What is animal ethics and what disciplines interact with it? What are some common themes and how does the academic discourse form around them? Dr. Clair Linzey, co-editor of Journal of Animal Ethics joins us for a conversation covering all of these and more in our latest episode of The UPside. See below for a transcript of the interview or listen to the podcast on SoundCloud or Spotify.  If you haven’t seen our blog post celebrating 15 years of Journal of Animal Ethics, you may want to check that out as well!

University of Illinois Press: Welcome to the University of Illinois Press podcast, The Upside. I’m Michelle Woods, the Journals Marketing and Communications Manager for the Press, and today I’m excited to present our podcast recognizing the fifteenth volume year of the Journal of Animal Ethics. We’ll be discussing the Journal’s history, a preview of the latest issue, the discipline of animal ethics, and what the Journal seeks in future submissions. Plus, in celebration this milestone, the entire first issue of the Journal is free to access until December 31, 2025.

Our special guest today is Clair Linzey, co-editor of Journal of Animal Ethics. Could you please introduce yourself?

Clair Linzey: Hi, Michelle, thank you for having me. I’m Clair Linzey. I’m the co-editor of the Journal of Animal Ethics with Andrew Linzey. He’s the director of the Oxford Centre for Animal Ethics, and I’m the deputy director of the Oxford Centre for Animal Ethics. I also hold the post of Research Fellow in Animal Ethics at Wycliffe Hall, at the University of Oxford.

UIP: Great, thank you so much for that introduction. First, for those unfamiliar with the Journal, the Journal of Animal Ethics is a biannual publication devoted to the exploration of progressive thought about animals. It is multidisciplinary in nature and international in scope. It covers theoretical and applied aspects of animal ethics—of interest to academics from the humanities and the sciences, as well as professionals working in the field of animal protection. You can learn more about where to read the Journal online, how to subscribe, how to submit your own work, and more on our website at go.illinois.edu/JAnE.

Before we jump into more about the Journal, let’s start with a seemingly basic question, but one I think is really important for this conversation:

Could you please tell me how you define “animal ethics”?

CL: It’s a great question. I think a lot of what you already said sort of covers it. I mean, it is about progressive thought on animals, and the easiest way to think about it is that thought on animals has been normally divided into kind of animal rights-type language and animal welfare-type language. Animal ethics attempts to bridge both of those positions. We discuss both more philosophical things but also more practical things about animal ethics. But it’s really just about our moral treatment of animals.

UIP: Thank you, it’s really helpful to have that framework understanding the field and what scholarship the Journal contributes.

Clair, as you’ve now served as editor for the past nine years after joining in 2016, have you noticed any changes in the content during that time?

CL: Well, the journal started with Andrew, and with Priscilla Cohn when she was still alive, and really the point of the journal, why we really wanted to do it, was to really put academic thinking about animals on the map. Often animal academics don’t have a natural home for where to write about animal ethics, and we wanted to develop that space.

I think that space has developed a lot in a variety of ways since I became co-editor. We began quite philosophically, in some ways, dealing with different thinkers, whilst we’ve always maintained a practical component to what’s actually happening to animals. I think that that has grown, and I think we have tried to keep it as multidisciplinary as possible. So sometimes we have more literature things, and we have more science publications. But I think the main thing that’s happened is that our reach has expanded. We get a lot more submissions from around the world, from India, for example, Brazil or Asia. And I think that that’s really one of the strengths of it. We’re really accruing a more global worldview as well as a strong focus in North America and Europe.

UIP: Absolutely, we can see now how the Journal has grown into something much broader and more globally connected.

We’ll circle back to the more recent content shortly. But first, let’s talk about the first issue, which, as I mentioned at the beginning of this episode, is free to access through the end of 2025. Of the many interesting pieces in the issue, there are two arguments, “Canada’s Commercial Seal Hunt: It’s More Than a Question of Humane Killing” by David M. Lavigne and William S. Lynn and “On Due Recognition of Animals Used in Research” by Joel Marks.

Can you talk a bit about the format of an argument and how it contributes to the scholarship of the field?

