In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:From Parnassus to EdenChristopher McDonoughFor Rebekah SmithIn these pages some seven years ago, Robert Renehan (1992) discussed the passage from book 19 of the Odyssey in which the young Odysseus’ cousins sing a healing incantation over his wound in the wilderness of Mount Parnassus. 1 Renehan was specifically interested in bringing to light the Old Irish comparanda, so as to display the Indo-European roots of this particular form (...) of magical healing; he was clear in stating, nonetheless, that such practices are found in many other parts of the world. To encounter this custom, however, it is not necessary to study ancient Ireland or Greece, as I discovered by surprise in class one day.When lecturing on the Odyssey in the past, I have always enjoyed lingering over this particular scene, presenting to students Erich Auerbach’s ideas on mimesis as well as more general folkloric material. 2 In addition to the Irish evidence adduced by Renehan, I have usually mentioned anecdotes about the brauchers (wizards) of the Pennsylvania Dutch, some of whom could still blood by chanting—even over the telephone (see Dorson 1964, 115). Thus it was, in the fall of 1995, that I was giving a guest lecture on book 19 for a classical mythology class at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. I had just finished reciting some of the stories above, when a student raised his hand to ask, “Is that anything like talking out fire?” Before I could respond, another student also spoke up. “I was thinking that, too,” she said.A few others were nodding their heads in recognition, though the majority of the class looked perplexed. I certainly was, since I had no idea what they were talking about. The first student explained that he [End Page 297] was from Eden, North Carolina, a Piedmont town near the Virginia border; that, in this area, there were old women who could talk out fire; that, if a person had been burned, such a woman could be hired to speak to the fire and convince it to leave the body; that his own grandmother was such a woman; and that he himself as a child had had a burn talked out of his hand, which hand—the very hand he had raised!—he now raised again as dramatic testimony of the treatment. A few other students said that they too were familiar with the custom, though none had quite so intimate a familiarity as he.In the days that followed I did a little research on the topic, fearing that I may have been hoodwinked by some true son of crafty Autolykos. But his story checked out: the phenomenon of “talking the fire out of a burn” is well attested in North Carolina and throughout the South. 3 While folklorists have collected many accounts of this type of healing, perhaps the most vivid description is given by Southern writer Harry Crews. In A Childhood: The Biography of a Place (1978 = 1993, 17–170), a memoir of his upbringing in Depression-era rural Georgia, the author relates that, while playing as a boy, he had fallen into a cast-iron tub filled with boiling water for skinning hogs; over two-thirds of his body was scalded and, he recalls, the skin of his left hand came off “like a wet glove.” His family was too remote and too poor for a hospital trip, and had to rely on some makeshift arrangements set up by the local doctor. Shortly thereafter, however, they were visited by a rough character named Hollis Toomey, known throughout the area for his ability to talk out fire. Crews recounts what happened next:Hollis Toomey’s voice was low like the quiet rasping of a file on metal. I couldn’t hear most of what he had to say, but that was all right because I stopped burning before he ever started talking. He talked to the fire like an old and respected adversary, but one he had beaten consistently and had come to beat again. I don’t remember him once looking at my face while he explained: “Fire, this boy is mine. This bed is mine... (shrink)

Attempts to articulate the ways in which membership in socially subordinated social identities can impede one's autonomy have largely unfolded as part of the debate between different types of internalist theories in relation to the problem of internalized oppression. The different internalist positions, however, employ a damage model for understanding the role of social subordination in limiting autonomy. I argue that we need an externalist condition in order to capture the ways in which membership in a socially subordinated identity can (...) constrain one's autonomy, even if one is undamaged in one's autonomy competencies and self-reflexive attitudes. I argue that living among those practically empowered to harass, to engage in racial profiling, and to treat as expendable is incompatible with a freedom-condition required for unconstrained global self-determination. (shrink)

The rubber hand paradigm is used to create the illusion of self-touch, by having the participant administer stimulation to a prosthetic hand while the Examiner, with an identical stimulus , administers stimulation to the participant’s hand. With synchronous stimulation, participants experience the compelling illusion that they are touching their own hand. In the current study, the robustness of this illusion was assessed using incongruent stimuli. The participant used the index finger of the right hand to administer stimulation to a prosthetic (...) hand while the Examiner used a paintbrush to administer stimulation to the participant’s left hand. The results indicate that this violation of tactile expectations does not diminish the illusion of self-touch. Participants experienced the illusion despite the use of incongruent stimuli, both when vision was precluded and when visual feedback provided clear evidence of the tactile mismatch. (shrink)

