Ethos: The Practical Ethics Blog

The Animals & Society Institute is inviting applications for its first annual summer fellowship program for scholars pursuing research in Human-Animal Studies. In the summer of 2007, this interdisciplinary program will enable 6-8 fellows to pursue research in residence at North Carolina State University. Fellows will have access to the Tom Regan Animal Rights Archive, which is housed at NCSU.

Tom Regan, philosopher of the moral status of animals, will also participate actively in the program. The fellowship is designed to support recipients’ individual research through mentorship, guest lectures, and scholarly exchange among fellows and opportunities to contribute to the intellectual life of the host institution. All fellows must be in continuous residence for the duration of the program, June 26-July 31, 2007.

The fellowships are open to scholars from any discipline investigating a topic related to human-animal relationships. Topics of particular interest for this year’s program include:

• human-animal relationships in science and technology
• animal issues in philosophy
• animal issues in legal studies
• the relation between human violence and animal abuse
• human-animal relationships in agriculture
• the role of the community in companion animal overpopulation
• the history and regulation of “puppy mills.”

Application deadline: February 8, 2007

Amount of Award
Scholars selected to participate in the fellowship program will be awarded a stipend of $3,000. to help cover travel costs, housing, living expenses, books and other research expenses.

Eligibility
Applicants must (1) possess a Ph.D. or equivalent, or be a doctoral student at the dissertation stage, (2) have a commitment to advancing research in Human-Animal Studies, (3) be actively engaged, during the fellowship program, in a research project that culminates in a journal article, book, or other scholarly presentation, and (4) submit a follow-up report six months aft er the fellowship’s completion.

Application
Applicants should email electronic copies of the following items to fellowshipapplication@animalsandsociety.org:

• Cover sheet with the applicant’s name, mailing address to be used for future correspondence, telephone and fax numbers, e-mail address, present rank and institution name, date Ph.D. received or expected, citizenship status, title of project, history of fellowships and grants received during the past five years.

• Project proposal of two to three pages (single-spaced) that describes the project and indicates work completed on the project to date. As the description will be considered by a panel of scholars from a variety of disciplines, it should be written for non-specialists.

• Curriculum vitae of no more than three pages.

In addition, applicants must also send two letters of recommendation to:

Committee on Fellowships
Animals & Society Institute
403 McCauley Street
Washington Grove MD 20880.

Applicants are responsible for contacting referees and supplying them with a description of the project.

Selection Process
The selection committee will include members from a range of disciplines in the humanities and social sciences. Applications will be evaluated on the contribution that the completed project will make to Human-Animal studies, the qualifications of the applicant to complete the research, the project’s relation to the resources and host faculty of the sponsoring institution, and how well individual applicants’ projects complement each other. Applicants will be notified by e-mail and letter in March 2007.

The fellowship program will be directed by Ken Shapiro, editor of Society and Animals. Please address all correspondence to him at the following address:

Committee on Fellowships
Animals & Society Institute
403 McCauley Street
Washington Grove MD 20880
ken.shapiro@animalsandsociety.org
(301) 963-4751
www.animalsandsociety.org

William Lynn :: Jan.29.2007 :: Human-Animal Studies :: No Comments »

Violence & Animal Abuse: Advances in research & policy

In 1997 Society & Animals published a special issue which presented research examining aspects of the proposed link between deliberate animal abuse and human-directed violence. In the intervening years this field has grown in both scope and application. The aim of this special issue is to present papers that focus on research and/or policy developments related to the link between human violence and animal abuse.

Papers are invited for this special issue; topics to be considered include, but are not limited to:

• The status of the ‘progression thesis’ of violence• Professional or governmental response to animal abuse and interpersonal violence
• Family violence and the role of animals
• Broader, non-deliberate (e.g., neglect/hoarding), animal cruelty
• Approaches to the assessment and treatment of animal abuse

Although the body of the issue will feature full research articles, other forms of papers also are welcome: theory, critical review, brief research reports, and commentary.

