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38Many 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
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38Political Animals: A Critical Analysis of Aristotle’s Account of the Political AnimalJournal of Animal Ethics 6 (1): 54-66. 2016.While Aristotle’s proposition that "Man is by nature a political animal" is often assumed to entail that, according to Aristotle, nonhuman animals are not political, some Aristotelian scholars suggest that Aristotle is only committed to the claim that man is more of a political animal than any other nonhuman animal. I argue that even this thesis is problematic, as contemporary research in cognitive ethology reveals that many social nonhuman mammals are, in fact, political in the Aristotelian sen…Read more
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28Why Eating Roadkill is Wrong: New Consequentialist and Deontological PerspectivesIn book chapter, . forthcoming.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
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3Racialized Sexual Discrimination: A Moral Right or Morally Wrong?In David Boonin (ed.), The Palgrave Handbook of Sexual Ethics, Palgrave Macmillan. pp. 421-436. 2022.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
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1People and Their Animal Companions: Navigating Moral Constraints in a Harmful, Yet Meaningful WorldPhilosophical Studies 2022. 2022.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
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The Virtues and Vices of Germline Editing ResearchIn 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
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Commentary on Deborah Heikes’s “Epistemic Ignorance and Moral Responsibility” (review)Southwest Philosophy Review 36 27-29. 2020.
University of Colorado, Boulder
PhD, 2019
Areas of Specialization
5 more
Animal Ethics |
Animal Cruelty |
Animal Rights |
Animal Well-Being |
Speciesism |
Vegetarianism |
Animal Experimentation |
Animal Captivity |
Domestic Animals |
Moral Status of Animals |