Two experiments were conducted to explore whether children, who have been exposed to the concept of the soul, differentiate the soul from the mind. In the first experiment, 4- to 12-year-old children were asked about whether a religious ritual affects the mind, the brain, or the soul. The majority of the children claimed that only the soul was different after baptism. In a follow-up study, 6- to 12-year-old children were tested more explicitly on what factors differentiate the soul from the (...) mind and the brain. Children differentiated the soul from the mind and the brain along two dimensions: function and stability. In contrast to their responses about the mind and the brain, children did not claim that the soul was important for cognitive, non-cognitive, or biological functioning. Children consistently indicated that the mind and the brain change and grow over time. In contrast, children indicated that the soul is something that stays constant and is devoted to various, predominantly spiritual, functions. (shrink)

The word ‘dignity’ may be used in a presentational sense, for example, one might say “she presents herself with dignity”, or in a social sense, for example, one might say “she fulfilled her duty with dignity, or honour.” However, in this paper I will not be using ‘dignity’ in either of these senses. Rather, the sense of dignity I will be concerned with is one that is related to ideas about the value or worth of a being. This latter sense (...) of dignity has a long history, and tends to be a concept that is thought to be applicable to human animals only, and more specifically to human persons—moral agents, capable of rationality, of directing their own lives, and of formulating... (shrink)

Despite emerging attention to Indigenous philosophies both within and outside of feminism, Indigenous logics remain relatively underexplored and underappreciated. By amplifying the voices of recent Indigenous philosophies and literatures, I seek to demonstrate that Indigenous logic is a crucial aspect of Indigenous resurgence as well as political and ethical resistance. Indigenous philosophies provide alternatives to the colonial, masculinist tendencies of classical logic in the form of paraconsistent—many-valued—logics. Specifically, when Indigenous logics embrace the possibility of true contradictions, they highlight aspects of (...) the world rejected and ignored by classical logic and inspire a relational, decolonial imaginary. To demonstrate this, I look to biology, from which Indigenous logics are often explicitly excluded, and consider one problem that would benefit from an Indigenous, paraconsistent analysis: that of the biological individual. This article is an effort to expand the arenas in which allied feminists can responsibly take up and deploy these decolonial logics. (shrink)

Contemporary emphasis on creating culturally relevant and context specific knowledge increasingly drives researchers to conduct their work in settings outside their home country. This often requires researchers to build relationships with various stakeholders who may have a vested interest in the research. This case study examines the tension between relationship development with stakeholders and maintaining study integrity, in the context of potential harms, data credibility and cultural sensitivity. We describe an ethical breach in the conduct of global health research by (...) a arising from the ad-hoc participation of a community stakeholder external to the visiting research group. A framework for reflection is developed from a careful examination of underlying factors and presented with a discussion of consequences and mitigation measures. This framework aims to present lessons learned for researchers working abroad who might face similar situations in their work. (shrink)

Aristotle claims, in his Nicomachean Ethics, that in addition to being, for example, just and courageous, and temperate, the virtuous person will also be witty. Very little sustained attention, however, has been devoted to explicating what Aristotle means when he claims that virtuous persons are witty or to justifying the plausibility of the claim that wittiness is a virtue. It becomes especially difficult to see why Aristotle thinks that being witty is a virtue once it becomes clear that Aristotle’s witty (...) person engages in what he calls ‘educated insolence’. Insolence, for Aristotle, is a form of slighting which, as he explains in the Rhetoric, generally causes the person slighted to experience shame and anger. In this paper, I attempt to bring some clarity to Aristotle’s claim that being witty is a virtue by examining why Aristotle thinks that the object of a witty person’s raillery will find this joking pleasant. (shrink)

At a book event in March last year—one year into the pandemic and four months after mass immunization programs began—Goldenberg voiced her concerns about the timing of her book's launch into the world. This anxiety is echoed in the preface of the book itself, where she notes that the emergence of a global pandemic as she completed five years of work threatened to introduce a whole new set of issues that might fundamentally alter the book's arguments. Goldenberg's concern is understandable: (...) since the publication of her book, it is undeniable that public trust in vaccines and the experts who advocate for them have been constant topics of debate.This engagingly... (shrink)

Pietraszewski contends that group representations that rely on a “containment metaphor” fail to adequately capture phenomena of group dynamics such as shifts in allegiances. We argue, in contrast, that social categories allow for computationally efficient, richly structured, and flexible group representations that explain some of the most intriguing aspects of social group behaviour.