Special Issue Editors
Tania Signal (t.signal@cqu.edu.au)
Nik Taylor (n.taylor@cqu.edu.au)

Important Dates
• Submissions are due June 1, 2007
• Anticipated publication of Special Issue, early 2008

Submissions
• Papers must be submitted, electronically, to the Special Issue Editors

• All submitted articles must adhere to the Instructions to Authors of Society & Animals and will be reviewed according to the procedure laid out on the journal’s web site (http://www.psyeta.org/sa/index.html)

Kenneth Shapiro, Co-Executive Director
Animals & Society Institute
Editor, Society and Animals
Coeditor, Journal of Applied Animal Welfare Science
403 McCauley Street
Washington Grove MD 20880
t/f 301-963-4751
www.animalsandsociety.org

William Lynn :: Jan.28.2007 :: Human-Animal Studies :: No Comments »

The Animals & Society Institute invites applications for its first annual summer fellowship program for scholars pursuing research in Human-Animal Studies. In the summer of 2007, this interdisciplinary program will enable 6-8 fellows to pursue research in residence at North Carolina State University. Fellows will have access to the Tom Regan Animal Rights Archive, which is housed at NCSU.

Tom Regan, philosopher of the moral status of animals, will also participate actively in the program. The fellowship is designed to support recipients’ individual research through mentorship, guest lectures, and scholarly exchange among fellows and opportunities to contribute to the intellectual life of the host institution. All fellows must be in continuous residence for the duration of the program, June 26-July 31, 2007.

The fellowships are open to scholars from any discipline investigating a topic related to human-animal relationships. Topics of particular interest for this year’s program include:

• human-animal relationships in science and technology
• animal issues in philosophy
• animal issues in legal studies
• the relation between human violence and animal abuse
• human-animal relationships in agriculture
• the role of the community in companion animal overpopulation
• the history and regulation of “puppy mills.”

Application deadline: February 8, 2007

Amount of Award
Scholars selected to participate in the fellowship program will be awarded a stipend of $3,000. to help cover travel costs, housing, living expenses, books and other research expenses.

Eligibility
Applicants must (1) possess a Ph.D. or equivalent, or be a doctoral student at the dissertation stage, (2) have a commitment to advancing research in Human-Animal Studies, (3) be actively engaged, during the fellowship program, in a research project that culminates in a journal article, book, or other scholarly presentation, and (4) submit a follow-up report six months aft er the fellowship’s completion.

Application
Applicants should email electronic copies of the following items to fellowshipapplication@animalsandsociety.org:

• Cover sheet with the applicant’s name, mailing address to be used for future correspondence, telephone and fax numbers, e-mail address, present rank and institution name, date Ph.D. received or expected, citizenship status, title of project, history of fellowships and grants received during the past five years.

• Project proposal of two to three pages (single-spaced) that describes the project and indicates work completed on the project to date. As the description will be considered by a panel of scholars from a variety of disciplines, it should be written for non-specialists.

• Curriculum vitae of no more than three pages.

In addition, applicants must also send two letters of recommendation to:

Committee on Fellowships
Animals & Society Institute
403 McCauley Street
Washington Grove MD 20880.

Applicants are responsible for contacting referees and supplying them with a description of the project.

Selection Process
The selection committee will include members from a range of disciplines in the humanities and social sciences. Applications will be evaluated on the contribution that the completed project will make to Human-Animal studies, the qualifications of the applicant to complete the research, the project’s relation to the resources and host faculty of the sponsoring institution, and how well individual applicants’ projects complement each other. Applicants will be notified by e-mail and letter in March 2007.

The fellowship program will be directed by Ken Shapiro, editor of Society and Animals. Please address all correspondence to him at the following address:

Committee on Fellowships
Animals & Society Institute
403 McCauley Street
Washington Grove MD 20880
ken.shapiro@animalsandsociety.org
(301) 963-4751
www.animalsandsociety.org

William Lynn :: Jan.28.2007 :: Human-Animal Studies :: No Comments »

Those of you with TV may be watching 24 and its fictional vision of a terrorist nuking of the US. And the response. There is an On Point program of WBUR (Boston Public Radio) that examines the resonance and cultural meaning of the program. It is an excellent way to experience the connections between fiction and public policy.

To listen to the program, visit www.onpointradio.org/shows/2007/01/20070118_b_main.asp.

Cheers, Bill

William Lynn :: Jan.27.2007 :: Ethics, Human-Animal Studies, Politics :: No Comments »

The moral and legal status of animals in society is a profoundly important issue. “The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated,” observed Mahatma Gandhi. But all too often it seems that the public debate, along with sensational reporting in the media and elsewhere, typically frames the discourse on our relationship with animals in the oppositional rhetoric of “my baby vs. a laboratory rat.” The ASI wants to foster an understanding that goes beyond this stereotype.

