• The Ethics of Animal Experimentation
    In Ezio Di Nucci, Ji-Young Lee & Isaac A. Wagner (eds.), The Rowman & Littlefield Handbook of Bioethics, Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. 2022.
  •  292
    The Philosophers' Brief in Support of Happy's Appeal
    New York State Appellate Court. 2021.
    We submit this brief in support of the Nonhuman Rights Project’s efforts to secure habeas corpus relief for the elephant named Happy. The Supreme Court, Bronx County, declined to grant habeas corpus relief and order Happy’s transfer to an elephant sanctuary, relying, in part, on previous decisions that denied habeas relief for the NhRP’s chimpanzee clients, Kiko and Tommy. Those decisions use incompatible conceptions of ‘person’ which, when properly understood, are either philosophically inadequ…Read more
  •  263
    Growing awareness of the ethical implications of neuroscience in the early years of the 21st century led to the emergence of the new academic field of “neuroethics,” which studies the ethical implications of developments in the neurosciences. However, despite the acceleration and evolution of neuroscience research on nonhuman animals, the unique ethical issues connected with neuroscience research involving nonhuman animals remain underdiscussed. This is a significant oversight given the central …Read more
  •  36
    Neuroethics and Nonhuman Animals (edited book)
    Springer. 2020.
    This edited volume represents a unique addition to the available literature on animal ethics, animal studies, and neuroethics. Its goal is to expand discussions on animal ethics and neuroethics by weaving together different threads: philosophy of mind and animal minds, neuroscientific study of animal minds, and animal ethics. Neuroethical questions concerning animals’ moral status, animal minds and consciousness, animal pain, and the adequacy of animal models for neuropsychiatric disease have lo…Read more
  •  46
    A Belmont Report for Animals?
    with Hope Ferdowsian, L. Syd M. Johnson, Jane Johnson, Andrew Fenton, and John Gluck
    Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics 29 (1): 19-37. 2020.
    Abstract:Human and animal research both operate within established standards. In the United States, criticism of the human research environment and recorded abuses of human research subjects served as the impetus for the establishment of the National Commission for the Protection of Human Subjects of Biomedical and Behavioral Research, and the resulting Belmont Report. The Belmont Report established key ethical principles to which human research should adhere: respect for autonomy, obligations t…Read more
  •  11
    Guest Editorial
    with Tom Buller and Martha Farah
    Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics 23 (2): 124-128. 2014.
  •  57
    Cognition Doesn't Only Modulate Pain Perception; It's a Central Component of It
    with Katja Wiech
    American Journal of Bioethics Neuroscience 9 (3): 196-198. 2018.
  •  1619
    Genetically Modifying Livestock for Improved Welfare: A Path Forward
    with Emilie McConnachie
    Journal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics 31 (2): 161-180. 2018.
    In recent years, humans’ ability to selectively modify genes has increased dramatically as a result of the development of new, more efficient, and easier genetic modification technology. In this paper, we argue in favor of using this technology to improve the welfare of agricultural animals. We first argue that using animals genetically modified for improved welfare is preferable to the current status quo. Nevertheless, the strongest argument against pursuing gene editing for welfare is that the…Read more
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    The Philosophers' Brief on Chimpanzee Personhood
    Proposed 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.
  •  688
    This is a Letter to Editor of _Pain_ recommending revision of a pain term ('nociplastic pain') recently added to the IASP Pain Terms. (With a response from the Taxonomy Committee, Eva Kosek et al. PAIN: June 2018 - Volume 159 - Issue 6 - p 1177–1178
  •  112
    Consciousness might matter very much
    Philosophical Psychology 18 (1): 113-22. 2005.
    Peter Carruthers argues that phenomenal consciousness might not matter very much either for the purpose of determining which nonhuman animals are appropriate objects of moral sympathy, or for the purpose of explaining for the similarities in behavior of humans and nonhumans. Carruthers bases these claims on his version of a dispositionalist higher-order thought (DHOT) theory of consciousness which allows that much of human behavior is the result of first-order beliefs that need not be conscious,…Read more
  •  2315
    The Asymmetrical Contributions of Pleasure and Pain to Animal Welfare
    Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics 23 (2): 152-162. 2014.
    Recent results from the neurosciences demonstrate that pleasure and pain are not two symmetrical poles of a single scale of experience but in fact two different types of experiences altogether, with dramatically different contributions to well-being. These differences between pleasure and pain and the general finding that “the bad is stronger than the good” have important implications for our treatment of nonhuman animals. In particular, whereas animal experimentation that causes suffering might…Read more
  •  2127
    Though the vegetarian movement sparked by Peter Singer’s book Animal Liberation has achieved some success, there is more animal suffering caused today due to factory farming than there was when the book was originally written. In this paper, I argue that there may be a technological solution to the problem of animal suffering in intensive factory farming operations. In particular, I suggest that recent research indicates that we may be very close to, if not already at, the point where we can gen…Read more
  •  150
    How “weak” mindreaders inherited the earth
    Behavioral and Brain Sciences 32 (2): 140-141. 2009.
    Carruthers argues that an integrated faculty of metarepresentation evolved for mindreading and was later exapted for metacognition. A more consistent application of his approach would regard metarepresentation in mindreading with the same skeptical rigor, concluding that the “faculty” may have been entirely exapted. Given this result, the usefulness of Carruthers’ line-drawing exercise is called into question
  •  794
    Minding mammals
    Philosophical Psychology 19 (4): 433-442. 2006.
    Many traditional attempts to show that nonhuman animals are deserving of moral consideration have taken the form of an argument by analogy. However, arguments of this kind have had notable weaknesses and, in particular, have not been able to convince two kinds of skeptics. One of the most important weaknesses of these arguments is that they fail to provide theoretical justifications for why particular physiological similarities should be considered relevant. This paper examines recent empirical …Read more
  •  14
    Broadening the Focus
    with Tom Buller and Martha Farah
    Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics 23 (2): 124-128. 2014.
  •  93
    The Asymmetrical Contributions of Pleasure and Pain to Subjective Well-Being
    Review of Philosophy and Psychology 5 (1): 135-153. 2014.
    Many ethicists writing about well-being have assumed that claims made about the relationship between pleasure and well-being carry similar implications for the relationship between pain and well-being. I argue that the current neuroscience of pleasure and pain does not support this assumption. In particular, I argue that the experiences of pleasure and pain are mediated by different cognitive systems, that they make different contributions to human behavior in general and to well-being in partic…Read more