Ethos

Earth Day has come and gone, and nothing much has changed.

As an ethicist and professor of environmental studies, I pay close attention to Earth Day. I have read or heard an abundance of commentaries on how people mistreat our planet. One after another, they rehearse the same statistics, recite the same politics, and offer the same short-term solutions.

Breaking the repetition, however, is the wildly popular film, Avatar, which went on sale to the general public in honor of Earth Day. Since its release in 2009, Avatar has struck a cord with the general public and the environmental community. Students and colleagues alike continue to excitedly discuss its meaning and messages.

So I wonder: what might Avatar teach us about how to celebrate Earth Day next year?

Avatar tells the story of a moral awakening by a former marine, Jake Sully, who is a mercenary for an inter-stellar corporation. He is sent to the world of Pandora to protect a mining operation that threatens the way of life of an indigenous population of humanoids (the Na’vi), as well as the natural world for whom the Na’vi have profound respect.

What Jake and his companions discover is that the Na’vi do not see their environment as a set of resources for them to own and exploit. Rather they see themselves as part of a larger community of life, a moral community where other creatures and the planet Eywa (the Na’vi name for Pandora) have intrinsic value. Value, that is, that exists irrespective of whether the animals or the planet are useful for either humans or Na’vi.

The Na’vi also believe human beings are ignorant of their place in this moral community. This message comes through loud and clear when Jake is upbraided by his Na’vi teacher and eventual mate, Neytiri. Telling him that he and his people ‘should not be here’, she notes that humans are akin to irresponsible children who do no fully ‘see’ (understand). Despite their advanced technology, humans have not yet learned how to respect the natural history, cultural knowledge, and moral standing of the Na’vi themselves, Pandora’s animals, or Pandora itself.

Avatar does take aim at colonialism, racism and militarism as they metaphorically exist on Pandora, as well as literally on Earth. Commentators have praised or condemned the film for these reasons. This has been particularly evident amongst the political right, where claims of paganism, anti-capitalism and anti-Americanism abound.

What has not been discussed is Avatar’s critique of speciesism, or human prejudice against non-human beings.

Avatar is not just a metaphor for how we treat other people on this earth. Nor is it simply an allegory for wide-ranging ecological destruction here and now. It is a cautionary tale about the harm done by our instrumental worldviews of animals and nature. Avatar is pushing the boundary of moral concern, demanding that we consider the well being of creatures and communities that are not human. It offers us a vision of another people, another place, and another way of life with such a profound sense of moral connectedness, that we cannot help but compare it to the situation on our own planet, and find it wanting.

What then does Avatar offer to our understanding of Earth Day?

Earth Day has become a sedate affair, dominated by the posturing of politicians and the decorative art of school children. More distressingly, it has become a self-absorbed event, where we measure humanity’s declining prospects by the steady degradation of nature (e.g., global warming).

If Earth Day is going to fulfill its promise, we need to turn this situation around. Avatar reminds us that we must reconnect with the moral passion that animates environmentalism as one of the great social movements of our time. It teaches us that we need to use this moral commitment to build bridges between those advocating for animal protection, human rights and environmental justice.

We need a day of education and grass-roots politics in service of the Earth itself and all her creatures, not just its most powerful inhabitant. Most of all, we need to stop thinking and talking about sustainability as if it were only for human beings. The well being of the entire community of life is a better base line for sustainable ways of living.

In Avatar, Jake came to understand that the interconnectedness of life is not simply a scientific fact, but a moral value that ought to guide our behavior to others, human and non-human alike. Perhaps in Earth Days to come, we can take this lesson to heart.

Cheers

William Lynn :: May.06.2010 :: Animal Studies, Environmental Studies, Ethics :: Comments Off

I recently had a wonderful visit at Lafayette College.

Lafayette is a highly regarded institution located in Easton, PA. It has a twin-fold emphasis on the liberal arts, as well as engineering and the applied sciences. This creative mix of the arts and sciences is sorely needed in a society like ours that risks loosing sight of larger values amongst technical details. While technology is never a ‘neutral tool’ as some would like to think, our choices to use technologies for good or ill are the more important issue. Bringing the value-relevance of the liberal arts into creative dialogue with the applied sciences seems like a great idea to me.

I was visitng as a keynote speaker for Earth Week. Unlike other speaking engagements, this was not a one-off presentation, but an extended opportunity to engage with the campus community about ethics and sustainability. So alongside my presentation, I had the pleasure of meeting with a wide variety of the college’s faculty and students.

My talk was on ‘Avatars of Sustainability’. I interpreted the movie Avatar as a cultural text, the meanings of which have something important to say about our approach to ethics and sustainability. It was fun to do, and the discussion session afterwards was quite lively. I was peppered with insightful questions about the movie itself, and its implications for the troubled relationship between people, animals and nature. These questions touched on capitalism, militarism, colonialism, patriarchy, race, anthropocentrism, speciesism, power, animal domestication, practical versus analytic ethics, ethics in environmental policy, and the ethical norms of sustainability.

The next day I met with LEAP or Lafayette Environmental Awareness and Protection. Organized by a core group of environmentally minded students, LEAP is particularly active in the local food movement and the introduction of sustainable practice at Lafayette. Following that I was a guest in Humans and Other Animals in Contemporary Culture, a course instructed by Carrie Rohman of the English department. Students in this class had a wide range of ethics-related thoughts on Avatar, offering many distinctive insights on the movie. Following this, I met with faculty for a wide-ranging and productive discussion about the state of environmental studies programs and curricula.

So a big thank you to all the faculty and students who made my visit such an enjoyable one.

Cheers!

William Lynn :: May.01.2010 :: Animal Studies, Environmental Studies, Ethics :: Comments Off

We are pleased to invite proposals for a new book series, Critical Animal Studies, to be published by Rodopi Press, one of Europe’s premiere academic presses. The main goals of the series, which differentiates it from the pre-existing series in the field of animal studies, are that we are particularly looking to publish works that:

(a) focus on ethical issues pertinent to actual animals (as opposed to animals as only metaphors, tropes, or philosophical concepts); i.e. work with a certain normative value;

(b) adopt a broad critical orientation to animal studies, including (but not limited to) work that investigates and challenges the complex dynamics of structural, institutional, and discursive power formations that organize life conditions, relations, and experiences of animals, humans, and the environment alike; work that explores diverse forms and sites of human/animal resistance; work that contributes to current global debates by contextualizing critical animal issues within, for instance, processes of globalization, climate change, and biotechnology; work that intervenes in the animal economy of the production, science, service, experience, and culture industries; as well as work that critically analyzes ideologies, practices and effects of the current animal welfare movement;

(c) bridge boundaries between academic/activist knowledge, between theory/practice, as well as between existing disciplines. Based on this commitment to interdisciplinarity, all work published must be in language that is as clear and accessible to as wide an audience as possible;

(d) contribute to creative, bold, innovative, and boundary shifting knowledge development in critical animal studies.

If we can be of any further help or assistance in discussing projects please do not hesitate to contact either of us via email. Further information and submission guidelines are found on the book series website: http://www.criticalanimalstudies.org/?page_id=299

Sincerely yours,

Dr. Helena Pedersen
Senior Co-Editor, Submissions and Review Process
Malmö University
helena.pedersen@mah.se

Vasile Stãnescu
Senior Co-Editor, Promotions and Outreach
Stanford University
vts@stanford.edu

William Lynn :: Apr.13.2010 :: Animal Studies, Ethics :: Comments Off

The Animals and Society Institute (ASI) is an independent research and education organization dedicated to advancing the status of animals in public policy and promoting the study of human-animal relationships

ASI is one of the few policy think-tanks associated with animal studies. Amongst other activities, the institute publishes the Animals and Society journal, the Human-Animal Studies book series, offers training programs in animal related policy issues, and commissions policy white papers.

ASI also sponsors Human-Animal Studies Fellowship. This interdisciplinary program enables seven fellows to pursue research in residence at a partner college or university, supporting recipients’ individual research through mentorship, guest lectures, and scholarly exchange, as well as contributing to the intellectual life of the host institution. Creating and sustaining fellowships like this is crucial to building a network of scholarship and policy expertise that can speak to the shared well-being of people, animals and nature.

This year, the fellowship is being held at Clark University in Worcester, MA. Host faculty are Jacque (Jody) Emel, Professor of the Graduate School of Geography at Clark and Susan McHugh, Professor of English at University of New England.

I’m pleased to say that I will be participating as one of this year’s fellows, working on proposal for a practical ethics for people, animals and nature. I am both honoured and excited by this opportunity, and look forward to sharing my experience with you.

Cheers!

William Lynn :: Apr.01.2010 :: Animal Studies, Environmental Studies, Ethics :: Comments Off

The recent tragedy involving captive orca Tilikum and SeaWorld employee Dawn Brancheau is cause for more than a brief pause—more than a couple of days of darkness for SeaWorld’s show Believe at Shamu Stadium. It is a kick-in-the-gut cry to STOP.

Isn’t it better to honor Ms. Brancheau’s death by carefully reconsidering our relationships with killer whales, rather than resuming the spectacular Believe show only two days after her drowning? Is it enough that before the show began, a slideshow tribute to Dawn played on the watery stage’s massive screens, and the trainers wearing their orca-styled wetsuits refrained, for now, from swimming with or petting the orcas as part of the killer whale show’s choreography?

SeaWorld’s website still sells Believe as a show that “accentuates the close relationship SeaWorld trainers have with the killer whales,” and a “journey in which anyone believes they can connect with these magnificent mammals.” I imagine the bubbly violence that some customers witnessed a few weeks ago did not highlight the sort of connection SeaWorld wanted to display.

I don’t mean to be flippant. And I’m not suggesting for a moment that the trainers do not have a close relationship with the orcas in their care—or that we, as humans, cannot or do not connect with dolphins and whales—I believe we can, we do, and we should! But the question is how ought we to connect with them, what kind of relationship is best for their well-being and ours, and how can we best honor dolphins and whales as the magnificent individuals we so admire?

To me, SeaWorld’s Believe show is exciting, beautiful, and wildly entertaining; it is also—like SeaWorld itself—an outmoded, arrogant, insensitive story of captivity and dominance. The music, lyrics, choreography, architecture and landscaping are lavish decorations that distract us from the facts: It is not appropriate or wise to keep dolphins and whales for our pleasure. It deprives them of their physical, psychological and social needs and desires. We have witnessed the pain, distress and tragedy that captivity produces—for them and for us.

In light of the recent catastrophe at SeaWorld, let’s more than just pause before resuming business as usual. Instead, let’s recognize this as the major event it was, and just… stop.

William Lynn :: Mar.15.2010 :: Environmental Studies, Ethics :: Comments Off

Last Saturday, I saw the movie Avatar.

It is a huge, thrill-ride of a movie. As importantly, it is interlaced with threads of environmentalism, colonialism, capitalism, militarism, spiritual crisis and personal redemption.

I’ve been asked to give an Earth Week Keynote address at Lafayette College in April. I think I’ll discuss Avatar, and its implications for sustainability, ethics and environmental studies. More on this subject after the talk.

Cheers!

William Lynn :: Mar.07.2010 :: Animal Studies, Environmental Studies, Ethics :: Comments Off

Williams College Museum of Art (WCMA) is an amazing institution. Holding a wonderful collection of its own, the museum curates temporary exhibitions that are by turns breathtakingly beautiful and profoundly thought-provoking. It also offers an incomparable educational resources to Williams College students and the wider community.

One of WCMA’s more beautiful and though provoking installations is Mocha Dick, a sculpture by Tristin Lowe. Here is how the museum describes it.

Over fifty feet long and ten feet high, artist Tristin Lowe’s sculpture of a white sperm whale sprawls across the museum’s largest gallery. Mocha Dick is a life-sized rendition of the infamous leviathan that once harassed ships near Mocha Island in the South Pacific Ocean.

The exhibition is open 13 March – 08 August 2010. I’ll be sharing comments on ‘Life Boat Ethics’ during an interdisciplinary gallery panel, The Whiteness of the Whale, to be held on Thursday 08 April 2010. Please come join us for this event. Admission is free.

For more information on the WCMA, visit www.wcma.org.

Cheers!

William Lynn :: Mar.01.2010 :: Animal Studies, Art, Environmental Studies, Ethics :: Comments Off

Interpretive policy analysis involves a combination of hermeneutics, practical ethics and qualitative methods (or their analogues). It is indispensable for policy makers wanting to understand the ethics and value-laden nature of environmental disputes and resolutions.

Unfortunately, the interpretive approach is frequently ignored, misunderstood, or given short shrift in traditional schools of public policy. So too, many policy courses in animal studies, environmental studies, and the like are unaware of or insufficiently acquainted with interpretive approaches. This is doubly unfortunate. Interpretive and ‘analytic’ (e.g. positivist, quantitative, institutionalist, economist) approaches need not oppose one another, and can be usefully combined. And those making policy, whether in the public, private or non-profit sectors, are denied the benefits of both approaches triangulating on our best understanding of policy problems and their solutions.

The policy arena of wolf recovery is a case in point. Long regarded as a matter for the natural science, wolf recovery is as much or more a matter of cultural norms. With this in mind, I recently published an article entitled Discourse and Wolves: Science, Society and Ethics*. It intentionally tries to clarify some of the terms and methods of interpretive policy approaches by using the concept of discourse. I’ve included the methodology section in this post, and hope you will find it of some use in your own work. You can find the entire article in the journal Society and Animals.

It is ironic as well that the article also illustrates the troubles sometimes faced by those practicing interpretive policy studies. The manuscript for this article was originally invited as a book chapter for a book on wolves and society. It fell victim, however, to the empiricist presuppositions and personal politics of some of the book’s editors. But all is well that ends well. I’m very pleased the article found a perfect home in Society and Animals.

Cheers!

P.S. If you find this approach intriguing, I recommend Dvora Yanow’s Interpretive Policy Analysis (Sage, 1999) as a wonderful and insightful introduction.

* Lynn, William S. 2010. Discourse and Wolves: Science, Society and Ethics. Society & Animals 18 (1): 75-92.

Image: Tracy Brooks, 2003, Reflection.

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Methodological Caveat

As you read this article, you will note it does not conform to the usual conventions of the scientific literature. One might expect this, as I do not pretend to be a scientist in the usual sense of the term. But there is more to it than that. The standard conventions of scientific articles – a statement of the research question justified by a literature review of findings to date, a description of the methods and measures used to test a hypothesis, and a discussion of the results followed by their significance and possible avenues for future exploration – are entirely appropriate to research questions amenable to quantitative methods. These conventions were developed in and for the natural sciences, work well within those domains, and overall there is no reason to diminish them (Chalmers 1999; Lindberg 1992; Lynn 2004).

When it comes to explaining human beings and their societies, there was a time when the human sciences sought to ape the natural sciences in theory, method and publishing conventions. This was a dismal failure, and while the struggle to shift gears continues, the positivist turn is long dead. The reason is that human beings do not conform to models of a determinism and/or predictivism that are the hallmark of the physical sciences. The sentience and sapience of people – their awareness and self-awareness – makes their thoughts and actions contingent and creative, transcending the boundary conditions for which the research practices and writing conventions of the natural sciences were devised (Bernstein 1991; Rorty 1979). Yes, there are still people who defend a ‘naturalistic model’ of the human sciences. Yet honestly, it is embarrassing to see an old-school positivist scholar chopped up by their peers because they have not kept up with the history and philosophy of science literature over the last fifty years. E. O. Wilson’s and his acolytes of consilience best represent this yearning for the old ways (Westley and Miller 2003; Wilson 1998). We can do much better than this now.

What is needed in such cases is a methodology adapted to the ‘human sciences’, something capable of causal explanation (the hallmark of science) without the pretense of determinism or predictivism [1]. Various social theories and qualitative methodologies have arisen to fill this need (Denzin and Lincoln 2000; Hesse-Biber and Leavy 2005; Schwandt 2007). So too have new conventions for publications, specifically around the idea of interpretation and narrative (Fischer and Forester 1996; Roe 1994; Yanow 1999). So for those with an interest in methodological affairs, what follows is an interpretation of several discourses that inform how we think about and act towards wolves. Intentionally broad in scale and scope, it looks for the resonance between our ideas, behaviour and social institutions, or to put the matter in social theoretical language, the interplay of human agency and social structure. The point is not to predict or determinatively explain what people and organizations do. That is not possible with human and some other beings. Rather, the purpose is to reveal the discursive dynamic that constitute, at least in part, our individual and collective stance towards wolves in the world [2].

Discourse

I approach discourse as a hermeneuticist. Hermeneutics is the study of understanding, one of the main perspectives in social theory [3]. The basic idea is that our personal and social lives can only be fully understood when we account for the meaning embedded in our actions and social relations, such as is found in our presuppositions and worldviews. To explain the human world, we therefore have to interpret what people mean when they say or do something, and what significance their words and actions have for the rest of the world.

Engaging in this kind of interpretation might seem trivial to some, as if picking out someone at random on the street and asking them about wolves is going to tell us the truth about wolf biology or ecology. But that would be missing the point. Hermeneuticists are interested in our individual and collective interpretations of wolves. These interpretations are highly significant, if, let us suppose, politically motivated wildlife professionals foster an approach to environmental policy that emphasizes agricultural production, ranching and sport hunting at the expense of predators, ecosystem function and biodiversity. So one cannot understand (as in describe, explain, evaluate or justify) why someone or some group acts as they do without first interpreting what they think and how it informs their actions. It is for this reason that hermeneutics is a keystone tradition of scholarship with respect to the theory and methodology of the human sciences (Bruns 1992; Gadamer 1993; Mueller-Vollmer 1989; Wachterhauser 1994).

To the hermeneuticist, discourse refers to the interconnections between ways of thinking and acting. It is not only a point-of-view that helps direct our actions in the world, it is also the meaning(s) embedded in our actions and social institutions. This approach extends the idea of discourse beyond the expression of an idea or perspective, whether in speech, writing or artistic creation. It focuses on the role of language in the formation of presuppositions, worldviews and ways of life. In this extended version, discourse traces the linguistic connections between several components — thought, action and social institutions. The argument from a discursive perspective is that language interweaves these components in such a manner that they are reciprocally constituted and/or mutually informing. That is to say, there is an inextricable linkage between how individual and collective agents think, speak, act and interact.

