COURSE READINGS AND SCHEDULE

Brief Course Outline:

Week 1: Intro to Ethics, Intro to Logic and Intro to Ethics & Animals

Week 2: What Are (Some) Animals Like? Animal Minds and Harms to Animals

Week 3: In Defense of Animals: Some Moral Arguments

Week 4: Objections to Defenses of Animals and Defending Animal Use

Week 5: Wearing and Eating Animals

Week 6: Experimenting on Animals, Animals in Education

Week 7: Pets; Zoos, Hunting, Racing, and other Uses of Animals

Week 8: Activism for Animals

Students should sign up for these online email lists to keep up on major media coverage of issues concerning ethics and animals:

Dawnwatch News Service: http://dawnwatch.com

Vegan Outreach’s E-Newsletter: http://www.veganoutreach.org/enewsletter/index.html

Note: Oftentimes many readings are offered below. If they ever seem overwhelming, please contact the instructor. Please consider “skimming” the readings that are not from our main texts. There is a lot of material on these issues and your instructor does not want you to miss out on any of it!

Some of the links below might be incorrect by the time we get to them: the instructor will post corrected links when needed. Please Google the title and you will likely find the file online.

Week 1: Intro to Ethics, Intro to Logic and Intro to Ethics & Animals

Overview:

Discussions of animal ethics are more fruitful when approached after an exposure to general thinking about ethics and methods of moral argument analysis. Theories of animal ethics are typically extensions or modifications of theories developed for addressing more familiar (and often less controversial) questions about human-to-human ethics. Therefore, it is important to be familiarity with these theories and methods. These online readings will introduce students to the more influential moral theories and methods of moral argument analysis, and we will read the introductions to our texts on animal ethics.

Required Reading:

NOTE: THE FIRST WEEK IS A NUMBER OF SHORT THINGS: IT’S NOT AS MUCH AS IT LOOKS!

Lecture 1: Introduction to Ethics, Introduction to Logic, Introduction to Ethics & Animals

Optional: James Pryor (NYU Philosophy), Guidelines on Reading Philosophy: http://www.jimpryor.net/teaching/guidelines/reading.html

Readings on argument analysis:

Since arguments for and against various uses of animals often have as a premise a moral principle derived from an ethical theory, we will first learn some basic concepts about arguments. We will then survey some ethical theories, some arguments in favor of some of them (i.e., reasons given to think that a theory is true), and some arguments against some of them (i.e., reasons given to think that a theory is false).

James Rachels, “Some Basic Points About Arguments,” from his The Right Thing To Do: Basic Readings in Moral Philosophy, 4^th Ed. (McGraw Hill, 2007) (Google).

James Pryor, “What Is an Argument?” http://www.jimpryor.net/teaching/vocab/argument.html

Readings that introduce common moral theories (and critique some of them):

· James Rachels, “A Short Introduction to Moral Philosophy,” from The Right Thing To Do (Google)

· Tom Regan, “The Case for Animal Rights,” from Tom Regan and Peter Singer, eds., In Defense of Animals (Blackwell, 1985): http://ethicsandanimals.googlepages.com/regancase_for_animal_rights.pdf ; also available here: http://www.animal-rights-library.com/texts-m/regan03.htm

Our texts’ short prefaces and introductions:

ANIMAL LIBERATION – Preface to the 1975 Edition

ANIMAL LIBERATION – Preface to the 1990 Edition

ANIMAL LIBERATION – Preface to the 2002 Edition

EMPTY CAGES – FORWARD by Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson

EMPTY CAGES – PROLOGUE: The Cat

EMPTY CAGES – EPILOGUE: The Cat

EMPTY CAGES – PART I NORMAN ROCKWELL AMERICANS

EMPTY CAGES – 1. Who Are You Animal Rights Advocates Anyway?

EMPTY CAGES – 2. How Did You Get That Way?

Part I of Empty Cages discusses the influence the media and special interest politics have on how ethics & animals issues are typically approached. It also explains some different routes people might take to becoming involved in animal issues and Regan’s tells personal story of how he became an Animal Rights Advocate. This part of the book is, strictly speaking, not philosophy or ethics (but it surely relevant to ethics) and is an interesting, easy read.

