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Though many ethicists have the intuition that we should leave nature alone, Kyle Johannsen argues that we have a duty to research safe ways of providing large-scale assistance to wild animals. Using concepts from moral and political philosophy to analyze the issue of wild animal suffering (WAS), Johannsen explores how a collective, institutional obligation to assist wild animals should be understood. He claims that with enough research, genetic editing may one day give us the power to safely intervene without perpetually interfering with wild animals' liberties.
Questions addressed include:
In what way is nature valuable and is intervention compatible with that value?
Is intervention a requirement of justice?
What are the implications of WAS for animal rights advocacy? What types of intervention are promising?
Expertly moving the debate about human relations with wild animals beyond its traditional confines, Wild Animal Ethics is essential reading for students and scholars of political philosophy and political theory studying animal ethics, environmental ethics, and environmental philosophy.
List of contents
1. Introduction 2. What’s so Good about Nature? 3. A Collective Obligation to Intervene 4. To Assist or Not to Assist? Assessing the Risks of Humanitarian Intervention in Nature 5. Editing Nature 6. Intervention and Animal Rights Advocacy
About the author
Kyle Johannsen is Adjunct Assistant Professor in the Department of Philosophy at Queen's University, Kingston. He is primarily interested in social and political philosophy, and in animal and environmental ethics. His first monograph – A Conceptual Investigation of Justice – was published with Routledge in 2018, and his work has appeared in journals such as Dialogue, Environmental Values, Ethical Perspectives, Ethical Theory and Moral Practice, and Res Publica.
Summary
Using concepts from moral and political philosophy to analyze the question of wild animal suffering, Kyle Johannsen explores how a collective, institutional obligation to assist wild animals should be understood.