The ASI is an independent research and educational organization that advances the status of animals in public policy and promotes the study of human-animal relationships. We are a think tank as well as a producer of educational resources, publications and events. The ASI is made possible by you and the generous support of individuals and like-minded organizations and foundations whose financial support help to make our programs possible.

To learn more about the Animals and Society Institute (ASI), visit www.animalsandsociety.org.

You can also contact ASI directly at:

Animals and Society Institute
3500 Boston Street
Suite 325
Baltimore, Maryland 21224
(410) 675-4566
(410) 675-0066 (fax)
office@animalsandsociety.org

William Lynn :: Jan.27.2007 :: Environmental Studies, Human-Animal Studies :: No Comments »

There is a new book out in the Human-Animal Studies series by Brill — Lisa Kemmerer (2006) In Search of Consistency: Ethics and Animals.

The book description reads: ‘This volume introduces the most important ideas in animal ethics and builds on a critical dialogue emerging at the intersection of animal rights, environmental ethics, and religious studies. In Search of Consistency examines the work of influential scholars Tom Regan (animal rights), Peter Singer (utilitarian ethics), Andrew Linzey (theologian), and Paul Taylor (environmental ethics), and explores ethics and animals across six world religions (Indigenous faiths, Hinduism, Buddhism, Christianity, Judaism, and Islam). In Search of Consistency sheds light on ‘the sanctity of life’ by means of an intriguing moral theory, ‘The Minimize Harm Maxim’, rooted in the time-honoured moral ideals of impartiality and consistency. This volume questions what it means to be human and challenges our assumed place in the universe’.

Lisa Kemmerer is an Assistant Professor at Montana State U., Billings, (BA, Reed; MTS, Harvard; Ph.D., University of Glasgow, Scotland). The focus of her work has most frequently been animals and ethics, but she is interested in issues of justice generally, and has produced two documentaries on Buddhism. Kemmerer is an artist, activist, and wilderness adventurer who has traveled the world extensively.

William Lynn :: Jan.27.2007 :: Environmental Studies, Ethics, Human-Animal Studies :: No Comments »

For the last two years, I’ve broadcast a Martin Luther King Holiday special on WKNH, the Keene State College radio station. The segment that always gets the most listener comment is the little-known story about how King actually became an activist during the Montgomery Bus Boycott. It gets a laugh and an “aha.”

In 1955, King was fresh from seminary, only 26 years old, and new to town. His church was one of the smallest, wealthiest, and most conservative of the two-dozen African-American churches in Montgomery. His personal ambitions at the time were to run a solid church program, be well paid for it, have a nice house for his growing family, write theology pieces for his denomination’s magazine, and do a bit of adjunct teaching at a nearby college. He was not dreaming of becoming a leader in the struggle for civil rights, economic justice, and a peaceful US foreign policy.

Indeed, if it had been left up to King, the Montgomery Bus Boycott would never have happened. The real organizer of this effort was E.D. Nixon, an experienced civil rights and labor activist who created the Montgomery Improvement Association and launched the Montgomery Bus Boycott within the first four days after Rosa Parks’ arrest for refusing to move to the back of the bus. It was Nixon who recruited King to the civil rights movement. After bailing Rosa Parks out of jail, Nixon went home and started calling local ministers to line up their support for his boycott idea. As Nixon later explained: “I recorded quite a few names. The first man I called was Reverend Ralph Abernathy. He said, ‘Yes, Brother Nixon, I’ll go along. I think it’s a good thing.’ The second person I called was the late Reverend H.H. Hubbard. He said, ‘Yes, I’ll go along with you.’ And then I called Rev. King, who was number three on my list, and he said, ‘Brother Nixon, let me think about it awhile, and call you back.’”

When King finally agreed to come to a meeting, Nixon chuckled and told King, “I’m glad you agreed, because I already set up the first meeting at your church.” At this first ministers’ meeting, King was very nervous about Nixon’s idea of conducting an illegal boycott campaign. Several other ministers soon began to side with King against the campaign. In his own memoir on the Bus Boycott, King recalls how Nixon exploded towards the end of the meeting and shouted that the ministers would have to decide if they were going to be like scared little boys, or if they were going to stand up like grown men and take a strong public stand against segregation. King’s pride was so hurt by Nixon’s comment, he shouted back that nobody could call him a coward. Then, to prove his courage, King immediately agreed to Nixon’s plan for an aggressive, community organizing campaign to build up the boycott. Everyone in the room quickly agreed with King and the matter was settled.

