Mar. 26-Apr. 6 (animals)

Monday March 26

close up of sheep's face looking into the camera, with what looks like a curious look
Sheep image, licensed CC0 on pixabay.com

Required

Harman, E. (2011). The moral significance of animal pain and animal death. In T.L. Beauchamp and R.G. Frey (Eds.), The Oxford handbook of animal ethics. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

  • The “third view” section of this article is optional–we won’t focus on that in class (Section 4, pp. 731 to end of section 4).
  • You can access this reading on the UBC Library Course Reserves page for this course (requires CWL).
    • Go to the book that’s linked on the course reserves page and find the chapter by Elizabeth Harman called “The Moral Significance of Animal Pain and Animal Death.” (It’s under the “practical ethics” section of that book)
    • You can read it online or click “view PDF” on the top right once you’ve gotten to the Harman chapter of the book. You should be able to download or print the PDF from there.

Wednesday March 28

Essay 2 due by noon on Wednesday, March 28. Submit it on the Canvas site (go to “assignments” after logging in).

No discussion meetings this week! Friday is a holiday and the university is closed, which means there are no discussion meetings for those who have them on Fridays. It would be unfair to require those who have them on Wednesday to attend when the Friday people don’t have to, so all discussion meetings are cancelled this week.

Required

Belshaw, C. (2015). Death, pain and animal life. In T. Višak and R. Garner (Eds.), The ethics of killing animals. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

  • Read sections 2.2 through 2.4 in this article (sections 2.1, 2.5-2.7 are optional).
  • You can access this reading on the UBC Library Course Reserves page for this course (requires CWL). Sections 2.5 to the end of the article are optional (you can just read up to
    • Go to the book that’s linked there and find the chapter by Christopher Belshaw called “Death, Pain and Animal Life.” (It’s under Part I of that book.)
    • You can read it online or click “view PDF” on the top right once you’ve gotten to the Belshaw chapter of the book. You should be able to download or print the PDF from there.

Friday March 30

This is a holiday and the university is closed, so there won’t be any discussion meetings on Friday.


Monday April 2

This is a holiday–the university is closed so there is no class!

Wednesday April 4

Required:

  • Documentary on CBC website: Angry Inuk (45 minutes; viewable only from within Canada). This film provides information about Inuit seal hunting from the perspective of Inuit themselves. It argues against some of the claims and activist methods from animal rights groups.
    • There are images of a seal hunt (a seal is shot from a far distance) and of skinning and cutting up seal meat. If this is something you don’t want to see, skip the part from 1:30 to 4:30.
    • The above linked film is a shortened version of the original documentary (about 80 minutes), which can be purchased from the National Film Board of Canada site. When I first found this film it only cost $1 to purchase it there, but now it’s about $13. The above, shortened version can be viewed on CBC for free!

Optional:

Article in The Guardian about animal rights groups vs. Inuit on seal hunting.

Department of Fisheries and Oceans Canada page on “Ensuring the seal harvest is humane” (updated 2016).

Friday, April 6

Philosophy in the world assignment due by 5pm Friday April 6.

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