5th Meeting

Hey peeps,

The date of the next meeting is yet to be determined, but is likely to be Monday, December 12. This will allow for just over 2 weeks of post-exam recovery - ample time to get through J. M. Coetzee's lecture  'The Lives of Animals'. The second reading, along with a brief description of where we thought this session might go, is forthcoming.

4th Meeting

The fourth meeting will happen on Monday the 17th of October at 5 o'clock. It will either happen in the ANUSA student space or the boardroom, and I'll update which it will be sometime tomorrow.

For this gathering we'll be reading the Afterword of the 2011 republication of Peter Singer's 1981 Book The Expanding Circle, to which it is a new addition. Within this chapter he discusses his meta-ethcial position, and how it has changed since the first publication of the volume.

I'll keep this short and see you all on Monday.

3rd Meeting

***Note*** This week's meeting has been postponed due to difficulties with google docs, see below for updated details

Hey folks,

The third meeting of the group will held on Wednesday October 5th at 5'oclock in the ANUSA Student Space (near the Commonwealth Bank in Union Court at the ANU)

We're going to focus on the role of reason in animal ethics. The two readings that have been selected propose approaches to the animal question which are in direct conflict. The first is by Jeremy Bentham, who calls for a rational animal ethics. Access it here: Bentham - A Utilitarian View. The second is by Cathryn Bailey, who argues that reason has historically been used as a tool of subjugation. In her view, rationalism is in fact the source of multiple oppressions - not least that endured by animals. Check it out here: Bailey - The Valorisation of Reason

2nd Meeting

The next meeting of this reading group will be held on Monday the 29th of August, at 5 o’clock, in the ANUSA Student Space that faces on to Union Court at the ANU.

The reading that we’ve selected for this session is a chapter from Marc Bekoff’s book “Minding Animals”, called Animal Minds and What’s in Them. In this chapter he presents an introductory discussion on what is known about the cognitive abilities and consciousness of non-human animals.

Thanks so much to the people who came along to our first gathering last week. I was glad to be a part of that conversation. And to those who couldn’t make it, and those that have just heard about this happening: we’d like to hear your piece – you’ll be more than welcome on Monday night.

*UPDATED 7-8-2011*

Over the course of this semester, we hope to engender a broad exploration of the animal question. This may include, but will not be limited to:

• the moral status of non-humans and its implications for human-nonhuman relations
• the intersect between animal philosophy and culture; moral objectivity and cultural relativism
• pain mechanisms and other biological/scientific bases for animal ethics 
• parallels between animal rights and other liberation struggles; black power, feminism, gender rights
• sociological perspectives on human-nonhuman relations; the process of othering

While we have our own ideas as to the direction in which the group could go, we are happy to amend the reading list on the basis of our ongoing discussions. Decisions in this regard will be made democratically.

Feel free to send suggestions to seanmunro_si@hotmail.com.

With a view to putting current attitudes toward non-human animals in some sort of historical context, we decided to begin with a few short pieces. One by René Descartes, an excerpt from the Bible and song from the 1967 film "Doctor Dolittle"

They can be accessed here:
Descartes - Animals Are Machines
Excerpt from the Bible (To download this as a pdf, select "File" on the left side of the window, underneath where it says Google. Then select "Download original".)
Doctor Doolittle's Song

This artwork is by Francisco De Goya.
The text on the table translates as "The sleep of reason produces monsters".