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257The Cattle in the Long Cedar Springs DrawIn Nandita Batra & Mario Wenning (eds.), The Human–Animal Boundary Exploring the Line in Philosophy and Fiction, Lexington Books. pp. 97-114. 2018.The argument for vegetarianism from overlapping species goes like this. Every individual who is the subject of a life has a right to life. Some humans—e.g., the severely congenitally cognitively limited—lack language, rationality, autonomy, and self-consciousness, and yet they are subjects of a life. Severely congenitally cognitively limited humans have a right to life. Some animals—e.g., all mammals—lack language, rationality, autonomy, and self-consciousness, and yet they are subjects of a li…Read more
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10Truth or meaning: Ricoeur versus Frei on biblical narrativeHTS Theological Studies 45 (4). 1989.
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1160Genetically Modified Foods: Golden RiceIn Gary Comstock (ed.), Life Science Ethics, 2nd ed, Springer. pp. 387-397. 2010.
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1Face to face with It: The naive reader's moral response to "Ivan Ilych"Neophilologus 70 (3): 321-333. 1986.This paper argues that a naive reader's moral response to a short story should be considered part of the story's meaning.
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159How not to attack animal rights from an environmental perspectiveBetween the Species 4 (3): 7. 1988.
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Ethics and agricultural biotechnology: More opposing viewpoints, IntroductionJournal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics 8 (2): 95-97. 1995.
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574Guardians of companion animals killed wrongfully in the U.S. historically receive compensatory judgments reflecting the animal’s economic value. As animals are property in torts law, this value typically is the animal’s fair market value—which is often zero. But this is only the animal’s value, as it were, to a stranger and, in light of the fact that many guardians value their animals at rates far in excess of fair market value, legislatures and courts have begun to recognize a second value, the…Read more
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11Everything depends on the type of the concepts that the interpretation is made to convey: Max kadushin among the narrative theologiansModern Theology 5 (3): 215-237. 1989.
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34Do agriculturalists need a new, an ecocentric, ethic? 1994 Presidential address to the agriculture, food, and human values societyAgriculture and Human Values 12 (1): 2-16. 1995.In 1973, Richard Sylvan began his seminal essay, "Do We Need a New, an Environmental Ethic?" with these words: "It is increasingly said that ... Western civilization ... stands in need of a new ethic ... setting out people's relations to the natural environment." In the intervening years, it has increasingly been said that Western civilization is in need of ecocentrism, an ethic according to which a thing's value is derived from its contribution to the integrity, stability, and beauty of ecosyst…Read more
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252Is Postmodern Religious Dialogue Possible?Faith and Philosophy 6 (2): 189-197. 1989.Not long ago, interreligious conversations were regulated by the ideals of truth, goodness, and beauty. We are suspicious of these noble sounding ideals today. In a world of liberation theology, feminist criticism, and the hermeneutics of suspicion, can there be any new, “postmodern,” rules to govern our religious dialogues? Not able to consult any general theory, or “metanarrative,” in order to provide the answer, I simply tell the story of the only postmodern Catholic I have ever known. On the…Read more
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419Do Machines Have Prima Facie Duties?In Machine Medical Ethics, Springer. pp. 79-92. 2015.A properly programmed artificially intelligent agent may eventually have one duty, the duty to satisfice expected welfare. We explain this claim and defend it against objections.
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275La Mettrie's Objection: Humans Act like AnimalsIn Mylan Engel & Gary Comstock (eds.), The Moral Rights of Animals, Lexington. pp. 175-198. 2016.A common view of nonhuman animals is that they lack rights because they lack conscious control over themselves. Two thoughts put pressure on this view. First, we recognize the rights of radically cognitively limited humans even though they lack conscious control over themselves. So it would seem mere prejudice to deny rights to nonhuman mammals on the grounds that animals lack autonomy. Tom Regan has been the most eloquent, powerful, and resolute defender of this thought. Second, evidence is gro…Read more
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3926Chimpanzee Rights: The Philosophers' BriefRoutledge. 2018.In December 2013, the Nonhuman Rights Project (NhRP) filed a petition for a common law writ of habeas corpus in the New York State Supreme Court on behalf of Tommy, a chimpanzee living alone in a cage in a shed in rural New York (Barlow, 2017). Under animal welfare laws, Tommy’s owners, the Laverys, were doing nothing illegal by keeping him in those conditions. Nonetheless, the NhRP argued that given the cognitive, social, and emotional capacities of chimpanzees, Tommy’s confinement constituted …Read more
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896The Philosophers' Brief on Chimpanzee PersonhoodProposed Brief by Amici Curiae Philosophers in Support of the Petitioner-Appelllant Court of Appeals, State of New York,. 2018.In this brief, we argue that there is a diversity of ways in which humans (Homo sapiens) are ‘persons’ and there are no non-arbitrary conceptions of ‘personhood’ that can include all humans and exclude all nonhuman animals. To do so we describe and assess the four most prominent conceptions of ‘personhood’ that can be found in the rulings concerning Kiko and Tommy, with particular focus on the most recent decision, Nonhuman Rights Project, Inc v Lavery.
