Ethos

A short note to say that as of this Fall, I am joining Williams College as a Visiting Assistant Professor of Environmental Studies. Williams is a terrific liberal arts college located in the Berkshire Mountains of western Massachusetts. I could not be happier with this wonderful opportunity.

I hope you will keep in touch. My email and other contact information will remain the same, as will the Practical Ethics website (www.practicalethics.net) and Ethos blog (www.practicalethics.net/blog/).

cheers, Bill

William Lynn :: Aug.01.2008 :: Animal Studies, Environmental Studies, Ethics, Geography, Global Studies :: 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, Global Studies, 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, Global Studies, 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, Geography, Global Studies, Wildlife :: 1 Comment »

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, Global Studies, 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, Global Studies, Politics, Social Justice :: Comments Off

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, Geography, Global Studies :: 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, Global Studies :: Comments Off