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12Relational Animal Ethics (and why it isn’t easy)Food Ethics 9 (1): 1-11. 2024.In Just Fodder: The Ethics of Feeding Animals, I explore a range of overlooked practical questions in animal ethics and the philosophy of food, developing a new approach to animal ethics. According to the position I defend, animals have negative rights based on their possession of normatively significant interests, and we have positive obligations towards (and concerning) animals based on our normatively salient relationships with them. Gary O’Brien, Angie Pepper, Clare Palmer, and Leon Borgdorf…Read more
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17Welcoming, Wild Animals, and Obligations to AssistEthics, Policy and Environment 26 (2): 231-248. 2023.What we could call ‘relational non-interventionism’ holds that we have no general obligation to alleviate animal suffering, and that we do not typically have special obligations to alleviate wild animals’ suffering. Therefore, we do not generally have a duty to intervene in nature to alleviate wild animal suffering. However, there are a range of relationships that we may have with wild animals that do generate special obligations to aid – and the consequences of these obligations can be surprisi…Read more
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7Food, Justice, and Animals: Feeding the World RespectfullyOxford University Press. 2023.-Accessible exploration of how we can respect animals but continue to access animal-based foods. -Provides a rigorous analysis of the ethics of eating invertebrates, plant-based meat, cultivated meat, the products of precision fermentation, milk, and eggs. -Focuses on food systems, not mere diets, and explores the consequences of animal rights, not their foundations.
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13Just Fodder: The Ethics of Feeding AnimalsMcGill-Queen's University Press. 2022.Animal lovers who feed meat to other animals are faced with a paradox: perhaps fewer animals would be harmed if they stopped feeding the ones they love. Animal diets do not raise problems merely for individuals. To address environmental crises, health threats, and harm to animals, we must change our food systems and practices. And in these systems, animals, too, are eaters. Looking beyond what humans should eat and whether to count animals as food, Just Fodder answers ethical and political quest…Read more
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6Jeff Sebo. Saving Animals, Saving Ourselves: Why Animal Matter for Pandemics, Climate Change, and Other Catastrophes (review)Environmental Ethics 45 (2): 203-206. 2023.
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9Anne Barnhill and Matteo Bonotti: Healthy Eating Policy and Political Philosophy: A Public Reason Approach: Oxford University Press, 2022 (review)Food Ethics 8 (1): 1-6. 2022.
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15Should vegans compromise?Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy 25 (2): 281-293. 2022.
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44New Omnivorism: a Novel Approach to Food and Animal EthicsFood Ethics 7 (1): 1-17. 2022.New omnivorism is a term coined by Andy Lamey to refer to arguments that – paradoxically – our duties towards animals require us to eat some animal products. Lamey’s claim to have identified a new, distinctive position in food ethics is problematic, however, for some of his interlocutors are not new (e.g., Leslie Stephen in the nineteenth century), not distinctive (e.g., animal welfarists), and not obviously concerned with eating animals (e.g., plant neurobiologists). It is the aim of this paper…Read more
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77The Freegan Challenge to VeganismJournal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics 34 (3): 1-19. 2021.There is a surprising consensus among vegan philosophers that freeganism—eating animal-based foods going to waste—is permissible. Some ethicists even argue that vegans should be freegans. In this paper, we offer a novel challenge to freeganism drawing upon Donaldson and Kymlicka’s ‘zoopolitical’ approach, which supports ‘restricted freeganism’. On this position, it’s prima facie wrong to eat the corpses of domesticated animals, as they are members of a mixed human-animal community, ruling out ma…Read more
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28Welcoming, Wild Animals, and Obligations to AssistJournal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics 34 (6): 1-20. 2021.What we could call ‘relational non-interventionism’ holds that we have no general obligation to alleviate animal suffering, and that we do not typically have special obligations to alleviate wild animals’ suffering. Therefore, we do not usually have a duty to intervene in nature to alleviate wild animal suffering. However, there are a range of relationships that we may have with wild animals that do generate special obligations to aid—and the consequences of these obligations can be surprising. …Read more
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22Zero-compromise veganismEthics and Education 16 (3): 375-391. 2021.ABSTRACT What is to be done when parents disagree about whether to raise their children as vegans? Three positions have recently emerged. Marcus William Hunt has argued that parents should seek a compromise. I have argued that there should be no compromise on animal rights, but there may be room for compromise over some ‘unusual’ sources of non-vegan, but animal-rights-respecting, food. Carlo Alvaro has argued that both Hunt and I are wrong; veganism is like religion, and there should be no comp…Read more
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42Counting Animals in WarSocial Theory and Practice 47 (4): 657-685. 2021.War is harmful to animals, but few have considered how such harm should affect assessments of the justice of military actions. In this article, we propose a way in which concern for animals can be included within the just-war framework, with a focus on necessity and proportionality. We argue that counting animals in war will not make just-war theory excessively demanding, but it will make just-war theory more humane. By showing how animals can be included in our proportionality and necessity ass…Read more
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5Ronald L. Sandler: Food Ethics: The Basics: Routledge, 2015, ISBN 978–0–415-83,644-9 (review)Food Ethics 5 (1-2). 2020.