Most philosophers concede that one can properly be held morally responsible for intentionally omitting to do something. If one maintains that omissions are actions (negative actions, perhaps), then assuming the requisite conditions regarding voluntariness are met, one can tell a familiar story about how/why this is. In particular, causal theorists can explain the etiology of an intentional omission in causal terms. However, if one denies that omissions are actions of any kind, then the familiar story is no longer available. Some (...) have suggested that this poses a special problem for causal theorists of action. I argue that it does not and, even more interestingly, that it renders a more nuanced understanding of voluntariness (since it no longer applies strictly to actions) and moral responsibility (since you might be to blame, but not for anything you’ve done). (shrink)

Poststructuralism and Whiteheadian process thought each uniquely dismantle the anthropocentric hierarchies and speciesed constructions we have used to calculate our ethics with non-human bodies. Yet each perspective uniquely continues, despite its own affirmations, to privilege the identity and construction of the human over other bodies. In an effort to move past these shortcomings and into a more creative ethical imagination, this article reads Whiteheadian metaphysics as an affirmation of poststructural singularity, and uses poststructural criticism to deconstruct Whitehead’s subtler form of (...) anthropocentrism. By joining these traditions together, this article makes clear their respective blind spots, moves past the limited and troubled framework of species upheld in each, and advances the truly novel, creaturely relations for which both traditions adamantly call. (shrink)

Intimate relationships between emotion and action have long been acknowledged, yet contemporary theories and experimental research within affective and movement neuroscience have not been linked into a coherent framework bridging these two fields. Accumulating psychological and neuroimaging evidence has, however, brought new insights regarding how emotions affect the preparation, execution, and control of voluntary movement. Here we review main approaches and findings on such emotion–action interactions. To assimilate key emotion concepts of action tendencies and motive states with fundamental constructs of (...) the motor system, we underscore the need for integrating an information-processing approach of motor control into affective neuroscience. This should provide a rich foundation to bridge the two fields, allowing further refinement and empirical testing of emotion theories and better understanding of affective influences in movement disorders. (shrink)

Although rationalization about one's own beliefs and actions can improve an individual's future decisions, beliefs can provide other benefits unrelated to their epistemic truth value, such as group cohesion and identity. A model of resource-rational cognition that accounts for these benefits may explain unexpected and seemingly irrational thought patterns, such as belief polarization.

Western metaphysics has long privileged solidity, presence, fixity, and substance, over the fluid, moving, intangible, and diffuse, that is, over water.1 Emmanuel Levinas noted that Western philosophy seems so incapable of thinking the liquid, moving, and dispersed, that even when we try, we only reduce the elemental to a multiplicity of solids.2 The problem, he concludes, is that water and other elements are "content without form," denying our metaphysical preferences for solidity and fixed shape, even as they are not mere (...) absence or nothingness.3 And still the elemental is our home, our condition of being.Luce Irigaray further notes a "historical lag in... (shrink)

Built in Greenwich in 1675–1676, the Royal Observatory was situated outside the capital but was deeply enmeshed within its knowledge networks and communities of practice. Scholars have tended to focus on the links cultivated by the Astronomers Royal within scholarly communities in England and Europe but the observatory was also deeply reliant on and engaged with London's institutions and practical mathematical community. It was a royal foundation, situated within one government board, taking a leading role on another, and overseen by (...) Visitors selected by the Royal Society of London. These links helped develop institutional continuity, while instrument-makers, assistants and other collaborators, who were often active in the city as mathematical authors and teachers, formed an extended community with interest in the observatory's continued existence. After outlining the often highly contingent institutional and personal connections that shaped and supported the observatory, this article considers the role of two early assistants, James Hodgson and Thomas Weston. By championing John Flamsteed's legacy and sharing observatory knowledge and practice beyond its walls, they ensured awareness of and potential users for its outputs. They and their successors helped to develop a particular, and ultimately influential, approach to astronomical and mathematical practice and teaching. (shrink)

In articulating the protection-inclusion dilemma, Friesen et al. (2023) identify an important issue facing institutional review boards (IRBs) and elucidate historical factors contributing to its de...