With that decision made, the group began to discuss who should lead the effort. Everyone present had expected Nixon to become the president of the newly formed Montgomery Improvement Association. But when he was asked about serving, Nixon answered, “Naw, not unless’n you all don’t accept my man.” When asked whom he was nominating, Nixon said, “Martin Luther King.” Having just loudly declared his courage to the whole group, King felt that he had to agree to take on this responsibility. Then, Nixon told King he would have to give the main address at the mass rally scheduled that very night to announce the boycott plan to the black community.

King rose to Nixon’s challenge. Serving as the leader of the Montgomery Bus Boycott for the next twelve months changed King. Watching 42,000 poor and working-class black people stay organized and do without public transportation for a year, he discovered things about the courage and capacity of ordinary people to resist oppression and move toward freedom. Watching the conservative, rightwing city government finally cave in to the boycott, he discovered the power of mass nonviolent direct action campaigns to win real victories–even when they are opposed by powerful interests. By seeing his own power to inspire people to become active citizens for a noble cause, King discovered just what kind of person he wanted to be in this life. He now fully embraced his new mission as an activist leader for building what he called the “Beloved Community.”

There is an important lesson here for all of us. We don’t have to be born leaders. We don’t have to know everything before we get started. We just have to get started.

This short piece on MLK was written by Steve Chase, the Director of Antioch University New England’s Environmental Advocacy and Organizing Program. His contact information is at the bottom of this email. The piece is adapted from a posting on “The Well-Trained Activist” blog (http://eaop-blog.blogspot.com). For more, see Steve Chase.

Photo: Sheeba Arif, 2004, First Prize co-winner of the Princeton University MLK 2004 Poster Contest, grade 6, John Witherspoon School, Princeton

Steve Chase :: Jan.22.2007 :: Politics :: No Comments »

I recently posted Andy Davison’s op-ed for the Poughkeepsie Journal, entitled ‘A Change in Iraq Means Reconsidering the Logic of Force’. In it he expressed skepticism about President Bush’s plan for a surge of troops, and suggested the alternative of political rather than military engagement. You can read his op-ed here, or view the version posted on this blog here.

His essay was placed in the ‘Face to Face’ section — a point/counterpoint format of commentators. The other op-ed was by Kieran Michael Lalor and entitled ‘There is no substitute for full victory in Iraq’. You can read his op-ed here.

I read Lalor’s op-ed, and aside from his heartfelt insistence on victory in a war already lost, I was curious about what I might learn from his website, the Eternal Vigilance Society.

It turns out that Lalor is the founder and executive director of the society. He is a Marine Corp veteran passionately committed to the defense and freedom of the US. Nothing wrong with that, a?

Look a bit further, however, and you might start to worry. There is the proud display of a photo with Oliver North, an operative in former President Reagan’s not-so-secret war in Central America — a war whose American benefactors made liberal use of drug smuggling, illegal arms shipments and terrorists named ‘Contras’. Note too the prominent endorsement from the author Michelle Malkin, an apologist for putting Japanese-Americans into concentration camps during World War 2. Makes one wonder about similar concentrations camps for Arab-Americans, Muslims and anti-American agitators. There is also the less obvious but prolonged attempt to bash Congressional representative John Hall (D-NY) as a gay-funded wimp for the hate-America Left.

Such organizations sport a nationalist rhetoric, heated in a stew of apparent authoritarianism, militarism and true manliness. Do these groups realize the resonance their beliefs have with neo-fascism? I do not think so. I can only hope they develop a deeper understanding of the dynamics and pitfalls of their political ideas. An understanding that recognizes that in the right circumstances, their ideals and actions undermine the liberty they prize. And however well-intended their motives, they can unwittingly become agents of the terror they so decry.

cheers, Bill

PS. For more on ordinary citizens and the wages of terror, see Daniel Goldhagen (1997) Hitler’s Willing Executioners: Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust. On the perils of authoritarianism in contemporary US politics, see John Dean (2006) Conservatives without Conscience.