ANIMALS LIKE US – Editor’s Introduction

ANIMALS LIKE US – Introduction

Optional: Gruen, preface and introductory matter

Writing Assignments:

Discussion questions from lectures.

Week 2: What Are (Some) Animals Like? Animal Minds and Harms to Animals

Overview:

If any animals have minds, and thus are conscious, then they can be harmed, and thus how they are treated raises moral issues. And, arguably, there are moral obligations towards animals only if they have minds, so questions about animal ethics very much depend on what animals are like. This week we will get an overview of the scientific and philosophical literature on whether any animals are conscious, whether any are sentient (i.e., capable of sensation or feeling, especially of pleasures and pains), and so whether various species of animals have minds and, if so, what their minds might be like. We will discuss how anyone could know or reasonably believe some claim about what animals’ minds are like.

Required Reading:

Lecture 2: What Are (Some) Animals Like? Animal Minds and Harms to Animals

Note: some of the discussion of animal minds immediately overlaps with ethical questions, but we will attempt to focus this week just on animal minds.

ANIMALS LIKE US – Ch. 1. Do Animals Have Minds? pp. 3 – 25.

ANIMALS LIKE US – Ch. 4. Killing Animals. pp. 70 – 99.

ANIMAL LIBERATION – pp. 9 – 22, beginning “There is, however, one general defense of the practices...”, ending on the first paragraph on 22.

EMPTY CAGES – pp. 53 – 61.

Gruen: 1. Why animals matter (optional)

Recommended Reading on Animal Minds / Cognitive Ethology:

Colin Allen (http://mypage.iu.edu/~colallen/), “Animal Consciousness,” entry in Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/consciousness-animal/
Jonathan Balcombe, Pleasurable Kingdom: Animals and The Nature of Feeling Good (MacMillan 2006) http://www.pleasurablekingdom.com/
Marc Bekoff’s webpage and books: http://literati.net/Bekoff/
Clare Palmer, “Animals in Anglo-American Philosophy” http://www.h-net.org/~animal/ruminations_palmer.html
Scott Wilson, “Animals and Ethics,” The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy http://www.iep.utm.edu/a/anim-eth.htm
Lori Gruen, “The Moral Status of Animals,” The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/moral-animal/

Writing Assignments:

Discussion questions from lectures. Paper option.

Week 3: In Defense of Animals: Some Moral Arguments

Paper is due a week after we finish discussion of these topics.

Overview:

This week we will survey the most influential “theories of animal ethics,” i.e., general theories that attempt to explain the nature and extent of our moral obligations toward various animals, which have been used to argue in defense of animals. As we will see, these theories are often extensions or developments of the moral theories that have been developed to explain how humans ought to treat other human beings. These thinkers often argue that the moral theory (or theories) that best explain the nature and extent of our moral obligations to human beings (especially vulnerable ones, such as babies, children, the mentally challenged, the elderly, and so on) have positive implications for many animals as well. Thus, they often argue that there are no relevant differences between the kinds of cases to justify protecting human beings but allowing serious harms to animals and, therefore, animals are due moral protections comparable to at least those given to comparably-conscious, aware, sentient human beings.

Required Reading:

Lecture 3: In Defense of Animals: Some Moral Arguments

ANIMAL LIBERATION – 1. All Animals Are Equal . . . or why the ethical principle on which human equality rests requires us to extend equal consideration to animals too

EMPTY CAGES – PART II MORAL RIGHTS: WHAT THEY ARE AND WHY THEY MATTER

EMPTY CAGES – 3. Human Rights

EMPTY CAGES – 4. Animal Rights (entire chapter or until p. 62, where objections begin: this section will be re-assigned below)

Videos: Tom Regan:

From 2006, “Animal Rights: An Introduction”: (at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fTNNJspZXA4)

From 1989, “Does the animal kingdom need a bill of rights?”[1] (at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xj-MJKFM0Zs )

ANIMALS LIKE US – Ch. 2. The Moral Club

Gruen: 2. The natural and the normative (optional)

Writing Assignments:

Discussion questions from lectures.

Paper 1. REQUIRED. Assignment on lectures document.

