A collage of images, featuring most prominently a person holding a sign reading "no justice no peace"

Tagged: surveillance

Animals / General / Liberty / Rights / Technology

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When Curiosity Wrongs the Cat

Sneaky Cat
Creative Commons Qatar from Qatar, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

People are increasingly concerned with what we owe to other animals as a matter of justice. Philosophical writing on these issues typically takes two forms. First, there is conceptual work: thinking about how existing ideas such as liberty, citizenship, democracy, and legitimacy, might apply or be extended to include other animals. Second, there is normative work: thinking about how we should treat other animals. Both projects require that we know other animals; know something of their capacities, their experiences, their relationships, and the material conditions of their lives. Thinking about justice for animals, then, necessarily involves learning more about who they actually are.

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Animals / Duties / Moral values

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Why it’s Wrong to Spy on Animals

Humans like watching nonhuman animals. We watch them in parks, in zoos, on farms, in sanctuaries, in pet shops, in our gardens, on the streets, in our homes, on tv, and so on. Lately, we have developed increasingly innovative and ingenious ways of watching animals: ways of accessing their intimate lives without them knowing. Take, as an example, the BBC documentary “Spy in the Wild” in which “animatronic spy creatures infiltrate the animal world to explore their complex emotions”. (If you haven’t seen it, here’s a clip.) Or consider the proliferation of wildlife cams, zoo cams, and pet cams that are placed discretely in animals’ homes and give us unlimited access to their daily lives. Last year, a wildlife fan installed a camera within a birdbox to watch a family of blue tits and the footage was viewed 41 million times within a month of being uploaded. In 2017, 1.2 million people tuned in to watch April the giraffe give birth at Animal Adventure Park. (more…)