Research
Embedded Files
Chimpanzee Rights: The Philosophers' Brief. - 2019 - Kristin Andrews, Gary Comstock, Gillian Crozier, Sue Donaldson, Andrew Fenton, Tyler M. John, L. Syd M. Johnson, Robert Jones, Will Kymlicka, Letitia Meynell, Nathan Nobis, David Pena-Guzman, and Jeff Sebo. London: Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780429461071 Purchase.
In December 2013, the Nonhuman Rights Project (NhRP) filed a petition for a common law writ of habeas corpus in the New York State Supreme Court on behalf of Tommy, a chimpanzee living alone in a cage in a shed in rural New York (Barlow, 2017). Under animal welfare laws, Tommy’s owners, the Laverys, were doing nothing illegal by keeping him in those conditions. Nonetheless, the NhRP argued that given the cognitive, social, and emotional capacities of chimpanzees, Tommy’s confinement constituted a profound wrong that demanded remedy by the courts. Soon thereafter, the NhRP filed habeas corpus petitions on behalf of Kiko, another chimpanzee housed alone in Niagara Falls, and Hercules and Leo, two chimpanzees held in research facilities at Stony Brook University. Thus began the legal struggle to move these chimpanzees from captivity to a sanctuary, an effort that has led the NhRP to argue in multiple courts before multiple judges. The central point of contention has been whether Tommy, Kiko, Hercules, and Leo have legal rights. To date, no judge has been willing to issue a writ of habeas corpus on their behalf. Such a ruling would mean that these chimpanzees have rights that confinement might violate. Instead, the judges have argued that chimpanzees cannot be bearers of legal rights because they are not, and cannot be persons. In this book we argue that chimpanzees are persons because they are autonomous. For reviews, see here, here, here, here, and here.
The Moral Rights of Animals. - 2016 - Mylan Engel Jr. & Gary Lynn Comstock (eds.), Lanham, MD: Lexington. ISBN: 978-1498531924 https://hdl.loc.gov/loc.gdc/cip.2015048270 Purchase.
This volume brings together essays by seminal figures and rising stars in the fields of animal ethics and moral theory to analyze and evaluate the moral status of non-human animals, with a special focus on the question of whether or not animals have moral rights. Though wide-ranging in many ways, these fourteen original essays and one reprinted essay direct significant attention to both the main arguments for animal rights and the biggest challenges to animal rights. This volume explores the question of whether or not animals have moral rights through a number of different lenses, including classical deontology, libertarianism, commonsense morality, virtue ethics, and utilitarianism. The volume also addresses what are undoubtedly the most serious challenges to the strong animal rights position, which maintains that animals have moral rights equal in strength to the rights of humans, including challenges posed by rights nihilism, the ‘kind’ argument against animal rights, the problem of predation, and the comparative value of lives. In addition, the volume explores the practical import of animal rights both from a social policy standpoint and from the standpoint of personal ethical decisions concerning what to eat and whether or not to hunt animals. Unlike other volumes on animal rights, which focus primarily on the legal rights of animals, and unlike other anthologies on animal ethics, which tend to cover a wide variety of topics but only devote a few articles to each topic, the volume under consideration is focused exclusively on the question of whether or not animals have moral rights and the practical import of such rights.
Research Ethics: A Philosophical Guide to the Responsible Conduct of Research. - 2013 - Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511902703 Purchase.
Education in the responsible conduct of research typically takes the form of online instructions about rules, regulations, and policies. Research Ethics takes a novel approach and emphasizes the art of philosophical decision-making. Part A introduces egoism and explains that it is in the individual's own interest to avoid misconduct, fabrication of data, plagiarism and bias. Part B explains contractualism and covers issues of authorship, peer review and responsible use of statistics. Part C introduces moral rights as the basis of informed consent, the use of humans in research, mentoring, intellectual property and conflicts of interests. Part D uses two-level utilitarianism to explore the possibilities and limits of the experimental use of animals, duties to the environment and future generations, and the social responsibilities of researchers. This book brings a fresh perspective to research ethics and will engage the moral imaginations of graduate students in all disciplines. For a review, see here.
