Diversity Reading List

Abstract:
In recent years, there has been a growing concern for the well-being of animals reared in factory farms and used in scientific experiments. Most people have learned to accept that they have a moral responsibility to their pets, and there appears to be some recognition and reflection of the fact that farm and experimental animals are animals that may be much like our pets. However, legislation and reform to improve the welfare of animals used in experiments have been virtually non-existent. This is not to say that efforts to improve animal welfare have not been made in the case of animal experimentation. Campaign groups fight tirelessly to improve the lives of animals used in experiments. Rather, the reason why the practice of animal experimentation does not welcome legislation and reform seems, in part, connected to an idea of science as a special sort of field, with a different status to other fields of work. Seen as such, it may be seen as separated from certain moral values. The laboratory is often seen as a place where great knowledge is attained at the expense of animals, and therefore may be somehow seen as a place ‘insulated from certain kinds of moral criticism’ (Diamond, 1995, p.361), particularly in respect of animals. Indeed, there appears to a widespread conviction that animals used for scientific purposes should be perceived or at least treated differently from animals in other contexts. Indeed, this conviction is reflected in law, where there exists separate legislation for the treatment of pet animals and experimental animals.1 Legislation and reform for factory farm animals have been more successfully introduced, largely through the efforts of non-governmental organisations. However, in spite of increasing uneasiness about the suffering of animals in factory farms, the majority of people in the West eat factory-farmed meat. Consistently standing in opposition to factory farming would mean having to restrain one’s eating habits and change one’s lifestyle, something that many people are just not willing to do. In the West there seems to be a food culture, or way of life, which involves being able to eat what one wants, whenever one wants, even to the detriment of one’s health. Whereas meat was once seen as the luxury part of the meal, meat is now so commonplace in Western diet that it could be seen as the staple food for many people. In spite of existing new technologies, animal experiments have actually increased and, with the Western food culture as it is, the practice of factory farming looks to be a permanent fixture and the main system of farming in the future. In the light of this and considering the immense suffering animals endure in the practices of factory farming and animal experimentation the future looks bleak for animals destined for the factory farm and the laboratory, and it is arguably our urgent duty to interrogate, ‘What is the moral status of animals reared in factory farms and used in experiments?’ In order to answer this question one firstly needs to ask ‘What are the necessary and sufficient conditions for X to have moral standing?’ (see Goodpaster’s discussion of this question in ‘On Being Morally Considerable’, 1978, p.309). Reflections concerning anthropocentric attitudes towards animals necessitate concerns for environmental ethics, as animals, the environment and humans are interrelated. Indeed, answers to questions concerning the extent of our moral responsibilities towards animals may also provide answers to questions concerning the extent of our moral obligations towards the environment, and vice versa, since both involve ethical reflections that attempt to throw light on the extent of moral standing. In this respect, at a more fundamental level, environmental ethics and animal ethics merge, and, rather than being viewed as two distinct fields of ethics, should form one coherent ethic. Thus, they are both based on issues arising from answers to the question as to what kinds of entities can be said to have moral standing.

Abstract: This paper aims to provide an ethical assessment of the shooting of animals for sport. In particular, it discusses the use of partridges and pheasants for shooting. While opposition to hunting and shooting large wild mammals is strong, game birds have often taken a back seat in everyday animal welfare concerns. However, the practice of raising game birds for sport poses significant ethical issues. Most birds shot are raised in factory-farming conditions, and there is a considerable amount of evidence to show that these birds endure extensive suffering on these farms. Considering the fact that birds do have interests, including interests in life and not suffering, what are the ethical implications of using them for blood sports? Indeed, in the light of the suffering that game birds endure in factory farms, it may be that shooting such birds for sport is more morally problematic than other types of hunting and shooting which many people are often fiercely opposed to, for while it seems plausible to say that some animals may be harmed more by death than others (due to, say, their greater capacities), there may be harms that are worse than death (such as a life of intolerable suffering). The objective of this paper is to assess the ethics of shooting animals for sport, and in particular the practice of raising game birds for use in blood sports, by applying principles commonly used in ethics; specifically the principle of non-maleficence and equal consideration of (like) interests

Abstract: In the light of the current environmental crisis, different approaches to mitigating climate change have been put forward, some more plausible than others. However, despite problems with anthropocentric approaches to global warming (whether these be weak or strong versions of the approach), it seems that because of the largely anthropocentric outlook of the Western world, an internationally united approach to mitigating climate change will (perhaps inevitably) come from human-centred values. But what are the long-term implications of this? Such values need to be at the very least challenged if we are interested in providing justifiable and sustainable solutions to the current crisis. Indeed, this paper will analyse sentientism as an alternative environmental ethic stance and will discuss why it provides a more plausible approach than anthropocentric ones whilst recognising where it falls short.

Abstract: The considerable conservation research on environmental problems and climate change tends to focus on species “biodiversity” rather than individuals. Individuals of the same species get categorized as “wild” or “captive”, with the latter often omitted from conservationists’ concerns. But wild and captive animals, although they may require different treatment, have comparable interests as individuals. Equity requires taking this into account in conservation efforts.

Abstract:
The premise of this paper is that the language of science, like language in general, is neither asexual nor neutral. The essay demonstrates the various ways in which the non-neutrality of the subject of science is expressed and proposes that there is a need to analyze the laws that determine the acceptability of language and discourse in order to interpret their connection to a sexed logic.

Summary: In this paper Tao Jiang examines Taixu's effort to revitalize Buddhism through an engagement with modern science. The main argument offered by Jiang is that a nonsubstantive view of the world is in fundamental agreement with many cutting-edge scientific theories and, therefore, Buddhism can indeed offer a new perspective in the debate between the practices of modern science and their social critics.

Publisher’s Note:
Why We Love Dogs, Eat Pigs, and Wear Cows offers an absorbing look at what social psychologist Melanie Joy calls carnism, the belief system that conditions us to eat certain animals when we would never dream of eating others. Carnism causes extensive animal suffering and global injustice, and it drives us to act against our own interests and the interests of others without fully realizing what we are doing. Becoming aware of what carnism is and how it functions is vital to personal empowerment and social transformation, as it enables us to make our food choices more freely—because without awareness, there is no free choice.

Publisher's Note: Over the past fifteen years, a new dimension to the analysis of science has emerged. Feminist theory, combined with the insights of recent developments in the history, philosophy, and sociology of science, has raised a number of new and important questions about the content, practice, and traditional goals of science. Feminists have pointed to a bias in the choice and definition of problems with which scientists have concerned themselves, and in the actual design and interpretation of experiments, and have argued that modern science evolved out of a conceptual structuring of the world that incorporated particular and historically specific ideologies of gender. The seventeen outstanding articles in this volume reflect the diversity and strengths of feminist contributions to current thinking about science.

Publisher’s Note:
As a botanist, Robin Wall Kimmerer has been trained to ask questions of nature with the tools of science. As a member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation, she embraces the notion that plants and animals are our oldest teachers. In Braiding Sweetgrass, Kimmerer brings these lenses of knowledge together to show that the awakening of a wider ecological consciousness requires the acknowledgment and celebration of our reciprocal relationship with the rest of the living world. For only when we can hear the languages of other beings are we capable of understanding the generosity of the earth, and learning to give our own gifts in return.

Summary: This is the fifth chapter of the book Philosophy and the Sciences for Everyone. The chapter explores scientific interpretations of how our minds evolved, and some of the methodologies used in forming these interpretations. It relates evolutionary debates to a core issue in the philosophy of mind, namely, whether all knowledge comes from experience, or whether we have 'inborn' knowledge about certain aspects of our world.