I use the term resonance (or resonances) to refer to the linkages between the components of discourse, as well as between different discourses themselves. I say resonance because these linkages are not uniform or static, but plural and shifting. They do not constitute a system of discreet inputs and outputs amenable to modeling and prediction. Rather they are a shifting configuration of meaning and social interaction that must be apprehended for their causal influences.

This contingency between meaning and social interaction arises from the way in which discourse connects intangible and tangible phenomena [4]. There is an ecology of intangible ideas, intentions, worldviews and culture, with more tangible actions, social institutions, and their outcomes (e.g. environmental and social policy). This ecology defies reductionism, and is better understood through a process of interpretation. Discourse is a powerful conceptual tool in the process of social and moral interpretation. It helps us identify and theorize a shifting field of resonances, and thereby understand the context, content and consequences of a discourse. With this in mind, we can better understand why and how an idea, social practice or institution exists, operates and perpetuates itself (Kelly 1990) [5].

Discourse may simultaneously exist at several levels. At one level are ideas, whether expressed in terms of reasons or emotions. At another level are actions. Here, reason and emotion become the motivating factors for acting in the world. At still another level are social institutions such as government agencies, economic and politically based interest groups, or non-profit advocacy organization. These institutions are also part of our discourses, patterns of thinking and acting that, over time, take on concrete and durable form (Ball 1988; Barnes and Duncan 1992; Wolf 2003b). When Stone expressed care for the well-being of abandoned wolf pups, her expression was at the discursive level of ideas. When she took to the field to find and save the pups from starvation, her behaviour was at the action level of discourse. When she went back to work at a NGO that is part of our social system, she was involved at the institutional level of discourse.

If we think of a discourse like a text, such as an essay or a policy statement, then we can ‘read’ these texts for their meaning(s). Like a written or spoken narrative, the meaning of a discourse can be interpreted for its good or ill intentions, content, implications and consequences (Ricoeur 1977; Ricoeur 1991; Ricoeur 1996). Thus when the state of Alaska justifies the aerial gunning of wolves through policy statements of dubious scientific value, we have a discourse we can read like a text and from which we can extract its meaning. So too, when gunners take to the air to kill wolves, we have an equally meaningful action on which to base our interpretations and from which to discern the values and worldviews that inform those actions. When the Alaska Board of Game continues to authorize lethal control measures against wolves, we see a social institution whose members, policies and practices are partaking of a broader anti-wolf discourse.

The interpretations of discourse are never perfect or unequivocal. There is always more to be learned, and multiple meanings are the norm. Nor are the intentions or consequences behind a statement or act always obvious or explicit. They can be concealed, poorly understood or unexpected (Hirsch 1967; Hirschman 1987). Because of this and other contingencies, hermeneuticists are humble about the power of any one interpretation and encourage dialogue to generate a broadly shared horizon of understanding. Moreover, they believe that reason and evidence, along with good will and a skeptical eye, can distinguish better from worse interpretations. In this way, we make progress in finding the truth. Finally, truth is not relative or absolute. In alignment with the best understanding of science, truth is always proximate. While veracity is the goal, verisimilitude is the reality. For hermeneuticists, understanding is always partial and fallible, and it is through dialogue with others that we reach a deeper and better understanding of the presuppositions and worldviews of ourselves and others [6].

Notes

1. The terms human science and natural science are commonly used in social theory, qualitative inquiry and the philosophy of science. The former refers to what others call the behavioural and social sciences, while the later refers to the physical, biological and life sciences. In addition to serving as a way to categorize different forms of scientific knowledge, it also implies a more historically and philosophically reflective posture over the theory, methods and role of science itself (see Ricoeur 1981).

2. Astute readers may recognize that a similar shift is occurring in the field of cognitive ethology. There is a recognition that many kinds of non-human animals think, feel, plan, play, act altruistically and selfishly, have a sense of guilt and wild justice, and transmit cultural traditions. The growth of this theoretical perspective has methodological implications, and represents a turning away from positivist models that frequently misunderstand animals. While using a different language, cognitive ethology is developing its own interpretive theory and qualitative methods. In this sense it is kin to hermeneutic traditions in the human sciences (for examples of such work, see Allen and Bekoff 2007; Bekoff et al. 2002; Bekoff 2005).

3. Hermeneutics is named after Hermes, the Greek god who handled communication between Olympus and the Ecumene — the habitable world of humanity, which for the Greeks was centred on the Mediterranean. Like the coyote, however, Hermes is a trickster, taking pleasure in parsing meaning that leads to misunderstanding. The background idea here is that language is not something we simply use to subjectively describe our feelings or objectively describe the world. Rather language is constitutive of how we experience and conceptualize the world around us.

4. For more on the ‘qualities’ and ‘phenomena’ that distinguish the human and natural sciences, as well as the implications this has for causal explanation, qualitative inquiry and moral reasoning, see (Lynn 2004).

5. When I speak of discourse, I often shift between the singular and plural. This is to denote the scale and specificity of my comments. Thus I may speak of discourse in general, discourses in particular, or a particular discourse in the singular.

6. There are other theories about discourse that emphasize the ideological nature of ‘totalizing’ discourse (e.g. structuralism), the partiality of all discourse (e.g. poststructuralism) and the distorting tendencies of all discourse (e.g. critical theory). The structuralists and poststructuralists tend to see people as subjects of discourse, as in subservient to the discourse(s) that constitute their worldview. Hermeneuticists and critical theorists think otherwise, believing people have agency, that is, they can be self-determining, and are not the pawns of larger social forces. Exercising this agency may not be easy (or possible) for everyone, but it is in the nature of human beings to be agents and interpreters of their own individual and collective lives (for examples of this literature, see Darier 1999; Gare 1995; Habermas 1993; Habermas 1998; Wolf 2003a).

References

Allen, Colin, and Marc Bekoff. 2007. Animal Minds, Cognitive Ethology and Ethics. The Journal of Ethics 11: 299-317.

Ball, Terence. 1988. Transforming Political Discourse: Political Theory and Critical Conceptual History. New York: Basil Blackwell.

Barnes, Trevor J, and James S Duncan, eds. 1992. Writing Worlds: Discourse, Text and Metaphor in the Representation of Landscape. New York: Routledge.

Bekoff, Marc. 2005. Animal Passions and Beastly Virtues: Reflections on Redecorating Nature. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.

Bekoff, Mark, Colin Allen, and Gordon Burghardt, eds. 2002. The Cognitive Animal: Empirical and Theoretical Perspectives on Animal Cognition. Cambridge: MIT Press.

Bernstein, Richard J. 1991. Beyond Objectivism and Relativism: Science, Hermeneutics and Praxis. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.

Bruns, Gerald L. 1992. Hermeneutics Ancient and Modern. New Haven: Yale University Press.

Chalmers, Alan. 1999. What is This Thing Called Science? An Assessment of the Nature and Status of Science and its Methods. Third ed. London: Open University Press.

Darier, Eric. 1999. Discourses of the Environment. New York: Blackwell.

Denzin, Norman K, and Yvonna S Lincoln, eds. 2000. Handbook of Qualitative Research. Second ed. Thousand Oaks, California: Sage.

Fischer, Frank, and John Forester. 1996. The Argumentative Turn in Policy Analysis and Planning. Durham: Duke University Press.

Gadamer, Hans-Georg. 1993. Truth and Method. Second, Revised ed. New York: Continuum.

Gare, Arran E. 1995. Postmodernism and the Environmental Crisis. New York: Routledge.

Habermas, Jurgen. 1993. Justification and Application: Remarks On Discourse Ethics. Edited by Ciaran Cronin. Cambridge: MIT Press.

———. 1998. Between Facts and Norms: Contributions to a Discourse Theory of Law and Democracy. Cambridge: MIT Press.

Hesse-Biber, Sharlene Nagy, and Patricia Leavy. 2005. The Practice of Qualitative Research: A Primer. Thousand Oaks: Sage.

Hirsch, Edward D. 1967. Validity In Interpretation. New Haven: Yale University Press.

Hirschman, Albert O. 1987. The Search for Paradigms as a Hindrance to Understanding. In Interpretive Social Science: A Second Look, eds. P. Rabinow, and William M Sullivan, 177-194. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Kelly, Michael, ed. 1990. Hermeneutics and Critical Theory in Ethics and Politics. Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press.

Lindberg, David C. 1992. The Beginnings of Western Science: The European Scientific Tradition in Philosophical, Religious, and Institutional Context, 600 B.C. to A.D. 1450. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Lynn, William S. 2004. The Quality of Ethics: Moral Causation in the Interdisciplinary Science of Geography. In Geographies and Moralities: International Perspectives on Justice, Development and Place, eds. Roger Lee, and David M Smith, 231-244. London: Routledge.

Mueller-Vollmer, K. 1989. The Hermeneutics Reader: Texts of the German Tradition from the Enlightenment to the Present. New York: Continuum.

Ricoeur, Paul. 1977. The Model of the Text: Meaningful Action Considered as a Text. In Understanding Social Inquiry, eds. F. Dallmayr, and T A McCarthy, 316-344. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press.

———. 1981. Hermeneutics and the Human Sciences. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

———. 1991. From Text to Action: Essays in Hermeneutics. Chicago, IL: Northwestern University Press.
———. 1996. The Hermeneutics of Action. Chicago, IL: Northwestern University Press.

Roe, Emory. 1994. Narrative Policy Analysis: Theory and Practice. Durham: Duke University Press.

Rorty, Richard. 1979. Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Schwandt, Thomas A. 2007. Dictionary of Qualitative Inquiry. Third ed. Thousand Oaks: Sage.

Wachterhauser, Brice R, ed. 1994. Hermeneutics and Truth. Evanston: Northwestern University Press.

Westley, Frances, and Philip Miller, eds. 2003. Experiments in Consilience: Integrating Social and Scientific Responses to Save Endangered Species. Washington D.C.: Island Press.

Wilson, Edward O. 1998. Consilience: The Unity of Knowledge. New York: Alfred A. Knopf.

Wolf, Cary. 2003a. Animal Rites: American Culture, The Discourse of Species, and Posthuman Theory. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Wolf, Cary, ed. 2003b. Zoontologies: The Question of the Animal. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

Yanow, Dvora. 1999. Conducting Interpretive Policy Analysis. Thousand Oaks: Sage.

William Lynn :: Feb.01.2010 :: Animal Studies, Environmental Studies, Ethics, Wolves :: Comments Off

As humans increasingly encroach on non-human habitats, and more and more people use the few natural areas that have been set aside for nature and its enjoyment, human-animal contact is becoming more frequent.

Recently I read about a disturbing account of a young woman being attacked and killed by coyotes. Taylor Mitchell, a 19 years old Canadian folksinger, was reportedly killed in Cape Breton Highlands National Park, Nova Scotia.

Whether or not coyotes did kill this woman, her death is a tragedy, and my condolences go out to her family, friends and fans.

At the same time, I’ve heard a great deal of hysterical talk about the dangers of coyotes since this incident. I simply want to urge people to take a deep breath, wait until we find out what happened, and treat coyotes with the respect and distance they deserve.

Cheers

William Lynn :: Dec.01.2009 :: Animal Studies, Coyotes, Environmental Studies, Ethics :: Comments Off

Feminists have long been interested in the animal and environmental movements. Indeed, one of the main sources of support (and opposition) to animal studies has been those working in Women’s Studies. The connections feminist see between women, animals and the rest of nature are complex. The critique of patriarchy’s cultural dualisms and social hierarchies, a vision of a more-than-human world that honours human and non-human beings, the exploration of how animality resonates with our notions of humanity, are but three of the many subjects that feminists and others in animal studies explore.

So it is especially pleasing that Duke University is sponsoring postdocs focused on the interdisciplinary connections between feminist studies and animal studies. For details, see below.

Cheers, Bill

~

The Duke University Program in Women’s Studies invites applications for two postdoctoral fellows in Interdisciplinary Feminist Studies with a research focus in Human Animal Studies and the Question of Species. We seek candidates with interdisciplinary experience in Women’s Studies. We welcome empirical, textual, and theoretical specialization from a diverse array of academic fields, political and cultural contexts, and historical periods. Postdoctoral fellows will participate in a faculty-graduate seminar on these themes and are expected to be in residence for the academic year. Fellows will teach one course related to their scholarship. The fellowship includes a stipend, health insurance, and office space. Applicants should have the PhD in hand by May 2010.

Applications (including all letters of recommendations) must be received by November 17, 2009. Send C.V., 5-page project proposal, writing sample (25 pages), 1-page course proposal (undergraduate), and 3 letters of recommendation to:

Ranjana Khanna, Director, Women’s Studies, Box 90760, 210 East Duke Building, Durham NC, 27708. Our program information is available at www.duke.edu/womstud. Duke University is an Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action Employer.

William Lynn :: Sep.01.2009 :: Animal Studies, Environmental Studies, Ethics :: Comments Off

Please view the latest episode of Animal Inventory TV by clicking here.

When Angelo realized he was about to become homeless, he was determined not to let his cat Simon suffer the same fate. Angelo was heartbroken to imagine being separated from his best friend, but in an unexpected turn of events, and with the help of the Boston-based organization Phinney’s Friends, Angelo has worked out an unusual arrangement — one that enables him to focus on his own needs, while ensuring the very best care for his cat.

To find out more about Phinney’s Friends, or to make a donation, email Carmine Dicenso at: cdicenso@mspca.org

For additional episodes and more information, visit the Animal Inventory TV website.

Lisa Brown :: Feb.15.2009 :: Art, Ethics, Justice, Politics :: Comments Off

Animal Inventory TV is a new video web show (in association with my blog, Animal Inventory) that profiles profound relationships between humans and other animals. Each episode profiles an animal and his or her person, and tells the story of a friendship that is both astonishingly unique, and utterly universal.

Click on the links below to watch the first two episodes.

Episode 1: May & Nebraska

In 2006, May woke up one morning to find that her dog Nebraska couldn’t move his back legs. Two years later, Nebraska is still paralyzed from the waist down, and May has turned her life upside down to accommodate her best friend’s special needs.

Episode 2: Christine & Kelsey and Zoe

In 1992, Christine was struck by two above-ground trains while walking her dog Kelsey in Boston. At the last possible moment, Kelsey pulled Christine out of the direct path of the oncoming trains. Christine was badly injured, but Kelsey’s heroic action likely saved her life. During her lengthy recovery process, Christine decided to devote her life to the welfare of dogs, and co-founded the organization Grey2k. Now, with the help of her greyhound Zoe, Christine is campaigning to end greyhound racing in the state of Massachusetts

Check back in mid-December for episode 3, Angelo & Simon: When Angelo realized he was about to become homeless, he was determined not to let his cat Simon suffer the same fate. With the help of the Boston-based organization Phinney’s Friends, Angelo is able to focus on his own needs, while knowing that Simon is in good hands…

Episodes are available on Animal Inventory TV’s Youtube channel and the show’s website. For more information about the show and upcoming episodes, visit Animal Inventory TV.

Lisa Brown :: Nov.22.2008 :: Animal Studies, Art, Ethics :: Comments Off

I am both honoured and pleased to introduce Lori Marino as a new columnist to Ethos.

cheers, Bill

~

Lori Marino is a senior lecturer in Neuroscience and Behavioral Biology at Emory University and a faculty affiliate of the Living Links Center for the Advanced Study of Ape and Human Evolution in Atlanta.

Lori received her doctorate degree in biopsychology from The State University of New York at Albany in 1995, where she began her work on comparative brain size evolution in cetaceans and primates. Her research expertise includes the evolution of brain size and intelligence in other species, cognitive ethology, and self-awareness, as well as human-nonhuman relationships and welfare issues.

Lori is the author of over eighty scientific papers, book chapters, and popular articles. In 2001 she and Diana Reiss published the first definitive evidence for mirror self-recognition in a non-primate species – the bottlenose dolphin. She also publishes and speaks extensively on ending exploitation of dolphins and whales around the world in the dolphin-assisted therapy (DAT) and marine park industries. She has developed and teaches courses in animal welfare and non-invasive approaches to neuroscience, including Brain Imaging, and is interested in not only training students to be critical thinkers and scientists but also in providing an academic context for the study of non-invasive models of science, animal welfare, advocacy, and ethics.

Lori is the co-founder of the Atlanta Animal Studies Group (http://atlantaanimalstudiesgroup.blogspot.com/), which is focused on exploring the cultural and ethical relationship between humans and non-humans, and is also a staff member at The Kerulos Center (http://www.kerulos.org/) dedicated to the prevention and treatment of human-caused suffering of other animals.

You can contact her at:

Lori Marino, PhD
Neuroscience and Behavioral Biology Program
Emory University
1462 Clifton Road Suite 304
Atlanta, Georgia 30322
(404) 727-7582lmarino@emory.edu

Selected Publications

Marino L, Lilienfeld S (2007) Dolphin assisted therapy: More flawed data, more flawed conclusions. Anthrozoos. 20: 239 – 249.

Marino L (2007) Animal consciousness. In The Encyclopedia of human-animal relationships, M Bekoff, ed. Greenwood Publishing Group, pp. 1297-1301.

Marino L (2007) Dolphin mythology. In The Encyclopedia of human-animal relationships, M Bekoff, ed. Greenwood Publishing Group, pp. 491-495

Marino L (2007) Scala natura. In The Encyclopedia of human-animal relationships. M Bekoff, ed. Greenwood Publishing Group, pp. 220-224.

Bradshaw G and Marino L (2007) Minds of their own: The exciting new field of trans-species psychology. Best Friends Magazine, November/December: 24-26.

Marino L, Connor RC, Fordyce, RE, Herman LM, Hof PR, Lefebvre L, Lusseau, McCowan B, Nimchinsky EA, Pack AA, Rendell L, Reidenberg JS, Reiss D, Uhen MD ,Van der Gucht E, Whitehead H. (2007) Cetaceans have complex brains for complex cognition. Public Library of Science (PLOS) Biology, 5(5): e139.

