Animal Studies (ANST-UA)

This course analyzes several aspects of our oceans, with particular emphasis on human impacts and examines some of the recent major threats, including lack of governance for the high seas, deep-sea mining, and the effects of climate change on aquatic animals. We will focus ecological relationships between marine organisms and their environment, with the introduction of humans as marine predators and ecological disturbers

This course examines the morality of our treatment of nonhuman animals. We start by asking about the nature of moral rights and duties. What are rights, and where do they come from? How do we resolve conflicts among rights? Do animals have rights? Next, what are obligations, and where do they come from? What makes right actions right? Do we have special obligations to members of our own family, nation, or species? Is there a moral difference between killing and letting die? Do we have group obligations as well as individual obligations? We then ask how these issues apply to our treatment of nonhuman animals. Are we justified in treating animals as property under the law? Are we justified in using animals for food, clothing, entertainment, research, or companionship? Finally, what are the ethics of animal advocacy? Here we consider abolition vs. regulation, incrementalism vs. absolutism, and legal reform vs. direct action.

This course examines the philosophy of cognitive ethology and comparative psychology. We begin by discussing the nature of animal minds. Are animals conscious? Do they experience pain? Do they have beliefs? Do they use language? Are they self-conscious? How can we know? This involves applying concepts from metaphysics and epistemology to research in cognitive ethology and comparative psychology. We then discuss more general questions like: Are animals agents? Do they have free will? Do they live meaningful lives? Do they have moral rights? This involves applying concepts from ethics, existentialism, and other areas of philosophy to our conclusions about animal minds. Finally, we also ask, along the way, how research on animal minds can affect our philosophical theories. For example, should we revise our theories of consciousness, language, agency, morality, and so on if they seem to have implausible implications about animals?

The purpose of Food, Animals, and the Environment is to critically analyze the place of animals in our food system and in the environment, with an emphasis on the intersection between them. The course examines the main impacts that agriculture has on humans, nonhumans, and the environment, as well as some of the questions that these impacts raise for the ethics of food production, consumption, and activism. This seminar is designed to reflect the rich overlap between the fields of Environmental Studies and Animal Studies.

This class explores the role of literature in creating empathy – how can it help us imagine the lives of “others” & that of animals? By querying the politics of meat mainly through contemporary literature, we put three similar (yet often disconnected) disciplines in conversation with each other: food studies, environmental studies, and animal studies. Two key questions we will address are: 1. What relationship – if any – is there between what we eat and who we are? 2. How are the intimate spaces of both human and nonhuman bodies – and their cultivation – related to notions of ecological violence?

Considers how public policy is created, how social change occurs, and the influence of science, government, business, and non-governmental organizations on animal-related policies, legislation, litigation, and consumer campaigns, as well the meaning of “animal rights” and the impact of the modern animal protection movement.

"Topics vary by semester. Prerequisites vary by topic"

Topics vary by semester. Prerequisites vary by topic