CL: Yeah, I don’t know if other journals really have this. But when Andrew and Priscilla started the journal, they thought it was really important to have these shorter argument pieces, and they tend to focus more on a practical animal issue like you said, like Canada’s commercial seal hunt, or something about animals used in research. It’s to enable scholars to focus on just one particular issue and look at it in short form. I think that over the years it has produced a really interesting highlight of practical things that are happening to animals, to highlight their suffering or to highlight the ways in which we use them, which we don’t otherwise really know about.

For example, one argument piece last year talked about aquaculture in Tasmania: the ways in which that’s growing and the ways in which fish are affected, but also the ways in which it’s affecting the environment. That’s maybe not a long enough piece to write, but a short, crisp piece arguing why this is a problem is. I just think it’s a really interesting thing to do as a scholar, because normally we write longer pieces. It gives you the opportunity to tackle the issue head on.

UIP: I agree, it is such a unique feature of the Journal. The arguments bring attention to topics that might otherwise get overlooked for not having enough content to fill a full-length article.

Another thing that stood out to me from this issue is that two of the articles included response articles. Barbro Frööding and Martin Peterson discuss some aspects of animal ethics from an Aristotelian virtue ethics point of view in “Animal Ethics Based on Friendship,” which is followed by “Friendship and Animals: A Reply to Frööding and Peterson” by Mark Rowlands. Also, the article “Should Whiteheadians Be Vegetarians? A Critical Analysis of the Thoughts of Whitehead, Birch, Cobb, and McDaniel” by Jan Deckers has an accompanying response from Jay McDaniel.

Can you please similarly give us insight into how the Journal provides space for these academic discourses?

CL: I think what’s partly interesting about the first volume and the debates you’ve highlighted there is that they’re actually about specific thinkers work on animals, and so often in this case, with Aristotle, people are looking at whether we can be friends with animals. That’s really what the debate is about there. This debate has carried on throughout different issues of the Journal, as other people have chosen to reply to both of these articles, which I think is really interesting. In fact, the question of animal ethics-based friendship in relation to Aristotle seems to be a very live philosophical debate that we’re tracing.

What I like about this format is that it allows scholarly debates in a way that is respectful but also concurrent and interesting. You get to see different scholars, perspectives on things, put forward. We’ve done that in a variety of different issues. There was one issue dedicated to animal ethics in Africa, and different thinkers responded to each other, which was really fun. It’s just an interesting tool, because you get to see contrasting points of view, and they respond to each other. And really, outside of conferences, that isn’t something you see side by side very often in academic discourse, which I just think is really just a nice thing to do. It’s trickier in terms of the editing, but I think it’s definitely worth it.

UIP: Yeah, so a quick follow up question about what you mentioned at the beginning there: it seems like philosophy interacts very closely with animal ethics.

Are there other disciplines that cross over frequently in the publications?

CL: Well, because we are multidisciplinary, you see a lot of disciplines being engaged. We have a lot of law published, I would say. I think it forms around less around the disciplines and more around the issues. So, we tend to publish quite a bit on animal experimentation. We publish quite a bit on animal agriculture. We publish quite a lot on different thinkers. Actually, the most recent issue has some literary scholars in there, so I think we do our best to garner discourse from lots of different places. Philosophy, because modern thought on animals was really born in philosophy. Philosophy maintains a prime place in the journal just because it’s where the dialogue began. But I think it’s really broadened out. Beyond that it’s not just philosophy, and we do try to make issues such that if you like philosophy, there’s some in there. But then there’s some other disciplines as well. It doesn’t read as just a one discipline–focused issue. Hopefully, you get a little bit of everything.

UIP: That makes sense, a focus on the issues, rather than discipline, so that the Journal provides a variety and depth of scholarship.And you’ve already kind of led us in this direction, because I was going to shift to the most recent issue, Volume 15, Issue 1: both of these features, an argument and an article with a response also appear. 

What are some of the articles we can find in the most recent issue? I know you already mentioned that there are some literary-focused pieces.

CL: Well, it’s an issue I really enjoy. We always begin with the argument piece, and the argument piece this time is on the practice of Buddhist ritual release, which happens a lot in Asia, and whether that is an ethically progressive thing to do. I mean, obviously, it sounds like it would be, but the author suggests actually that the animals are not just released. They’re actually then recaptured, and then you pay to release them again. So, it’s an interesting issue that amounts to practical animal liberation there.