Photo: Traitors Among Us, Propaganda Remix Project.

William Lynn :: Jan.21.2007 :: Ethics, Politics :: No Comments »

A note from the executive director of H-Net: Humanities & Social Sciences Online. Bottom line — AOL and other internet service providers are blocking human-animal studies elists.

cheers, Bill
~

Dear H-Net subscribers:

A very serious situation has arisen in which many (perhaps thousands) of our subscribers are being deleted from our lists due to filtering technologies and policies being implemented by major Internet Service Providers, as well as some universities. It will take a combined effort by our subscribers and H-Net’s management to resolve the situation. Please read the following message and help us where you can:

Many of you know already that major internet service providers have installed very strong antispam filters at their mail gateways and are implementing stringent policies to block spam. In most cases, all it takes is a small percentage of recipients to mark or complain about a particular IP address of origin for the ISP to block the relay of messages from the offending IP range.

This issue has affected H-Net, even though our subscribers by definition voluntarily join our lists. AOL in particular (including its subsidiary netscape.net and cs.com) has begun to block mail from our node; we estimate that perhaps 6,000 of our subscribers have AOL addresses. The bounces from undelivered mail eventually trigger deletion from our subscription lists; hundreds of subscribers are being dropped from our rolls everyday.

We have tried to work with AOL to have them recognize H-Net traffic as legitimate but with no success so far; we will keep trying to do so.

But AOL’s policies for regaining entry to its domain are technically impossible for us to comply with and, in some cases, raise serious issues concerning free speech.

There are several options you pursue to help assure the unfettered flow of information from H-Net:

– consider resubscribing to your lists from an email address and node outside of AOL or of the ISP that may be blocking H-Net traffic.

– if you normally do not save list postings, then consider setting your H-Net list subscriptions to NOMAIL to suspend email postings to you, then follow the list discussion via its web-based logs, and when you wish to participate feel free to post — the ISPs are only blocking incoming, not outgoing mail to the list. All of our lists display their logs on the web; just bookmark the list’s home page and link to the logs from there. You can also set up RSS news feeds from your favorite lists and follow them in any RSS-compatible browser (Internet Explorer 7 and Firefox do this). Visit

– contact your service provider to protest the interference with your mail and to demand that access be restored. Service providers do listen to their customers.

– please do not report mail from h-net.msu.edu as spam or junk mail.

Instead, contact our help desk at help@mail.h-net.msu.edu or use our subscriber center to signoff lists you no longer wish to receive. If you have technical difficulties, we’ll be glad to help you. Feel free to write me directly if these methods are for some reason not effective.

– Please circulate this message to colleagues who may already have been affected by ISP spam blocking and would otherwise not receive it.

If you are successful in getting your ISP to relent, please write directly to me at the address below; such intelligence would be useful in our ongoing campaign to bring down these barriers.

We regret that the rage for security has gotten to the point where teachers, students, scholars, and professionals must face such hurtles to effective and free communications.

Thank you for your continued support of H-Net.

Sincerely,

Peter

Dr. Peter Knupfer
Executive Director
H-Net: Humanities & Social Sciences Online
310 Auditorium Bldg Michigan State University
East Lansing, MI 48824

FAX: +517 355 8363
Voice: +517 432 5134
Email: peter@mail.h-net.msu.edu

William Lynn :: Jan.20.2007 :: Human-Animal Studies :: 1 Comment »

As a boy studying Buddhism in Tibet, I was taught the importance of a caring attitude toward others. Such a practice of nonviolence applies to all sentient beings - any living thing that has a mind. Where there is a mind, there are feelings such as pain, pleasure, and joy. No sentient beings want pain; instead all want happiness. Since we all share these feelings at some basic level, as rational human beings we have an obligation to contribute in whatever way we can to the happiness of other species and try our best to relieve their fears and sufferings. I firmly believe that the more we care for the happiness of others, the greater our own sense of well-being becomes, therefore I welcome Marc Bekoff s book The Emotional Lives of Animals. — His Holiness the Dalai Lama

Marc Bekoff is one of those rare scientists who can talk real sense about animals because he is aware of being an animal himself. Read this wonderful book.– Mary Midgley, author of Animals and Why They Matter