Reiss D, Marino L (2001) Self-recognition in the bottlenose dolphin: A case of cognitive convergence. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA 98 (10): 5937-5942.

Marino L, Lilienfeld S (1998) Dolphin-assisted therapy: flawed data, flawed conclusions. Anthrozoos, 11(4): 194-199.

William Lynn :: Jul.09.2008 :: Animal Studies, Environmental Studies, Ethics :: Comments Off

One of Ethos’ best known editorialists is Marc Bekoff. Marc has been an important part of Ethos from the start, sharing advice as well as content as we found our niche in the virtual Kosmos. Marc’s contributions as an academic and advocate are unsurpassed and deeply admirable. Its time I introduced him properly, a?! The following is from his website.

cheers, Bill

~

Marc Bekoff is Professor Emeritus of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of Colorado, Boulder, and is a Fellow of the Animal Behavior Society and a former Guggenheim Fellow. In 2000 he was awarded the Exemplar Award from the Animal Behavior Society for major long-term contributions to the field of animal behavior.

Marc is also regional coordinator for Jane Goodall’s Roots and Shoots program, in which he works with students of all ages, senior citizens and prisoners, and also is a member of the Ethics Committee of the Jane Goodall Institute. He and Jane co-founded the organization Ethologists for the Ethical Treatment of Animals: Citizens for Responsible Animal Behavior Studies in 2000. Marc is on the Board of Directors of The Fauna Sanctuary and The Cougar Fund and on the advisory board for Animal Defenders, the Laboratory Primate Advocacy Group, and the conservation organization WildEarth Guardians (also see SINAPU). He has been part of the international program, Science and the Spiritual Quest II and the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) program on Science, Ethics, and Religion. Marc is also an honorary member of Animalisti Italiani and Fundacion Altarriba, and on the Scientific Review Board of the Great Ape Trust. In 2006 Marc was named a Fellow of the Dancing Star Foundation, an honorary board member of Captive Animals’ Protection Society. In 2005 Marc was presented with The Bank One Faculty Community Service Award for the work he has done with children, senior citizens, and prisoners.

Marc’s main areas of research include animal behavior, cognitive ethology (the study of animal minds), and behavioral ecology, and he has also published extensively on animal issues. He has published more than 200 papers and 18 books, including Species of mind: The philosophy and biology of cognitive ethology (with Colin Allen, MIT Press, 1997); Nature’s purposes: Analyses of function and design in biology (edited with Colin Allen and George Lauder, MIT Press, 1998), Animal play: Evolutionary, comparative, and ecological perspectives (edited with John Byers, Cambridge University Press, 1998), Encyclopedia of animal rights and animal welfare (Greenwood Publishing Group, 1998), and a book on the lighter side, Nature’s life lessons: Everyday truths from nature (with Jim Carrier, Fulcrum, 1996). His children’s book, Strolling with our kin was published in Fall 2000 (AAVS/Lantern Books) as was The smile of a dolphin: Remarkable accounts of animal emotions (Random House/Discovery Books). The cognitive animal: Empirical and theoretical perspectives on animal cognition (edited by Marc, Colin Allen, and Gordon Burghardt) appeared in 2002 (MIT Press), as did Minding animals: Awareness, emotions, and heart (Oxford University Press) and Jane Goodall and Marc’s The Ten Trusts: What we must do to care for the animals we love (HarperCollins). Marc has edited a three volume Encyclopedia of Animal Behavior (Greenwood Publishing Group, 2004), and a collection of his essays titled Animal Passions and Beastly Virtues: Reflections on Redecorating Nature was published by Temple University Press (2006).

A summary of Marc’s research on animal emotions titled The Emotional Lives of Animals: A Leading Scientist Explores Animal Joy, Sorrow, and Empathy and Why They Matter was published in March 2007 by New World Library and he is currently completing a book on the evolution of moral behavior with Jessica Pierce titled Wild Justice: Reflections on Empathy, Fair Play, and Morality in Animals for the University of Chicago Press. Marc has also edited a four-volume Encyclopedia of Human-Animal Relationships: A Global Exploration of our Connections with Animals for Greenwood Publishing Group (2007) and he and Cara Blessley Lowe have edited a book of readings on cougars titled Listening to Cougar (University Press of Colorado, 2007). Marc’s book Animals Matter: A Biologist Explains Why We Should Treat Animals with Compassion and Respect was also published in 2007 (Shambhala Publications) and Temple University Press will publish Marc’s children’s book, Animals at Play: Rules of the Game in 2008. He is currently working on a new book titled The Animals’ Manifesto: Ten Reasons Why Animals Are Asking Us To Treat Them Better Or Leave Them Alone (for New World Library) and revising his 1998 Encyclopedia of Animal Rights and Animal Welfare (for Greenwood Press, 2009).

Marc’s work has been featured on 48 Hours, in Time Magazine, Life Magazine, U.S. News and World Report, The New York Times, New Scientist, BBC Wildlife, Orion, Scientific American, Ranger Rick, National Geographic Kids, on NPR, BBC, Fox, Natur GEO, in a National Geographic Society television special (‘Play: The Nature of the Game’), in Discovery TV’s ‘Why Dogs Smile and Chimpanzees Cry’, and in Animal Planet’s ‘The Power of Play’ and National Geographic Society’s ‘Hunting in America’. Marc has also appeared on CNN, Good Morning America, and 20/20.

In 1986 Marc became the first American to win his age-class at the Tour du Var bicycle race (also called the Master’s/age-graded Tour de France). Among Marc’s hobbies are cycling, skiing, hiking, and reading spy novels.

William Lynn :: Jul.01.2008 :: Animal Studies, Environmental Studies, Ethics, Wildlife :: Comments Off

Marc Bekoff is a prolific writer and speaker in cognitive ethology and behavioural ecology. In a recent editorial to the Daily Camera, he makes an analogy between the carbon and compassion footprints of humanity.

Compassion is the key for bettering animal and human lives. People all over the globe are talking about ways to lighten our carbon footprint and accrue carbon credits. But what about our compassion footprint and compassion credits?

A good way to make the world a more compassionate and peaceful place for all animals, to increase our compassionate footprint, is to “mind” them. “Minding” animals means that we must “mind” them by recognizing that they have active minds and feelings. We must also “mind” them as their caretakers in a human dominated world in which their interests are continually trumped in deference to ours.

To mind animals it’s essential for people with varied expertise and interests to talk to one another, to share what we know about animals and use this knowledge for bettering their and our lives. There are many ways of knowing and figuring out how science and the humanities, including those interested in animal protection, conservation, and environmentalism (with concerns ranging from individuals to populations, species, and ecosystems), can learn from one another is essential.

You can read the entire essay at www.dailycamera.com.

cheers, Bill

William Lynn :: Jun.30.2008 :: Animal Studies, Environmental Studies, Ethics, Wildlife :: Comments Off

The Spanish parliament’s decision to extend certain political rights to great apes is sparking a renewed debated about the meaning of a mixed community of people, animals and nature.

You can read more about the decision at Reuters.

cheers, Bill

William Lynn :: Jun.27.2008 :: Animal Studies, Environmental Studies, Ethics, Wildlife :: 1 Comment »

Dear Ethos readers:

I thought this issue addressed an interesting nexus between ethics, science, culture, and public policy, so I wanted to share it with you. I welcome your thoughts and comments.

Best -

Jared Milrad

Our Common Concern.com

—–

Sometimes it seems that blood drives are everywhere — at school, work, you name it. If seems that way, it’s because the need for them couldn’t be greater: of the 37% of adults eligible to give blood in this country, only 5-10% actually do. In fact, 2007 was reportedly one of worst years on record for blood availability. Most hospitals only have half a day’s supply of blood on hand, when experts say they should have at least a 3-5 day reserve.

Not only does this shortage mean extended waits for patients with non-life threatening diagnoses, but it may mean a potentially dangerous situation for those in need of immediate care.

Ready to help? If you’re eligible, go for it. If you’re gay, well, think again.

That’s because since 1983, the Food & Drug Administration (FDA) has had a blanket policy banning all potential gay male donors who have had sex with another man after 1977 (when HIV was first identified in the U.S. population).

The FDA cites significantly higher rates of HIV and Hepatitis B and C in the gay male population as its justification, saying blood reserves should not be unnecessarily compromised. Fair enough. But some experts and lay persons call the policy — which is replicated in Canada and some European countries — blatantly discriminatory.

For example, blood tests can now identify HIV-positive blood in as little as 10 days, making the process of screening blood much more efficient and accurate than it was in 1983. Others argue that gay men in committed, monogamous, and long-term relationships should be not excluded from donating blood simply simply because of their sexual orientation. And major blood banks such as America’s Blood Centers have revised their policy on the issue in light of new tests.

In California, activists have boycotted some blood drives and/or started their own. Most recently, the FDA rejected a request to amend the policy by allowing gay men who have not had sexual contact within the past twelve months to donate.

And so the debate rages on, albeit quietly (and gay blood-free, of course).

Our Common Concern
:: a socially conscious blog ::

Jared Milrad :: Jun.27.2008 :: Ethics, Justice :: Comments Off

Last week I participated in a live broadcast that focused on the ethics and politics of killing some animals for the benefit of others.

For example, should we kill sea lions to save salmon, coyotes to protect sheep, wolves to safeguard cattle, or cats to preserve song-birds? These are the kinds of questions we addressed.

Hosted by Emily Harris and David Miller, ‘Playing God?’ was an episode of Think Out Loud, a fascinating programme of Oregon Public Broadcasting.

You can visit the ‘Playing God?‘ webpage to listen to the show, as well as add your comments to the interactive blog.

cheers, Bill

William Lynn :: Jun.26.2008 :: Animal Studies, Environmental Studies, Ethics, Geography, Wildlife, Wolves :: Comments Off

One of my greatest pleasures on Ethos is introducing new columnists to our readers. Today I want to welcome Jared Milrad.

Jared was born in New York City and raised both in New York and central New Jersey. Vegan since the age of 14, Jared has been intensely interested in animal welfare for most of his life, rescuing everything from finches to feral cats as a teenager. While a freshman at North Carolina State University in 2002, Jared became the first student in the school’s history to publicly challenge its policy on animal dissections, leading to a national outcry of support for his beliefs and a significant revision of the school’s Student Choice policy.

Jared later graduated from N.C. State with a B.S. in Fisheries & Wildlife Sciences and, most recently, from Tufts University with a M.S. in Animals and Public Policy. His thesis at Tufts, entitled A Fundamental Nexus: Animals and Genocide From An International Policy Perspective, advocated for revised genocide prevention and response policies that account for the many complex roles of animals during such crises.

Beyond human-animal studies, Jared has long been interested in finding common ground among people. Having visited four continents and advocated for a variety of groups, Jared is a strong believer in the intersections between social causes. He is the Founder and Editor of a socially conscious blog, Our Common Concern (http://ourcommonconcern.com), which highlights pressing social issues — from human rights to environmental justice to animal protection — in hopes of inspiring a dialogue for change.

Jared is also a long-time organizer for the Obama Campaign, and part of the team organizing New Hampshire for the presidential election in 2008.

You can contact Jared at ourcommonconcern@gmail.com.

William Lynn :: Jun.25.2008 :: Animal Studies, Environmental Studies, Ethics, Justice, Politics :: Comments Off

June 22, 2008

In “The dumbing down of voters” (Op-ed, June 15) Rick Shenkman attributes Americans’ political ignorance to television and the collapse of labor unions. I think there is a deeper problem: The United States tends to raise employees, not citizens.

Our culture emphasizes so-called practical skills, while we thumb our noses at theory, as if theory had no practical effect. Education is being reduced to job training. The humanities suggest pleasant ways to spend our “free time,” as if literature, art, philosophy, and religion had nothing to teach us about how we ought to live.

Work is supposed to be hard, or it’s not work. To commit your life to service means taking a vow of poverty, as if one cannot do good and do well. In short, we are encouraged to act without deep reflection, to toil away without questioning. And, sadly, I suspect that’s how politicians like it.

Karin Lauria

Source: www.boston.com

William Lynn :: Jun.22.2008 :: Ethics, Politics :: 4 Comments »

Have you ever paged (or surfed) through the New York Times and noticed the variety of news stories involving animals? Once you start to notice, it is hard to stop. Indeed, there are moments when I think I could build a career commenting on just these stories!

For instance, over the last several days the New York Times printed a number of stories where animals are a central conccern. The international section reported Korean protests (and broader Asian concerns) over the safety of US beef, and the associated politics of industrial agriculture and animal welfare. Ironically, there is also a dining column with advice on how to cut back one’s use of meat, and cook a more vegetable based (and healthier) diet. If we turn to the Science section, we find that Horseshoe crabs are in decline, and Fisher’s are reinhabiting American suburbs. This does not even begin to touch the steady flow of news articles on global warming and its impact on endangered species, migrating birds, etc. Finally, the editorial page features an essay about the recently adopted national bird of Israel. The Hoopoe, as it turns out, is a creature long associated with cross-cultural and inter-religious dialogue. If there was ever a time to thinking about the political and cultural symbolism of animals, this would be one of them.

To be sure, these and other stories focus on human concerns — agricultural, economic, gastronomic, environmental, political, etc. And the focus on animals is sometimes inadvertent (they are props in the story) and frequently speciesist — the only moral beings who count are human. Even so, the presence of wild and domestic animals in our everyday life and discourse is ever present.

Watch for it!

cheers, Bill

William Lynn :: Jun.12.2008 :: Animal Studies, Environmental Studies, Ethics :: Comments Off

Wendy Lochner is Senior Executive Editor for Religion, Philosophy and Animal Studies at Columbia University Press (CUP).

Last week she posted a blog reflecting on animal ethics and social change, as well as her intentions to foster interdisciplinary work on human-animal relations.

We recently received permission from Ms Lochner to publish the whole essay here. (Thank you!) You can read Ms Lochner’s essay below, or view it on the CUP Blog.

For a list of related titles from CUP, visit the Animal Studies series. It is a wonderful, diverse and growing body of scholarship, and well represents the emerging discourse of animal studies in the academy.

cheers, Bill

~

June 3rd, 2008 at 9:28 am

Why Animal Studies Now?:
A Short Personal Note from the Editor

The following post is by Wendy Lochner, senior executive editor for Religion, Philosophy, and Animal Studies

Why animal studies now? Like many people who are interested in the fate of animals and of the Earth, I came to this issue from an activist animal-rights perspective. My background is in philosophy, and I eagerly read and absorbed the arguments of Peter Singer and Tom Regan. As I read further I became hungry for approaches that moved even further toward commonality, and I embraced the absolutist views of scholars such as Gary Francione.

But still I was troubled by the indifference of most people to the conditions of animal life. They can know about deplorable factory-farm conditions, for example, and yet not incorporate that knowledge into their behavior or ethical views. A winning argument, I felt, was not rooted in rational discourse alone; it needed to change hearts and minds by appealing to humans’ emotional connections to, love for, and kinship with animals.

I began to read work by Cora Diamond, Cary Wolfe, John Coetzee, Alice Crary, and others, who convinced me of the power of literature to advance the animal issue. Soon I discovered that many ethologists, religion scholars, and sociologists were also committed to showing the scientific, social-scientific, and humanities bases for a loving involvement with animals as part of a worldview in which the “question of the animal” becomes a fundamental concern of critical inquiry, one in which the terms, concepts, and forms of evidence that we use can themselves be questioned in terms of the presuppositions they make about animals and human—and nonhuman—animal relationships. What is required is no less than a radical rethinking of the nature of humanity itself as inextricably cojoined with our nonhuman kin and in common cause with them.

It is this point of view that I (and many others) call animal studies, and it is my intention as an editor to foster interdisciplinary work from all fields that considers these and many other interrelated questions.

William Lynn :: Jun.09.2008 :: Animal Studies, Environmental Studies, Ethics :: Comments Off

Henry Fair’s photographs of degraded yet beautiful landscapes are on view at MassMoca. Fair’s New Horizons in Landscape is part of the Badlands exhibit curated by Denise Markonish. Visit www.massmoca.org for more information.

You can view more of Henry’s work at Muse (the Practical Ethics gallery).

William Lynn :: Jun.08.2008 :: Art, Environmental Studies, Ethics :: Comments Off

One person I have yet to introduce is David Lavigne, a long-time advisor to Practical Ethics, and now a columnist on Ethos. His remarkably impressive biography is below. Please join me in welcoming David to Ethos!

cheers, Bill

~

David Lavigne, PhD
Senior Science Advisor
International Fund for Animal Welfare
1474 Gordon Street
Guelph, Ontario
Canada N1L 1C8
519.767.1948
dlavigne@ifaw.org
http://www.ifaw.org/

David Lavigne is science advisor to the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW). From 1973-1996, he was a professor in the Department of Zoology, University of Guelph, Guelph, Ontario, Canada. After receiving his BSc in Zoology from the University of Western Ontario in 1968, he taught high school for one year before entering graduate school at the University of Guelph, completing an MSc in 1972 and a PhD in 1974, both for work on vision in seals. Remaining at Guelph as a faculty member, his research interests shifted to problems of censusing harp seals to estimate annual pup production and population size. By 1975, the focus of his research was pinniped bioenergetics. For the latter work he earned a Dr philos degree from the University of Oslo in 1988. In 1990, he became executive director of the International Marine Mammal Association (IMMA), a not-for-profit organization concerned with the global conservation of marine mammals. Currently, his major interests are in the areas of conservation biology, wildlife management, and natural resources policy.

During his years at the University of Guelph, David taught numerous undergraduate and graduate courses including mammalogy, ecology and marine biology, wildlife conservation and management, and natural resources policy. The author of more than 100 papers and technical reports on various aspects of marine mammal biology, wildlife management, and conservation, he is also, co-editor (with J. Beddington and R.J.H. Beverton) of Marine Mammals and Fisheries (George Allen & Unwin, 1985), and co-author (with W.M. Johnston) of The Mediterranean Monk Seal: Conservation Guidelines (IMMA, 1998) and Monk Seals in Antiquity (The Netherlands Commission for International Nature Protection, 1999). From 1988-1992, he served on the editorial advisory board of the Canadian Journal of Zoology.