Then we’ve got some really practical pieces as well questions about the moral ambiguity of animal assisted therapy and what that looks like. There’s a really interesting reply and debate between Paulina Siemieniec and Joan Schaffner: Paulina is arguing that domesticated animals should have the rights to their own reproductive preferences. It’s an argument that basically we shouldn’t spay and neuter our animals. And that’s replied to by Joan Schaffner. It’s kind of a legal argument, but it’s also a deeply practical one: if we don’t neuter our companion animals, what happens to all the unwanted animals that are left? When somebody is proposing something a little controversial, it’s really nice to have like a little bit of discussion there.

Lucille Thibodeau and Malcolm Hay both talk about literary scholars. Malcolm’s work is on Robert Burns’s “To a Mouse,” which is just a really lovely piece, and then Lucille is talking about Christopher Smart and William Stafford and the idea of poets as animal thinkers.

It’s a really nice issue in that sense, because we’ve got a real diversity of disciplines and a lot of things really speaking to each other, and then it ends with a piece on the role of propaganda in the meat industry advertising, which is really nice to bring it back to something practical. We kind of try to ebb and flow between the practical and the philosophical or the practical and the more theoretical parts, because often practical issues are less discussed in academia. So, we like to bring it back to that.

UIP: This issue does sound like a really great example of the multidisciplinary nature of the journal, with all those different types of articles.

So, as we look forward into the next 15 years of the Journal, are there certain areas of scholarship that you think need more attention? Or are there any trends that we should be watching for in the field?

CL: Well, I would like to see more argument pieces. They are not as often submitted, and I think they’re a really nice tool for discussing practical issues. Pieces that focus on practical issues that we might actually see some moral progress on in our in our lifetimes would just be really wonderful to see. I think often academia tends towards the theoretical, and, as you can probably tell, I enjoy the practical things, because I think they shed light on things we don’t know. And so much of what happens to animals is unseen. It’s really nice to just raise awareness.

You never know what we’re going to get, really. But I do think the trend is towards a more global perspective. I think we’re receiving more and more submissions from around the world. I wouldn’t be surprised to see more global submissions.

In terms of things that need attention, I think it the practical side always needs attention. But I think, more specifically, areas in which animals are actively suffering, or need closer moral inspection. I hope that those will be the ones that come to the fore.

But also, it’s really hard to know. I’ve seen animals in literature as an area that really bloomed recently and actually, animal history as well. I don’t know what’s going to be next. It would be really nice to see some more publications in areas of animals and sociology or animals and social work, those kinds of things. We’ve started to see that emerge. But I would like to see more of that as well. And also, in the realms of education, which we see creeping in as well. But I think there’s definite scope for that to grow.

UIP: Yeah, it sounds like there’s a lot of different opportunities and directions it can go. So, I wanted to shift gears a little bit and talk about a little bit about your work as a journal editor, because you have an extensive publishing history in the field, including as author and as editor.

How do you feel like your work as journal editor has influenced your work as a scholar?

CL: Oh, I think being an editor of the Journal of Animal Ethics is a massive privilege. It’s been really personally helpful for me, because I get to read all the current debates that are happening in the area. I also get to, even if I don’t have time necessarily to read all the books, I get to read all the reviews of all the books, and so I have nice little summaries of whatever the hot topics are right now, what people are discussing. I think that’s really helpful.

And sometimes, as an academic you can feel quite in your own little silo thinking about things, and then somebody writes something you’re like, “Oh, that really relates to how I’m thinking about this. And that’s really interesting.”

I’m really interested in ideas of perception and sight, and what we can see in relation to animals. And there’s a lot of really interesting things going on there. We also published an article last year on hope in the animal rights movement, and I found that to be both inspiring but also just really helpful for my own thought how, as an academic, you keep writing on difficult subjects. It’s always inspiring to hear what other people are saying.

I think it’s an enormous privilege in many ways to get to work on such an interdisciplinary volume, because it means that my own work becomes more interdisciplinary. I’m a theologian, but I write in a much more multidisciplinary way myself, because I’m exposed so much more. And I think that’s what’s really fun about animal ethics.

