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Full-Text Articles in Philosophy
A Review Of Dan C. Shahar’S Why It's Ok To Eat Meat And Per Bauhn’S Animal Suffering, Human Rights, And The Virtue Of Justice, Josh Milburn
A Review Of Dan C. Shahar’S Why It's Ok To Eat Meat And Per Bauhn’S Animal Suffering, Human Rights, And The Virtue Of Justice, Josh Milburn
Between the Species
It’s tricky to find decent defences of meat-eating of the kind practiced by most westerners. I was thus intrigued to pick up two short books defending meat-eating. Dan Shahar’s Why It’s Ok to Eat Meat (2022) is in Routledge’s series of short books called Why It's OK: The Ethics and Aesthetics of How We Live. Per Bauhn’s Animal Suffering, Human Rights, and the Virtue of Justice (2023) is from Palgrave Pivot, which publishes books falling somewhere between journal articles and monographs. Shahar’s book is worth reading: it’s well-written, raising interesting questions, and offering a coherent defence of meat. Bauhn’s book …
A Happy Lie, Nina Collin
A Happy Lie, Nina Collin
Between the Species
I recently went to a zoo. Wild animals living in confinement with one single purpose: to entertain. When contemplating the concept of a zoo it will become surreal, I promise.
Animal-Rights Primitivism: A Vital Needs Argument Against Modern Technology, James Robert Schultz
Animal-Rights Primitivism: A Vital Needs Argument Against Modern Technology, James Robert Schultz
Between the Species
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 …
Imagine: A Critical Examination Of Activist Methods, Lisa Kemmerer
Imagine: A Critical Examination Of Activist Methods, Lisa Kemmerer
Between the Species
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.
Xenotransplantation, Subsistence Hunting And The Pursuit Of Health: Lessons For Animal Rights-Based Vegan Advocacy, Nathan M. Nobis
Xenotransplantation, Subsistence Hunting And The Pursuit Of Health: Lessons For Animal Rights-Based Vegan Advocacy, Nathan M. Nobis
Between the Species
I argue that, contrary to what Tom Regan suggests, his rights view implies that subsistence hunting is wrong, that is, killing animals for food is wrong even when they are the only available food source, since doing so violates animal rights. We can see that subsistence hunting is wrong on the rights view by seeing why animal experimentation, specifically xenotransplanation, is wrong on the rights view: if it’s wrong to kill an animal to take organs to save a human life, it’s wrong to kill an animal to eat that animal to save a human life or improve …
Nozick’S Libertarian Critique Of Regan, Josh Milburn
Nozick’S Libertarian Critique Of Regan, Josh Milburn
Between the Species
Robert Nozick’s oft-quoted review of Tom Regan’s The Case for Animal Rights levels a range of challenges to Regan’s philosophy. Many commentators have focussed on Nozick’s putative defence of speciesism, but this has led to them overlooking other aspects of the critique. In this paper, I draw attention to two. First is Nozick’s criticism of Regan’s political theory, which is best understood relative to Nozick’s libertarianism. Nozick’s challenge invites the possibility of a libertarian account of animal rights – which is not as oxymoronic as it may first sound. Second is Nozick’s criticism of Regan’s axiological theory, which is best …
Harming (Respectfully) Some To Benefit Others: Animal Rights And The Moral Imperative Of Trap-Neuter-Release Programs, Cheryl E. Abbate
Harming (Respectfully) Some To Benefit Others: Animal Rights And The Moral Imperative Of Trap-Neuter-Release Programs, Cheryl E. Abbate
Between the Species
Because spaying/neutering animals involves the harming of some animals in order to prevent harm to others, some ethicists, like David Boonin, argue that the philosophy of animal rights is committed to the view that spaying/neutering animals violates the respect principle and that Trap Neuter Release (TNR) programs are thus impermissible. In response, I demonstrate that the philosophy of animal rights holds that, under certain conditions, it is justified, and sometimes even obligatory, to cause harm to some animals (human or nonhuman) in order to prevent greater harm to others. As I will argue, causing lesser harm to some animals in …
Animal Rights And Incredulous Stares, Bob Fischer
Animal Rights And Incredulous Stares, Bob Fischer
Between the Species
I propose an analogy between the thesis that animals have rights and David Lewis's commitment to modal realism. I argue that just as Lewis received incredulous stares that seem to justify rejecting his metaphysical hypothesis, so the thesis that animals have rights can be reasonably rejected. I consider the prospect challenging the considered beliefs on which that rejection depends, and ultimately offer a pessimistic conclusion.
Reflections On Tom Regan And The Animal Rights Movement That Once Was, Gary L. Francione
Reflections On Tom Regan And The Animal Rights Movement That Once Was, Gary L. Francione
Between the Species
No abstract provided.
We Are All Noah: Tom Regan's Olive Branch To Religious Animal Ethics, Matthew C. Halteman
We Are All Noah: Tom Regan's Olive Branch To Religious Animal Ethics, Matthew C. Halteman
Between the Species
For the past thirty years, Tom Regan has bucked the trend among secular animal rights philosophers and spoken patiently and persistently to the best angels of religious ethics in a stream of publications that enjoins religious scholars, clergy, and lay people alike to rediscover the resources within their traditions for articulating and living out an animal ethics that is more consistent with their professed values of love, mercy, and justice. My aim in this article is to showcase some of the wealth of insight offered in this important but under-utilized archive of Regan’s work to those of us, religious or …
Rights, Solidarity, And The Animal Welfare State, Jes L. Harfeld
Rights, Solidarity, And The Animal Welfare State, Jes L. Harfeld
Between the Species
This article argues that aspects of the animal rights view can be constructively modulated through a communitarian approach and come to promote animal welfare through the social contexts of expanded caring communities. The Nordic welfare state is presented as a conceivable caring community within which animals could be viewed and treated appropriately as co-citizens with solidarity based rights and duties.
Wild-But-Not-Too-Wild Animals: Challenging Goldilocks Standards In Rewilding, Erica Von Essen, Michael P. Allen
Wild-But-Not-Too-Wild Animals: Challenging Goldilocks Standards In Rewilding, Erica Von Essen, Michael P. Allen
Between the Species
Rewilding is positioned as ‘post’-conservation through its emphasis on unleashing the autonomy of natural processes. In this paper, we argue that the autonomy of nature rhetoric in rewilding is challenged by human interventions. Instead of joining critique toward the ‘managed wilderness’ approach of rewilding, however, we examine the injustices this entails for keystone species. Reintroduction case studies demonstrate how arbitrary standards for wildness are imposed on these animals as they do their assigned duty to rehabilitate ecosystems. These ‘Goldilocks’ standards are predicated on aesthetic values that sanction interventions inconsistent with the premise of animal sovereignty. These include culling, relocations and …
An Interview With Sue Donaldson And Will Kymlicka, Angus Taylor
An Interview With Sue Donaldson And Will Kymlicka, Angus Taylor
Between the Species
Angus Taylor interviews Sue Donaldson and Will Kymlicka, authors of Zoopolis: A Political Theory of Animal Rights (Oxford University Press, 2011).