The Development Of The Role Of The Spectator In Kant’S Thinking: The Evolution Of The Copernican Revolution,
2010
University of San Francisco
The Development Of The Role Of The Spectator In Kant’S Thinking: The Evolution Of The Copernican Revolution, Gerard Kuperus
Philosophy
In this paper I discuss the development of Kant’s Critical project in the pre-critical writings. I am particularly focusing upon the problems that Kant encounters in developing the idea of a transcendental subject. This helps us to understand the radical nature of Kant’s project in which he not merely turns around the relationship between subject and object, but also has to redefine the nature of the subject. The development of the subject starts with Kant’s idea of an observer who actively determines qualities in the object (instead of passively taking it in). Ultimately the spectator becomes a subject that is …
Moral Agency In Mammalia,
2010
Philosophy Department, WIlkes University
Moral Agency In Mammalia, Mark D. Reid
Between the Species
About the extent of moral agency in the animal kingdom, one view is that only humans are moral agents. Holding a different view, I argue that moral agency depends on the capacity for other-regard and the capacity to be attuned to significance—such that things matter to one. I derive a criterion where a creature is a moral agent if she performs an action that promotes others’ significant interests and brings great costs to herself where she is aware of these significant interests and imposed costs. Failure to confirm that she has this awareness is a weakness of examples of moral …
Animals In The Kingdom Of Ends,
2010
Central Michigan University
Animals In The Kingdom Of Ends, Heather M. Kendrick
Between the Species
Kant claimed that human beings have no duties to animals because they are not autonomous ends in themselves. I argue that Kant was wrong to exclude animals from the realm of moral consideration. Animals, although they do not set their own ends and thus cannot be regarded as ends in themselves, do have ends that are given to them by nature. As beings with ends, they stand between mere things that have no ends, and rational beings that are ends in themselves. I propose a broader version of Kant's kingdom of ends, in which rational beings respect the ends of …
Between The Moment And Eternity: How Schillerian Play Can Establish Animals As Moral Agents,
2010
University of New Mexico, Albuquerque
Between The Moment And Eternity: How Schillerian Play Can Establish Animals As Moral Agents, Jaime Denison
Between the Species
While concerned with how man achieves his status as a moral being, Friedrich Schiller develops a concept of play that serves as a bridge between our sensuous existence to the rational, realizing moral freedom. In what ways might we extend this concept to the non-human animal? Current research by play theorists and ethologists has shown that play behaviour in animals is both complex and crucial in determining social patterns, and Schiller’s account may have anticipated these observations. I argue that through Schiller’s theory of play and our current research on animal play, it is possible to undermine the systematic removal …
Extreme Humanism: Heidegger, Buber, And The Threshold Of Language,
2010
University of Texas at Dallas
Extreme Humanism: Heidegger, Buber, And The Threshold Of Language, Frank Garrett
Between the Species
Throughout this essay I attempt to bring into focus what I see as the thorniest point of proximity between two giants in twentieth-century ontology; that is, the nature of language in the delineation between human beings and animals within the work of Martin Heidegger and Martin Buber. I consider Heidegger’s conception of world in an attempt to understand how he sees the abyss—as well as the bridge—between animals and humankind. Buber’s more encompassing view of being seems to be a fruitful catalyst for moving Heidegger closer to something at which he hints but from which he withdraws. By exploring the …
A Difference That Makes A Difference: Welfare And The Equality Of Consideration,
2010
Bowling Green State University
A Difference That Makes A Difference: Welfare And The Equality Of Consideration, Elijah Weber
Between the Species
In Welfare, Happiness, and Ethics, L.W. Sumner defends two significant constraints on one’s theory of welfare: formality and generality. An adequate theory of welfare, claims Sumner, must give a constitutive account of the “good-for” relation. This constitutive account must be sufficiently general that any entity whose status as a welfare subject is uncontroversial falls within its scope. This paper will argue that Sumner’s proposed constraints are particularly significant to utilitarian arguments for the equal moral considerability of non-human animals. In the absence of these constraints, the inconsistency that is alleged to follow from denying moral considerability to non-human animals, while …
Innocent And Innocuous: The Case Against Animal Research,
2010
University of New Haven and Yale Unviersity
Innocent And Innocuous: The Case Against Animal Research, Joel Marks
Between the Species
No abstract provided.