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24In Defence of Backyard ChickensJournal of Applied Philosophy 36 (1): 108-123. 2017.Suppose that animals have rights. If so, may you go down to your local farm store, buy some chicks, raise them in your backyard, and eat their eggs? You wouldn't think so. But we argue, to the contrary, that you may. Just as there are circumstances in which it's permissible to liberate a slave, even if that means paying into a corrupt system, so there are circumstances in which it's permissible to liberate chickens by buying them. Moreover, we contend that restrictions on freedom of movement can…Read more
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42Should vegans compromise?Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy 25 (2): 281-293. 2022.
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47Intervention or Protest: Acting for Nonhuman Animals (edited book)Vernon Press. 2016.Within current political, social, and ethical debates – both in academia and society – activism and how individuals should approach issues facing nonhuman animals, have become increasingly important, ‘hot’ issues. Individuals, groups, advocacy agencies, and governments have all espoused competing ideas for how we should approach nonhuman use and exploitation. Ought we proceed through liberation? Abolition? Segregation? Integration? As nonhuman liberation, welfare, and rights’ groups increasingly…Read more
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55In Defence of Backyard ChickensJournal of Applied Philosophy 36 (1): 108-123. 2017.Suppose that animals have rights. If so, may you go down to your local farm store, buy some chicks, raise them in your backyard, and eat their eggs? You wouldn't think so. But we argue, to the contrary, that you may. Just as there are circumstances in which it's permissible to liberate a slave, even if that means paying into a corrupt system, so there are circumstances in which it's permissible to liberate chickens by buying them. Moreover, we contend that restrictions on freedom of movement can…Read more
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40Nozick’s libertarian critique of ReganBetween the Species 21 (1). 2018.Robert Nozick’s oft-quoted review of Tom Regan’s The Case for Animal Rights levels a range of challenges to Regan’s philosophy. Many commentators have focussed on Nozick’s putative defence of speciesism, but this has led to them overlooking other aspects of the critique. In this paper, I draw attention to two. First is Nozick’s criticism of Regan’s political theory, which is best understood relative to Nozick’s libertarianism. Nozick’s challenge invites the possibility of a libertarian account o…Read more
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43Death-Free Dairy? The Ethics of Clean MilkJournal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics 31 (2): 261-279. 2018.The possibility of “clean milk”—dairy produced without the need for cows—has been championed by several charities, companies, and individuals. One can ask how those critical of the contemporary dairy industry, including especially vegans and others sympathetic to animal rights, should respond to this prospect. In this paper, I explore three kinds of challenges that such people may have to clean milk: first, that producing clean milk fails to respect animals; second, that humans should not consum…Read more
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22Nonhuman Animals as Property Holders: An Exploration of the Lockean Labour-Mixing AccountEnvironmental Values 26 (5): 629-648. 2017.Recent proposals in political philosophy concerning nonhuman animals as property-holders - by John Hadley and Steve Cooke - have focused on the interests that nonhuman animals have in access to and use of their territories. The possibility that such rights might be grounded on the basis of a Lockean (that is, labour-mixing) account of property has been rejected. In this paper, I explore four criticisms of Lockean property rights for nonhuman animals - concerning self-ownership, initiative, exert…Read more
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Book Review: Marcel Wissenburg and David Schlosberg (eds), Political Animals and Animal Politics (review)Political Studies Review 14 (3): 427-428. 2016.
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18John Hadley: Animal Property Rights: A Theory of Habitat Rights for Wild Animals: Lexington Books, Lanham, MA, 2015, x + 142 ppRes Publica 23 (1): 147-151. 2017.
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64The demandingness of Nozick’s ‘Lockean’ provisoEuropean Journal of Political Theory 15 (3): 276-292. 2016.Interpreters of Robert Nozick’s political philosophy fall into two broad groups concerning his application of the ‘Lockean proviso’. Some read his argument in an undemanding way: individual instances of ownership which make people worse off than they would have been in a world without any ownership are unjust. Others read the argument in a demanding way: individual instances of ownership which make people worse off than they would have been in a world without that particular ownership are unjust…Read more
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4Nonhuman animals and sovereignty: On Zoopolis, failed states and institutional relationships with free-living animalsIn Gabriel Garmendia da Trindade & Andrew Woodhall (eds.), Intervention or Protest: Acting for Nonhuman Animals, Vernon Press. pp. 183-212. 2016.When considering the possibility of intervening in nature to aid suffering nonhuman animals, we can ask about moral philosophy, which concerns the actions of individuals, or about political philosophy, which concerns the apparatus of the state. My focus in this paper is on the latter, and, in particular, the proposal from Sue Donaldson and Will Kymlicka that nonhuman animals should be offered sovereignty rights over their territories. Such rights, among other things, seriously limit the occasion…Read more
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42Not Only Humans Eat Meat: Companions, Sentience, and Vegan PoliticsJournal of Social Philosophy 46 (4): 449-462. 2015.
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30Protection for the Sentient in the Nonideal World: A Review of Robert Garner’s A Theory of Justice for Animals (review)Journal of Animal Ethics 5 (1). 2015.Presenting a series of powerful arguments, Robert Garner proposes that animal rights must be considered within the discourse on justice. The book offers an ideal theory of animal rights as well as a more achievable nonideal theory which we must use to get to the ideal, rejecting an array of alternative positions. The work contains much that is of value to animal ethicists, such as a novel consideration of the argument from marginal cases, and much that will be convincing for those political thin…Read more
Josh Milburn
Loughborough University
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Loughborough UniversityLecturer
Sheffield, South Yorkshire, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
Areas of Specialization
Social and Political Philosophy |
Applied Ethics |
Normative Ethics |
Animal Ethics |