The Importance of Animals in Zoos

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The goal is that animals should be free to exercise their characteristic activities up to some reasonable threshold level. How they do it will vary with the kind of animal, and this will require an ongoing relationship with human beings. I think apes are an interesting case because if you can really design a colony of apes, which there are research colonies like this. And again, birds, it depends on the kind of bird, parrots don't need much society.

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What is the capabilities approach to welfare? To what is this approach reacting? How should capabilities be balanced or traded off against each other? How do capabilities differ from needs? Are zoos unethical? Can plants be subject to injustice? What are our ethical obligations towards factory farms? How do our ethical obligations to domesticated animals and livestock differ from our ethical obligations to wild animals, if at all? Why is vulnerability important? Is inequality intrinsically bad, or is it only bad because of its effects?

Martha C. Nussbaum is the Ernst Freund Distinguished Service Professor of Law and Ethics, appointed in the Philosophy Department and the Law School of the University of Chicago. She gave the 2016 Jefferson Lecture for the National Endowment for the Humanities and won the 2016 Kyoto Prize in Arts and Philosophy, the 2018 Berggruen Prize in Philosophy and Culture, and the 2020 Holberg Prize. These three prizes are regarded as the most prestigious awards available in fields not eligible for a Nobel. She has written more than twenty-two books, including Upheavals of Thought: The Intelligence of Emotions; Anger and Forgiveness: Resentment, Generosity, Justice; Not for Profit: Why Democracy Needs the Humanities; The Monarchy of Fear, and most recently Justice for Animals: Our Collective Responsibility. Learn more about her via her University of Chicago bio.

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