Animal Rights and the Problem of r-Strategists
@article{Johannsen2017AnimalRA, title={Animal Rights and the Problem of r-Strategists}, author={Kyle Johannsen}, journal={Ethical Theory and Moral Practice}, year={2017}, volume={20}, pages={333-345} }
Wild animal reproduction poses an important moral problem for animal rights theorists. Many wild animals give birth to large numbers of uncared-for offspring, and thus child mortality rates are far higher in nature than they are among human beings. In light of this reproductive strategy – traditionally referred to as the ‘r-strategy’ – does concern for the interests of wild animals require us to intervene in nature? In this paper, I argue that animal rights theorists should embrace fallibility…
9 Citations
Positive Wild Animal Welfare
- Economics
- 2021
With increasing attention given to wild animal welfare and ethics, it has become common to depict animals outside of captivity as existing in a state of predominantly suffering. This assumption is…
Wild Animal Suffering is Intractable
- Philosophy
- 2018
Most people believe that suffering is intrinsically bad. In conjunction with facts about our world and plausible moral principles, this yields a pro tanto obligation to reduce suffering. This is the…
A Kantian ethics of paradise engineering
- Philosophy
- 2019
Wild animals probably have net negative lives. Christine Korsgaard rejects the view that we might engineer paradise by redesigning nature and animals so that they have the best possible existences.…
The ethics of genome editing in non-human animals: a systematic review of reasons reported in the academic literature
- BiologyPhilosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B
- 2019
A systematic review of the reasons reported in the academic literature for and against the development and use of genome editing technologies in animals reveals a low disciplinary diversity in the contributing academics, a scarcity of systematic comparisons of potential consequences of using these technologies, an underrepresentation of animal interests, and a disjunction between the public and academic debate on this topic.
The ethics of genome editing technologies in non-human animals : A systematic review of reasons reported in the academic literature
- Medicine
- 2019
This research highlights the need to understand more fully the role of emotion in the decision-making process and the importance of social reinforcement in the development of healthy emotions.
INTERVENTIONNISME ET FAUNE SAUVAGE
- Philosophy
- 2018
Considerant l’ubiquite de la souffrance dans le monde sauvage, la question se pose de notre obligation d’intervenir. Du simple devoir d’assistance dans des situations ponctuelles a des projets de…
References
SHOWING 1-10 OF 47 REFERENCES
The Importance of Wild-Animal Suffering
- Biology
- 2015
It is suggested that suffering plausibly dominates happiness in nature and that the authors' descendants think twice before spreading ecosystems to areas where they do not yet exist.
Zoopolis, Intervention, and the State of Nature*
- Biology
- 2013
Zoopolis argues that intervention in nature to aid animals is sometimes permissible, and in some cases obligatory, to save them from the harms they commonly face, but these interventions must have some limits, since they could otherwise disrupt the structure of the communities wild animals form, which should be respected as sovereign ones.
A Defense of Animal Citizens and Sovereigns
- Law
- 2013
In their commentaries on Zoopolis, Alasdair Cochrane and Oscar Horta raise several challenges to our argument for a “political theory of animal rights”, and to the specific models of animal…
Environmental Ethics, Animal Welfarism, and the Problem of Predation: A Bambi Lover's Respect For Nature
- Philosophy
- 2001
Many environmentalists criticize as unecological the emphasis that animal liberationists and animal rights theorists place on preventing animal suffering. The strong form of their objection holds…
Concerning RNA-guided gene drives for the alteration of wild populations
- BiologybioRxiv
- 2014
The potential for RNA-guided gene drives based on the CRISPR nuclease Cas9 to serve as a general method for spreading altered traits through wild populations over many generations is considered.
Animals, Predators, the Right to Life, and the Duty to Save Lives
- Philosophy
- 2009
It is argued that belief in an animal right to life does not commit us to supporting a program of predator-prey intervention, and how this position is perfectly consistent with the idea that animals have a basicright to life.
Harm in the Wild: Facing Non-Human Suffering in Nature
- Philosophy, Biology
- 2013
It is argued that the attempt to avoid the reductio of the natural-harm-argument by disvaluing non-human death can only work with an anthropocentric bias and that it fails to dismiss the moral obligation created by the harm that non- human animals face in the wild.
If Natural Entities Have Intrinsic Value, Should We Then Abstain from Helping Animals Who Are Victims of Natural Processes?
- Philosophy
- 2015
The idyllic view of nature is false: natural processes, given the prevalence of the reproductive strategy known as “r-selection”, tend to maximize the suffering of animals in nature. For the animals…
Disentangling Obligations of Assistance. A Reply to Clare Palmer’s “Against the View That We Are Usually Required to Assist Wild Animals”
- Biology
- 2015
Clare Palmer is one of the few philosophers who directly tackles the problem of whether the authors are morally required to intervene in nature to assist wild animals or, alternatively, whether they may permissibly choose not to.
The Animal Rights Debate
- Biology, Art
- 2001
The case for Animal Rights is made and the nature and Importance of Rights are discussed, including the nature of human rights and the importance of informed consent.