Human-animal emotional relationships have a complicated interplay with public perceptions of the morality of animal use. Humans may build emotional relationships with companion species. These species are not usually intensively farmed in the United Kingdom, but they may be utilized during animal experimentation. From a relational ethical standpoint, the public may therefore perceive animal experimentation as being less acceptable than intensive farming. This study aimed to determine whether human-animal emotional relationships affect public attitudes regarding use of animals in intensive farming (...) and research. Responding to an online questionnaire, British citizens rated their agreement with 20 statements relating to their acceptance of intensive farming and animal experimentation, scientific research involving a given species, killing free-living animals, and consuming animals existing within companion and farming contexts. Positive correlations were found between public acceptance of intensive farming and animal experimentation, such that acceptance of animal experimentation corresponded with acceptance of intensive farming practices. This finding disproved our theory that the British public may perceive animal experimentation as less acceptable than intensive farming due to the use of companion species in scientific research. Public acceptance of animal experimentation also did not significantly differ between that involving companion or noncompanion species. However, respondents were more accepting of the consumption of a typical farmed animal raised for meat purposes than consuming an animal if it had been raised in a companion context or consuming a typical companion species raised in either a farmed or companion context. These findings illustrate that the human-animal relationship can influence public perceptions of the morality of animal use. (shrink)

This paper calls for another perspective on cockfight and the symbolism of masculinity. Previous research on cockfighting has its own perspective and interesting findings, one such work on the matt...

Equality of Opportunity is widely thought of as the normative ideal most relevant to the design of educational institutions. One widely discussed interpretation of this ideal is Rawls' principle of Fair Equality of Opportunity. In this paper I argue that theories, like Rawls, that give priority to the achievement of individual autonomy, are committed to giving that same priority to a principle of sufficient opportunity. Thus, the Rawlsian's primary focus when designing educational institutions should be on sufficiency and not equality. (...) The paper then argues this commitment has at least three attractive implications. Firstly, it enables defenders of Fair Equality of Opportunity to overcome Richard Arneson's powerful objections. Secondly, it suggests a revised version of the principle of Fair Equality of Opportunity that is more plausible. Thirdly, it has attractive practical implications for educational provision. (shrink)

The philosophical literature on personal relationships is focused on dyads: close relationships between just two people. This paper aims to characterise the value of looser and larger relational networks, particularly from the perspective of liberal political theory. We focus on relational networks' value vis-a-vis the important good of felt security. We begin by characterising felt security and analysing how felt security is produced within dyads. We highlight the ambivalent nature of dyadic relationships as a source of felt security. We then (...) theorise relational networks, explaining how they too can provide felt security. We explore three unappreciated benefits that arise when felt security is garnered from a network, rather than from a dyad. These benefits take liberal political theory as their starting point. We close by considering the implications - for both individual action and institutional design - of using relational networks as a source of felt security. (shrink)

Almost everyone accepts that parents must provide a good enough upbringing in order to retain custodial rights over children, but little has been said about how that level should be set. In this paper, I examine ways of specifying a good enough upbringing. I argue that the two dominant ways of setting this level, the Best Interests and Abuse and Neglect Views, are mistaken. I defend the Dual Comparative View, which holds that an upbringing is good enough when shortfalls from (...) the best alternative upbringing in terms of the child's interests are no more significant than the parents' interest. (shrink)

Within the field of medical ethics, discussions related to public health have mainly concentrated on issues that are closely tied to research and practice involving technologies and professional services, including vaccination, screening, and insurance coverage. Broader determinants of population health have received less attention, although this situation is rapidly changing. Against this backdrop, our specific contribution to the literature on ethics and law vis-à-vis promoting population health is to open up the ubiquitous presence of pets within cities and towns for (...) further discussion. An expanding body of research suggests that pet animals are deeply relevant to people’s health (negatively and positively). Pet bylaws adopted by town and city councils have largely escaped notice, yet they are meaningful to consider in relation to everyday practices, social norms, and cultural values, and thus in relation to population health. Nevertheless, not least because they pivot on defining pets as private property belonging to individual people, pet bylaws raise emotionally charged ethical issues that have yet to be tackled in any of the health research on pet ownership. The literature in moral philosophy on animals is vast, and we do not claim to advance this field here. Rather, we pragmatically seek to reconcile philosophical objections to pet ownership with both animal welfare and public health. In doing so, we foreground theorizations of personhood and property from sociocultural anthropology. (shrink)