Life Science Ethics, 2nd Ed. - 2010 - Gary Comstock (ed.) Dordrecht: Springer. Purchase.
This second edition of Life Science Ethics includes four essays not found in the first edition: Richard Haynes on “Animals in Research,” Stephen Gardiner on “Climate Change,” Christopher Kelty on “Nanotechnology,” Gary Comstock on “Genetically Modified Foods,” and a revised and expanded version of the chapter on “Farms” in which Stephen Carpenter joins Charles Taliaferro as author. In addition, Part III has been thoroughly revised with the goal of focusing attention on salient examples. Three new case studies have been added: Robert Streiffer and Sara Gavrell Ortiz on “Enviropigs,” Donald F. Boesch, et al. on “Coastal Dead Zones,” and Deb Bennett-Woods on “Nanotechnology and Human Enhancement.” The first edition was praised for providing instructors with a stimulating text that helps students hone critical thinking skills. The new edition includes classroom discussion questions for use in provoking and guiding in-class discussions. Part I introduces ethics, the relationship of religion to ethics, how we assess ethical arguments, and a method ethicists use to reason about ethical theories. Part II demonstrates the relevance of ethical reasoning to the environment, land, farms, food, biotechnology, genetically modified foods, animals in agriculture and research, climate change, and nanotechnology. Part III presents case studies for the topics found in Part II.
- On Being a Scientist, 3rd ed. - 2009 - Committee on Being a Scientist, Carolyn Bertozzi, Gary Comstock, et al. Washington D.C. The National Academies Press. Download.
On Being a Scientist was designed to supplement the informal lessons in ethics provided by research supervisors and mentors. The book describes the ethical foundations of scientific practices and some of the personal and professional issues that researchers encounter in their work. It applies to all forms of research—whether in academic, industrial, or governmental settings-and to all scientific disciplines. This third edition of On Being a Scientist reflects developments since the publication of the original edition in 1989 and a second edition in 1995. A continuing feature of this edition is the inclusion of a number of hypothetical scenarios offering guidance in thinking about and discussing these scenarios.
Vexing Nature? On the Ethical Case Against Agricultural Biotechnology. - 2002 - Boston: Kluwer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4615-1397-1 Purchase.
Agricultural biotechnology refers to a diverse set of industrial techniques used to produce genetically modified foods. Genetically modified (GM) foods are foods manipulated at the molecular level to enhance their value to farmers and consumers. This book is a collection of essays on the ethical dimensions of ag biotech. The essays were written over a dozen years, beginning in 1988. When I began to reflect on the subject, ag biotech was an exotic, untested, technology. Today, in the first year of the millenium, the vast majority of consumers in the United States have taken a bite of the apple. Milk produced by cows injected with a GM protein called recombinant bovine growth hormone (bGH), is found, unlabelled, on grocery shelves throughout the US. In 1999, half of the soybeans and cotton harvested in the US were GM varieties. Billions of dollars of public and private monies are being invested annually in biotech research, and commercial sales now reach into the tens of billions of dollars each year. Whereas ag biotech once promised to change American agriculture, it now is in the process of doing so. For reviews, see Peter Singer, Paul Thompson,
Religious Autobiographies, 1st ed. - 1994 (2nd ed. with Wayne Mayhall, 2003) - Gary Comstock (ed.), Boston: Cengage. Download chapters. Purchase.
Is There a Moral Obligation to Save the Family Farm? - 1987 - Gary Comstock (ed.), Ames: Iowa State University Press. Purchase.
Essays cover U.S. farm policy, the current plight of the small farmer, the history of the family farm, and the ethical and financial issues. For reviews, see here.
“Imagining Other Species’ Pains: Abstract,” Biology and Life Sciences Forum, March 2025 (ISSN: 2673-9976), conference report of 3rd International Electronic Conference on Animals. Paper also presented at "At the Limits of Imagination" conference, University of Vienna, 27 Sept. 2024.