In addition to his published papers on various aspects of the biology and conservation of harp (and other) seals, he is also the co-author of Harps & Hoods: Ice-breeding Seals of the Northwest Atlantic (University of Waterloo Press, 1988). In the mid-1980s, his laboratory at the University of Guelph submitted a number of briefs to Canada’s Royal Commission on Seals and Sealing and he appeared before the Commission as an expert witness on two occasions. He has also testified as an expert witness before Canada’s Standing Committee on Fisheries and Oceans (SCOFO), in 1999 and again in 2006. He has made a number of submissions to the Canadian government’s Regulatory Review Process regarding changes to Canada’s Marine Mammal Regulations, and to the Eminent Panel on Seal Management, appointed by the Canadian Government to review Canada’s commercial seal hunt, which reported in 2001. In 1999, 2000, and 2006, he was an invited participant in meetings of the Canadian government’s National Marine Mammal Review Committee.

Over the years, David has been a member of a number of international scientific committees, including: the Seal Specialist Group of the World Conservation Union (IUCN); the Pinniped-Fishery Interaction Task Force on the Sea Lion/Steelhead Conflict at the Ballard Locks, Seattle; the International Scientific Advisory Committee to the Hellenic Society for the Study and Protection of the Mediterranean Monk Seal (HSSPMS, now MOm), the Scientific Advisory Committee of the United Nations Environment Programme’s Marine Mammals Action Plan; and the European Commission/IUCN Steering Committee for the ‘Spanish Monk Seal Project’. He has also appeared before European parliamentary committees on a number of occasions and, in 2005, he testified in the Council of Europe and in the Belgian parliament when both bodies were conducting hearings into animal welfare and other aspects of Canada’s commercial seal hunt. In 2007, he served as a member of the European Food Safety Authority’s Working Group on the Animal Welfare Aspects of Sealing.

In 2001, he presented the invited keynote address – Marine mammals and fisheries: The role of science in the culling debate – at the Southern Hemisphere Marine Mammal Conference 2001, Philip Island, Victoria, Australia. He also was an invited speaker in the University of Guelph’s 2001 The Kenneth Hammond Lectures on Environment, Energy and Resources, entitled “Sustainable Development: Mandate or Mantra.” His lecture, “Ecological footprints, doublespeak, and the evolution of the Machiavellian mind” was broadcast on CBC Radio’s Ideas in May 2002. In January 2003, he spent a week at the University of Alberta, Edmonton as a “Distinguished Visitor” in the Environmental Research and Studies Centre. He was an invited participant in a consultation on future directions of marine mammal research, organized by the United States Marine Mammal Commission, in collaboration with the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, which was held in Portland, Oregon, in August 2003. Later that year, he delivered the invited closing lecture to the World Wolf Congress 2003, held in Banff, Alberta. In 2004, he presented invited lectures at the Annual Meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Seattle (on the role of science in the formulation of public policy), and at the annual meeting of the National Agricultural Biotechnology Council (NABC) in Guelph (on reducing the agricultural eco-footprint). On behalf of IFAW, he organized an international forum entitled “Wildlife Conservation: In Pursuit of Ecological Sustainability” at the University of Limerick, Ireland, in June 2004. He also edited the book arising from that conference: Gaining Ground: In Pursuit of Ecological Sustainability (IFAW and the University of Limerick, 2006).

William Lynn :: May.03.2008 :: Animal Studies, Environmental Studies, Ethics, Wildlife :: Comments Off

A 30-year-old dolphin died on Saturday at Sea World’s Discovery Cove after colliding with another dolphin while performing aerial tricks.With visitors watching, two dolphins apparently slammed into one another in mid-air and one of them, Sharky, was killed in the process. SeaWorld spokespeople called it an “unfortunate, random incident.”

Random? Baffling, maybe. I have never heard of dolphins colliding with one another under any circumstances-much less mid-air. To say such a thing is “random” is to imply that it could happen anytime; that it is part of some probability distribution-one of many events in which all outcomes are equally likely. But Sharky was in the process of performing a presumably human-crafted aerial maneuver in a concrete pool for the pleasure of human onlookers.I suppose under these circumstances crashing into your acrobatic colleague isn’t something to be too shocked about, but I can’t help but think about the tremendous athleticism, awareness, grace, intelligence, and agility of free-ranging dolphins in the open sea.I just can’t imagine something like this ever happening there.

Unfortunate? Are they kidding? Unfortunate is locking your keys in your car. Unfortunate is mistakenly hitting the send button before you actually finished typing that email. Or perhaps I’m being to loose with the word. Unfortunate is waking up with a big pimple on your wedding day. Anyway, you get my point. The violent death of a sentient, sapient creature who was kept by humans, for the pleasure of humans, and perished whiled performing tricks for those who were charged with providing his care and safety is nothing less than a tragedy.

Maybe I’m writing this too soon. Like an email dashed off in the heat of disgust, perhaps I’m pushing the send button too soon on this. But I got the news and thought it important that I share it. If I’m not as articulate as I might have been after a cooling off period, that is unfortunate. But Sharky’s death is so much more than that.

Am I making too much of words? I don’t think so. Words are powerful things. "Random and unfortunate" is what you call a paper cut or a big zit. It happens. It’s too bad. It is not this. In my view, SeaWorld screams a callouse disrespect for Sharky, the other animals under its care, and all dolphins with its words as well as its behavior.

Sharky’s death was, at the least, baffling and tragic.

For the CNN story, go to http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/04/28/dolphin.death/index.html

Kris Stewart :: Apr.28.2008 :: Animal Studies, Ethics :: 4 Comments »

Coyotes have become a convenient scapegoat for Maine’s “deer problem.” After all, it’s much easier to point the finger at the big, bad coyote than question current forest management practices that adversely affect the size of the deer herd. Wholesale removal of forest cover by corporate landowners such as Plum Creek, combined with naturally occurring heavy snowstorms, leaves thousands of deer without food and shelter.

Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife biologists report that many deer have died of starvation. As scavengers, coyotes clean up the remains of road- and winter-killed deer, offering a natural ecological service that keeps the roadsides and woods clean. Unfortunately, coyotes’ efficient, natural-born behavior gives extremists a chance to characterize coyotes as bloodthirsty deer killers.

Bob Grandchamp, in his Op-Ed “Deer herds the victim of a foreign predator” (BDN, April 9), suggests that the state enact a coyote bounty to “clean out this killer … hellbent on exterminating and consuming our native population of deer.” Mr. Grandchamp’s emotional, human-centered view of wild animals and their relationship to each other and the natural environment is shortsighted and unscientific. Even the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Wildlife Services, the primary coyote-killing agency, admits that coyote bounties don’t work and are counterproductive.

DIF&W doesn’t offer a bounty but does allow coyotes to be shot, trapped, baited, and hounded year-round in unlimited numbers. Now the DIF&W-sponsored Deer Task Force is advocating for denning, the killing of coyote pups in their dens, and neck snaring, a method that DIF&W acknowledges is inherently indiscriminate that can cause extreme pain and suffering. Not only are such practices ethically repugnant, they don’t work.

Under heavy pressure, coyotes will mate at an earlier age and have larger litters of healthier pups, who will be more likely to survive to breeding age. Beating down the coyote population over the long term would require killing 75 percent of the population every year. Two centuries of persistent persecution has done little to reduce coyote populations or conflicts and has likely selected for a more successful, opportunistic, resilient and adaptable species that some scientists refer to as the supercoyote.

As a top carnivore, coyotes play an undeniably vital role in their ecological communities. They competitively exclude or directly kill foxes, raccoons, skunks and feral cats — smaller predators that affect the number and diversity of ground-nesting birds. They also serve humans by eating rodents in huge numbers and even help keep Canada goose populations down in urban landscapes. Unlike humans, coyotes cull the sick, diseased and weak, thus strengthening the prey gene pool. Human hunters, on the other hand, desire the largest buck with the biggest rack, removing, if at all possible, the strongest and most robust individuals from the gene pool.

Killing coyotes in large numbers can set off ecological chain reactions with profound implications. Yet, even while research continues to highlight the important and complex role coyotes and other top carnivores play in maintaining ecological health and species diversity, many state agencies and extremist sportsmen’s groups continue to promote a view of predators that is stuck in the big-bad-wolf era. In fact, coyotes immigrated into Maine as a direct result of the same anti-predator hysteria — coyotes have successfully filled the niche left open when the wolf was systematically eliminated.

Animals living in the wild operate under their own set of rules governed by the cycles of weather and food availability. Populations fluctuate; predators eat their prey. Unlike deer that, unless culled by predators, generally breed until they exhaust resources and starve, coyotes control their own numbers.

Wild animals shouldn’t be cared for or protected during bad weather or short food years, like cattle and sheep. Imposing human values and emotions on wild animals leads to irrational and misdirected policies. Coyotes are not bad, and deer are not good. They are what they are, and they play important roles in each others’ lives.

We must move beyond the mind-set that views coyotes as evil or unnatural, as Mr. Grandchamp proposes, and recognize that they have much to offer us, not only by keeping ecosystems healthy, but by providing inspiring examples of ingenuity and adaptability in an ever-changing world.

Camilla H. Fox grew up in Maine, holds a master’s degree in wildlife ecology, policy and conservation, and is the co-author of “Coyotes in Our Midst: Learning to Live with an Adaptable & Resilient Carnivore.”

Thursday, April 17, 2008 – Bangor Daily News, http://bangornews.com.

William Lynn :: Apr.19.2008 :: Animal Studies, Coyotes, Environmental Studies, Ethics, Wildlife :: Comments Off

This April 4th is the 40th anniversary of the assassination of Martin Luther King. I was just 12 when it happened, but I remember vividly the heartbreaking day when King was shot down in Memphis while supporting striking garbage workers standing up for their right to form a union.

I’m sure many TV news programs will mention the anniversary of King’s death on the 4th, and some will even play a short sound bite from King’s famous 1963 “I Have A Dream” speech. A few stations might even play a clip from the last night of his life, when King gave his speech about going up to the mountain top and seeing the Promised Land of an America finally and firmly dedicated to peace, economic justice, racial equality, and a real grassroots democracy.

Personally, I’m grateful for any attention paid to King and the meaning of his activism for us today. One of my favorite stories of people honoring King is from about twenty years ago. Back in the 1980s, a local coalition of churches, civic groups, and small business leaders organized a community organizing campaign in Seattle to get the city council to rename a street after King. At the time, the street they chose to rename, which was called the Empire Way, ran right through one of the city’s predominantly black neighborhoods.

After a few months of grassroots lobbying, they won their campaign and got the city council to agree to the name change. After the council’s vote, the organizers invited community members to a large Baptist church for a victory celebration. That night Vincent Harding, a long-time associate of King’s, spoke to the gathered community. He urged everyone there to fully embrace the deeper symbolism of what they had just accomplished. As he said to them, “You have now changed the road you travel from the Empire Way to Martin’s way.”

Isn’t that exactly the challenge we still face today—changing the road we travel from the Empire Way to Martin’s Way? As more and more people are coming to realize, we need to get active again in what King called “the long and bitter—but beautiful struggle” to move away from an empire of lies, militarism, illegal wars of aggression, torture, uncontrolled corporate greed, growing inequality, and the trampling of the Bill of Rights. We need to get active in the effort to create the “Beloved Community” that King so often invoked as his deepest, long-range vision.

There are many signs that this shift is beginning to happen. One important indicator of renewed movement is the innovative new coalition of religious, labor, environmental, student, and civil rights groups called Green For All. The coalition is hosting a national conference called “The Dream Reborn” in Memphis on the weekend of April 4-6. The conference is a very direct example of expanding King’s vision of the Beloved Community to include the interests of “We the People” and the planet. As Green For All’s conference invitation says:

It’s official: in Memphis from April 4-6, Green For All is bringing together the practitioners, activists, and communities at the center of the emerging green-collar economy. Join us on the 40th Anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s assassination. This historic event will celebrate his extraordinary life and present positive solutions from today’s generation of visionary leaders. A bullet killed the dreamer, but not the dream. Together, we will create ecological solutions to heal the earth while bringing jobs, justice, wealth and health to all our communities.

Green For All’s mission statement goes on to say:

Green For All has a simple but ambitious mission: to help build a green economy strong enough to lift people out of poverty. By advocating for a national commitment to job training, employment and entrepreneurial opportunities in the emerging green economy–especially for people from disadvantaged communities–we fight both poverty and pollution at the same time. We are committed to securing one billion dollars by 2012 to create “green pathways out of poverty” for people in the United States, by greatly expanding federal government and private sector commitments to “green-collar” jobs.

Now, isn’t that a great way to honor King’s memory? I would go to Memphis, but I’m hosting an activist training session that weekend on Diversity and Coalition-Building right here in Keene, New Hampshire. We can’t all go to big national conferences, but we can all contribute to the movement for a Beloved Community wherever we live.

Steve Chase is the Director of Antioch University New England’s Environmental Advocacy and Organizing Program and is the editor of the EAOP’s “Well-Trained Activist” blog.

Steve Chase :: Apr.07.2008 :: Environmental Studies, Ethics, Justice, Politics, Religion :: Comments Off

In 2006/07 the New Zealand Centre for Human-Animal Studies administered a nationwide survey exploring the perspectives and experiences of cruelty-free consumers. New Zealand is a small country (human population just over 4 million), whose economy since European settlement around 200 years ago, has been heavily reliant on agriculture (and therefore nonhuman animal exploitation). There is a popular saying in New Zealand – it was around when I was a child and is still going strong – that “farming is the backbone of our nation”. It is also considered ‘unpatriotic’ to refuse meat or other animal products in New Zealand: you are not a ‘true kiwi’ if you don’t support the animal farming, meat, dairy and wool industries here. As a vegan kiwi, however, I have been particularly interested in the ways in which subcultural (or non mainstream) identity in New Zealand is linked to ethical consumption and the refusal to eat meat.

While the survey on ethical consumption in New Zealand attracted a few omnivores – who were mainly concerned about intensive farming practices in NZ and/or the use of animals in experimentation here (and it is perhaps not surprising to note that animal experimentation in NZ is linked predominantly to agricultural research) – the majority of respondents were vegetarian or vegan. To download and read the full 108 page report on this study, please refer to the website for the NZ Centre for Human-Animal Studies (http://www.nzchas.canterbury.ac.nz/news.shtml).

One aspect of this study generated huge media interest, both nationally and internationally around August 2007. This related to the preference of a small number of vegetarian and vegan women to be sexually intimate – or in primary relationships – only with other vegetarians and vegans. This preference, which I term ‘vegansexuality’, pertained to those who refused on ethical grounds to have intimate relations with non-vegetarians. I did not propose vegansexuality as an innate form of sexuality or desire; instead vegansexuality may be understood as a disposition (or inclination, or preference) towards those who also practice a cruelty-free lifestyle. Importantly, it is an embodied ethical form of sexuality.

The connection between food and sex is not a new phenomenon. I would argue that a spectrum exists in relation to cruelty-free consumption and sexual relationships: at one end of the spectrum, vegansexuality entails an increased likelihood of sexual attraction towards those who do not consume animals or animal products. At the other end, it manifests as a strong sexual aversion to the bodies of those who consume animals and animal products; for these people, avoidance of sexual intimacy with omnivorous bodies is manifesting at a much more visceral level.

As a vegan, it makes sense to me that some vegans might experience sexuality on a fundamentally ethical level. A person who is dedicated to cruelty-free living may well extend this ethical commitment beyond consumption of food into other aspects of their life, and especially into such an important arena as intimate relationships. It is not surprising, or extreme (as has been suggested), when considered according to such rationale. What astounded me more was the way in which mainstream and some alternative media across the world picked up on the identification of this phenomenon; and also the ferociousness of the public backlash against those vegans who stated they preferred intimate relationships with non-meat eaters (this backlash was prompted by the extensive media coverage). Overnight there were hundreds of responses posted on blogs and elsewhere, the majority of these postings were immensely negative and/or derogatory towards ‘vegansexuals’.

While there may be several reasons for such an immediate and outraged reaction from meat-eaters discovering they are off the sexual/pleasure menu for strict vegetarians (and I am currently analyzing hundreds of these disparaging responses to see what factors motivated such a reaction), it is the vehement opposition voiced by some vegans that interests me most. For example, PETA was soon brought into the picture, and asked to comment on vegans who preferred sexual relationships with non-meat eaters. A prominent PETA spokesperson declared that vegans who chose other vegans for partners were unhelpful because sex was an important strategy in the conversion of meat-eaters to veganism!

I wonder if one of the reasons some vegans were challenged by vegansexuality is that they were concerned this would become a new kind of sexual imperative: in order to be ‘truly’ vegan it would be necessary to expand their commitment to cruelty-free living to the bedroom. This kind of dilemma ultimately rests with oneself, however. As someone who is personally critical of sexual and other ‘imperatives’, it was not my intention in proposing the existence of this ethical form of sexuality that it should be viewed as, or become, a new demand on vegans; nor that all vegans should feel this way or be ultimately moving towards vegansexuality, or that vegans who are in relationships with omnivores are somehow not vegan enough! Highlighting the existence of ethical intimacy of this nature was more about allowing those participants in the New Zealand study who felt strongly about their own relationships to express their preferences for practicing cruelty-free sex as well as cruelty-free consumption. In my opinion, those who were frank and courageous in voicing their unconventional approaches to intimate relationships certainly did not deserve the malice this provoked from omnivores or other vegans.

Annie Potts :: Mar.09.2008 :: Animal Studies, Ethics :: Comments Off

Ecofeminist scholar Val Plumwood passed away last week. Her major theoretical works that influenced me include Feminism and the Mastery of Nature (1993) and Environmental Culture: the Ecological Crisis of Reason (2002). They think she died from a snakebite. This, after having survived a crocodile wrenching her from a tree and pulling her into a death roll in 1985. I can’t help be angry with the snake that took this brilliant mind from us-imagining the cold-blooded creature lashing out against Dr. Plumwood in some expression of biblical conniving and wickedness. What did the reptiles have against her? But I wouldn’t dare admit these musings, else I be the one committing the sin-anthropomorphism.