An extraordinary, intelligent, and valuable book about a subject one might be forgiven for thinking taboo since it is so absent from discussion: an exploration of the other animals’ feelings, the emotional makeup we share with them yet often do not know exists, forget entirely, deliberately ignore or casually disregard. Here we see animals, whole and complete, thinking their not-so-private thoughts, grieving, loving, jumping for joy, and fleeing that which is painful or upsetting and it makes us think about who they are and what our impact is and can be on their lives. Marc Bekoff captures not only poignant incidents of the animals’emotions as evidenced by observations and pure commonsense, but brings to each discovery his own vital repertoire of human emotion and expression. A glorious, moving, important book to enjoy and share. — Ingrid Newkirk, cofounder and president of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA)

Marc Bekoff ably presents the richness and variety of the emotions in nonhuman animals - and doesn’t hesitate to draw the ethical conclusions implicit in his findings. I hope this book will be widely read by those who care about animals - and even more widely by those who don’t. –Peter Singer

A thought-provoking, compassionate and scholarly work from one of the world’s most eminent behavioral scientists. — Ian Dunbar, Founder of The Association of Pet Dog Trainers and author of Before & After Getting Your Puppy.

William Lynn :: Jan.19.2007 :: Human-Animal Studies :: No Comments »

Bekoff, Marc (2007) The Emotional Lives of Animals: A Leading Scientist Explores Animal Joy, Sorrow, and Empathy - and Why They Matter. New World Library.

Based on Marc Bekoff’s years of experience studying the social communication patterns of a wide range of animals, this important book shows that animals have rich emotional lives. Not only can animal emotions teach us about love, empathy, and compassion, argues Bekoff - they require us to radically rethink our current relationship of domination and abuse of animals. Award-winning scientist Bekoff skillfully blends extraordinary stories and anecdotes of animal grief, joy, embarrassment, anger, and love with the latest scientific research confirming the existence of emotions that commonsense experience has long implied. The author also explores the evolutionary purposes of emotions in a wide range of different species, showing how science is discovering brain structures that produce emotions, how we can track an evolutionary continuum based on shared brain structures among species, and how new information is being revealed by noninvasive neurological research techniques. Filled with Bekoff’s light humor and touching stories, The Emotional Lives of Animals is a clarion call for reassessing both how we view animals and how we treat them.

With a foreword by Jane Goodall, the book will be available on 28 February 2007.

cheers, Bill

William Lynn :: Jan.19.2007 :: Human-Animal Studies :: No Comments »

The migration of the Practical Ethics blog from Blogger to the Practical Ethics website is complete. Visitors to the old blog are being redirected here (www.practicalethics.net/blog).

If you prefer to access the blog from the website, go the the home page of Practical Ethics, click on ‘Enter’, then select the Blog menu. It will open the Blog directly.

Now begins the more difficult — and fun — task of integrating the blog and website with a common design!

Cheers, Bill

William Lynn :: Jan.19.2007 :: Practical Ethics :: No Comments »

A Communion of Subjects is the first comparative and interdisciplinary study of the conceptualization of animals in world religions. Scholars from a wide range of disciplines, including Thomas Berry (cultural history), Wendy Doniger (study of myth), Elizabeth Lawrence (veterinary medicine, ritual studies), Marc Bekoff (cognitive ethology), Marc Hauser (behavioral science), Steven Wise (animals and law), Peter Singer (animals and ethics), and Jane Goodall (primatology) consider how major religious traditions have incorporated animals into their belief systems, myths, rituals, and art. Their findings offer profound insights into humans’ relationships with animals and a deeper understanding of the social and ecological web in which we all live.

Contributors examine Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, Daoism, Confucianism, African religions, traditions from ancient Egypt and early China, and Native American, indigenous Tibetan, and Australian Aboriginal traditions, among others. They explore issues such as animal consciousness, suffering, sacrifice, and stewardship in innovative methodological ways. They also address contemporary challenges relating to law, biotechnology, social justice, and the environment. By grappling with the nature and ideological features of various religious views, the contributors cast religious teachings and practices in a new light. They reveal how we either intentionally or inadvertently marginalize “others,” whether they are human or otherwise, reflecting on the ways in which we assign value to living beings.

Though it is an ancient concern, the topic of “Religion and Animals” has yet to be systematically studied by modern scholars. This groundbreaking collection takes the first steps toward a meaningful analysis.

