COURSE DESCRIPTION

This course introduces the central issues, controversies, and dilemmas surrounding the use and treatment of animals, with a specific focus on the social and environmental implications of human-animal relationships. Students will develop an understanding of the current legal and philosophical frameworks that govern contemporary attitudes before engaging with a series of broader questions: Is the use of animals by humans morally justifiable? If not, why not? If so, how so? Readings and expert interviews will introduce all the major areas of thought and debate, and will be paired with counter-takes that critique or complicate their arguments. Finally, students will apply key concepts in a series of real-world case studies, exploring the larger relevance of human-animal ethics to policy, community governance, and ecological practice. 

Course Objectives

Upon completion of this course, students will be able to:

• Interrogate whether or not the use of animals by humans is morally justifiable
• Practice assessing ethical dilemmas from conflicting stances
• Investigate core personal values, experiences, and emotions that shape their own ethics of animals while making space for new and evolving ideas
• Unpack key questions of rights, responsibilities, value, utility, welfare, and morality in reference to human-animal relationships
• Analyze intersectional approaches that connect animal-human forms of oppression to human-human forms of oppression
• Survey diverse ideas from influential thinkers in the field of animal ethics, as well as the tensions that exist between them
• Connect influential ideas with their logical and ethical implications
• Practice arguing effectively against the grain when appropriate
• Consider animal-human relationships in a broader, more holistic, ecological context

This course was created through and is part of :

COURSE-AT-A-GLANCE

This course includes nineteen (19) modules that cover philosophical foundations, modern perspectives, case studies, and ample space for reflection and conversation. The topical overview below provides an early taste of what you can expect as you embark on your learning journey. 

1. Personal History – This module guides us toward personal histories that explain our current attitudes and beliefs. This will create a useful record of where we stand now, as the course begins, while outlining the questions we hope to address in subsequent modules.
   

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2. Animal Welfare, Animal Rights – This module will introduce us to fundamental questions in the field of animal ethics, and help us distinguish between a) indirect and direct responsibilities to animals and b) animal welfare and animal rights. We’ll also get a sense of where we fall on this ideological spectrum.
   

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3. Who Counts? On moral consideration – This module will ask why we deem some animals to be morally considerable, and not others, and on what grounds.
   

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4. Peter Singer, Utilitarianism, and Equal Consideration – This module will bring us beyond the journalistic value of Peter Singer’s seminal Animal Liberation, and introduce Singer’s ideas as a philosopher. It will set us up to understand the controversy it generated within the animal rights movement and outside it.
   

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5. Peter Singer: Counterpoints – This module will consider how Singer’s work could be potent, original, influential, overly narrow, and troubling all at the same time. We will practice exercising critical attitudes toward all ideas presented in the course.
   

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6. Inherent Value – This module will consider the theory of inherent value using Regan’s The Case for Animal Rights, contrast it with Singer’s utilitarianism, and ask us to consider where our own views lie on the spectrum between the two.
   

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7. Ethics of Care – This module questions whether we should be so dispassionate and rational when considering animal ethics. What is the value (and what are the pitfalls) of empathy, compassion, and pity in relation to animal ethics?
   

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8. Normalizing Violence – This module introduces us to the work of Carol Adams and Melanie Joy, who question why everyday patterns of animal consumption are so commonplace and how we normalize conditions we might otherwise object to.
   

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9. Intersectional Perspectives, Part 1: Racial Injustice and Animal Ethics – This module introduces the work of writers who connect the mistreatment of animals and the mistreatment of certain groups of people. Are the power dynamics the same? We’ll start with the lens of racial injustice.
   

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10. Intersectional Perspectives, Part 2: Disability and Animal Ethics – This module asks whether or not we can separate disability advocacy from questions about animal ethics. How do we categorize “the human” and “the animal,” and what impact do standards of “normalcy” have on both?
    