Gary Comstock, Andrew Fenton, L. Syd M Johnson, Robert C. Jones, Letitia M. Meynell, Nathan Nobis, David M. Peña Guzmán, James Rocha, Jeff Sebo. Brief of Amicus Curiae Philosophers, The Nonhuman Rights Project, Inc. on behalf of Missy, Kimba, Lucky, LouLou, and Jambo. Missy. Colorado Supreme Court. May 22, 2024.
We submit this brief as philosophers with expertise in animal ethics, political theory, the philosophy of animal cognition and behavior, and the philosophy of biology in support of the Nonhuman Rights Project’s efforts to secure habeas corpus relief for Jambo, Kimba, Loulou, Lucky, and Missy. Collectively, we have longstanding interests in our ethical and legal duties to animals and share a commitmentto rejecting arbitrary distinctions that protect humans without also protecting other animals. We submit this brief because of our interest in ensuring that the law is applied and interpreted in a manner that is consistent with the best philosophical standards of rational judgment and ethical standards of justice.
Peter Singer, Gary Comstock, Adam Lerner, Letter of Amicus Curiae, Supporting Verified Petition for a Common Law Writ of Habeas Corpus and Issuance of an Order to Show Cause in In re Nonhuman Rights Project, Inc. on behalf of Amahle, Nolwazi, and Mabu, 1 Sept. 2023
Caroline A. Sjogren, Gary Comstock, Carlos C. Goller, Connecting Ethical Reasoning to Global Challenges through Analysis of Argumentation, Journal of Microbiology & Biology Education, 16 March 2023.
Gary Comstock, Adam Lerner, Macarena Montes Franceschini, and Peter Singer, Orangutans are persons with rights: Amicus Curiae brief in the Sandai case, Court of Appeals of San Miguel, Santiago, Chile, on behalf of the Interspecies Justice Foundation, 17 July 2022.
Companion Animal Cooperative Self-Investment: An Unacknowledged Value in Animal Wrongful Death Law, under review, June 2022.
The Shrimp Hypothesis: Some, not all, decapods are sentient, selected as Best Paper of the 2022 Interspecies Comparisons of Welfare conference at the London School of Economics. Manuscript, June 2022.
Pain in Pleocyemata, but not in Dendrobranchiata? Animal Sentience 32(13), 2022.
Crump et al.’s contribution to assessing whether decapods feel pain raises an important question: Is pain distributed unevenly across the order? The case for pain appears stronger in Pleocyemata than in Dendrobranchiata. Some studies report pain avoidance behaviors in Dendrobranchiata (Penaeidae) shrimp, but further studies are needed to determine whether the chemicals used are acting as analgesics to relieve pain, or as soporifics to reduce overall alertness. If the latter, the most farmed shrimp species may not require the same level of protection as crabs, crayfish, and lobsters.
Gary Comstock, Adam Lerner, and Peter Singer, "Why the Court Should Free Happy," Inside Sources, 17 May 2022. Reprinted in The Detroit News, 17 May 2022; The Albuquerque Journal, 17 May 2022; and The Nashua Telegraph, 18 May 2022.
Peter Singer, Gary Comstock, Adam Lerner, “A Brief in Support of Happy’s Appeal,” Amicus Curiae brief in support of the Nonhuman Rights Project’s Court Appeal, March 30, 2022.
Varner on Animals: Room for Far-Persons? in Michael Schefczyk and Christoph Schmidt-Petri, eds., Utility, Progress, Technology: Proceedings of the 2018 Conference of the International Society for Utilitarian Studies (Karlsruhe: KIT Scientific Publishing, 2021), pp. 353-358. Manuscript.