For many scientists, anthropomorphism is one of the scientific mortal sins. It should be avoided at all costs, as it reflects a failure to attain adequate standards of holy objectivity. For a few of us scholars of human-animal interactions though, anthropomorphism is valid, ethical, and an interpretive filter that can be productively engaging.

I can hear them now: “Heresy!” They proclaim that ascribing human traits to animals is nothing more than a mode of narration that causes misconceptions in science and literature, reducing humanity to animality and rationality to instinct, or worse–elevating brutes to human status!

Of course I’m kidding about the scheming reptiles plotting the demise of Val Plumwood. But let’s take a moment and consider this thing that scientists reject so completely. Just exactly what is meant by anthropomorphism, anyway? Val Plumwood suggested that there are various senses of anthropomorphism, both general and specific cases. In one definition, it means attributing to nonhumans characteristics that humans have; in another definition it means attributing to nonhumans characteristics that only humans have. A broader definition claims anthropomorphism anytime animals are represented in intentional or communicative terms. If we go with that sort of catch-all definition of anthropomorphism, what Plumwood called “weak anthropomorphism,” it makes it very hard (if not impossible) for any representations of nonhumans to avoid being labeled anthropomorphic.

The weak anthropomorphism argument contends that, because we are human, we must filter all of our observations of nonhuman behavior through our thoroughly human conceptual apparatus; because any interpretation of a nonhuman animal-indeed, all interpretations-will necessarily be shrouded in human concepts, resulting in some measure of anthropomorphism. Given that definition of anthropomorphism, it is clear that when we consider animal experiences, we just can’t avoid it. What is less obvious to me is how this is necessarily harmful or invalidating (or that there are no practices to ameliorate or counter any negative consequence).

Like Plumwood, I think there is no good (or logical) reason why we should not speak of the nonhuman sphere in intentional and “mentalistic” terms. We do it constantly in everyday parlance, and would hardly be able to avoid it. But is it irrational, hopelessly romantic, and unscientific to talk of anything nonhuman in this way-as having agency, communication, sapience, emotions, and so on? Or could it be that the scientific resistance to all anthropomorphism is simply an exercise of hegemonic discourse intent on retaining the order of society it established in the first place? Val Plumwood saw it this way: "A time-tested strategy for projects of mastery is the normalization and enforcement of impoverishing, pacifying and deadening vocabularies for what is to be reduced and ruthlessly consumed. This seems to be the main contemporary function of the concept of anthropomorphism, especially to the extent that it aims to delegitimate intentional description of non-human others." (from Environmental Culture: the Ecological Crisis of Reason, p. 56).

So, should we all embrace anthropomorphism willy-nilly in our explorations of human-animal interactions? No, of course not. Plumwood didn’t think so either. For her, the question wasn’t whether or not some degree of humanization of perspective is present (she thought it always will be at the background level); what’s important is how damaging that perspective is, what its meaning is, and what practices could be used to counter the damage if necessary.

Indeed, the potential issues when considering animals are actually no different (in form) from the case of representing human cultural difference. There are many well-known traps and difficulties in such representations. There can likewise be problems in representing another species’ communicative powers or subjectivities, but that doesn’t mean such representation is impossible. To be sure, careful attention should be paid to the content and context of any social or scientific inquiry.

Anthropomorphism can also be misplaced (and even become harmful) when it leads to a complete obliteration to difference between humans and animals. Denial of difference is a key part of the structures of subordination and colonization to which animals are subject. In these cases, an indictment of anthropomorphism may legitimately draw our attention to a loss of sensitivity to and respect for animal difference. For example, when out of control, idiotic co-workers are represented in print and television advertisements as chimpanzees dressed in human business attire (as in the TV and print ads for careerbuilder.com), they are ridiculed as degenerate forms of humans while, at the same time, the animals’ own differences and excellences are denied or neglected. This form of anthropomorphism deserves a loud “Boo!"

All of that said, we must be careful not to collapse human into animal or vise versa. In my view, the human-animal divide must be diminished, but the recognition of an animal continuum is equally important to maintain respect for animality, else we revert back to yet another form of anthropocentrism. But that, my friends, is a topic for another day.

Read the story of Val Plumwood’s encounter with the crocrodile: http://www.aislingmagazine.com/aislingmagazine/articles/TAM30/ValPlumwood.html

Postscript (3/6/2008) Not a snakebite afterall? http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,23332288-2,00.html

Kris Stewart :: Mar.05.2008 :: Animal Studies, Ethics :: Comments Off

When we talk about the recovery of wolves, what do we really mean? By reading the literature and listening to people talk, I hear several distinct meanings. You may have heard others as well.

To my ear, the first meaning has to do with conservation, by which is meant the government regulating whether and how people hunt, trap and kill wolves. The background idea here is that wolves are an agricultural crop to be culled, or a pest to be exterminated. Natural recolonization is the second meaning. Here wolves recolonize an area of their former range by way of out-migration from the places they already inhabit. The idea here is that by successfully establishing themselves in new habitats, wolves demonstrate their fitness to inhabit those landscapes, and side-step political controversies over human intervention. Finally, there is restoration, a process where humans intervene to help a population of wolves take root and grow. This usually involves captive breeding, capture and release. In restoration the idea is to help wolves over geographic hurdles so they can return to an area that they would recolonize if human development were not in the way.

Opponents of wolves often talk in public of their commitment to wolf recovery, by which they really mean ‘conserving’ the least number of wolves in the smallest possible area for the shortest period of time. Proponents of wolf recovery tend to focus on the recolonization or restoration of wolves in areas outside their current haunts. Even so, both opponents and proponents often agree to restrict wolves within the borders of predefined recovery zones. These are not natural borders based on ecological criteria, but barriers to recovery imposed by partisan politics.

You can distinguish the various meanings of recovery by listening for the unarticulated moral sensibilities behind what advocates, scientists, bureaucrats and politicians are saying. If their sensibilities are hostile to wolves, then whatever the rhetoric, you can bet their idea of recovery has less to do with expanding the range of wolves, than it does with getting these canids within the range of a gun. If their ideas are benign, they often favour one kind of recovery over another depending on two factors – the prospects for recolonization and the degree of political opposition to wolves.

For instance, there are many places in North America where wolves would thrive. Geographic barriers and human depredation, however, prevent wolves from recolonizing on their own. Examples include the northern forests of New York and New England, and the Grand Canyon ecoregion in the southwest. Advocates, ethicists and scientists have proposed restoring wolves in these places. A vocal minority of residents, special interests and government officials have stymied such efforts.

Some of this opposition is rooted in a direct antipathy to wolves. The local bumper sticker ‘ Wolves – Government-Sponsored Terrorists’ encapsulates this view rather nicely. Other elements of the opposition are evasive. Special interests and politicians often ‘support’ recolonization but not restoration. This allows them to have their cake and eat it too. They can speak as if they support recovery, but in practice they undermine it.

There is sometimes a strange moral argument made by the opposition as well. It runs something like this. Extinction for natural reasons has always occurred throughout history. Humanity is simply another force of local or complete extinction. If wolves cannot survive in human-dominated landscapes by adapting their way of life to ours, then extinction is the natural result. We are under no moral obligation to help wolves, and further, it might even be immoral to help an evolutionarily ‘unfit’ species continue to survive.

This argument has two basic flaws. It assumes that humans are a ‘natural’ force of extinction, and fails to distinguish natural from anthropogenic sources of environmental change. Second, it justifies a moral claim with an uncritical appeal to humanity as a natural force of extinction. It is not an argument that holds water in the sense of corresponding to the facts, or making a reasoned claim. In this sense, it is really a set of ad hoc justifications for refusing to share the landscape with wolves.

Were we all to agree that recovery is a good idea in general, there are still a host of other questions to answer. Should we have wolves in our area? If so, where? Do wolves belong only in the most remote corners of a wilderness, or over that hill about half an hour’s walk from here? Should wolves be kept away from people, pets and farm animals? Or should we adapt to the presence of wolves in our everyday lives? How might the predation of wolves alter the landscape or impact local economies? Who will resolve the run of the mill conflicts between humans and wolves?

To answer these and other practical questions, we must address the ethical reasons, ecological impact and social aspects of wolf recovery. Others have discussed the ecological and social dimensions at some length. What they have to say generally boils down to a discussion of habitat suitability and human tolerance.

I want to address the ethical reasons by sharing five ideas to help guide our thinking. You can use these ideas to ferret out the moral assumptions behind the rhetoric of wolf recovery. You can also use them to evaluate whether current or proposed policies or management practices are justified. As you come across ethically problematic issues in wolf recovery, please do share them with us. If you have a question or concern, you can bet that someone else has something similar as well. And when we share these experience and thoughts, we deepen our collective understanding.

1. Ethics can help us heal our troubled world and our troubles with wolves.
Make no mistake about it, ours is a troubled world. A partial list of our troubles includes war, poverty, injustice, the neglect of children, and the abuse of animals. Globalization makes these problems increasingly complex. Terrorism – especially the prospect of bioterrorism – adds yet another illness to burden our social and environmental health. What some have called the ‘war against wolves’ is one symptom of this troubled world. What are we to do about all this?

One answer is to look to our deepest moral values, which is to say, the ethics that guide our individual and collective lives. In the words of Socrates, ethics envisions ‘how we ought to live’. Put into practice, ethics outlines moral principles to guide our thought and action. When used properly, ethics can help improve the well-being of ourselves and others – human and non-human. By clarifying what our world ought to be like, ethics helps us make better personal and social decisions, distinguish better from worse interpretations and actions, and reveal the values that are at stake — or should be at stake — in debates over nature and society, animals and people, wolves and humanity.

Using ethics to help us make better policy choices is at the heart of wolf recovery. The political hackles that talk of wolf recovery can raise are symptoms of a moral conflict over whether or not to coexist with large predators. And this is related to our coexistence with the natural world, and whether we see ourselves apart from or part of a wider fellowship of life.

This moral conflict is akin to humanity’s struggle for human rights and justice. Our societies have and continue to struggle with questions of race, class, gender and ethnicity in the political and social spheres. While we have made much progress, there remains much to be done. Yet the basic idea that there are morally right and wrong ways in which to treat people and their communities is beyond dispute. So too, we are struggling with questions of species, and what moral responsibilities we owe the non-human world.

The natural and social sciences cannot answer these questions for us, for moral conflicts cannot be understood or solved by gathering empirical data, or developing a better quantitative model, or practicing an innovative management technique. To solve our moral conflicts we need to face them for what they are – differences over ethical values and worldviews. Only then can we reveal the values at stake, and sort out better from worse ideas about wolf recovery.

2. Wolves have moral value.
When people say wolves have moral value, what does this mean? Generally it means that wolves have intrinsic value in and of themselves, and should have moral standing in our community. This does not mean that wolves are human beings. Rather it emphasizes that both people and wolves are creatures worthy of care and respect. We can see how this thinking works by using an analogy between people and wolves.

Human beings are intelligent and social creatures – we think, we feel, we relate. We are aware of ourselves, of others and our environment. This kind of awareness is why we are termed Homo sapiens, literally the ‘wise earthly ones’. Because of our self-awareness, we have an individual worth independent of the use anyone has for us. Ethicists term this ‘intrinsic value’. Intrinsic value is the core reason why we should treat people with care and respect. It is also why love and friendship and democracy and justice are so important. They are ethical principles, dispositions and practices that help us ‘do right’ by individuals and communities. Because of our intrinsic value, humans are therefore part of a moral community.

Wolves are intelligent and social creatures too. Like us, they think, feel and relate. Not in exactly the same manner as we, but in a way appropriate to their kind. So like human beings, wolves have a well-being of their own to care about. Such ideas about the moral value of wolves are part of a larger sensibility that animals are not simply property. Wolves and other animals have their own intrinsic value, quite apart from the instrumental purposes that humans may have for them. This does not mean that we treat people and wolves in the same way. For instance, wolves have no political right to vote – nor should they: they are not the kinds of creatures who can do so. But what it does mean is that we ought to take the welfare of wolves into account whether in the outback or in our backyard. Wolves are thus part of the moral community along with human beings.

3. Wolf management is an ethical concern.
If wolves have moral value, then our choices in wolf management are moral decisions.

Biologists have noted time and again that the recovery of wolves is not so much an ecological as it is a social issue. We have only to keep the human killers of wolves at bay, and wolves will thrive wherever there is sufficient prey and habitat. This is an insightful point. It becomes more powerful when we recall how ethical norms condition our willingness to live with wolves.

The vilification of wolves in Europe and North America are cases in point. Historically, anti-wolf sentiment took on the form of a moral argument against wolves. Wolves were considered villains, varmints and vermin. They were criminals preying on innocent victims like deer, cattle and sheep. They were the spawn of Satan – even Satan himself – despoiling the landscape. Today they are compared to terrorists threatening human communities. As a consequence of this reasoning, our societies killed wolves with a vengeance.

Over the last century, this caricature of wolves has been debunked. Ethicists have argued for the moral value of wolves. Scientists have demonstrated the importance of predation in the natural world. Environmentalists have mobilized broad public support for the conservation of biodiversity. These and other groups have upended the moral arguments against wolves.

In so doing, these groups have also cleared the way for a reevaluation of wolves. We are beginning to ask ethical questions that go beyond biological suitability or social carrying capacity. We are asking how we ‘ought’ to live with wolves, and what our responsibilities are to wolves themselves. Please do not miss the significance of this. The ethics of wolf recovery has been ignored in public deliberation for decades. This has impoverished our policy options regarding wolf recovery. Attending to the ethical questions promises a better approach to wolf recovery in Europe, North America and elsewhere.

4. A sound science requires a sound ethics.
In my travels and public speaking, I have said this time and again, but it bears repeating. A sound science requires a sound ethics.

When discussing predator management, we are likely to hear praises of ‘sound science’. Sound science is supposed to be the evidence-based, theory-rich baseline for managing wolves. Yet as previously noted, humanity’s trouble with wolves is really a moral conflict.

Science can provide us important information about our ethical and social choices, but it cannot make those choices for us. So what we need is a sound ethics to complement the science of wolf recovery, and guide our policy choices. What would this ethic look like? To my mind, it must meet three criteria.
o A sound ethics must recognize the moral value of wolves.
o A sound ethics must highlight the moral significance of wildlife advocacy, management and science.
o A sound ethics must emphasize the practical value of ethics in the recovery of wolves.

Human action has always had a real and frequently tragic impact on the well-being wolves. Whether intentional or not, wolf management is always laden with ethical motivations and consequences. Paying attention to the criteria above will help us identify the moral assumptions at work in diverse visions and practices of wolf recovery.

My sense is that wildlife professionals are beginning to appreciate the moral dimensions of their work. I have talked with hundreds of students, advocates, scientists, government officials and the like about the ethics of wolf recovery. Most of them care deeply about the well-being of people, animals and the places they inhabit. It is this caring that forms the foundation for their moral sensibilities, and their longing to bring ethical criteria into their work.

What I find tragic is how graduate education and professional training often beat these sensibilities into a submission to some illusory ‘value-free’ science. Equally heartbreaking is that many individuals are forbidden to express these moral sensibilities by the agencies, corporations or non-profits for which they work. I hope it is obvious by now that this silence must be broken.

5. The recovery of wolves will help restore our relationship to nature.
Wolf recovery is important to the well-being of wolves. Arguably that is moral reason enough for our participation in robust recovery efforts. But it may also be important to us as a step in restoring our broken relationship with nature.

Just as our world is deeply troubled, our relationship to nature is broken. The scale of human-induced environmental problems is too massive to deny, e.g. global warming, deforestation, desertification, extinction, invasive species, over-population, over-consumption and pollution. Yet there is still time to acknowledge our responsibilities, space to restore the natural world, and a place for a nature-friendly culture. Wolves can help us in this regard.

Humanity has a special history and relationship with wolves. Despite the differences, Canis lupus and Homo sapiens readily communicate, so much so, that wolves were the first large mammal to coevolve with humans. Some prehistoric peoples modeled their societies after wolf packs, and some wolves were domesticated to become the dogs of today. Indeed, wolves and dogs have been so important to the development of human culture that some scholars joke about reclassifying humanity as Homo lupus! This relationship is amongst the best places to redefine our place in the natural world.

The recovery of wolves across the world would be a major step forward. In the first place, it would require that we cultivate a respect for the intrinsic value and well-being of wolves and their habitats. This will have obvious benefits for other animals and natural communities. In the second place, it would promote the ecological health of the landscape. Wolves are top carnivores that help maintain biodiversity and ecological function with respect to everything from forest ground cover, to the incidence of song birds, to the control of deer populations, to the spread of Lyme’s disease. In the third place, a broad recovery of wolves would be evidence of our moral health. If our societies can learn to live alongside wolves, we are one step closer to living in sympathy and sustainably with the rest of the natural world.

Conclusion
I have no doubt we will face hard choices about wolf recovery. While human interests should not trump the welfare of wolves, the needs of wolves do not automatically override the well-being of people. Remember that both people and wolves have moral value. There must be a dynamic synthesis of the two. This synthesis is best reached through win-win solutions that protect ethical, ecological and social values. Sometimes, however, we are faced with situations on the ground that require choosing the well-being of one over the other. These are the hard cases of ethics and policy. We should not deny they exist, nor should we overstate their importance.

If we want free-roaming wolves to survive this millennium, we will have to make better policy choices about ‘how we ought to live’ with predators and other wild animals. We will have to accept our moral responsibilities to a mixed community that includes both humanity and wolves. And if we proactively act with ethical concern for the wolves that can recolonize or be restored across the landscapes of this planet, we may even cultivate a culture that honours and celebrates people, animals and the rest of nature.

Cheers, Bill

~

Bill Lynn is the founder and Senior Ethics Advisor of Practical Ethics (http://www.practicalethics.net/), and a professor at the Center for Animals and Public Policy at Tufts University (www.tufts.edu/vet/cfa).

