APPLE member and Adjunct Assistant Professor in the Department of Philosophy at Queen’s University Kyle Johannsen recently published a new book at Routledge, in October 2020, on the issue of wild animal suffering.
“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?