•  9
    Civically Engaged Philosophy as a Way of Life
    with Monica Janzen and Benjamin Hole
    American Association of Philosophy Teachers Studies in Pedagogy 6 141-155. 2021.
    Teachers committed to seeing philosophy as a way of life (PWOL) often focus on assignments that help students develop personal practices, so they experience peace of mind, independence, and a cure from anguish. While we applaud these goals, our work highlights another important aspect of philosophy as a way of life that sometimes is overlooked. We want our students to experience a transformation toward seeing themselves as moral agents, growing in civic virtues, and developing “cosmic consciousn…Read more
  •  293
    Currently, there are many advocacy interventions aimed at reducing animal consumption. We report results from a lab (N = 267) and a field experiment (N = 208) exploring whether, and to what extent, some of those educational interventions are effective at shifting attitudes and behavior related to animal consumption. In the lab experiment, participants were randomly assigned to read a philosophical ethics paper, watch an animal advocacy video, read an advocacy pamphlet, or watch a control video. …Read more
  •  18
    Radically Hopeful Civic Engagement
    with Benjamin Hole and Monica Janzen
    Teaching Philosophy 46 (3): 291-311. 2023.
    Tragedy feels disempowering and the confluence of tragedies since the beginning of 2020 can overwhelm one’s sense of agency. This paper describes how we use a civic engagement (CE) project to nurture radical hope for our students. Radical hope involves a desire for a positive outcome surpassing understanding, as well as an activity to strive to achieve that outcome despite its uncertainty. Our CE project asks students to identify ethical issues they care about and respond in a fitting way, quest…Read more
  •  290
    Developing an objective measure of knowledge of factory farming
    with Adam Feltz, Jacob N. Caton, Zac Cogley, Mylan Engel, Silke Feltz, L. Syd M. Johnson, and Tom Offer-Westort
    Philosophical Psychology 37 (2). 2022.
    Knowledge of human uses of animals is an important, but understudied, aspect of how humans treat animals. We developed a measure of one kind of knowledge of human uses of animals – knowledge of factory farming. Studies 1 (N = 270) and 2 (N = 270) tested an initial battery of objective, true or false statements about factory farming using Item Response Theory. Studies 3 (N = 241) and 4 (N = 278) provided evidence that responses to a 10-item Knowledge of Factory Farming Scale predicted a reduction…Read more
  •  29
    By drawing on a selection of interviews from the website Engaged Philosophy, this paper highlights the work of philosopher-activists within their classrooms and communities. These philosophers have stepped out of the ivory towers and work directly with media, community and political groups, people in prison; or they encourage their students to engage in activist projects. The variety of approaches presented here shows the many ways philosophically inspired activism can give voice to those who ar…Read more
  •  9
    Introduction
    Essays in Philosophy 21 (1): 1-5. 2020.
  •  9
    Review of Creating Capabilities: The Human Development Approach, by Martha C. Nussbaum (review)
    Essays in Philosophy 13 (1): 368-373. 2012.
  •  32
    In this volume, Julinna Oxley and Ramona Ilea bring together essays that examine and defend the use of experiential learning activities to teach philosophical terms, concepts, arguments, and practices. Experiential learning emphasizes the importance of student engagement outside the traditional classroom structure. Service learning, studying abroad, engaging in large-scale collaborative projects such as creating blogs, websites and videos, and practically applying knowledge in a reflective, crea…Read more
  •  242
    Intensive livestock farming: Global trends, increased environmental concerns, and ethical solutions
    Journal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics 22 (2): 153-167. 2009.
    By 2050, global livestock production is expected to double—growing faster than any other agricultural sub-sector—with most of this increase taking place in the developing world. As the United Nation’s four-hundred-page report, Livestock’s Long Shadow: Environmental Issues and Options , documents, livestock production is now one of three most significant contributors to environmental problems, leading to increased greenhouse gas emissions, land degradation, water pollution, and increased health p…Read more
  •  67
    The Animal Ethics Reader (2nd edition) (review)
    Teaching Philosophy 32 (1): 83-86. 2009.
    Book review of The Animal Ethics Reader
  •  80
    Beyond Service Learning
    Teaching Philosophy 34 (3): 219-240. 2011.
    In this essay, we describe a form of civic engagement for ethics classes in which students identify a community problem and devise a project to address that need. Like traditional service learning, our civic engagement project improves critical thinking and expressive philosophical skills. It is especially effective in meeting pedagogical goals of engaging and expanding student agency and independence while connecting class materials with individual students’ interests. The project can be adapte…Read more
  •  31
    Book review of Martha Nussbaum's book Frontiers of Justice.
  •  144
    Nussbaum's capabilities approach and nonhuman animals: Theory and public policy
    Journal of Social Philosophy 39 (4): 547-563. 2008.
    In this paper, I assess Martha Nussbaum's application of the capabilities approach to non-human animals for both its philosophical merits and its potential to affect public policy. I argue that there are currently three main philosophical problems with the theory that need further attention. After discussing these problems, I show how focusing on factory farming would enable Nussbaum to demonstrate the philosophical merits of the capabilities approach as well as to suggest more powerful and effe…Read more