In this paper I explore a new approach to the ethics of animal experimentation by conceiving of it as a form of rescue. The notion of rescue, I suggest, involves some moral agent performing an action or series of actions, whose end is to prevent or alleviate serious harm to another party, harm that otherwise would have occurred or would have continued to occur, had that moral agent not intervened. Animal experiments that are utilized as a means to alleviate human (...) illnesses mirror the structure of rescue cases and this means that we can and should apply principles of rescue to illuminate the moral status of animal experimentation. To do this I consider various principles of rescue that might justify animal experimentation. I’ll argue that all of these rescue principles are either not independently plausible, or else they fail to imply that animal experimentation is morally justified. This suggests that it is quite difficult to morally justify animal experimentation when conceived as a form of rescue. (shrink)

This article considers the claims (i) that saving human life through organ transplants from other species would be speciesist, (ii) that none the less it can be defended on grounds of loyalty to our species. I reject loyalty to one's species as a plausible extension of the virtue of loyalty, suggesting that solidarity with one's species is possible and may provide adequate grounds of defense of xenografting.

Metaphilosophy, Volume 53, Issue 1, Page 25-37, January 2022.

In this article, I argue that it is wrong to conduct any experiment on a nonhuman which we would regard as immoral were it to be conducted on a human, because such experimentation violates the basic moral rights of sentient beings. After distinguishing the rights approach from the utilitarian approach, I delineate basic concepts. I then raise the classic “argument from marginal cases” against those who support experimentation on nonhumans but not on humans. After next replying to six important objections (...) against that argument, I contend that moral agents are logically required to accord basic moral rights to every sentient being. I conclude by providing criteria for distinguishing ethical from unethical experimentation. (shrink)

A philosophical investigation of new year's celebrations.

Violence is gendered, so let's call it like it is.