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11. Considering the Lobster – This module offers an opportunity to reflect on the perspectives studied so far. Using David Foster Wallace’s essay of the same name, we will practice making the argument against the use of animals by humans.
    

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12. The Honorable Harvest –This module invites us to step outside of Western discourses to consider what our guiding question looks like from indigenous perspectives.
    

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13. Food Sovereignty, Animal Rights, and Anti-Indigenous Bias –  This module considers a real-life example of the tension between the need to consume other life and the perceived right for animals not to be killed for human uses.
    

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14. Compassionate Carnivorism – This module considers how our moral judgments about the use of animals depends on context, and the degree to which “compassionate carnism” is a valid ethical stance.
    

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15. Animals, the Environment, and Leopold’s “Land Ethic” –  Using Aldo Leopold’s “Land Ethic,” this module examines geology- and ecology-based arguments for meat eating.
    

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16. Ecological Holism –  This module introduces an approach that asks us to value animal lives differently. What do we make of “holism,” which suggests overall ecosystems cannot be subordinate to the “rights” of individual organisms?
    

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17. Positive Externalities –  This module considers the perspective that takes seriously the suffering of individual animals that can result from their use by humans, but suggests that animal suffering is not the only or most important consideration. Can animal consumption have beneficial impacts that outweigh the negative?
    

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18. Beyond Food: Considering other uses of animals – This module considers the degree to which the non-consumptive uses of animals are ethically justifiable. We will also observe and practice dialogue between people who hold different ethical perspectives.
    

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19. Re-considering the Lobster – This module invites us to conclude the second section of the course by revisiting David Foster Wallace’s essay in light of arguments for the justification of the human use of animals. We will then consider how our personal views have evolved since the start of the course.

AUDIENCE

Whether it’s an article about cutting meat and dairy to reduce emissions, conversations about the ethics of lab-grown meat, or a sense of curiosity you feel when driving past cows grazing on pasture, our relationship to animals – particularly for food – seems particularly complex right now. And few conversations are as emotionally charged as these. Where can you go to learn more, especially if you aren’t sure where you stand? Where can you find a trustworthy space for inquiry, a place where it’s okay to change your mind and equally alright to reaffirm and inform what you already suspected to be true? 

EcoGather’s course in Animal Ethics offers a unique opportunity go back to basics and see what philosophers and farmers, writers and consumers alike have to say about the ethics of our relationships to animals. Participants who are ready to examine and question a variety of perspectives while cohering something new will undoubtedly benefit from the course, as will those looking for new ways to communicate about contentious topics.

You don’t need a degree in philosophy or animal husbandry to participate – modules are focused and concise, featuring one or two thought-provoking readings or recordings as well as supporting exercises like journaling or discussion forums. The course is fully asynchronous and online; learners are expected to know the basics of navigating an online space and abide by a code of conduct, and can complete the course at their own pace. All learning materials in this course, including readings, pre-recorded video, audio, and discussions are in English.

COURSE INSTRUCTOR

Meet Joe Fassler

Joe Fassler is a Denver-based writer and editor. His food and environmental reporting, which appears in outlets like Bloomberg Businessweek, The Atlantic, The Guardian, and The Best American Food Writing, has been supported by the Ted Scripps Fellowship in Environmental Journalism and the 11th Hour Food and Farming Fellowship. In his former role as deputy editor of The Counter, stories he edited won a James Beard Media Award, appeared twice in Best American Food Writing, and netted multiple SABEW business writing awards. He’s also author of Light the Dark: Writers on Creativity, Inspiration, and the Artistic Process (Penguin Books, 2017) and the forthcoming novel The Sky Was Ours (Penguin, 2024).

Disclaimer: Course descriptions on this webpage are for informational purposes only.  Content may be updated or change as planning evolves.  EcoGather reserves the right to alter the program specifics, including details about course content, instructors, collaborations, field trips, facilities and pricing, at any time without notice.