Gary Varner distinguishes near-persons from persons and the merely sentient and thus supplies an important set of categories to classify the moral statuses of three different kinds of animals:
• Persons, such as typically developing adult humans
• Near-persons, such as the great apes, cetaceans, elephants and perhaps corvids, parrots, scrub jays and others
• The merely sentient, such as, perhaps, fish
In which category should we put companion and so-called “food animals:” dogs, cats, cows, pigs, and chickens? I argue that domesticated animals have their own space, somewhere between near-persons and the merely sentient. We need a new category, which I call far-persons. To define far-persons I’ll help myself to Varner’s conceptual tools. In so doing, I take myself to be filling in part of the middle of what he describes as a continuum.
The Philosophers' Brief in Support of Happy's Appeal. Gary Comstock, Sue Donaldson, Andrew Fenton, Tyler M. John, L. Syd M Johnson, Robert Jones, Will Kymlicka, Letitia M. Meynell, Nathan Nobis, David M. Peña Guzmán, James Rocha, Bernard E. Rollin, Jeff Sebo, Adam Shriver. An amicus curiae brief in support of the Nonhuman Rights Project’s Court Appeal, September 24, 2021.
We submit this brief as philosophers with expertise in ethics, animal ethics, political theory, the philosophy of animal cognition and behavior, and the philosophy of biology in support of the Nonhuman Rights Project’s efforts to secure habeas corpus relief for the elephant named Happy. The Supreme Court, Bronx County, declined to grant habeas corpus relief and order Happy’s transfer to an elephant sanctuary, relying, in part, on previous decisions that denied habeas relief for the NhRP’s chimpanzee clients, Kiko and Tommy. Those decisions use incompatible conceptions of ‘person’ which, when properly understood, are either philosophically inadequate or, in fact, compatible with Happy’s personhood.
Bovine Prospection, the Mesocorticolimbic Pathways, and Neuroethics: Is a Cow’s Future Like Ours? in L. Syd M Johnson, Andrew Fenton, and Adam Shriver, eds. Neuroethics and Nonhuman Animals (Cham, Switzerland: Springer, 2020), pp. 73-97. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-31011-0_5. Purchase.
What can neuroscience tell us, if anything, about the capacities of cows to think about the future? The question is important if having the right to a future requires the ability to think about one’s future. To think about one’s future involves the mental state of prospection, in which we direct our attention to things yet to come. I distinguish several kinds of prospection, identify the behavioral markers of future thinking, and survey what is known about the neuroanatomy of future-directed bovine beliefs and desires. I suggest, in conclusion, that instead of asking whether a cow’s prospection is conscious, ask whether it is like ours—with “ours” understood to include all human beings.
The Philosophers’ Brief on Elephant Personhood, Gary Comstock, G.K.D. Crozier, Andrew Fenton, Tyler John, L. Syd M Johnson, Robert C. Jones, Letitia M. Meynell, Nathan Nobis, David M. Peña-Guzmán, James Rocha, Bernard E. Rollin, Jeff Sebo, an amicus curiae brief in support of the Nonhuman Rights Project on behalf of Happy, July 2020.
We submit this brief in support of the Nonhuman Rights Project’s efforts to secure habeas corpus relief for the elephant named Happy. We reject arbitrary distinctions that deny adequate protections to other animals who share with protected humans relevantly similar vulnerabilities to harms and relevantly similar interests in avoiding such harms. We strongly urge this Court, in keeping with the best philosophical standards of rational judgment and ethical standards of justice, to recognize that, as a nonhuman person, Happy should be released from her current confinement and transferred to an appropriate elephant sanctuary, pursuant to habeas corpus.
What Do We Need to Know to Know that Animals are Conscious of What They Know? Animal Behavior and Cognition vol. 6, no. 4, (2019), pp. 289-308.
In this paper I argue for the following six claims: 1) The problem is that some think metacognition and consciousness are dissociable. 2) The solution is not to revive associationist explanations; 3) …nor is the solution to identify metacognition with Carruther’s gatekeeping mechanism. 4) The solution is to define conscious metacognition; 5) … devise an empirical test for it in humans; and 6) … apply it to animals.
