Lecture Series: Key Topics in Animal Ethics

​In these lectures we will look at four key topics in animal ethics: speciesism, moral status, the ethics of eating animals, and the problem of wild animal suffering. The lectures are open to all, but they are aimed at undergraduates taking exams in Ethics or Practical Ethics. No prior knowledge of animal ethics is expected, though some basic familiarity with moral philosophy will be assumed.

​

• Lecture 1 [slides][handout]: What’s wrong with speciesism? This lecture introduces the concept of speciesism. We will consider Singer’s argument that speciesism is a prejudice akin to racism and sexism because it violates the principle of equal consideration of interests, and we will consider some objections.

​

• Lecture 2 [slides]: Personhood and moral status. In this lecture we investigate whether moral status comes in degrees, and, in particular, whether the cognitive capacities associated with personhood grant their possessors higher moral status than other animals. We will consider Kagan’s arguments against ‘Unitarianism’ (the view that moral status is uniform) and his claims that we aren’t speciesists but ‘modal personists’.

​

• Lecture 3 [slides][handout]: The ethics of eating animals. In this lecture we will investigate the moral case for a form of ‘humane omnivorism’. We will ask if it is possible to benefit animals by bringing them into existence as part of such a practice, and if we have moral reason to do so.

​

• Lecture 4 [slides][handout]: Wild animal ethics. In this lecture I will introduce the problem of wild animal suffering. We will examine the cases for and against beneficent intervention in nature to improve the lives of wild animals, paying special attention to the problem of predation.

 

Tutorials:

​

• Intro to Moral Philosophy

• Ethics

• Logic

• Animal Ethics

​​