Image: Tracy Brooks, 2003, Reflection.

William Lynn :: Mar.02.2008 :: Animal Studies, Environmental Studies, Ethics, Wolves :: Comments Off

I have updated the Practical Ethics Gallery with fresh images from the work of Rob Hite. Here is an extract from the gallery text. Please stop in and see his wonderful work by clicking here.

cheers, Bill

~~~

Rob’s early work routinely depicts people and animals through painting. The people are physically invisible in our field of view but are nonetheless manifest through their constructions. And the constructions are almost always juxtaposed and integrated into a landscape of animals and wildish nature. In my previous introduction to Rob’s gallery, I described this as a theme of ‘dwelling in mixed communities’. For Rob, dwelling is about people and animals living in natural and cultural landscapes. His art prefigures a vibrant vision of a mixed community of beings who are human and non-human, wild and domestic.

I think much of his latter work manifests this same vision, if in a different way. Take for example the sculpture and photography project, ‘Imagined Histories’. Here Rob creates sculptures of dwellings with a mythical sensibility, installs them in the landscape of the Hudson River Valley, and photographs the result. Displays of both the sculptures and photos are then shown in galleries around the Northeast. It is a beautiful body of art, some of which is shown here.

These sculptures and photographs are not adequately interpreted in terms of landscape art or sustainability alone. Rather Rob visually resituates human endeavours as part of a more than human world. He depicts humans as the animals we are, embedded in all we do in the natural world, dwelling amongst and with other creatures. He implies this through the scale of the sculptures, and the wildish looking locales in which they are photographed. His whimsical, mythological forms allow us to step back from current architecture and landscape development. To remember bedtime stories and ethnographic traditions of animal-friendly cultures, real or imagined. To envision other possibilities for living on earth.

Rob scales us down to size, visually, aesthetically and morally. He envisions a more humble humanity. And in so doing, he reveals an aesthetic and ethical landscape where we might live in a truly mixed community of people, animals and nature.

Image: Robert Hite. Bird Trap. 2006. Wood construction.

William Lynn :: Feb.03.2008 :: Animal Studies, Art, Environmental Studies, Ethics :: Comments Off

Dear Friends and Colleagues,

I wanted to let you know about a wonderful new film that “explores the complexity, conflicts, and richness of the fertile interface between urban life and wild nature” with a focus on coyotes. While the film focuses on coyotes re-colonizing San Francisco and “how we can coexist safely with this resilient top carnivore,” it also addresses national coyote ecology issues and includes interviews with a number of coyote experts including Dr. Stanley Gehrt, lead researcher behind a long-term coyote study in the Chicago metropolitan region. The film also covers general urban ecology issues and an innovative non-lethal livestock and predator protection program developed in Marin County, California.

For more information about the film or to purchase DVDs, contact the film’s director, Melissa Peabody, at 415.533.0349, or mpeabody@pacbell.net.

Camilla

Camilla Fox :: Jan.13.2008 :: Animal Studies, Coyotes, Environmental Studies, Ethics, Wildlife :: Comments Off

On 09 December the “Ideas” programme on New Zealand’s National Radio prodcast a programme focussed on Animal Welfare, including interviews with NZCHAS (New Zealand Centre for Human-Animal Studies) International Associate Jonathan Balcombe and NZCHAS co-directors Annie Potts and Philip Armstrong. You can download the podcast at http://www.radionz.co.nz/podcasts/ideas.rss.

Annie Potts and Philip Armstrong are the newest members of the Practical Ethics family, and will soon be joining the Practical Ethics Blog. I will post their biographies shortly. In the meantime, enjoying the program as summarized below. Thank you Annie and Philip for this summary.

Cheers, Bill

_______________________________

9 December 2007 – Get Out of It, Trevor!

A Radio New Zealand National programme about Human-Animal Relations.

Inarguably, New Zealand’s identity and economy owes much to our agricultural background. As the saying goes, this country’s prosperity was built “off the sheep’s back”. And of late, New Zealand has acquired a reputation as a country that works hard to save its endangered animal species, and supports moves to protect similarly endangered animals overseas. But as our environmental awareness has changed over time, is it correct to assume that our treatment of our less exotic animals has changed as well? Agriculture, which continues to be hugely important in our economy and culture, also accounts for the majority of all animal testing in New Zealand. And while we are enthusiastic pet-owners, our record of cruelty towards them is the equal of anywhere in the Western World.

This contradiction in our attitudes has been charted in a recent study conducted by the New Zealand Centre for Human-Animal Studies at Canterbury University. The study records the emergence of a group of people who identify themselves as cruelty-free consumers. They reject the picture of intensive farming, meat-eating and wearing animal products, and what they consider to be the false image of New Zealand as a “clean, green” paradise, and significantly, they are spending their money elsewhere.

Is this growing sense of disquiet highlighting a division in this country between traditional values and an emerging culture of animal ethicists? Could our treatment of animals have wider implications for the nature of our society? Why have some of us stopped riding on the sheep’s back?

Part One:

Producer Justin Gregory meets Hugo and Hades, two reluctant stars of the SPCA’s <http://www.spca.org.nz/general/home.htm> annual List of Shame.

Part Two:

Animal Behaviour Researcher Jonathan Balcombe <http:// www.pleasurablekingdom.com/> says our attitudes toward animals formed a long time ago.

Part Three:

Cruelty-free consumption is an emerging cultural force in New Zealand, according to Annie Potts and Philip Armstrong from the New Zealand Centre for Human-Animal Studies <http:// www.nzchas.canterbury.ac.nz/> .

Part Four:

Psychologist Rob Hughes is the winner of the 2007 Three R’s Award for Humane Animal Research http://www.rsnz.org/news/releases/scihonours2007.php .

Part Five:

Peter O’Hara is the chairman of the National Animal Welfare Committee http://www.biosecurity.govt.nz/animal-welfare/overview/advisory/nawac .

Produced by Justin Gregory.

William Lynn :: Jan.08.2008 :: Animal Studies, Environmental Studies, Ethics :: Comments Off

Here is a very interesting exchange about practical ethics and animal agriculture from the website, Eating Liberally. It features our contributing author Karin Lauria.

cheers, Bill

William Lynn :: Dec.27.2007 :: Animal Studies, Environmental Studies, Ethics :: Comments Off

Marc Bekoff has another book out!

Marc Bekoff, 2007, Animals Matter: A Biologist Explains Why We Should Treat Animals with Compassion and Respect, Shambhala Publications.

The book description from Amazon.com is below.

‘Animal behaviorist and biologist Bekoff follows his most recent in-depth work, The Emotional Life of Animals, with another well-written, more generalist argument for responsible behavior toward animals of all kinds. A revised and updated edition of his 2000 Strolling with Our Kin, an introduction for young readers to ethical issues relating to the use of animals, the writing still feels aimed at younger readers, but the new elements include an excellent review of current debates regarding animal sentience, animal relocation efforts and medical school dissection and vivisection.

….

Nonhuman animals have many of the same feelings we do. They get hurt, they suffer, they are happy, and they take care of each other. Marc Bekoff, a renowned biologist specializing in animal minds and emotions, guides readers from high school age up-including older adults who want a basic introduction to the topic-in looking at scientific research, philosophical ideas, and humane values that argue for the ethical and compassionate treatment of animals. Citing the latest scientific studies and tackling controversies with conviction, he zeroes in on the important questions, inviting reader participation with “thought experiments” and ideas for action. Among the questions considered: Are some species more valuable or more important than others? Do some animals feel pain and suffering and not others? Do animals feel emotions? Should endangered animals be reintroduced to places where they originally lived? Should animals be kept in captivity? Are there alternatives to using animals for food, clothing, cosmetic testing, and dissection in the science classroom? What can we learn by imagining what it feels like to be a dog or a cat or a mouse or an ant? What can we do to make a difference in animals’ quality of life? Bekoff urges us not only to understand and protect animals-especially those whose help we want for our research and other human needs-but to love and respect them as our fellow beings on this planet that we all want to share in peace’.

cheers, Bill

William Lynn :: Dec.03.2007 :: Animal Studies, Environmental Studies, Ethics :: Comments Off

Who’s Looking?

A collaborative, multi-disciplinary investigation of human relations to chimpanzees.

The exhibition is open to the public from 1200 to Saturday, November 3rd through Sunday, December 2nd, 2007

Ezra and Cecile Zilkha Gallery (South Gallery)
Center for the Arts
Wesleyan University
Middletown, CT 06459

Hours: Tuesday through Sunday, 12:00 to 4:00 pm.
Directions: www.wesleyan.edu/cfa/directions.html.

‘Chimpanzees, more than any other non-human animal, stir something deep and conflicted within us. This appears to be the case whether the encounter is live or whether it is mediated through representations. During the month of November 2007, Who’s Looking? will provide the Wesleyan community with opportunities to explore our complex relations to our next of kin through photographs, film, theater and words’

The exhibition includes photographs by Frank Noelker Chimp Portraits 2002-2006, and a photo installation by Lori Gruen A Family Portrait 1920-2007.

Panel Discussion: Friday, 03 November 2007, 1130-1330. .
‘Re/Presenting Animals’ with Kari Weil, Cynthia Freeland, Frank Noelker, Allison Argo
Usdan University Center, Room 108

Please visit the Who’s Looking website and have a look. See too the article on Who’s Looking, ‘Emotions Stirred at Multi-Disciplinary Investigation of Human Relations to Chimpanzees’, in the Wesleyan Connection. In addition, Lori Gruen and Frank Noelker have related websites at http://first100chimps.wesleyan.edu, and www.franknoelker.com.

cheers, Bill

William Lynn :: Nov.21.2007 :: Animal Studies, Art, Ethics :: Comments Off

Late last year I participated in a roundtable discussion on human-wildlife conflict. The panel included Jan Dizard, a prominent environmental sociologist from Amherst College. You can read the article based on this roundtable by downloading the pdf. The article itself was written by Lesley Limon and published in the Tufts Veterinary Medicine magazine.

Citation: Limon, Lesley (2006) How Close? How Personal?, Tufts Veterinary Medicine 7 (3), 12-16.

William Lynn :: Oct.14.2007 :: Animal Studies, Environmental Studies, Ethics :: Comments Off

In my Kill Bill post I extol the virtues of the open source software — Linux OS, Open Office, Firefox, Thunderbird, etc — and the movement that seeks to liberate users from the vagaries of the Windows environment, the frustrations of Microsoft products, and the greed of irresponsible global corporations. Governments, ngos and individuals across the world are using open source to leverage the power of the internet.

A new development in this respect is the $100 computer called the XO. It was developed by the One Laptop Per Child project. The computer combines innovative hardware and software technologies that make it suitable for distribution in technology under resourced areas of the world. These same technologies are textbook examples of how we might make computing more sustainable and community friendly.

Take a look. Whether or not this computer is right for you, its a great example of facilitating global learning and communication so as to create a better world.

You can read a review of the XO by David Pogue in the New York Times.

Cheers, Bill

William Lynn :: Oct.06.2007 :: Ethics, Politics :: 1 Comment »

It is a real pleasure to join the Practical Ethics blog, and to be part of a community delving into myriad human-animal relationships.

I would like to invite those of you familiar with geography to attend the 2008 AAG meeting in Boston, and to consider submitting a paper for our session on Animal Geographies. We will have sponsorship from the Ethics, Justice, and Human Rights specialty group and Practical Ethics. Please see the CFP below for guidelines and contact information.

For those unfamiliar with the growing research into animal geographies, I would like to take a moment to provide an overview of this developing disciplinary area. Geographers have always had as one of their main focal interests a curiosity about how humans interact with the natural world – what constitutes these interactions, how they vary across time and space, and how specific interactions are contested within societies. The interactions between humans and nonhumans are one huge piece of this puzzle, and over the past ten years geographers have produced a significant body of literature on animal geographies. Examining human-animal relationships in agriculture, the ‘wild’, captive and companion situations, researchers have questioned where and how boundaries between humans and animals have been defined (e.g., research laboratory), how specific places and cultures have shaped interactions (e.g., the connections between heritage livestock breeds and local identities/economies), and the relationship between ethics and animal subjectivities (e.g., what constitutes ethical practices towards nonhumans, how does that vary from place to place, how can the animal as subject be ‘heard’?). Two excellent places to start looking into what animal geography has to offer are: Animal Geographies edited by Jennifer Wolch and Jody Emel and Animal Spaces, Beastly Spaces edited by Chris Philo and Chris Wilbert. I would be happy to provide additional citations to anyone who is interested.

AAG 2008 Call for Papers on Animal Geographies: Current and Future Research Trajectories

As interest in human-animal studies continues to develop within geography, researchers are moving in a variety of novel directions. We are soliciting papers for a session (or sessions) on current research in animal geographies for the 2008 AAG meeting April 15-19 in Boston. Papers may be from any geographic perspective and may address topics such as (but not limited to) technologies, law and policy, ethics, historical geographies, social theory, agriculture, methodologies, animal subjectivities, and human-animal boundary making.

Constraints of the AAG meeting format: Please note that in order to participate in this AAG session, you will have to first register for the conference on the website to obtain a PIN number and then you will need to submit your abstract and PIN number to us and we will formally submit the session. The deadline for session submissions is October 31, 2007. To that end, we ask all interested participants to register and submit their materials to us by October 1st so that we have adequate time to prepare the submission.

Please submit your materials and/or questions to

Julie Urbanik, Ph.D., julie.urbanik@gmail.com, and
Kristin Stewart, Ph.D., kristinlstewart@yahoo.com.

William Lynn :: Sep.08.2007 :: Animal Studies, Environmental Studies, Ethics, Geography :: Comments Off

Like many people, I find dolphins fascinating. It’s not that I think they’re “better” or “more than” other animals. But I have devoted a fair amount of time to thinking about them (during my graduate work and otherwise). Because I do talk about them so much, I thought it would be nice to take a few minutes to talk more generally about dolphins. This is basic stuff, and by no means exhaustive (even if I could tell you all that the brightest human minds currently know about dolphins, my guess is that we’d still have a great deal to learn), but we might refer back to some of it in future conversations about our relationships with dolphins…

Dolphins are aquatic mammals, classified as belonging to the order called Cetacea, which is made up of whales, dolphins, and porpoises. Cetaceans are divided into odontocetes (toothed whales) and mysticetes (untoothed whales, mostly the great whales who use baleen to strain the water for tiny organisms to eat). Dolphins, orcas, porpoises, freshwater river dolphins, and sperm whales are all considered odontocetes, which is why dolphins are essentially thought of as small toothed whales. Evidence suggests that modern cetaceans originated from a land mammal that is thought to have returned to the sea some 50 to 60 million years ago. Many people are familiar with bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops truncatus), those most often on display at marine parks and aquariums and the species of dolphin that starred in the Flipper shows and movies. Still, there are more than 30 different species of dolphins worldwide. Like humans, dolphins are highly social and most live in groups ranging from a few members to thousands. They generally devote substantial time and energy to caring for their young and engaging in relationships, some of which have been documented to span decades.

Dolphins have a complex brain. The brain’s cortex is where information is received, organized, analyzed, and stored in mammals, and the surface area of the dolphin cortex is enormous in relation to the rest of the brain (and compared to human brains-the former averaging 3,700 centimeters squared, and the later 2,300 centimeters squared).Dolphin brains are also asymmetrical; asymmetry in humans is associated with such sophisticated mental abilities as language.The dolphin brain is actually similar to the human brain in complexity and convolutions, in brain to body weight ratio, and in neural complexity. (Dolphin brains differ from humans’ in the overall structure and organization, connections to the limbic system and probably other ways that are not yet identified). Dolphin brains are thought to have evolved in a similar process as those of humans, related to the needs and pressures for complex communication and elaborate societies–but dolphin brains, as they are now, have been around millions of years longer than the modern human brain. In fact, humans have had the brain we do for about 100,000 years; dolphins have had the same sized brains (or larger) than ours for about 15 million years.

Dolphins rank higher in encephalization quotient (EQ), the ratio of the brain volume to the surface area of the body, than great apes and have been placed only second to humans. The EQ is significant because it gets higher as the subjects’ social structures get more complex. But some suggest that the EQ measurement may be underestimated in dolphins because of the additional weight of blubber in the cetacean body (see Marino, further resources below). This indicates that dolphins, therefore, may have at least the marine parallel to the human EQ.

With relatively large brains and a substantial cerebral cortex, it is widely accepted in the scientific community that dolphins have considerable cognitive abilities. They communicate with one another using a complex system of whistles, body language, and touching that is not fully understood by dolphin scientists. Dolphins also have learned to communicate with us, if only partially, through the use of a human-created artificial language. In addition, scientists and dolphin trainers agree that dolphins have a rich emotional life, including a sense of humor, and people who regularly work with them often speak of dolphins as having distinct personalities.

Dolphins also exhibit a sense of self. Rigorous studies indicate that dolphins recognize their own reflections in a mirror-a very rare capability in the animal kingdom that was only confirmed in humans and great apes before a recent study showed that dolphins also share this capacity.In experiments with captive dolphins at the New York aquarium, researchers first marked the dolphins with “sham” marks, and then exposed them to a mirror. After several repetitions, the scientists put temporary black ink on parts of the dolphins’ bodies, which they could see only in a mirror. In each of the trials, the dolphins went to the mirror to examine the areas the scientists had marked.

Until very recently, scientists believed that self-recognition was possible only in animals with a frontal lobe, such as humans and other primates. Recent dolphin self-recognition studies, however, suggest that mirror recognition is probably linked with more general characteristics, such as large brain size and cognitive ability (especially because dolphins’ and primates’ brains evolved along very different lines). In any event, the research indicates that dolphins have an acute sense of themselves and others.