This article reflects upon the state of the philosophical profession vis‐à‐vis a close reading of the hoax perpetrated against the International Journal of Badiou Studies in 2016. This hoax is not a subversive act of disciplinary criticism (as the hoaxers contend). Rather, it is a poorly disguised attempt to enforce a partisan and myopic conception of philosophy and to delegitimize an entire subfield of philosophical production—namely, continental philosophy. The hoax is symptomatic of a deeper problem that plagues the profession today: (...) the willingness exhibited by many philosophers to police the boundaries of the discipline by engaging in what we call “acts of force.” The prevalence of acts of force demonstrates that professional philosophy is shaped not only by the giving and taking of reasons but also by shopworn disciplinary tribalisms (for example, continental versus analytic) and asymmetrical power relations involving agents with unequal amounts of social, professional, and philosophical capital. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:The Sermon on the Mount and Moral Theology: A Virtue Perspective by William C. Mattison IIIRebekah EklundThe Sermon on the Mount and Moral Theology: A Virtue Perspective William C. Mattison III NEW YORK: CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS, 2017. 290 pp. £75.00Undergirding this book is a principle from the Catechism of the Catholic Church: the "analogy of faith" or "the coherence of the truths of faith among themselves" (241). the (...) "truths of faith" under consideration are Matthew's sermon on the Mount (sM) and the virtue ethics of thomas aquinas. Mattison aims to restore the sM to a more prominent place in Catholic moral theology by demonstrating the convergence between the teachings of the sM and thomistic virtue ethics.In this endeavor, the book largely succeeds, even if it occasionally over-reaches—that is, the sM is always shown to be in perfect harmony with thomas's teachings on virtue ethics, in which some readers might see points of tension. For example, Mattison uses thomistic action theory to argue that the beatitudes (Mt 5:3–12) and the sM's concluding exhortations (Mt 7:13–29) both demonstrate an "intrinsic relationship" between action and eternal reward; that is, the "qualifying condition" (e.g., meekness) is itself constitutive of happiness and is thus an activity that continues in eternal life (22–25, 209, 221). Purity of heart works well in this framework, but Mattison struggles to make mourning fit. the thomistic lens determines the sense of the text: Whatever mourning is, it is an activity that must persist in heaven, limiting the options for interpretation.Mattison also aligns the seven virtues—faith, hope, love, prudence, justice, temperance, and fortitude—with the seven beatitudes (following augustine's reduction of the beatitudes from eight to seven), with the seven petitions of the Lord's Prayer, and with sections of the sM as a whole. these latter, broad pairings are not always easy to find. Mattison matches the beatitudes with the virtue of faith, and the six antitheses with the virtues of temperance and fortitude. the virtue of love pairs with Matthew 6:1–6, 16–18 (teachings on prayer, alms-giving, and fasting, sans the Lord's Prayer); prudence, with Matthew 6:19–34 (worry and money); justice, with Matthew 7:1–12 (judging, asking, the golden rule); and hope, with Matthew 7:13–29 (concluding warnings and exhortations).similarly, a virtue is assigned to each beatitude (47) and to each petition of the Lord's Prayer (252). In the case of the Lord's Prayer, Mattison insists on a particular order of the virtues, following aquinas's ordering (but reversing [End Page 207] temperance and fortitude). But he does not use the same order of virtues for the Beatitudes or for the broader alignments with the whole SM (the orders are completely different for all three lists), raising the question of why Aquinas's order matters for one set but not for the others.Mattison's alignments show both his indebtedness to patristic and medieval tradition and his innovation. Medieval commentators commonly matched sets of sevens (Beatitudes, virtues, vices, gifts of the Spirit), but (rather remarkably) none of them ever appears to have understood the seven petitions of the Lord's Prayer as requests for the seven virtues, as Mattison does. Likewise, Mattison's alignment of the Beatitudes with the virtues follows the practice but not the substance of previous lists; his pairings match neither Ambrose's nor Aquinas's. I would have found a discussion of the differences helpful.The question is whether Mattison's alignments are fruitful or merely forced, and here readers may find the results to be mixed. Some are illuminating, such as the vice of presumption in relation to Matthew 7:21–23; others, such as the alignment of the six antitheses with the seven sacraments, "appear a bit of a 'stretch,'" as even Mattison admits (110).Overall, scholars and graduate students interested in Thomistic virtue ethics, and in the relationship between scripture and Catholic moral theology, will find much food for thought here.Rebekah EklundLoyola University MarylandCopyright © 2018 Society of Christian Ethics... (shrink)