Actually, we just had a book that’s come out this week. It’s called “Animal History: History as If Animals Mattered.” It’s published by Wipf and Stock. It’s actually a publishing of a collection of different pieces from the Journal of Animal Ethics on animal history, and the idea is that it really brings together animal history as an emerging discipline and sets some questions there, which I think is really exciting because we’ve seen a lot of scholars turn towards talking about animals in history. So, I’m really proud to be part of that. And it’s really wonderful that the University of Illinois Press let us use some of the essays to make that happen.

UIP: Yeah, I was going to ask if you had any upcoming projects or recent projects that you wanted to talk to us about. Is there anything else besides that that book you wanted to mention?

CL: Oh, well, sure! Some of the papers come out of the annual Oxford Animal Ethics Summer School you’ll see in the Journal: “Oh, there’s some papers on the media in here,” and that might be because they were presented at the Summer School, which has a theme each year. One year we had it on animals and media, for example. The summer school is coming up in August and this year’s topic is the ethics of captivity. We’re also moving into more practical issues there. But previous ones have included animal thinkers, animal law, animal experimentation…. We try to our best to also run the range of different animal topics. But a big part of my year that leads towards that. It’s a lovely community that comes together and talks about animals and encourages each other.

We’ve got several book volumes on the way: our “Palgrave Companion to Humane Education,” will be out sometime next year. There’s a book on “The Ethics of Predator Control“ that’s also coming out by Routledge and several others in the works. We do a lot of publication, and it’s an enormous privilege to be to be able to help publish other people’s work. It’s one of the things I like most about being an editor—that you really get to encourage upcoming scholars. You get to help them refine their work and hopefully do something that helps forward their career, which I just think is really a gift to be able to do. And I’m pleased, I’m proud to be able to do that.

Everything I do really turns towards either publishing lots of books or helping that academic animal community by helping them publish or present things. Then, when I’m lucky, there’s a little bit of time to write my own individual monograph books. And I’m still working on my next.

UIP: Great. Well, we look forward to seeing those new books and thank you for bringing up your role at the Centre because I did want to talk a little bit more about that, too. So just to recap: I know we already said the Journal of Animal Ethics is published in partnership with the Ferrater Mora Oxford Centre for Animal Ethics, the aim of which is to pioneer ethical perspectives on animals through academic research, teaching, and publication, with Andrew as Director and Clair as Deputy Director. I’d love to hear more about some of the projects going on at the Centre beyond the Journal, beyond the publications. I know you mentioned the summer school already, and that’s a big part of it.

Are there other things going on at the Oxford Centre for Animal Ethics that we should know about?

CL: Oh, sure. If you’re lucky enough to be a student at Oxford, we run the Oxford University Animal Ethics Society, and that is a lot of fun. It’s a really lively student community that meets bi-weekly in term, and students present, and then over some wine, they debate different animal issues, which is really exciting. We’ve just launched our alumni society for that. So, if there are any alumni to the student society who are listening, please do get in touch. We also get the chance to teach. But mostly it’s a lot of publication, and the Summer School is a large part of what we do.

Oh, and also we are releasing shortly a documentary—I can’t believe I almost forgot to mention this. It’s called “The Animal Thing,” and it traces the work of our director, Andrew Linzey. It’s gotten into a bunch of film festivals last year, including St. Louis International Film Festival, which is an Academy Award qualifier, so we’re very pleased about that. And it’s hopefully going to be coming to iTunes and some select theatres in the fall. So that project has been going on a while, and I’m very excited that soon everybody can see the movie.

UIP: Yeah, that sounds like a huge project. We will definitely look forward to that, too. So, thanks for that additional context of how the Journal fits among other projects of the Centre. We can certainly look forward to a wealth of new scholarship from the Journal and other opportunities to advance the field of animal ethics from the Centre.

As we wrap up, I wanted to once again, thank you so much for participating in this podcast, it’s been such a pleasure to talk with you today.

CL: The pleasure’s been all mine. Thank you so much, Michelle.

UIP: And a big thanks also to you, our listeners, for joining us today in celebration of the 15th volume year of Journal of Animal Ethics. To learn more about the journal visit go.illinois.edu/JAnE.

For further reading, the University of Illinois Press is also the publisher of Public Affairs Quarterly, several other philosophy journals, and “Circus World: Roustabouts, Animals, and the Work of Putting on the Big Show” by Andrea Ringer. You can view all of these and more at press.illinois.edu. Thank you.