Week 4: Objections to Defenses of Animals and Defending Animal Use

Overview:

This week we will survey the most influential general moral theories that have been appealed to argue in defense of animal use and/or to object to the theories developed in defense of animals. As we will see, these theories are often extensions or developments of the moral theories that have been developed to explain how humans ought to treat other human beings. These writers often argue that the moral theory (or theories) that best explain the nature and extent of our moral obligations to human beings (especially vulnerable ones, such as babies, children, the mentally challenged, the elderly, and so on) does not have positive implications for animals as well. Thus, they argue that there are relevant differences between the kinds of cases that justify protecting human beings but allowing serious harms to animals.

Required Reading:

Lecture 4: Objections to Defenses of Animals and Defending Animal Use

EMPTY CAGES – 4. Animal Rights (pp. 62-74)

ANIMAL LIBERATION – 5. Man’s Dominion . . . a short history of speciesism (See especially the discussion of Aquinas, Descartes, Kant and thinkers discussed in The Enlightenment and After)

Tibor Machan, “Why Animal Rights Don’t Exist” at http://www.strike-the-root.com/4/machan/machan43.html and “The Myth of Animal Rights” at http://www.lewrockwell.com/machan/machan52.html

Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s1HOtggYuMQ

Carl Cohen, “Why Animals Do Not Have Rights,” from Cohen and Regan, The Animal Rights Debate (Rowman & Littlefield, 2001) at http://ethicsandanimals.googlepages.com/cohen-ar-debate.pdf

Video: Carl Cohen, "Why Animals Do Not Have Rights”: at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kbk7xY9t-UQ

Ray Frey, “Animal Research: The Starting Point” (1 page selection), from Why Animal Experimentation Matters.

http://ethicsandanimals.googlepages.com/frey-experimentation.pdf (this file needs to be corrected)

ANIMAL LIBERATION – 1. All Animals Are Equal – review the objections that Singer discusses

ANIMALS LIKE US – Ch. 2. The Moral Club – review the objections that Rowlands discusses

Writing Assignments:

Discussion questions from lectures. Paper option. Assignment on lectures document.

Week 5: Wearing and Eating Animals

Overview:

Animal advocacy organization Vegan Outreach observes that, “The number of animals killed for fur in the U.S. each year is approximately equal to the human population of Illinois. The number of animals killed in experimentation in the U.S. each year is approximately equal to the human population of Texas. The number of mammals and birds farmed and slaughtered in the U.S. each year is approximately equal to one and two-thirds the entire human population of Earth. Over 99% of the animals killed in the U.S. each year die to be eaten.”[2] This week we will focus on the moral arguments for and against using animals for fur and for food (as well as for different kinds of animal-food production, e.g., “factory farm” versus “traditional animal husbandry”), as well as the relationships between these arguments: what one thinks about the morality of the fur industry might have implications for the morality of meat, dairy and egg industries.

Required Reading on the Fur Industry:

Lecture 5: Wearing and Eating Animals

EMPTY CAGES – PART III SAYING AND DOING

EMPTY CAGES – 5. What We Learn from Alice

EMPTY CAGES – PART IV THE METAMORPHOSES

EMPTY CAGES – 7. Turning Animals into Clothes

OPTIONAL Reading & Viewing on the Fur Industry:

Fur industry representatives:

Fur Commission USA, a non-profit association representing over 600 mink farmers in the United States http://www.furcommission.com See especially the pages “Animal Rights versus Animal Welfare” and “Fur on Film”
Fur Information Council of America: www.fur.org/
National Animal Interest Alliance (defends all uses of animals, so relevant to all issues below also): http://www.naiaonline.org/about/index.htm

Critics of the fur industry:

HSUS: http://www.hsus.org/furfree/,
Mercy for Animals: http://www.mercyforanimals.org/fur_farms.asp,
PETA: http://www.furisdead.com/,
Tribe of Heart, producers of “The Witness” film: http://www.tribeofheart.org/

Required Reading on Animal Agriculture Industries:

EMPTY CAGES – 6. Turning Animals into Food

ANIMAL LIBERATION – 3. Down on the Factory Farm . . . or what happened to your dinner when it was still an animal

ANIMAL LIBERATION – 4. Becoming a Vegetarian . . . or how to produce less suffering and more food at a reduced cost to the environment

ANIMALS LIKE US – Ch. 5. Using Animals for Food

Gruen: 3. Eating animals (optional)

Jan Narveson, “A Defense of Meat Eating” (2 pages):

http://ethicsandanimals.googlepages.com/narveson.pdf (See Rachels and Regan’s discussions of contractarianism or the social contract from week one).