The Philosophers' Brief on Chimpanzee Personhood. - 2018 - Proposed Brief by Amici Curiae Philosophers in Support of the Petitioner-Appellant Court of Appeals, State of New York. Kristin Andrews, Gary Comstock, Gillian Crozier, Sue Donaldson, Andrew Fenton, L. Syd M. Johnson, Robert Jones, Will Kymlicka, Letitia Meynell, Nathan Nobis, David Pena-Guzman, James Rocha, Bernard Rollin, Jeff Sebo, Adam Shriver, Rebecca Walker.
In this brief, we argue that there is a diversity of ways in which humans (Homo sapiens) are ‘persons’ and there are no non-arbitrary conceptions of ‘personhood’ that can include all humans and exclude all nonhuman animals. To do so we describe and assess the four most prominent conceptions of ‘personhood’ that can be found in the rulings concerning Kiko and Tommy, with particular focus on the most recent decision, Nonhuman Rights Project, Inc v Lavery.
The Cattle in the Long Cedar Springs Draw. - 2018 - The Human / Animal Boundary: Exploring the Line in Philosophy and Fiction, Nandita Batra and Mario Wenning, eds., (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books), pp. 97-114. Purchase.
Cows have neuroanatomical structures homologous with ours and their behaviors imply emotions, beliefs, and desires that feel the same to them as similar mental states feel to us—minus, of course, the wider stories that we then reflectively impose on, or construct out of, these simpler states. Bovine emotions may be more intense, more pure, than ours, because their experiences are not overshadowed by workloads going on at “higher” levels. The cow’s brain circuits can be completely devoted to “lyrical,” non-narrative, experience. “In the moment,” as it were, cows’ feelings are unencumbered by the intellectual compulsions we feel to abstract away from our present moments, to embed them into larger narrative structures, and to analyze their meaning. We need the contributions of imaginative authors and empirical science to understand properly what cows are thinking and what their thoughts mean for their moral status.
Getting It Together: Psychological Unity and Deflationary Accounts of Animal Metacognition. - 2018 - Gary Comstock & William A. Bauer - Acta Analytica, vol. 33, no. 4, pp. 431-451. DOI: 10.1007/s12136-018-0340-0. Purchase.
Experimenters claim some nonhuman mammals have metacognition. If correct, the results indicate some animal minds are more complex than ordinarily presumed. However, some philosophers argue for a deflationary reading of metacognition experiments, suggesting that the results can be explained in first-order terms. We agree with the deflationary interpretation of the data but we argue that the metacognition research forces the need to recognize a heretofore underappreciated feature in the theory of animal minds, which we call Unity. The disparate mental states of an animal must be unified if deflationary accounts of metacognition are to hold and untoward implications avoided. Furthermore, once Unity is acknowledged, the deflationary interpretation of the experiments reveals an elevated moral standing for the nonhumans in question.
Far-Persons. - 2017 - In Andrew Woodhall & Gabriel Garmendia da Trindade (eds.), Ethical and Political Approaches to Nonhuman Animal Issues. London: Palgrave Macmillan. pp. 39-71. Purchase.
In his chapter, Gary Comstock introduces the notion of far-persons. Following Gary Varner, Comstock distinguishes near-persons, animals with a "robust autonoetic consciousness" but lacking an adult human's "biographical sense of self," from the merely sentient, those animals living "entirely in the present." Comstock notes the possibility of a third class. Far-persons, he argues, lack a biographical sense of self, possess a weak autonoetic consciousness, and are able to travel mentally through time a distance that exceeds the capacities of the merely sentient. Far-persons are conscious of and exercise control over short-term cognitive states, states limited by their temporal duration. The animals in question, human and nonhuman, consciously choose among various strategies available to them to achieve their ends, making them subjects of what Comstock calls lyrical experience: brief and potentially intense, pleasures and pains. But their ends expire minute-by-minute, not stretching beyond, Comstock says metaphorically, the present hour. Comstock concludes by discussing the moral status of far-persons.
