Clare Alexandra Palmer

This paper explores ethical issues raised by the application of non-surgical, pharmaceutical fertility control to manage reproductive behaviors in domesticated and wild animal species. We focus on methods that interfere with the effects of GnRH, making animals infertile and significantly suppressing sexual behavior in both sexes. The paper is anchored by considering ethical issues raised by four diverse cases: the use of pharmaceutical fertility control in male slaughter pigs, domesticated stallions and mares, male companion dogs and female white-tailed deer. Ethical concerns explored include animals’ welfare, the possible violation of animals’ rights, including rights to life, reproduction and bodily integrity; and potential concerns about loss of wildness. We compare ethical concerns about pharmaceutical fertility control with alternative strategies for managing animals’ reproductive behavior including spaying and neutering, sex separation, sex sorting, culling, and doing nothing. The paper concludes that there are some cases where pharmaceutical fertility control is the best ethical choice in current circumstances; but that there are other cases where alternative choices, including doing nothing, would be ethically preferable. This suggests that in ethical terms a case-by-case approach should be taken to the use of pharmaceutical fertility control in animals.

I explore how some aspects of Foucoult’s work on power can be applied to human/animal power relations. First, I argue that because animals behave as “beings that react” and can respond in different ways to human actions, in principle at least, Foucoult’s work can offer insights into human/animal power relations. However, many of these relations fall into the category of “domination,” in which animals are unable to respond. Second, I examine different kinds of human power practices, in particular, ways in which humans construct animal constitutions and animal subjectivities. Finally, I use a case study of a pet cat to show how such power practices may come together in a single instance.

This paper explores the usefulness of the 'ethical matrix', proposed by Ben Mepham, as a tool in technology assessment, specifically in food ethics. We consider what the matrix is, how it might be useful as a tool in ethical decision-making, and what drawbacks might be associated with it. We suggest that it is helpful for fact-finding in ethical debates relating to food ethics; but that it is much less helpful in terms of weighing the different ethical problems that it uncovers. Despite this drawback, we maintain that, with some modifications, the ethical matrix can be a useful tool in debates in food ethics. We argue that useful modifications might be to include future generations amongst the stakeholders in the matrix, and to substitute the principle of solidarity for the principle of justice.

Constructions of the animal and animality are often pivotal to religious discourses. Such constructions create the possibility of identifying and valuing what is "human" as opposed to the "animal" and also of distinguishing human beliefs and behaviors that can be characterized as being animal from those that are "truly human." Some discourses also employ the concept of savagery as a bridge between the human and the animal, where the form of humanity but not its ideal beliefs and practices can be displayed. This paper explores the work of the influential scientist, philosopher, and theologian A. N. Whitehead in this context. His ideas of what constitutes "the animal," the "primitive" and the "civilized" are laid out explicitly in his now little-used history of religions text, Religion in the Making. This paper explores these ideas in this history and then considers how the same ideas permeate his currently more popular philosophical and theological writing Process and Reality. Drawing on some work in post-colonial theory, the paper offers a critique of this understanding of animality, savagery, and civilization and suggests that using Whitehead to underpin modern theological work requires considerable caution.

Alfred Wainwright was arguably the best known British guidebook writer of the20th century, and his work has been highly influential in promoting and directing fell-walking in northern Britain, in particular in the English Lake District. His work has, however, received little critical attention. This paper represents an initial attempt to undertake such a study. We examine Wainwright’s work through the lens of the landscape values and aesthetics that, we suggest,underpins it, and by an exploration of what might be called Wainwright’s ‘environmental identity’. We argue that Wainwright manifests a strikingly contemporary embodied landscape aesthetic and a strongly place-attached environmental identity. We consider some possiblei mplications of this landscape aesthetic and place attached identity, including their relation to broader environmental commitments and the possibility that the endorsement of such values may have exclusionary consequences for members of ‘outsider’ groups

This paper explores the relationships between Christianity, Englishness, and ideas about the southern English landscape in the writings of the 1930s and 1940s rural commentator, H.J. Massingham. The paper begins by looking in general terms at the conjunction of religious and national identities in the context of national landscapes before moving on to consider in more detail one particular instance of this in the writing of H.J. Massingham. Massingham's understanding of a divine natural order, his construction of a kind of 'divine Englishness' and the way in which he relates this to particular English landscapes is explored. In particular, the paper investigates the natural, social and political power relationships which are embedded in Massingham's work, and suggests that his writing provides an interesting example of one way in which theological reasoning can reflect and reinforce concepts of a naturally ordered national identity.

I explore how some aspects of Foucoult’s work on power can be applied to human/animal power relations. First, I argue that because animals behave as “beings that react” and can respond in different ways to human actions, in principle at least, Foucoult’s work can offer insights into human/animal power relations. However, many of these relations fall into the category of “domination,” in which animals are unable to respond. Second, I examine different kinds of human power practices, in particular, ways in which humans construct animal constitutions and animal subjectivities. Finally, I use a case study of a pet cat to show how such power practices may come together in a single instance.

This paper responds to Elijah Weber’s “Vulnerability, Dependence, and Special Obligations to Domesticated Animals: A Reply to Palmer”. Weber’s paper develops significant objections to the account of special obligations I developed in my book Animal Ethics in Context, in particular concerning our obligations to companion animals. In this book, I made wide-ranging claims about how we may acquire special obligations to animals, including being a beneficiary of an institution that creates vulnerable and dependent animals, and sharing in attitudes that contribute to causing harms or to creating vulnerable animals. Weber finds these claims implausible, and offers an alternative, much narrower, voluntarist account, on which we only have special positive obligations if, in some way, we have agreed to them. In this paper, I defend, against Weber, a non-voluntarist account of at least some special obligations towards animals, and I respond to some of his more specific objections to my account.