Temple Grandin, “Thinking Like Animals” (3 pages; last ½ page is where the “ethics” is offered):

http://ethicsandanimals.googlepages.com/grandin.pdf

Ray Frey, “Utilitarianism and Vegetarianism Again: Protest or Effectiveness?”:

http://ethicsandanimals.googlepages.com/frey-veg.pdf

Optional: Peter Singer & Jim Mason, Ch. 17, “The Ethics of Eating Meat,” pp. 241- 273, from The Way We Eat: Why Our Food Choices Matter (Rodale 2006): http://ethicsandanimals.googlepages.com/way-we-eat.pdf

Optional: The following sources, among others, are discussed in this chapter: Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall’s The River Cottage Meat Book: http://www.rivercottage.net/ (Amazon); Michael Pollan’s “An Animals Place” http://www.michaelpollan.com/article.php?id=55 and The Omnivore’s Dilemma http://www.michaelpollan.com/omnivore.php ; Roger Scruton’s Animal Rights and Wrongs http://www.roger-scruton.com/rs-books.html ; Gaverick Matheny, “Least Harm: A Defense of Vegetarianism,” http://www.jgmatheny.org/matheny%202003.pdf

Week 6: Experimenting on Animals; Animals in Education

Overview: This week we will consider perhaps the most controversial ethical issues concerning animals, namely questions about the morality of animal experimentation and research for medical, scientific and educational purposes. These issues are often considered most controversial because, unlike using animals for clothing, entertainment or even food, it is claimed that animal research provides significant medical benefits for humans that, some claim, could not be attained any other way than by using animals. Thus, this is an area where animals’ and humans’ interests are said to unavoidably conflict. This week we will attempt to evaluate claims about the scientific and medical merit of animal experimentation, as these might be relevant to its morality (or the might not), and directly attempt to determine the morality of various kinds of animal use in science, medicine, education and research.

Required Reading:

Lecture 7: Experimenting on Animals; Animals in Education

ANIMAL LIBERATION – 2. Tools for Research . . . your taxes at work

EMPTY CAGES – 10. Turning Animals into Tools

ANIMALS LIKE US – Ch. 6. Using Animals for Experiments

Gruen: 4. Animal research (optional)

“The Case for the Use of Animals in Biomedical Research,” New England Journal of Medicine, http://ethicsandanimals.googlepages.com/cohen.pdf

Adrian Morrison; “Personal Reflections on the “Animal-Rights” Phenomenon”: http://www.the-aps.org/publications/tphys/2001html/February01/personal_reflections.htm; “First, animals aren’t people” http://www.the-aps.org/pa/action/charity/morrison.htm

Bob Speth, “Muddlers Beware: The Case for Philosophical Extremism,” (a review of Regan’s Empty Cages) Newsletter of the Society for Veterinary Medical Ethics, Volume 10, Number 3 October 2004, pp. 9-13; Regan’s reply, pp. 14-18. http://www.vetmed.wsu.edu/org_SVME/images/vol10-3.pdf

Charles Nicoll & Sharon Russell: selections at http://ethicsandanimals.googlepages.com/nicoll%26russellonanimalethics

Stuart Derbyshire, “The hard arguments about vivisection”: http://www.spiked-online.com/Articles/0000000CAFA7.htm

Jonathan Balcombe, “Dissection: The Scientific Case for Alternatives,” Journal of Applied Animal Welfare Science, (4), 2, 117-126, 2001. http://ethicsandanimals.googlepages.com/balcombe.pdf

This article is a summary of Balcombe, J.P. (2000). The Use of Animals in Higher Education: Problems: Alternatives and Recommendations. Washington, DC: Humane Society Press. http://www.hsus.org/press_and_publications/humane_bookshelf/the_use_of_animals_in_higher_education_problems_alternatives_and_recommendations.html

Week 7: Pets / Companion Animals; Zoos, Hunting, Racing, and other Uses of Animals

Overview:

This week we will discuss the moral responsibilities involved in keeping pets or companion animals and related moral issues concerning shelters, adoption, and killing unwanted companion animals. We will also discuss the arguments for and against hunting, dog and horse racing, zoos and related uses of animals: is using animals for these purposes morally permissible or not? Why or why not?