Self-awareness is also indicated by dolphins’ use of signature whistles–the equivalent of a unique name–which they apparently use to call one another when separated over distance, among other things.In addition, scientists have found that dolphins, like humans, act independently of instinct, biological drive or conditioning. Indicating what would be called “free will” in humans, dolphins make purposeful choices and conscious decisions in their lives, even when it comes to sexual activity and eating.

Dolphins also show that they understand responsibility, both as relates to other dolphins and other species. Moreover, dolphins often demonstrate altruistic behavior, such as routinely baby-sitting for one another, and assisting dolphins who are hurt or distressed for no apparent gain to themselves.

All in all, dolphins apparently share a suite of attributes with humans-many of which humans believed until recently that we alone possessed, such as intelligence, emotions, and self awareness. But dolphins also have inner and outer worlds that are completely foreign to us. They are marvelously suited for their watery environment with muscled, streamlined bodies, a powerful tail fluke to propel them through the water, and pectoral fins with which to steer. Their blowhole allows dolphins to breathe efficiently with only a small amount of their bodies out of the water and their lungs are made up of twice the capillaries of human lungs, which, along with other anatomical attributes, allows dolphins to dive deeper, surface more quickly and remain under water far longer than any human is capable of doing without aid. Most remarkably, dolphins navigate their world primarily through the use of senses we do not have. For dolphins, sound is the primary perception tool, but their use of sound is far more complex than a human’s. Using a sophisticated system of echolocation, dolphins project sonic clicks that return echoes that portray a three-dimensional image of the world around them. As sound passes through living tissues, dolphins routinely “see through” each other and every other living organism.

Perhaps what amazes me most is the combination of their familiarity on the one hand, and their exotic other-worldliness on the other.Knowing what we do about dolphins–and understanding that there is so much we do not fully understand about them-how does that figure in the ways we think about them? More than that, ought knowing these creatures as socially complex, feeling, sapient individuals have a considerable impact on how we interact with them?

Further Resources:

Griffin, D. (2001). Animal minds: Beyond cognition to consciousness. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Herzing, D. L., & White, T. I. (1999). Dolphins and the question of personhood. Etica & Animali.

Marino, L., Rilling, J. K., Lin, S. K., & Ridgway, S. H. (2000). Relative volume of the cerebellum in dolphins and comparison with anthropoid apes. Brain, Behavior and Evolution, 56, 204-211.

Pryor, K., & Norris, K. S. (Eds.). (1991). Dolphin societies: Discoveries and puzzles. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Reiss, D., & Marino, L. (2001). Mirror self-recognition in the bottlenose dolphin: A case of cognitive convergence. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 98(10), 5937-5942.

Reynolds, J. E. I., Wells, R. S., & Eide, S. D. (2000). The bottlenose dolphin: Biology and conservation. Gainesville: University Press of Florida.

Kris Stewart :: Sep.05.2007 :: Animal Studies, Ethics :: Comments Off

This month is an embarrassment of riches! Once again I have the pleasure of introducing a contributing author to this Blog and an Advisor on Practical Ethics, Julie Urbanik.

Julie holds an M.A. in Women’s Studies from the University of Arizona (2000), and a Ph.D. in Geography from Clark University (2006). Her thesis, Living Our Environment: the Role of Ecofeminism in Women’s Studies Curriculums, was an exploration of why and how environmental issues such as the politics of spirituality, environmental economic policies, and post-colonial and animal rights theories need to become better integrated into Women’s Studies classrooms. Her dissertation, Geography and Animal Biotechnology: the Role of Place and Scale in Shaping the Public Debate, examined stakeholder strategies in the conflict over the production and use of genetically engineered animals and engaged with questions about science and democracy, geography and activism, and the intersections of power, species, and identity.

As an ecofeminist cultural geographer, she is motivated to explore how issues of identity, globalization, and technology are reconfiguring human relationships with the natural world. She has experience and interest in three broad research areas: the role of identity politics and social theory in environmental conflicts, the role of geography in science and technology policy conflicts, and the geopolitics of commodities. More specifically, she focuses on the topics of gender, nonhumans, and food technologies. The aim of her research is to contribute both to the academic dialogue on shifting nature-society interactions and to the furthering of effective participatory democracy in environmentally-related policy decisions.

As an educator, her goal is to impress upon students her love of learning and of our world. She wants to challenge students to disrupt notions of what is ’normal’ and to consider the social and historical constructions of their own experiences, beliefs, and daily practices. She introduces human-animal ’issues’ in every course she teaches, and relishes motivating students to experience light bulb moments.

You can contact her at:

Julie Urbanik, PhD
Assistant Professor
Geography and Regional Planning
Westfield State University
Westfield, MA 01086
413.367.3028
julie.urbanik@gmail.com

Selected Publications:

Urbanik, J. (in press). Locating the transgenic landscape: animal biotechnology and the Politics of place in Massachusetts. Geoforum.

Emel, J. and J. Urbanik. 2005. Feminism and animal biotechnology. In A Companion to Feminist Geography, edited by J. Seager and L. Nelson. Malden, MA and Oxford: Blackwell, pp. 445-457.

Urbanik, J. 2005. Brave new zoo: the world of animal biotechnology. New England Anti-Vivisection Society (NEAVS) Update, v.6, n.2, pp. 4-5.

Urbanik, J. 2001. Book review of Feminism & Ecology by Mary Mellor. Organization & Environment, v. 14, n.1, pp. 116-117.

Urbanik, J. 2000. Book review of The Emperor’s Embrace by Jeffrey Masson. Feminists for Animal Rights Journal, v. 12, n. 3/4, Autumn/Winter.

Urbanik, J. 1999. CARE re-visioned: an update on the Companion Animal Rescue Effort Program. Feminists for Animal Rights Journal, v. 11, n. 1/2, Winter/Spring.

William Lynn :: Aug.26.2007 :: Animal Studies, Ethics, Geography :: Comments Off

There are so many important issues related to animals, ethics, and society, and I am thrilled to be a part of this forum for discussion on such topics. Today, I want to take a few steps back from the specific issues to talk about how we think about these things. All human inquiry is informed by ideas about how the world works. This is more than just academic or philosophical conversation. Theories are entirely practical; they can promote dialogue and exploration-challenging what is “commonsense” or taken for granted-and they can help us to describe, explain and evaluate the world we live in. What’s more, when thinking about our relationships with the nonhuman world, ontological positions are particularly significant because they determine who (or what) is to qualify for ethical consideration, the practical consequences of which can literally mean life (for those welcomed into the moral community) or death (for those excluded).

My own way of understanding human-animal interactions is dynamic, and I strive to honor both theory and practice by working with a set of overlapping ideas intended to guide thinking about our relations with animals. My approach is grounded in philosophical hermeneutics, incorporates a plurality of post-positivist thought, and utilizes a practical ethics framework. Essentially, when I think about issues like marine mammal policy or dolphin-human interactions (or anything else, for that matter), this is where I always begin:

• There is no value-free inquiry. All human understanding is rife with moral implications.
• There is a natural world that exists independent of us. Our perception of the world, which is historically situated and fluid, mediates our understanding of it.
• When seeking understanding about the world and our relations in it, we must take a flexible, dialogical and situated approach.
• Understanding requires interpretation of the individual experience through attention to meaning, articulated and enacted in contexts, which inform the action of conscious agents-both human and nonhuman.
• When it comes to conflict over what is “true” or what is “right” there are no absolutes. But we can decipher better (and worse) ways of living in the world.

This is the lens through which I see the world, and from which I join you here in these important discussions.

Kris Stewart :: Aug.17.2007 :: Animal Studies, Ethics :: Comments Off

Readers of the Practical Ethics Blog may find the following site of real interest. It is Tierethikblog, an international blog and online journal about animal ethics. It is located in Germany, many of its features and posts are available in both English and German, and it is developing a wonderful set of links and resources. I will be adding Tierethik to my weekly reading list of blogs, and want to congradulate them on a job well done!

Here is how Tierethik describes itself.

Blog articles are grouped in the following sections: Essays, Interviews, Literature, Proceedings, Science, Today´s Thinkers, Upcoming Events and Miscellaneous. After publication these articles are open for online discussion.

The journal was established and is run by the Interdisziplinäre Arbeitsgemeinschaft Tierethik (IAT), which is an initiative mainly consisting of Heidelberg University students but includes people of different backgrounds who want to offer a neutral discussion platform on issues concerning the moral status of animals.

Articles are written in English or German. Authors are students, IAT members, researchers and other people who want to support the discussion on animal ethics competently. In principle, The Animal Ethics Blog is open for everyone to write and submit an article.

After submission, an article has to undergo a closed review by IAT who has to grant permission before it will be published on The Animal Ethics Blog. Also all comments on articles are reviewed previous to publication.

The views expressed by the authors in their articles are their own and do not necessarily reflect those of the Interdisziplinäre Arbeitsgemeinschaft Tierethik, the IAT’s members or of anyone else associated with the IAT.

Please note: Any comments containing expletive language; personal attacks, in particular regarding the sexuality, gender, race, religion or nationality of another person; any illegal information or material; or any comments that contain subject matter deemed inappropriate by the website administrators will not be published on The Animal Ethics Blog.

Articels may be cited as follows:
Author Name, “Titel of the Article”, The Animal Ethics Blog, Date of Publication, Interdisziplinäre Arbeitsgemeinschaft Tierethik Heidelberg (ed.), URL: “URL of the Article”.
Example:
Katharina Blesch, “Emotionen und Gefühle bei Tieren”, The Animal Ethics Blog, 12. November 2006, Interdisziplinäre Arbeitsgemeinschaft Tierethik Heidelberg (ed.), URL : “http://tierethikblog.de/2006/11/12/emotionen-und-gefuhle-bei-tieren/”.

William Lynn :: Jul.03.2007 :: Animal Studies, Ethics :: 1 Comment »

At the recent Psychology-Ecology-Sustainability conference at Lewis and Clark College, I attended a workshop on the ethics of deep ecology. The facilitator of this one-hour session distributed a one-page handout with the eight core principles of the deep ecology movement. He then posed the question of whether we found it easy or hard to accept each particular principle.

My own response in the group was that while I might have worded some of these classic principles a bit differently, I have been strongly influenced by all of them-and they have shaped my work in creating an environmental activist training program at Antioch University New England. I then explained that my one big worry about these principles is that there is nothing explicit in them that articulates a clear ethical commitment to social justice, human rights, and the humane treatment of other human beings. I said this could leave these great principles of deep ecology ungrounded or unconnected in practice to an appropriate social ethics. If individual deep ecologists made these connections between social and ecological ethics then this made for a powerful ethical system, I explained. However, I worried out loud about the potentially nasty possibilities if a connection between social and ecological ethics was not made.

By way of example, I pointed out that a few Nazi leaders, and many of the German environmentalists that ended up supporting the Third Reich, held to many if not most of the deep ecology principles–and clearly did not connect them to a humane social ethic. At this point, the facilitator interrupted me and said that his workshop on deep ecology principles was no place to raise such questions and that I was being disruptive. He might have had a point there, though that was not my intent. Perhaps raising this issue was not helpful in an hour-long workshop among people who were mostly new to any consideration of the principles deep ecology. That seems like a possibility to me upon reflection.

What disturbed me afterwards, when the facilitator and I were talking about why he was so upset with me, was how important it felt to him that we needed to keep the eight deep ecology principles completely separate from any clearly articulated social ethics. He said any attention to social ethics would detract from a commitment to working for the earth. He repeatedly said to me that people who care about social justice “can’t be good allies for the earth.” He also said that trying to add some stated commitment along these lines to the deep ecology principles would take all the power and clarity out of them. He said it was his experience that no one resonates with a combination of social and environmental ethics and it had to be one or the other if you are going to inspire people and be an effective organizer.

Frankly, I was more than a bit dismayed by his claim that it would ruin the deep ecology and sustainability movement to do anything to help clarify a deep ecology position on social ethics. Nor did I agree with him that people would never resonate strongly with such an integration of social and ecological ethics. In my keynote address the next day, I added a section right in the beginning of my talk that would clarify my own integrative view of social and ecological ethics. To do this, I told a story about a small community organizing campaign in a predominantly African-American neighborhood in Seattle some years back. The goal of this particular community coalition of churches, civic groups, and small-business leaders was to get the city council to change the name of the main street running through their neighborhood. They wanted to change the name of this street from the “Empire Way” to the “Martin Luther King, Jr. Way.” Here’s what I said during my talk:

After a few months, they got the city council to agree. The night after the vote, the neighborhood organizers invited community members to a large Baptist church for a victory celebration. That night, Vincent Harding, a long-time associate of King’s, spoke to the assembled community. He urged everyone there to fully embrace the deep symbolism of what they had just accomplished. As he said, “You have now changed the road you travel from the Empire Way to Martin’s way.” That has always stuck with me. Isn’t that exactly the challenge we all face today-changing the road we travel from the Empire Way to Martin’s Way?

For me personally, this means doing whatever I can to help weave together the “Beloved Community” that King so often invoked as his deepest, long-range vision. My sense is that this is also the deep, long-range vision of almost everyone here at this conference. I’m guessing that most of us here want to create a beloved community that includes in its circle of moral concern all people alive today, all future generations, and the more-than-human world that makes up our larger biospheric community.

Interestingly, in contrast to the workshop facilitator’s fear, this integrative ethical formulation resonated deeply with the participants at the conference and prompted a standing ovation. This was heartening to me. I urge us all to find a way to integrate a coherent, strong social ethic along with a profound commitment to deep ecological principles. I don’t want to pick one or the other. Nor do I think this either/or mentality is the best guide for our work in the future.

Steve Chase :: Jul.01.2007 :: Animal Studies, Environmental Studies, Ethics :: Comments Off

The Worcester Art Museum (WAM) may be small by the standards of the Met, British Museum or Louvre. Nevertheless, it is amazingly well appointed and a visual pleasure. As noted in a previous post two of my main interests in art are the depiction of animals and landscapes. The WAM is filled with treasures on this account. Here is one of its gems — ‘Earth Mother’ by Sir Edward Coley Burne-Jones, Encaustic on Panel, 1882.

According to the WAM catalogue:

Burne-Jones was a second-generation member of the pre-Raphaelite artists, who rejected the growing materialization of industrialized England. Instead they focused on the comparative simplicity of the medieval world and the art of Italian painters prior to Raphael. Earth Mother, which shows the influence of Renaissance artists like Botticelli, was painted by Burne-Jones in connection with his series of stained-glass windows representing the planets. Here is an allusion to Earth Mother’s role of nurturing all life: human, represented by the child; animal, by the wolf; and horticultural, by the trees and vegetation. The snake next to the feet of Earth Mother symbolizes fertility and relates to Ceres, goddess of earth. To show earth’s role in the transitional nature of water, the allegorical figure is represented holding up a blue jar that produces clouds, rain, and eventually a stream below. To create the ivory like skin of the figures and the rich textures throughout, Burne-Jones employed the ancient technique of encaustic. The pigments are bound in a wax medium, over which the artist applied oil glazes and, in certain areas, minute touches of gold for an even more decorative effect.

Two interpretations sprang to my mind when viewing this painting. The first is its neo-pagan sensibilities. Of all the European religions, old and new, neo-paganism may have the most to teach us about animals, animality and nature-society relations. This is not because the old religions necessarily valued animals in an especial moral way, although some did. Rather it is because neo-paganist paradigms for understanding people, animals and nature use the body as a metaphor for individual, social, and ecological wholeness, integrity, health and well-being. Certainly a far more congenial metaphor than machine, cybernetic device or social construction. The second is of course the wolf and the snake. Both creatures have been reviled in Western thinking about animals and nature. Yet here they participate as valued member of a mixed community of humans and other animals, a broader body politic so to speak.

And note the wolf’s eyes. She’s looking at you…

cheers, Bill

William Lynn :: Jun.10.2007 :: Animal Studies, Art, Environmental Studies, Ethics :: Comments Off

Call for Papers
Working Title: Theorizing Animals

Edited by Nicola Taylor & Tania Signal

Challenges to existing paradigms appear in many forms and perhaps the most recent, and possibly the most serious, has presented itself in the form of the burgeoning field of human-animal studies. Contributions are therefore sought for an edited collection which will address current theoretical approaches towards human-animal relations. We anticipate that this multi-disciplinary collection will include works informed by social scientific, psychological, philosophical, and political disciplines though literary and cultural studies perspectives will also be considered. Articles examining any aspect of human-animal relations are welcomed; we are not limiting this collection to an examination of human-companion animal studies. We expect to place this book with a major academic trade press.

Questions are welcome and should be directed as below.

Please submit papers or detailed abstracts (c. 1000 words) as a .doc or .rtf attachment by August 31, 2007 to:

Dr Nicola Taylor
Senior Lecturer, Sociology
School of Psychology & Sociology
Central Queensland University
Rockhampton 4701
Australia

Email: n.taylor with cqu.edu.au

Please include a brief author biography.

Editorial team details can be found at:
http://fseh.cqu.edu.au/FCWViewer/staff.do?site=100&sid=TAYLORN

http://fseh.cqu.edu.au/FCWViewer/staff.do?site=100&sid=SIGNALT

William Lynn :: Jun.09.2007 :: Animal Studies, Environmental Studies, Ethics :: Comments Off

Camilla H. Fox
Director, Project Coyote
Wildlife Consultant
P.O. Box 5007
Larkspur, CA 94977
cfox@projectcoyote.org

www.ProjectCoyote.org
