S1E1 - Animal Rights with Will Kymlicka
Claudia talks to Will Kymlicka about the concept of Animal Rights and how it pertains to the law. They touch on what the relationship is between law and ethics and what this means for scholarship in ‘The Animal Turn’. This episode opens-up the first season of the podcast, focusing on Animals and the Law.
Will Kymlicka is the Canada Research Chair in Political Philosophy at Queen’s University, where he has taught since 1998. He has published eight books and over 200 articles, which have been translated into 34 languages. His books include Contemporary Political Philosophy (1990; second edition 2002), Multicultural Citizenship (1995), Multicultural Odysseys: Navigating the New International Politics of Diversity (2007), and most recently Zoopolis: A Political Theory of Animal Rights (2011), co-authored with Sue Donaldson. He was awarded the 2019 Gold Medal from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.
Mentioned:
Zoopolis: A Political Theory of Animal Rights written by Sue Donaldson and Will Kymlicka
Animals and the Law by Lesli Bisgould
Social Membership: Animal Law Beyond the Property/Personhood Impasse by Will Kymlicka
"The word 'cruelty' in animal welfare law ... "protects the routine practices that are common in a given activity by drawing out for condemnation only singular acts of extraordinary behaviour. If many people find it convenient, enjoyable, or profitable to do things that hurt animals, those things are not legally cruel. So long as causing animals to suffer is not the only object of the act, the fact that they suffer as a result becomes almost entirely irrelevant" - Will quotes Lesli Bisgould, Animals and the Law
Thank you to Animals in Philosophy, Politics, Law and Ethics (A.P.P.L.E) for sponsoring this podcast; Gordon Clarke (Instagram: @_con_sol_) for the bed music, Jeremy John for the logo. This episode was edited and produced by the host Claudia Towne Hirtenfelder.