morally responsible in the sense of deserving praise or blame. They can unconsciously select from different motivations and so have the requisite control over their behavior for moral normativity yet lack awareness of their reasons as reasons and so lack the self-reflection and understanding required for full moral responsibility. This is an alternative to Mark Rowlands’ compatibilist construal of non-human animals as moral subjects.
PubDate: Sun, 10 Apr 2022 19:36:22 PDT
- Arguing for Vegetarianism: (symbolic) ingestion and the (inevitable)
absent referent — intersecting Jacques Derrida and Carol J. Adams
Authors: Mariana Almeida Pereira
Abstract: In this paper I draw together the notion of the absent referent as proposed by Carol J. Adams, and the notions of literal and symbolical sacrifice by eating the other — or ingestion — advanced by Jacques Derrida, to characterize how animals are commonly perceived, which ultimately forbids productive arguments for vegetarianism. I discuss animals as being literally and definitionally absent referents, and I argue, informed by Derrida’s philosophy, that it is impossible to aim at turning them into present referents without reinforcing symbolic ingestion by linking symbolic ingestion to epistemic appropriation or conceptualization. With this, I highlight the ethical importance of discussing symbolic ingestion in animal philosophy.
PubDate: Sun, 10 Apr 2022 19:36:17 PDT
- A naturalistic ethic supporting a vegan diet
Authors: Michael Morris
Abstract: Nutritional evidence suggests that a vegan diet is the most adaptive one for humans. An ethical principle based on following our biological nature (naturalistic ethic) could therefore provide additional support for a vegan diet. However, some argue that humans in the natural world could not eat a vegan diet, since it relies on supplements, particularly vitamin B12. This leads to the conclusion that humans are naturally omnivores, and therefore our natural diet should include small amounts of animal products.Three approaches to this conclusion are discussed. The first rejects a naturalistic ethic in favour of normative principles based on animal sentience. The second expands the definition of what is natural and argues that there is nothing unnatural about taking supplements.The third approach maintains a stronger naturalistic claim that the vegan diet is both completely natural and is the most adaptive for optimising human health. This can be used as the basis for vegan advocacy. It can also encourage a research programme to fill the gaps in our nutritional knowledge.
PubDate: Sun, 10 Apr 2022 19:36:11 PDT
- Imagine: A Critical Examination of Activist Methods
Authors: lisa kemmerer
Abstract: Activists perpetually seek new methods for confronting, reducing, and ultimately ending animal/anymal exploitation. Powerful industries repeatedly work to shut down every means that activists adopt. Through creative analogy, this piece facilitates critical analysis of one of the contemporary movement’s most popular methods of direct action.
PubDate: Sun, 10 Apr 2022 19:36:06 PDT
- "Porphyry, the Argument from Species Overlap, and Rationality"
Authors: Daniel A. Dombrowski
PubDate: Sun, 10 Apr 2022 19:36:01 PDT
- Extending the Impairment Argument to Sentient Non-Human Animals
Authors: Christopher A. Bobier
Abstract: I defend a new argument against raising and killing sentient non-human animals for food: It is immoral to non-lethally impair sentient non-human animals for pleasure, and since raising and killing sentient animals for gustatory pleasure impairs them to a much greater degree, that also is immoral. This argument is structurally analogous to Perry Hendricks’s impairment argument for the immorality of abortion. Proponents of the anti-abortion argument have to be, on grounds of moral consistency, proponents of the anti-meat eating argument: the very same considerations they appeal to to justify their anti-abortion impairment argument apply to the impairment argument against raising and killing sentient non-human animals for food. I explain how the argument defended here is distinct from other pro-vegan, pro-vegetarian arguments.
PubDate: Sun, 10 Apr 2022 19:35:55 PDT
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