•  4
    In Just Fodder: The Ethics of Feeding Animals, Josh Milburn thinks through the implications of feeding animals by focusing on the relationships between humans and three different groups of animals: (1) animal companions; (2) animal neighbours; and (3) wild animals. In my comments, I concentrate on how the actions and agency interests of these animals problematise some of Milburn’s assumptions and normative prescriptions. My overall aim is to show how giving animal agency more prominence in our t…Read more
  •  15
    Covid-19 and the future of zoos
    Les Ateliers de l'Éthique / the Ethics Forum 16 (1): 68-87. 2021.
    The COVID-19 crisis has left zoos especially vulnerable to bankruptcy, and the precarity of their financial situation threatens the lives and well-being of the animals who live in them. In this paper, we argue that while we and our governments have a responsibility to ensure the protection of animals in struggling zoos, it is morally impermissible to make private donations or state subsidies to zoos because such actions serve to perpetuate an unjust institution. In order to protect zoo animals w…Read more
  •  113
    Daniel Bell and Wang Pei’s recent monograph, Just Hierarchy, seeks to defend hierarchical relationships against more egalitarian alternatives. This paper addresses their argument, offered in one chapter of the book, in favour of a hierarchical relationship between human and nonhuman animals. This relationship, Bell and Pei argue, should conform to what they call “subordination without cruelty:” it is permissible to subordinate and exploit animals for human ends, provided that we do not treat the…Read more
  •  17
    The Ethics of Animal Shelters (edited book)
    Oxford University Press. 2023.
    Ethical dilemmas and decision-making are a persistent feature of the everyday operations of animal shelters and animal protection organizations. These organizations frequently face difficult decisions about how to treat the animals in their care, decisions that are made all the more difficult by limited funding, material resources, and human labor. Moreover, animal protection organizations must also determine how to act within and toward the wider social and institutional environment in which no…Read more
  •  39
    Glass Panels and Peepholes: Nonhuman Animals and the Right to Privacy
    Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 101 (4): 628-650. 2020.
    In this paper, I defend the claim that many sentient nonhuman animals have a right to privacy. I begin by outlining the view that the human right to privacy protects our interest in shaping different kinds of relationships with one another by giving us control over how we present ourselves to others. I then draw on empirical research to show that nonhuman animals also have this interest, which grounds a right to privacy against us. I further argue that we can violate this right even when other a…Read more
  •  71
    Political Agency in Humans and Other Animals
    Contemporary Political Theory 20 (2): 296-317. 2021.
    In virtue of their capacity for political agency, political agents can possess special rights, powers, and responsibilities, such as rights to political participation and freedom of speech. Traditionally, political theorists have assumed that only cognitively unimpaired adult humans are political agents, and thus that only those humans can be the bearers of these rights, powers, and responsibilities. However, recent work in animal rights theory has extended the concept of political agency to non…Read more
  •  86
    Cosmopolitanism and statism represent the two dominant liberal theoretical standpoints in the current debate on global distributive justice. In this paper, I will develop a feminist argument that recommends that statist approaches be rejected. This argument has its roots in the feminist critique of liberal theories of social justice. In Justice, Gender, and the Family Susan Moller Okin argues that many liberal egalitarian theories of justice are inadequate because they assume a strict division b…Read more
  •  98
    Adapting to Climate Change: What We Owe to Other Animals
    Journal of Applied Philosophy 36 (4): 592-607. 2018.
    In this article, I expand the existing discourse on climate justice by drawing out the implications of taking animal rights seriously in the context of human-induced climate change. More specifically, I argue that nonhuman animals are owed adaptive assistance to help them cope with the ill-effects of climate change, and I advance and defend four principles of climate justice that derive from a general duty of adaptation. Lastly, I suggest that even if one can successfully argue that the protect…Read more
  •  159
    Interspecies justice: agency, self-determination, and assent
    Philosophical Studies 178 (4): 1223-1243. 2020.
    In this article, we develop and defend an account of the normative significance of nonhuman animal agency. In particular, we examine how animals’ agency interests impact upon the moral permissibility of our interactions with them. First, we defend the claim that nonhuman animals sometimes have rights to self-determination. However, unlike typical adult humans, nonhuman animals cannot exercise this right through the giving or withholding of consent. This combination of claims generates a puzzle a…Read more
  •  41
    Beyond Anthropocentrism: Cosmopolitanism and Nonhuman Animals
    Global Justice: Theory Practice Rhetoric 9 (2): 114-133. 2016.
    All cosmopolitan approaches to global distributive justice are premised on the idea that humans are the primary units of moral concern. In this paper, I argue that neither relational nor non-relational cosmopolitans can unquestioningly assume the moral primacy of humans. Furthermore, I argue that, by their own lights, cosmopolitans must extend the scope of justice to most, if not all, nonhuman animals. To demonstrate that cosmopolitans cannot simply ‘add nonhuman animals and stir,’ I examine the…Read more
  •  31
    Delimiting justice: Animal, vegetable, ecosystem?
    Les Ateliers de l'Éthique / the Ethics Forum 13 (1): 210-230. 2018.
    ANGIE PEPPER | : This paper attempts to bring some clarity to the debate among sentientists, biocentrists, and ecocentrists on the issue of who or what can count as a candidate recipient of justice. I begin by examining the concept of justice and argue that the character of duties and entitlements of justice sets constraints on the types of entities that can be recipients of justice. Specifically, I contend that in order to be a recipient of justice, one must be the bearer of enforceable moral c…Read more