Although it is common for interpreters of Aristotle's De Anima to treat the soul as a specially related set of powers of capacities, I argue against this view on the grounds that the plausible options for reconciling the claim that the soul is a set of powers with Aristotle's repeated claim that the soul is an actuality cannot be unsuccessful. Moreover, I argue that there are good reasons to be wary of attributing to Aristotle the view that the soul is (...) a set of powers because this claim conflicts with several of his metaphysical commitments, most importantly his claims about form and substance. I argue that although there are passages in the De Anima in which Aristotle discusses the soul in terms of its powers or capacities, these discussions do not establish that the soul is a set of capacities. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:John Henry Newman's Art of the EndRebekah LambIn Discourses to Mixed Congregations (1849), John Henry Newman pastorally approaches the question of divine providence by envisioning the purpose or "end" of each life as a dramatic role which unfolds within the theatre of history and which, in turn, has a heavenly destiny, lying within but far beyond the world as we know it, within but beyond the play of the (...) sensible and immediately discernible. In Newman's homiletics, we frequently find him turning and returning to the Christian belief that each life is an unduplicable manifestation of the divine plan, a plan enfolded into the eschatological realization of a new heaven and a new earth.1 In meditating upon this fundamental aspect of the Christian creed and its attending doctrines, Newman appeals to St. Paul and the idea of the world as a theatre, of Christians as spectacles on the world stage of history (1 Cor 4:9; Heb 10: 32–33), in which each person is part of the drama of salvation history:St. Paul on one occasion speaks of this world as a scene in a theatre. Consider what is meant by this. You know, actors on a stage are on an equality with each other really, but for the occasion they assume a difference of character. … Is it not his business, and nothing else, to act his part well? Common sense tells us so. … We are all but actors in this world; each has his special part at present, each has his work, [End Page 893] each has his mission not to indulge his passion, … not to be selfish and self-willed, but to do what God puts on him to do.2Here, we see Newman yoking together eschatology and the everyday through the image of the stage as soteriological microcosm. Throughout his writings, Newman frequently appeals to the arts, to their forms in particular, to flesh out the implications of eschatology in daily life. Paradoxically, he often concludes with the conviction that, however profound and however beautiful, the arts are always already most instructive in pointing to that which transcends or overcomes them. That is to say, the arts are as instructive, as beautiful in their insufficiencies as they are in their capabilities. The arts, in Newman, incline after not only incarnation but also an overcoming, a consummation fully realized through, with, and in beatific vision.3This essay therefore examines Newman's developing perspective on the place of the arts within the Christian life and, by extension, the degree to which his view of the aesthetic is end-driven or eschatological in character. It therefore draws from his poetry and sermons, since, for Newman, the literary is a distinctive mode of theologizing, as opposed to an alternative to it. In so doing, it offers one of the most sustained accounts of Newman's poetic and aesthetic appraisal of daily life in light of eternity. The few extant works touching on Newman's aesthetics have focused on liturgical theology or the devotional imagination, especially as found in Guy Nicholls's Unearthly Beauty: The Aesthetic of St. John Henry Newman (2019) and Ian Ker's The Catholic Revival in English Literature: 1845–1961 (2003). Drawing from these scholarly precedents, my essay also highlights the inextricable links between prayer, liturgical worship, and aesthetic philosophy in Newman's thought. However, it also widens out to consider, among other things, Newman's assessment of the instructive insufficiencies of aesthetics for the spiritual life; the links between aesthetics and doctrine in his thought; and the degree to which Newman's theological aesthetics engaged with the emerging decadent aesthetics of his time. In so doing, this essay offers new directions in engagements with Newman's aesthetics, placing in view the degree to which his end-driven or eschatological imagination enlivened and integrated his considerations of beauty not only in light of history but also in relation to its ultimate unveiling—which lies within yet beyond the historical plane, within yet beyond the veil of sensible things, and in the time [End Page 894] of the Second Coming, when, as Isaiah prophecies, "thine eyes shall see the King in his... (shrink)

This book concentrates on Nietzsche's major legacy as a philosopher.