Required Reading:

Lecture 6: Pets / Companion Animals; Zoos, Hunting, Racing, and other Uses of Animals

EMPTY CAGES – 8. Turning Animals into Performers

ANIMALS LIKE US – Ch. 7. Zoos

EMPTY CAGES – 9. Turning Animals into Competitors

ANIMALS LIKE US – Ch. 8. Hunting

ANIMALS LIKE US – Ch. 9. Pets

Gruen: 5. Dilemmas of captivity and 6. Animals in the wild (optional)

Keith Burgess-Jackson, "Doing Right by Our Animal Companions" in David Benatar, ed., Ethics for Everyday (McGraw-Hill, 2002), http://ethicsandanimals.googlepages.com/kbj-pets.pdf

Gary Varner, "Pets, Companion Animals, and Domesticated Partners," in David Benatar, ed., Ethics for Everyday (McGraw-Hill, 2002), pp. 150-75 http://philosophy.tamu.edu/~gary/Publications/ using "guest" and "enter" when prompted for an ID and a password, respectively.

Week 8: Activism for Animals

Overview: What, if any, kinds of actions done to try to protect animals are morally permissible? Which, if any, are morally obligatory? Changing our diets? Educating others? Working for larger cages and more humane treatment, or for the abolishment of (some) animal use industries, or both? Trying to change laws to better protect animals? Illegal actions (done covertly or openly)? Rescuing or releasing animals (perhaps illegally)? Undercover investigations? Violence of any kind (if someone tried to attack your dog or cat, might you be morally justified in responding with violence to defend your companion animal, if needed?)? Threats? Exposure of supporting animal abuse? Terrorism? We will explore a range of tactics and attempt to evaluate them morally.

Required Reading:

Lecture 8: Activism for Animals

EMPTY CAGES – PART V – MANY HANDS ON MANY OARS

EMPTY CAGES – 11. "Yes . . . but . . ."

EMPTY CAGES – EPILOGUE – The Cat

ANIMAL LIBERATION – 6. Speciesism Today . . . defenses, rationalizations, and objections to Animal Liberation and the progress made in overcoming them Also, re-read the 2002 Preface to Animal Liberation.

ANIMALS LIKE US – Ch. 10. Animal Rights Activism

ANIMALS LIKE US – Ch. 11. What Goes Around Comes Around

Gruen: 7. Protecting animals. (optional)

Matt Ball, Vegan Outreach, “Working in Defense of Animals” http://www.veganoutreach.org/enewsletter/20030105.html

Vegan Outreach “Adopt a College” Program: http://www.veganhealth.org/colleges/

Bruce Friedrich (PETA), “Effective Advocacy: Stealing from the Corporate Playbook” http://www.goveg.com/effectiveAdvocacy.asp

Karen Dawn, about Dawnwatch: http://dawnwatch.com/introduction.htm

James LaVeck (Tribe of Heart film production company), “Invasion of the Movement Snatchers: A Social Justice Cause Falls Prey to the Doctrine of “Necessary Evil” http://www.tribeofheart.org/tohhtml/essay_ims.htm (see his other essays as well)

Gary Francione, “The Abolition of Animal Exploitation: The Journey Will Not Begin While We Are Walking Backwards,” http://www.abolitionist-online.com/article-issue05_gary.francione_abolition.of.animal.exploitation.2006.shtml

The Center for Consumer Freedom: http://www.activistcash.com/ & http://www.consumerfreedom.com/

SourceWatch on the Activist Cash page http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=A_visit_to_the_ActivistCash.com_web_site and the Center for Consumer Freedom: http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Center_for_Consumer_Freedom

Wikipedia entry on the Animal Liberation Front: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal_Liberation_Front