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328The Moral Rights of Animals (edited book)Lexington. 2016.This volume brings together essays by seminal figures and rising stars in the fields of animal ethics and moral theory to analyze and evaluate the moral status of non-human animals, with a special focus on the question of whether or not animals have moral rights. Though wide-ranging in many ways, these fourteen original essays and one reprinted essay direct significant attention to both the main arguments for animal rights and the biggest challenges to animal rights. This volume explores the que…Read more
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1719Ethics and Genetically Modified FoodsIn David M. Kaplan (ed.), The Philosophy of Food, University of California Press. pp. 122-139. 2012.Gary Comstock considers whether it is ethically justified to pursue genetically modified (GM) crops and foods. He first considers intrinsic objections to GM crops that allege that the process of making GMOs is objectionable in itself. He argues that there is no justifiable basis for the objections — i.e. GM crops are not intrinsically ethically problematic. He then considers extrinsic objections to GM crops, including objections based on the precautionary principle, which focus on the potential …Read more
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907Getting It Together: Psychological Unity and Deflationary Accounts of Animal MetacognitionActa Analytica 33 (4): 431-451. 2018.Experimenters claim some nonhuman mammals have metacognition. If correct, the results indicate some animal minds are more complex than ordinarily presumed. However, some philosophers argue for a deflationary reading of metacognition experiments, suggesting that the results can be explained in first-order terms. We agree with the deflationary interpretation of the data but we argue that the metacognition research forces the need to recognize a heretofore underappreciated feature in the theory of …Read more
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2167Concerning Cattle: Behavioral and Neuroscientific Evidence for Pain, Desire, and Self-consciousnessIn Anne Barnhill, Mark Budolfson & Tyler Doggett (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Food Ethics, Oxford University Press. pp. 139-169. 2017.Should people include beef in their diet? This chapter argues that the answer is “no” by reviewing what is known and not known about the presence in cattle of three psychological traits: pain, desire, and self-consciousness. On the basis of behavioral and neuroanatomical evidence, the chapter argues that cattle are sentient beings who have things they want to do in the proximal future, but they are not self-conscious. The piece rebuts three important objections: that cattle have injury informati…Read more
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42Religious Autobiographies (edited book)Cengage. 2003.A copy of the book is available from my website.
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1421Truth or Meaning: Ricoeur versus Frei on Biblical NarrativeJournal of Religion 66 (2): 117-140. 1986.Of the theologians and philosophers now writing on biblical narrative, Hans Frei and Paul Ricoeur are probably the most prominent. It is significant that their views converge on important issues. Both are uncomfortable with hermeneutic theories that convert the text into an abstract philosophical system, an ideal typological structure, or a mere occasion for existential decision. Frei and Ricoeur seem knit together in a common enterprise; they appear to be building a single narrative theology. I…Read more
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154You Should Not Have Let Your Baby DieNew York Times. 2017 July 12.Sam, your newborn son, has been suffocating in your arms for the past 15 minutes. You’re as certain as you can be that he is going to die in the next 15.
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14Genetically engineered herbicide resistance, part oneJournal of Agricultural Ethics 2 (4): 263-306. 1989.
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3431Two Views of Animals in Environmental EthicsIn Donald Borchert (ed.), Philosophy: Environmental Ethics, Gale. pp. 151-183. 2016.This chapter concerns the role accorded to animals in the theories of the English-speaking philosophers who created the field of environmental ethics in the latter half of the twentieth century. The value of animals differs widely depending upon whether one adopts some version of Holism (value resides in ecosystems) or some version of Animal Individualism (value resides in human and nonhuman animals). I examine this debate and, along the way, highlight better and worse ways to conduct ethical ar…Read more
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396Harming Some to Enhance OthersIn Bateman Simon, Gayon Jean, Allouche Sylvie, Goffette Jerome & Marzano Michela (eds.), Inquiring into Animal Enhancement, Palgrave Macmillan. pp. 49-78. 2015.Let us call the deliberate modification of an individual’s genome to improve it or its progeny intentional genetic enhancement. Governments are almost certain to require that any proposed intentional genetic enhancement of a human (IGEH) be tested first on (what researchers call) animal “models.” Intentional genetic enhancement of animals (IGEA), then, is an ambiguous concept because it could mean one of two very different things: an enhancement made for the sake of the animal’s own welfare, or …Read more
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41The costs and benefits of bGH may not be distributed fairlyJournal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics 4 (2): 121-130. 1991.
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2Life Science Ethics (edited book)Iowa State University Press. 2002.The first section of Life Science Ethics introduces students to essential background concepts in moral theory -- ethics, the relationship of religion to ethics, how to assess ethical arguments, and a method used to reason about ethical theories. The next section demonstrates the relevance of ethical reasoning to six topics: -- The relative moral standing of ecosystems, nonhuman animals, and future human generations -- The moral justifiability of genetic engineering as a whole and the patenting …Read more
University of Chicago
PhD, 1983
APA Eastern Division
Raleigh, North Carolina, United States of America
Areas of Specialization
Value Theory |
Applied Ethics |
Areas of Interest
Philosophy of Mind |
Persons |
Animal Rights |
Philosophy of Consciousness |
Human Nature |