Accelerationism offers a uniquely robust theory of the future as a subject for political contestation. In this way, it is surprisingly close to the concerns of queer theory. Like queer theory in its engagement with temporality, acclerationism works to describe the causal relations between past, present, and future. However, where queer theory attributes agency to affect and aesthetics, accelerationists look to rational control. In this contribution, I demonstrate that accelerationist rationality undoes itself, involuting into a form of demonic possession that (...) might also be the basis for a queer future-working. (shrink)

Many theistic philosophers conceive of God’s activity in agent-causal terms. That is, they view divine action as an instance of (perhaps the paradigm case of) substance causation. At the same time, many theists endorse the claim that God acts for reasons, and not merely wantonly. It is the aim of this paper to show that a commitment to both theses gives rise to a dilemma. I present the dilemma and then spend the bulk of the paper defending its premises. I (...) conclude with some suggestions for how one might carve out an alternative model of divine action. (shrink)

This paper aims to provide an ethical assessment of the shooting of animals for sport. In particular, it discusses the use of partridges and pheasants for shooting. While opposition to hunting and shooting large wild mammals is strong, game birds have often taken a back seat in everyday animal welfare concerns. However, the practice of raising game birds for sport poses significant ethical issues. Most birds shot are raised in factory-farming conditions, and there is a considerable amount of evidence to (...) show that these birds endure extensive suffering on these farms. Considering the fact that birds do have interests, including interests in life and not suffering, what are the ethical implications of using them for blood sports? Indeed, in the light of the suffering that game birds endure in factory farms, it may be that shooting such birds for sport is more morally problematic than other types of hunting and shooting which many people are often fiercely opposed to, for while it seems plausible to say that some animals may be harmed more by death than others (due to, say, their greater capacities), there may be harms that are worse than death (such as a life of intolerable suffering). The objective of this paper is to assess the ethics of shooting animals for sport, and in particular the practice of raising game birds for use in blood sports, by applying principles commonly used in ethics; specifically the principle of non-maleficence and equal consideration of (like) interests. (shrink)

A large, diverse sample of adults was interviewed about their conception of the ontological and functional properties of the mind as compared to the soul. The existence of the mind was generally tied to the human lifecycle of conception, birth, growth and death, and was primarily associated with cognitive as opposed to spiritual functions. In contrast, the existence of the soul was less systematically tied to the lifecycle and frequently associated with spiritual as opposed to cognitive functions. Participants were also (...) asked about three ethical issues: stem cell research, life support for patients in a persistent vegetative state and cloning. As expected, participants' beliefs about the ontology and function of the soul were linked to their judgments about these ethical issues whereas their beliefs about the mind were unrelated. Overall, the findings show that many adults do not espouse a simple body-mind dualism, and any tendency toward such dualism is unlikely to explain their beliefs in an afterlife. Instead, afterlife beliefs appear to be associated with the idea of an immaterial essence, potentially dissociable from the biology of life and death. (shrink)

The idea that language is necessary for thought and emotion is a dominant one in philosophy. Animals have taken the brunt of this idea, since it is widely held that language is exclusively human. Michael Leahy makes a case against the moral standing of factory-farmed animals based on such ideas. His approach is Wittgensteinian: understanding is a thought process that requires language, which animals do not possess. But he goes further than this and argues that certain factory farming methods do (...) not cause certain sufferings to the animals used, since animals lack full awareness of their circumstances. In particular he argues that animals do not experience certain sufferings at the slaughterhouse since, lacking language, they are unaware of their fate . Through an analysis of Leahy’s claims this paper aims to explore and challenge both the idea that thought and emotion require language and that only humans possess language. (shrink)

There is extensive literature that indicates animals suffer considerably in the practices of factory farming and animal experimentation. In the light of the evidence of this suffering there is an urgent need to answer the question whether our current use of animals is ever morally justifiable. The aim of this thesis is to provide a critical examination of the moral status of animals and of our treatment of animals in these practices. My objective is to assess whether these practices are (...) ever justifiable and whether we have a moral obligation to revise our attitudes towards our use of animals. Animals are often denied moral standing on the basis that they lack certain capacities, such as rationality, language and the ability to think. Further, it is often thought that animals' supposed lack of such capacities could be used as a defence for our use of them in intensive farming and animal experimentation. Thus, in examining the moral status of animals this thesis also examines animals and their capacities in order to determine whether any of the arguments given against the moral standing of animals are sound. In seeking to discover the extent of our moral obligations towards animals and the necessary conditions for moral standing, I will demonstrate that, although animals used in factory farming and experiments do have moral standing, the only consistent course is to extend moral standing to all living things. I will conclude that although the possession of certain much-prized capacities is not necessary for moral standing, many animals do indeed possess such capacities, including the ability to use language. Centrally this thesis calls for a re-evaluation of our attitudes towards animals, particularly in respect of our beliefs about animals used in factory farms and experiments. (shrink)

Sport, Ethics and Philosophy, Volume 5, Issue 2, Page 178-182, May 2011.