There are some problems in “animal studies” (so-called “critical” or otherwise) that either have not received attention at all or have only received tangential treatment. These, I think, are major problems—practical, empirical, and theoretical—that need to not only be recognized, but seriously addressed. The dominant approach to rights within the animal rights literature (abolitionism) suffers [...]
Continue Reading →By Craig McFarlane|Animals, Ethics, Food, Violence
Only a few words have been changed. Ethical killing: The new urban hunters The sustainable food movement helps reverse a 30-year decline in popularity “It looks all flabby and grey and not at all appealing,” she says. As a Buddhist-raised, recovering vegetarian, the grisly reality of parking lots, malls and the shrink-wrapped denial represented by [...]
Continue Reading →By Craig McFarlane|Animals, Ethics, University
Yesterday I was in Kingston to attend the “New Directions in Animal Studies: The Ethics and Politics of Animal Rights” symposium, which was organized by Will Kymlicka as part of the hiring process for the Abby Benjamin [Post-Doctoral] Fellowship in Animal Studies he is overseeing. There were four presenters, all candidates for the position, at [...]
Continue Reading →By Craig McFarlane|Animals, Ethics
I commented on the implicit nihilism of Kimberly Smith’s version of liberalism in her book Governing Animals: Animal Welfare and the Liberal State in my last post. My basic argument was to the effect of, in Smith’s version of animal welfare, it is better that some animals live pleasant lives and then die for trivial [...]
Continue Reading →By Craig McFarlane|Animals, Ethics
I’ve been reading Kimberly Smith’s Governing Animals: Animal Welfare and the Liberal State. The book seeks to articulate, given animal ethics, what are the corresponding political duties that are incumbent upon states (in this case, the United States) to enforce. In this way, it is comparable to Cochrane’s Animal Rights Without Liberation and Donaldson & [...]
Continue Reading →