Husbandry To Industry: Animal Agriculture, Ethics And Public Policy,
2010
Aarhus University
Husbandry To Industry: Animal Agriculture, Ethics And Public Policy, Jes Harfeld
Between the Species
The industrialisation of agriculture has led to considerable alterations at both the technological and economical levels of animal farming. Several animal welfare issues of modern animal agriculture – e.g. stress and stereotypical behaviour – can be traced back to the industrialised intensification of housing and numbers of animals in production. Although these welfare issues dictate ethical criticism, it is the claim of this article that such direct welfare issues are only the forefront of a greater systemic ethical problem inherent to industrialisation. Consequently, this article provides an analysis of the foundational ethical problems in animal agriculture which derive from (I) …
The Ethics Of The Ecology Of Fear Against The Nonspeciesist Paradigm: A Shift In The Aims Of Intervention In Nature,
2010
Fundación Española para la Ciencia y la Tecnología
The Ethics Of The Ecology Of Fear Against The Nonspeciesist Paradigm: A Shift In The Aims Of Intervention In Nature, Oscar Horta
Between the Species
Humans often intervene in the wild for anthropocentric or environmental reasons. An example of such interventions is the reintroduction of wolves in places where they no longer live in order to create what has been called an “ecology of fear”, which is being currently discussed in places such as Scotland. In the first part of this paper I discuss the reasons for this measure and argue that they are not compatible with a nonspeciesist approach. Then, I claim that if we abandon a speciesist viewpoint we should change completely the way in which we should intervene in nature. Rather than …
Animals And Animals,
2010
Syracuse University
Animals And Animals, Laurence Thomas
Between the Species
Speciesism is the wrong of not acknowledging the moral qualities that non-human animals possess that are similar or equivalent or even superior to the moral qualities that human beings possess. However, since it is manifestly clear that no one thinks that apes are in any way obligated to human beings, it clearly cannot be a form of speciesism to be mindful of the differences on the basis of which that is so. In opposition to the advocates of the Great Ape Project, my aim in this essay is to establish the quite minimal claim that apes should not have the …
The Hunt: A Short Story,
2010
University of Maine
Review Of Marti Kheel’S Nature Ethics: An Ecofeminist Perspective,
2010
California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo, CA
Review Of Marti Kheel’S Nature Ethics: An Ecofeminist Perspective, Rachel Fernflores
Between the Species
No abstract provided.
Review Of Jean Kazez's Animalkind: What We Owe To Animals,
2010
Mercer University
Review Of Jean Kazez's Animalkind: What We Owe To Animals, James Stanescu
Between the Species
No abstract provided.
Animals As Friends,
2010
Macquarie University
Animals As Friends, Cynthia Townley
Between the Species
Whether animals, especially companion animals, count as friends depends on the conception of friendship as well as on the conception of animals. Some accounts of friendship can include (other than human) animals more easily than others. I present an argument in favour of characterising some animal-human connections as friendships, and address some of the standard objections to this characterisation. It might seem that under any conception of friendship, characterising animals as (potential) friends would likely lead to better treatment of animals, as various kinds of ill-treatment or use would not be consistent with treating someone as a friend. However, concern …
Second Nature And Animal Life,
2010
The New School, New York
Second Nature And Animal Life, Stefano Di Brisco
Between the Species
I am concerned in this paper with McDowell's account of human uniqueness in nature in terms of a fundamental difference between humans and animals. I try to show that the concept of that difference is relevant for a Wittgensteinian understanding of the place of rationality in nature. I then develop an internal criticism of McDowell's transcendental way of approaching this topic by using Diamond's insights about the importance of the details for a realistic philosophical account of human mindedness. My aim is to show that the difference between humans and animals is constitutive of our understanding of what it means …
Discourse First, Cages Second: A New Locus For Animal Liberation,
2010
Claremont School of Theology
Discourse First, Cages Second: A New Locus For Animal Liberation, Brianne Donaldson
Between the Species
The Animal that was named, categorized, and excluded from the human community by the Greeks has seeped into society at multiple points. This Animal now exists in a paradoxical limbo where she is both excluded from social standing and moral consideration while at the same time being included, utilized and discussed within all sectors of society from advertising to philosophy, neuroscience to the pet industry, religion to farming. Thus, animals have been caught up in multiple mechanisms of explanatory terminology, symbolic use, and physical captivity which all work together to create a Discourse of the Animal, which is employed both …
Review Of Wesley J. Smith's A Rat Is A Pig Is A Dog Is A Boy: The Human Cost Of The Animal Rights Movement,
2010
University of Victoria
Review Of Wesley J. Smith's A Rat Is A Pig Is A Dog Is A Boy: The Human Cost Of The Animal Rights Movement, Angus Taylor
Between the Species
No abstract provided.
Proper Function Justification And Epistemic Rationality,
2010
California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo
Proper Function Justification And Epistemic Rationality, Todd R. Long
Philosophy
No abstract provided.
Mechanisms (Oxford),
2010
Butler University
Mechanisms (Oxford), Stuart Glennan
Scholarship and Professional Work - LAS
Mechanism is undoubtedly a causal concept, in the sense that ordinary definitions and philosophical analyses explicate the concept in terms of other causal concepts such as production and interaction. Given this fact, many philosophers have supposed that analyses of the concept of mechanism, while they might appeal to philosophical theories about the nature of causation, could do little to inform such theories. On the other hand, methods of causal inference and explanation appeal to mechanisms. Discovering a mechanism is the gold standard for establishing and explaining causal connections. This fact suggests that it might be possible to provide an analysis …
A Proper De Jure Objection To The Epistemic Rationality Of Religious Belief,
2010
California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo
A Proper De Jure Objection To The Epistemic Rationality Of Religious Belief, Todd R. Long
Philosophy
I answer Alvin Plantinga’s challenge to provide a ‘proper’ de jure objection to religious belief. What I call the ‘sophisticates’ evidential objection’ (SEO) concludes that sophisticated Christians lack epistemic justification for believing central Christian propositions. The SEO utilizes a theory of epistemic justification in the spirit of the evidentialism of Richard Feldman and Earl Conee. I defend philosophical interest in the SEO (and its underlying evidentialism) against objections from Reformed epistemology, by addressing Plantinga’s criteria for a proper de jure objection, his anti-evidentialist arguments, and the relevance of ‘impulsional evidence’. I argue that no result from Plantinga-style Reformed epistemology precludes …
