BEGIN:VCALENDAR PRODID:-//Grails iCalendar plugin//NONSGML Grails iCalendar plugin//EN VERSION:2.0 CALSCALE:GREGORIAN METHOD:PUBLISH BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTAMP:20260604T104636Z DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20141203T120000 DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20141203T140000 SUMMARY:The Question of Legal Rights for Animals UID:20260605T102742Z-iCalPlugin-Grails@philevents-web-bd7db559-gt5qm TZID:Europe/London LOCATION:Oxford\, United Kingdom DESCRIPTION:

We are pleased to announce details of the forthcoming 2014 Uehiro Lectures

Speaker: Professor Christine M. Korsgaard (Harvard University)

Series title: \; Fellow Creatures: \; The Moral and Legal Standing of Animals

How should we human beings treat the other animals? \; What do we owe to them\, if anything? \; These are not only questions that we have to address at the legal and political level\, but also questions that we all make personal decisions about every day of our lives. \; We make them when we decide what to eat\, what to wear\, what products to use\, what medications to take\, and how to use land. In these lectures I will raise some fundamental questions about the moral and legal standing of the other animals: about the basis of our moral obligations to them\, and what those obligations are\, and about whether it makes sense to think that animals might have legal rights.

Venue: \; All three lectures will take place in the Lecture Theatre\, Oxford Martin School\, Old Indian Institute\, Oxford OX1 3BD

Booking required: \; Please book online at http://bookwhen.com/uehiro \; *early booking recommended to avoid disappointment* Please note you will need to reserve spaces for each lecture separately.

Webpage:

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Lecture One: \; Animals\, Human Beings\, and Persons (Monday 1 December\, 4.30 - 6.30pm)
Legitimate differences in the ways we treat animals\, human beings\, and other entities that have moral or legal rights - legal persons - must be based on the differences between them. Philosophers have traditionally cited a variety of factors - rationality\, sentience\, having interests - as morally significant. \; In this lecture I discuss what the morally relevant similarities and differences between these kinds of entities might be.

Lecture Two: The Moral Standing of Animals (Tuesday 2 December\, 5-7pm)
Human attitudes towards the other animals exhibit a curious instability. \; Nearly everyone thinks we have some obligations with respect to the other animals - that whenever possible\, we should treat them "humanely." Yet human beings have traditionally regarded nearly any reason we might have for overriding this obligation\, short of malicious enjoyment of their suffering\, as a sufficient reason. \; We kill or hurt animals in order to eat them\, in order to make useful or desirable products out of them\, because we can learn from experimenting on them\, because they are interfering with our own agricultural projects\, or even for sport. \; Could it really be true that animals have moral standing\, but that it never has any force against human interests? \; In this lecture I will present an account of why animals have moral standing\, based in Kant's moral philosophy\, according to which the answer to this question is no. Our duties to animals are more stringent than our current practices reflect.

Lecture Three: The Question of Legal Rights for Animals (Wednesday 3 December\, 5-7pm)
The instability in human attitudes about the moral standing of animals is reflected in our laws. \; Animal welfare laws offer animals some legal protections\, but those protections do not take the form of animal rights. Partly as a consequence\, these laws are often ineffective. Organizations with an interest in activities that are harmful to animals\, such as factory farms or experimental laboratories\, often manage to get their own activities exempt from the restrictions or the animals they deal with exempt from the protections. On the other hand\, many people find the idea that animals either should have legal rights or do have natural rights absurd. \; Rights\, many believe\, only exist among those who can stand in reciprocal relations to each other\, and who can have obligations correlative to their rights. Animals do not stand in such relations to us\, or to each other. In this lecture I will argue for a Kantian conception of a kind of legal rights for animals is not subject to these objections.



Rachel Gaminiratne
Oxford Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics
Faculty of Philosophy
University of Oxford
Suite 8 Littlegate House
16-17 St Ebbe's Street
Oxford OX1 1PT
Tel: (01865 2) 86888
www.practicalethics.ox.ac.uk ORGANIZER: METHOD:PUBLISH END:VEVENT END:VCALENDAR