Paul Waldau and Kimberley Patton, eds. 2007. A Communion of Subjects: Animals in Religion, Science, And Ethics. Columbia University Press.

William Lynn :: Jan.13.2007 :: Human-Animal Studies, Religion :: No Comments »

Disappointed by the vengeful manner in which Saddam Hussein was executed, the leading American commander in Iraq told reporters last week, “if you’re asking me, ‘would we have done things differently,’ yes, we would have.”

The implication was not that the US would have spared Saddam’s life. It was that an execution held by the US would have been more professional and consistent with norms of justice. There would have been no sloganeering taunts (”Moktada, Moktada, …”), no personalized insults (”go to hell”), no residue of festering vendetta politics that have plagued post-Saddam Iraq.

But how much differently would the US have acted vis-à-vis this perpetrator of crimes against humanity? Would it have guaranteed Saddam additional due process, possibly by ensuring his other trials were brought to completion? Would it have postponed the execution until after the holidays? The US had its chances, and it delivered Saddam - on Washington’s orders - into the hands of his impatient executioners.

Yes, previous attempts by the US to assassinate Saddam suggest that the US would have done things differently, but it may be worth recalling that several of those attempts failed miserably. The US has not always been able to extricate itself from the logic of unfortunate consequences, especially in its efforts to eliminate Saddam.

In April 2003, for example, the US dropped two 2000-pound bunker-busting bombs and follow-up detonators from the skies on a restaurant in a middle-class neighborhood of Baghdad where Saddam and his sons were believed to be hiding. The bombing left a 60 ft. crater and reduced the restaurant and several adjacent homes to rubble. CIA officials were reported to be “euphoric,” confidant that Saddam had been killed. He was not, though some local residents were. According to one reporter, photographers on the scene used “a chilling term they picked up from the military in Afghanistan to describe what might have happened to a dozen or more people thought to have died in this missile attack. They have become ‘pink mist’.”

This execution attempt was indeed carried out very professionally - based on credible intelligence, constitutionally ordered by the president, and conducted by highly trained fighter pilots. One pilot underscored the impersonal character of the operation, saying he didn’t even know Saddam was the target. “We’ve got ten minutes to do it. We’ve got to make a lot of things happen to make that happen. So you just fall totally into execute mode and kill the target.”

While the operation was very different from what Saddam faced at the gallows - no masked men in different leather jackets, no clumsy noose and clanging trap door, no embarrassing footage - it shows that highly professional processes do not always guarantee just outcomes.

What would it take to do things differently in Iraq? According to reports, President Bush believes this requires a “troop surge for victory.” The new congress is right to scrutinize this plan, for a surge implies intensified confrontation between the US and the most militant opponents of its presence in Iraq - highly mobilized forces also seeking “stability” and “victory,” each, no doubt, with surge, in-surge, and counter-surge tactics of their own. Among them, the prominent Mahdi militia seems especially determined to struggle to the end. Its name, “Mahdi,” roughly means “Messiah” and conveys its belief that it is bringing God’s ultimate justice by liberating God’s communities in Iraq from their oppressors (Saddam, the US, etc.).

A surge is thus unlikely to reduce resistance to the US in Iraq and the region more generally.

So, what might it mean to “do things differently” in Iraq? Perhaps abandoning false hopes of ultimate victory through the forceful imposition of one’s will upon the other parties to the conflict, the US included. Sadly, each has bad blood on its hands; each has performed poorly at times in relation to norms of justice.

It’s time to prioritize the extremely difficult processes of sustained negotiation between the combatants, to mobilize the negotiating powers of the most informed and communicatively dedicated interlocutors of each party to the conflict. A political solution has been the consistent emphasis of several US senators, like Joseph Biden of Delaware. No one doubts its necessity, while many doubt the wisdom of the surge. There are no guarantees, but intensifying direct negotiations would be doing things differently, because it would mean abandoning reliance on the logic of force that has, demonstrably, failed to bring stability, peace, and viable governing institutions to Iraq.

Andrew Davison is associate professor of political science at Vassar College where he teaches courses in political theory and politics in the Middle East. His latest book is Conquering Hearts and Minds:The American War Ideology in the Persian/Arabian Gulf, 1990-2003. For more, see Andy Davison.

Andy Davison :: Jan.08.2007 :: Ethics :: No Comments »