www.practicalethics.net/blog/camilla-fox

I have the pleasure of introducing yet another remarkable person, who is both a columnist on Ethos and an advisor to Practical Ethics.

For over 15 years, Camilla Fox has worked to protect wildlife and wildlands in the U.S. and internationally.  She has served in leadership positions with the Animal Protection Institute, Fur-Bearer Defenders, and Rainforest Action Network and has spearheaded campaigns aimed at protecting native carnivores and fostering humane and ecologically sound solutions to human-wildlife conflicts.

As the Founding Director of Project Coyote and a wildlife consultant, Camilla assists communities, agencies, wildlife managers, and non-governmental organizations in creating innovative solutions to help people and wildlife coexist. A frequent speaker on these issues, Camilla has authored more than 60 publications and is co-author of Coyotes in Our Midst: Coexisting with an Adaptable and Resilient Carnivore and co-editor and lead author of the book, Cull of the Wild: A Contemporary Analysis of Trapping in the United States. She is also the producer of the companion film, Cull of the Wild: The Truth Behind Trapping. Her work on behalf of wildlife has been featured in several national and international media outlets including the German documentary, Coyote: The Hunted Hunter, and two North American documentaries: American Coyote- Still Wild at Heart, and On Nature’s Terms, as well as the New York Times, the BBC, NPR, Orion, USA Today magazine, and Bay Nature magazine.

Camilla holds a Master’s degree in Environmental Studies with a focus in Wildlife Conservation, Policy, and Ecology from Prescott College and a Bachelor’s degree from Boston University where she graduated magna cum laude in 1991. She has served as an appointed member on the U.S. Secretary of Agriculture’s National Wildlife Services Advisory Committee and currently serves on several national and local advisory boards. In 2006, Camilla received the Humanitarian of the Year Award from the Marin Humane Society and the Christine Stevens Wildlife Award from the Animal Welfare Institute.

Selected publications:

Fox, C.H. and Bekoff, M. In press. Ethical Reflections on Wolf Recovery and Conservation: A Practical Approach for Making Room For Wolves. In M. Musiani, L. Boitani, P. Paquet (editors), The World of Wolves: New Perspectives on Ecology, Behaviour and Policy. University of Calgary Press, Calgary, Alberta.

Fox, C.H. In press. Predator Control & Ethics. In M. Bekoff (editor). Encyclopedia of Animal Rights & Welfare (revised edition). Greenwood Publishing Group, Westport, Connecticut.

Fox, C.H. In press. Wildlife Trapping: Behavioral & Welfare Implications. In M. Bekoff (editor). Encyclopedia of Animal Rights & Welfare (revised edition). Greenwood Publishing Group, Westport, Connecticut.

Hadidian, J., C.H. Fox, and W.S. Lynn. In press. Ethics and Urban Wildlife. In M. Bekoff (editor). Encyclopedia of Animal Rights & Welfare (revised edition). Greenwood Publishing Group, Westport, Connecticut.

Fox, C.H. 2008. Analysis of The Marin County Strategic Plan for Protection of Livestock & Wildlife: An Alternative to Traditional Predator Control. Master’s thesis. Prescott College, Prescott, Arizona. 112 p.

Fox, C.H. 2007. Coyotes, Humans and Coexistence. Pp. 311-313 in: M. Bekoff (editor), Encyclopedia of Human-Animal Relationships: A Global Exploration of Our Connections with Animals. Greenwood Publishing Group, Westport, Connecticut.

Fox, C.H. 2007. Trapping Animals. Pp. 984-989 in: M. Bekoff (editor), Encyclopedia of Human-Animal Relationships: A Global Exploration of Our Connections with Animals. Greenwood Publishing Group, Westport, Connecticut.

Fox, C. H. 2006. Coyotes and humans: can we coexist? Pp. 287-293 in: R.M. Timm and J. H. O’Brien (eds.), Proceedings, 22nd Vertebrate Pest Conference. Publ. Univ. Calif.-Davis.

Hadidian, J., C.H. Fox, and W.S. Lynn. 2006. The ethics of wildlife control in humanized landscapes. Pp. 500-504 in: R.M. Timm and J. H. O’Brien (eds.), Proceedings, 22nd Vertebrate Pest Conference. Publ. Univ. Calif.-Davis.

Fox, C.H. 2006. Seeking Justice. Animal Issues 37:12-13.

Fox, C.H. 2006. Standardizing Cruelty: The International Trapping Debate. Animal Issues 37:18-21.

Fox, C.H. and C.M. Papouchis. 2005. Coyotes in Our Midst: Coexisting with an Adaptable and Resilient Carnivore. Animal Protection Institute, Sacramento, California

Fox, C.H. July, 2005. Close Encounters of the Coyote Kind. Wildlife Tracks. Humane Society of the United States, Washington, D.C. Available online at:
http://www.hsus.org/web-files/PDF/Tracks-fall-coyotes05.pdf (accessed January 10, 2008).

Fox, C.H. March 2005. Pet Peeved: You’re Working Like a Dog. But How is Your World Schedule Working Out for your Faithful Friend? Experience Life 7:78-80. Lifetime Fitness, Eden Prairie, Minnesota. Available online at: http://www.lifetimefitness.com/magazine/index.cfm?strWebAction=article_detail&intArticleId=355 (accessed January 10, 2008).

Fox, C.H. and C.M. Papouchis (eds.). 2004. Cull of the Wild: A Contemporary Analysis of Wildlife Trapping in the United States. Animal Protection Institute, Sacramento, California.

Fox, C.H. March-April 2004. God’s Dog: Learning to Co-Exist with Coyotes. Wild Mountain Times, Asheville, North Carolina.

Fox, C.H. 2004. Wildlife Trapping, Behavior, and Welfare. Pp. 1170-1176 in: M. Bekoff (ed.), Encyclopedia of Animal Behavior. Greenwood Publishing Group, Westport, Connecticut.

Fox, C.H. 2004. Close Encounters of the Coyote Kind. Animal Issues 35:14-17.

Fox, C.H. 2004. Cull of the Wild. Wild Earth 13(4):54-60. Richmond, Vermont: Wildlands Project.

Fox, C.H. 2004. Wildlife Control Out of Control. Animal Issues 35:15-18.

Fox, C.H. 2003. What About Fluffy & Fido? Pp. 52-56 In J. de Graaf (ed.), Take Back Your Time: Fighting Overwork and Time Poverty in America. Berrett-Koehler Publishers, Inc., San Francisco, California.

Fox, C.H. 2003. Predators, Politics, and Prejudice. Animal Issues 34:22-29.

Fox, C.H. 2002. National Wildlife Refuges: Sanctuaries or Killing Fields? in: K.W. Stallwood (ed.), A Primer on Animal Rights. Lantern Books, New York, New York.

Fox, C.H. 2001. Taxpayers say no to killing predators. Animal Issues 31:26-27.

Fox, C.H. 2000. Deadly Refuges. Earth Island Journal 15:27. Earth Island Institute, San Francisco, California.

Camilla Fox :: Jun.04.2007 :: Animal Studies, Coyotes, Environmental Studies, Ethics, Politics, Wildlife, Wolves :: Comments Off

In a March 15th listserv post, respected marine mammal scientist Naomi A. Rose, Ph.D. alerted members of the MARMAM listserve (marmam@lists.uvic.ca) about a company called Ocean Embassy (www.oceanembassy.com), which has been seeking permission of the Panamanian government to build a resort featuring captive dolphins. Dr. Rose described plans for the company to stock this aquarium with dolphins captured from Panamanian waters. Dr. Rose said: “I am appalled at the misrepresentation of scientific and conservation concepts currently taking place in Panama. In the 14 years I have been working in the field of marine mammal protection advocacy, I have never seen quite such an egregious and propagandistic misuse of science and conservation to sell this type of business development plan.” She has asked that marine mammal biologists speak out against this project. “If companies like Ocean Embassy can masquerade as research and conservation organizations with impunity, when they not only are just business ventures but are actually perverting scientific, conservation, and management principles to further their own commercial interests,” she continues, “then we can hardly expect governments to continue to respect and heed legitimate science.” Dr. Rose has urged biologists and the like to speak out and clarify to Panamanian officials that the manner in which Ocean Embassy represents science and conservation is inconsistent with that of the international marine mammal science, conservation, and management communities. I would echo her request, and also call for input from social scientists and animal studies scholars, especially those with insight on the ethics concerning Ocean Embassy’s plans.

The ways that dolphins are captured, transported, and kept for research, display and/or entertainment raises many ethical concerns. Family groups are broken up when one or more dolphins are taken from their home waters in traumatic takings, and the effects of changing the social structure of the wild population once those individuals are removed from the community are unknown. Many captive dolphins display physiological and behavioral indicators of stress such as elevated adrenocortical hormones, stereotyped behavior, self-destruction, self-mutilation, and excessive aggressiveness towards humans and other dolphins. To be sure, captive dolphin facilities vary around the world, but even if Panama provided the very best in captive dolphin care and management, the decision to keep healthy dolphins in human care at all disregards their moral value. Captivity denies dolphins their psychological, physical, and social integrity, inflicts untold kinds and amounts of stress, and drastically alters the fundamental life experience of being a dolphin.

As far as we know, like other bottlenose dolphins, Panamanian bottlenose dolphins (those targeted for takings from the Caribbean and the Pacific sides of Panama), are not endangered or threatened. Ocean Embassy’s plan to capture, display, and breed local dolphins make no sense as part of a “conservation plan”. Unlike the complicated issues that can come with keeping extremely vulnerable species in zoos as part of a greater species survival plan (great apes, for example), there is no reason to think that we can benefit dolphins, ensuring the survival of their species, by keeping them in human care. On the contrary, the demand for the capture of more wild dolphins to support increasing numbers of captive entertainment and encounter programs has the potential to harm dolphin populations and is therefore a conservation concern as well as a question of individual animal welfare.

Generally, proponents of dolphinariums argue that public display facilities offer opportunities for scientific research as well as a great educational benefit to human visitors. There are currently sufficient numbers of dolphins in captivity to satisfy scientific research demands, and many contend that we have learned all we can from studying dolphins in captivity. As for the educational value of marine parks, that is what essentially exempts United States facilities from the harassment provisions of the Marine Mammal Protection Act. The US government can authorize the capture or importation of marine mammals for public display purposes “as long as [such a facility] offers a program for education or conservation purposes that is based on professionally recognized standards of the public display industry,” even if their bottom line centers on commercialization and profit. Why should Panama act any differently?

In fact, there has been no study to date that has tested what, in fact, customers of marine parks learn as a result of their visitation, or what information is retained that helps animals or the environment after their visit. Nor has there been any investigation as to whether marine park visitors have more accurate or in-depth knowledge about marine mammals as compared with those who do not attend marine parks. Furthermore, when it comes to attitudes about animal welfare, conservation, and the environment, there is no empirical evidence to support whether marine park visitors are more environmentally sensitive or knowledgeable about marine mammals and/or their environment-in fact, the opposite may well be true! In short, dolphinariums are no more educationally or scientifically valuable than other, less invasive alternatives.

Panama should reject Ocean Embassy’s current plan. It has so much more to gain from a scientifically valid, environmentally sound, and ethically informed conservation plan that excludes any attempt to capture, display or breed its native dolphins. I visited Panama twice last year. I was in awe if its stunning array of wildlife and kind, beautiful people. Today, more and more Americans and Europeans are vacationing on both the Carribean and Pacific sides of the isthmas, and many are retiring to Panama, in large part because of its pristine and beautiful environment. Panama has a wonderful opportunity to respect and preserve its natural environment and wildlife while enjoying its economic growth with thoughtful, progressive environmental policies. Even if our top priorities are education, scientific advancement, and conservation-even profit-aren’t there better ways to achieve these goals than by harmfully exploiting the residents of the ocean we are seeking to protect? I applaud Panama’s concern for the ocean environment and its desire to move forward with sound conservation initiatives that advance the well-being of Panamanians, local wildlife and their natural environment. Ocean Embassy’s plan to capture and display Panamanian dolphins, however, is morally indefensible and counter to those aims.

For more information:

Naomi A. Rose, Ph.D. is a Marine Mammal Scientist for Humane Society International (www.hsi.org; www.hsus.org).

To learn more about the MARMAM email discussion list, visit whitelab.biology.dal.ca/marmam.htm#para4.

Photo from www.oceanembassy.com

Kris Stewart :: Mar.25.2007 :: Animal Studies, Ethics :: Comments Off

We have pleasure in announcing the launch of New Zealand’s first national research centre for Human-Animal Studies at the University of Canterbury, Christchurch, Aotearoa New Zealand.

For more information on the New Zealand Centre for Human-Animal Studies (NZCHAS), please see:

www.nzchas.canterbury.ac.nz/

Best regards,

Annie Potts & Philip Armstrong
Co-Directors
NZ Centre for Human-Animal Studies
School of Culture, Literature & Society
Te Whare Wananga o Waitaha/University of Canterbury
Private Bag 4800
Christchurch
Aotearoa New Zealand
Phone: 64 3 364 2987 ext 7967
www.amst.canterbury.ac.nz/people/potts.shtml

William Lynn :: Mar.18.2007 :: Animal Studies, Art, Environmental Studies, Ethics, Politics :: Comments Off

In early July of 2006, Suzanne Stone and her daughter, Sierra, drove to the Sawtooth National Forest to search for an orphaned group of eight-week-old wolf pups. The Stone’s drove there after learning that an arm of the US federal government had killed the parents – a male and female from the Big Water Pack in the Soldier Mountains – and left the pups to die from starvation or predation. The agency responsible for this was Wildlife Services, formerly known as Animal Damage Control.

I have known Stone a long time, and she is neither stranger nor opponent of lethal ‘wolf control’. As the Northern Rockies representative of the non-profit organization Defenders of Wildlife, she works with citizens, scientists, the livestock industry, and government officials to manage the growing wolf populations of the western US. Part of her work involves administering two funds, one that compensates ranchers for livestock or working dogs lost to confirmed wolf depredation, and another that subsidizes proactive measures to avoid or mitigate conflicts between wolves and people. She is a sympathetic voice for ranchers and rural communities in wolf country, and realizes that killing wolves is at times an unfortunate necessity. I should note that I agree with her. And still, she was disturbed enough to search throughout the day and into the night for the pups. Stone never found the pups. Neither did Wildlife Services, which hoping to take the edge off a public relations disaster, also went looking.

An interesting contrast to Stone’s actions was the attitude of Steven Nadeau of the Idaho Department of Fish and Game. He authorized the killing of this wolf pack because they were believed to have preyed on livestock. In comments to National Public Radio he said, ‘the regrettable loss of a few pups does not have any real biological impact on the recovery or long-term viability of this population [of wolves]‘.

Nadeau is almost certainly right about the biological effect from the loss of these pups. Pups have always been particularly vulnerable to disease and predation, and the reproductive cycle of wolves is adapted to high pup mortality. The loss of a few pups will have little if any impact on the population biology of wolves in Idaho. But I do not think this is why the story made the news. Rather it was the contrast between the admirable care on Stone’s part, and the apparent indifference on Nadeau’s that captured the attention of the public in the US and Canada.

At root, wolf management involves questions of how one monitors and intervenes in the lives of wolves whether for scientific research or for the administration of wildlife policies. And in the contrast between Stone and Nadeau’s approaches, there is much we can learn about the ethics of managing wolves.

Now in any discussion of predator management, you are likely to hear quite a bit about ‘sound science’. Sound science is supposed to be the evidentiary, theory-rich baseline for managing wildlife and making public policy. Yet when science is substituted for ethics, our moral compass fails and we are likely to be led astray. Wolf management provides a particularly powerful example of the moral controversies that can arise from a seemingly technical subject.

The techniques used to study and manage wolves are frequently intensive and intrusive. Wolves are radio-collared, monitored, tranquilized, assessed, captured, incarcerated and killed on a regular basis. We still have much to learn about wolves, and there are undoubtedly legitimate scientific reasons to study them using such techniques. Managing wolves in this way may also be required to meet certain goals of wolf recovery. It is, for instance, a necessity in the Red wolf recovery program, where monitoring and managing wolf pairings helps prevent hybridization with coyotes. Even so, the use of these techniques is not a sustainable model for long-term recovery. They are expensive propositions in terms of time and labour, and a burden on under-funded and under-staffed organizations, as well as an annoyance to individuals and communities. As noted before, with sufficient food and space, wolves will flourish. Over time, they will establish their own population levels and distribution in dynamic relationship to the habitat and other resources they need for survival.

There is another more insidious reason for conducting intensive wolf management, namely to appease vested human interests that oppose our coexistence with wolves. This kind of management is not undertaken for the benefit of science, much less for the well-being of wolves. Although sometimes justified as maintaining the ‘social carrying capacity’ of wolves, intensive management in this context involves killing or removing wolves with little attention to other proactive measures for mitigating human-wolf conflicts. This approach is also behind the artificially low population goals in some wolf management plans, the designation of certain wolf populations as expendable, and land-use planning that effectively creates wolf-free zones. Wolf recovery and conservation may be the stated goals. The reality of this type of management is quite different; it amounts to an institutionalized system of species cleansing that tries to exclude wolves from the vast majority of the landscape.

Vested interests that distort wolf management are ethically problematic in their own right. Equally disturbing is employing lethal and other blunt-force techniques with little apparent concern for the well-being of individual wolves or their packs. For wolves, the social disruption of intrusive management can be severe. Pups without parents starve or are preyed upon. The loss of adult members that teach younger wolves how to survive in the wild as well as around humans, can lead to heightened mortality and further conflict with people. Wolf packs that are exterminated are replaced by new packs, which may be even less familiar then its predecessor with how to avoid the danger of particular humans on the landscape. What we have here is the makings of a vicious cycle that, from an ethical point of view, we should try to break.

A growing number of voices are objecting to wolves being relegated to a gulag of isolated habitats, surrounded by exclusion and free-fire zones, and subjected to routine and invasive management. From an ethical perspective, managing wolves for the wrong reason and with little concern for their individual well-being is wrong. Those of you who care about the non-human world and raise your voice in defense of animals and the rest of nature are in the right. Keep it up.

Cheers, Bill

Portions of this column are excerpted from my ‘Wolf Recovery’ article in Marc Bekoff’s Encyclopedia of Human-Animal Relations (Greenwood Press, 2007). For more information on this groundbreaking work, see www.practicalethics.net/blog/?p=100.

You can hear Elizabeth Shogren’s report, Orphaned Wolves Lost in Idaho, on National Public Radio, www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5550973.

~

Bill Lynn is the founder and Senior Ethics Advisor of Practical Ethics (http://www.practicalethics.net/), and a professor at the Center for Animals and Public Policy at Tufts University (www.tufts.edu/vet/cfa).

Image: Tracy Brooks, 2003, Reflection.

William Lynn :: Mar.15.2007 :: Animal Studies, Environmental Studies, Ethics, Wolves :: 2 Comments »