•  34
    Re-defending Feline Liberty: a Response to Fischer
    Acta Analytica 36 (3): 451-463. 2021.
    In response to my defense of house-based, free-roaming cats, Bob Fischer : 463–468, 2020) argues that cat guardians have a duty to permanently confine their felines to the indoors. His main argument is that house-based cats cause an all-things-considered harm to the animals they kill and that this harm is not outweighed by the harm cats endure as a consequence of feline imprisonment. He moreover claims that while we can justify the restriction of feline liberty because cats are not “full agents”…Read more
  •  29
    Many human–animal relationships closely resemble parent–child relationships. Yet, as I argue in this chapter, normatively speaking, parenting is not the kind of practice we should strive to mirror in our loving relationships with companion animals. Rather, we should strive to form friendships with animals. This is because friendships, unlike parent–child relationships, are characterized by mutuality, choice, equality, and respect for differences, and these are ideals we should try to foster in o…Read more
  •  28
    Some animal ethicists argue that eating roadkill is permissible because salvaging and consuming already dead animals doesn’t cause harm to anyone. Moreover, some argue that eating roadkill is actually obligatory, insofar as a diet that includes some roadkill is less harmful than a diet that consists of protein (animal or plant) obtained only from grocery stores and restaurants. Against this view, Abbate argues that eating roadkill is wrong for at least two reasons: (1) better consequences would …Read more
  •  3
    It’s often assumed that if white people have a sexual preference for other white people, they, when using intimate dating platforms, have the right to skip over the profiles of Black people. As some argue, we have the right to act on our sexual preferences, including racialized sexual preferences, because doing so isn’t harmful, and even if it were harmful, this wouldn’t matter because either our “right” to act on our sexual preferences outweighs the harm and/or we cannot even control our sexual…Read more
  •  1
    Those who claim to be committed to the moral equality of animals don’t always act as if they think all animals are equal. For instance, many animal liberationists spend hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars each year on food, toys, and medical care for their companion animals. Surely, more animals would be helped if the money spent on companion animals were donated to farmed animal protection organizations. Moreover, many animal liberationists feed their companion animals the flesh of farmed an…Read more
  • The Virtues and Vices of Germline Editing Research
    In Book Chapter, . forthcoming.
    Germline editing has a promising potential to prevent not only much human suffering, but also animal suffering. There are thus special reasons why a virtuous person would support the advancement of such research. Nevertheless, genome editing research is often pursued in a vicious manner, demonstrating not only a lack of moral virtue, but also a deficiency of intellectual virtue. In this chapter, three germline editing studies that were recently conducted on animals will be evaluated through a vi…Read more