Recent PhD Kyle Johannsen has a new book, Wild Animal Ethics: The Moral and Political Problem of Wild Animal Suffering. The book was recently featured on New Books in Philosophy, and is also the subject of an upcoming, APPLE-sponsored symposium, whose commentators include Nicolas Delon (New College of Florida), Bob Fischer (Texas State), Gary O’Brien (Oxford), and Clare Palmer (Texas A&M).
See below for reviews of Wild Animal Ethics by Bob Fischer (Texas State), Jeff Sebo (NYU), and Jeff McMahan (Oxford).
'Attention to wild animal suffering may be the most important recent development in animal ethics. It threatens to reverse a host of common judgments in environmental advocacy, conservation biology, and philanthropic cause prioritization. Kyle Johannsen has done an admirable job explaining why it matters, why we ought to do something about it, and feasible strategies for helping. This is book is essential reading for anyone concerned about wild animals and our responsibilities to them.'
Bob Fischer, Department of Philosophy, Texas State University
'Wild Animal Ethics is an excellent book that makes a powerful case for reducing wild animal suffering. Johannsen convincingly shows that assisting wild animals should be a top moral and political priority whether we care about animal welfare, animal rights, or both. He also addresses a number of important issues ranging from the ethics of killing predators to the ethics of genetic modification. Every reader will benefit from engaging with the arguments in this book, and wild animals will benefit enormously if we accept the main conclusions.'
Jeff Sebo, Affiliated Professor of Bioethics, Medical Ethics, and Philosophy, New York University
'Much has been written about the appalling suffering that we inflict on animals through practices such as factory farming. But the suffering of animals in the wild is vastly more extensive. Wild Animal Ethics defends the claim that although we are not the cause of this pervasive suffering, we nevertheless have moral reasons to try to mitigate it. Johannsen’s arguments are neither naïve nor utopian. They make a convincing case for the importance of research into ways of intervening beneficently in the natural world, particularly through techniques of genetic modification that could gradually, and without harmful side effects, diminish predation and modes of reproduction that doom the vast majority of offspring to early, painful deaths. The suffering of animals in the wild is a serious moral issue, to which this book is a sensible, well-argued, and humane response.'
Jeff McMahan, White’s Professor of Moral Philosophy, University of Oxford
New Books in Philosophy: Kyle Johannsen’s Wild Animal Ethics