CFP: Moral Demands Towards Animals: British and German Perspectives (1670–1820)

Keynote speakers:  John Callanan (King’s College London) and Aaron Garrett (Boston University)

The history of animal ethics in the long eighteenth century remains surprisingly understudied. British and Irish contributions have often been overshadowed by the retrospective dominance of Bentham's famous 1789 footnote, while the parallel German tradition — which has much more to offer than Kant's perspective on non-human animals — has been largely neglected. Yet both traditions deserve attention in their own right, and their juxtaposition raises important comparative questions: under what conditions do similar assumptions about sentience, soul, divine justice, or humanity's place in nature generate similar or radically different ethical conclusions? What travels between these traditions, what does not, and why?

This workshop invites contributions on any author, text, or debate from Britain, Ireland, or the German-speaking world between 1670 and 1820 bearing on the moral demands humans owe to animals: their moral or legal status, the normative significance of sentience (or soul), duties of care, animal rights, or their denial.

Relevant topics and figures include, but are not limited to:

• sentience, suffering, and Empfindsamkeit as moral criteria (e.g. Feder, Primatt);
• rights-based approaches and anticipations of the Argument from Marginal Cases (e.g. Hommel, Dietler, Bentham);
• the brutalisation argument and the moral psychology of cruelty; compassion, sympathy, and benevolence as foundations of moral concern for animals (e.g. Gerber, Mandeville, Hutcheson, Hume, Hartley, Macaulay, Wollstonecraft, Volckmann);
• indirect duty frameworks, natural law, and juridical approaches to animal status (e.g. Pufendorf, Thomasius, Wolff, Winkler, Meier, Reimarus, Kant);
• vegetarianism and the limits of divine warrant for the use of animals (e.g. Tryon, Newcome, Hartley, Oswald);
• practical and legal dimensions of human–animal relations, including hunting, slaughter, meat-eating, working animals, and vivisection;
• the scala naturae, the Great Chain of Being, and transmigration as resources or obstacles for grounding moral obligations towards animals (e.g. Meier, Jenyns);
• theodicy, divine justice, and animal afterlife (e.g. Butler, Hildrop, Jenyns, Dean);
• the reception, adaptation, and transmission of arguments across national and linguistic boundaries.

While the workshop focuses primarily on British, Irish, and German-speaking authors and traditions, contributions engaging with other relevant intellectual contexts (e.g. French, Dutch, or wider European debates) are also welcome, particularly where they shed light on questions of influence, transmission, comparison, or reception. Contributions engaging comparatively across traditions are especially welcome.

Please send abstracts of up to 500 words to [email protected] by 31 October 2026. We aim to communicate decisions by mid-November 2026.

There will be no registration fee. We hope to be able to contribute toward accommodation costs for accepted speakers.

The workshop is organised as part of the ERC Advanced Grant '18ETHICS', based at the University of Milan. For more details on the project, see our website: https://18ethics.unimi.it/