Concerning Cattle: Behavioral and Neuroscientific Evidence for Pain, Desire, and Self-Consciousness - 2017 - In Anne Barnhill, Mark Budolfson & Tyler Doggett (eds.), Oxford Handbook of Food Ethics. New York: Oxford University Press. pp. 139-169. Purchase.
Should people include beef in their diet? This chapter argues that the answer is “no” by reviewing what is known and not known about the presence in cattle of three psychological traits: pain, desire, and self-consciousness. On the basis of behavioral and neuroanatomical evidence, the chapter argues that cattle are sentient beings who have things they want to do in the proximal future, but they are not self-conscious. The piece rebuts three important objections: that cattle have injury information but not pain; that cattle have goal-directed behavior but not desire; and that the absence of evidence for bovine self-consciousness should not be taken as evidence that cattle lack self-consciousness. In sum, what is known about cattle cognition shifts the moral burden of proof on to the beef eaters.
You Should Not Have Let Your Baby Die - 2017 July 12 - New York Times. Reprinted in Udo Schüklenk & Peter Singer, eds. Bioethics: An Anthology, 4th ed. (2021); pdf. Translated into Chinese, 阅读简体中文版.
Sam, your newborn son, has been suffocating in your arms for the past 15 minutes. You’re as certain as you can be that he is going to die in the next 15. He was born two days ago with ‘trisomy 18,’ a disease that proved no obstacle to his cementing himself immediately and forevermore as the love of your life… It seems the medical community has few options to offer parents of newborns likely to die. We can leave our babies on respirators and hope for the best. Or remove the hose and watch the child die a tortured death. Shouldn’t we have another choice? Shouldn’t we be allowed the swift humane option afforded the owners of dogs, a lethal dose of a painkiller?
For years you repress the thought. Then, early one morning, remembering again those last minutes, you realize that the repugnant has become reasonable. The unthinkable has become the right, the good. Painlessly. Quickly. With the assistance of a trained physician.
You should have killed your baby.
La Mettrie's Objection: Humans Act like Animals. - 2016 - in The Moral Rights of Animals. - 2016 - Mylan Engel Jr. & Gary Lynn Comstock (eds.), Lanham, MD: Lexington, pp. 175-198.
A common view of nonhuman animals is that they lack rights because they lack conscious control over themselves. Two thoughts put pressure on this view. First, we recognize the rights of radically cognitively limited humans even though they lack conscious control over themselves. So it would seem mere prejudice to deny rights to nonhuman mammals on the grounds that animals lack autonomy. Tom Regan has been the most eloquent, powerful, and resolute defender of this thought. Second, evidence is growing that healthy adults exercise non-conscious control over themselves most of the time. To deny rights to animals on the grounds that they can only exercise non-conscious control over themselves while affirming the rights of humans who similarly exercise non-conscious control over themselves most of the time also seems prejudicial. Notice that whereas the first thought compares animals to neurally diverse, cognitively challenged humans the second thought compares animals to typically developing, normal humans. In this paper I argue that accumulating empirical data lend increasing support to the second thought.
Two Views of Animals in Environmental Ethics. - 2016 - In David Schmidtz (ed.), Philosophy: Environmental Ethics, Boston: Gale. pp. 151-183.
This chapter concerns the role accorded to animals in the theories of the English-speaking philosophers who created the field of environmental ethics in the latter half of the twentieth century. The value of animals differs widely depending upon whether one adopts some version of Holism (value resides in ecosystems) or some version of Animal Individualism (value resides in human and nonhuman animals). I examine this debate and, along the way, highlight better and worse ways to conduct ethical arguments. I explain that two kinds of appeals (which I call intuition and reductio) are questionable foundations for environmental ethics and that representatives of both schools occasionally appeal unhelpfully to intuition or caricature the commitments of the other side. I review two stronger arguments for Ecoholism (inference and eco-organisms) and show that they have performed a useful function in environmental ethics. Ultimately, however, both arguments fail because their proponents are unable to answer four critical objections: weakness of will, no eco-organisms, no teleology, and is/ought. I then show that Animal Individualism operates on more secure footing when it comes to philosophical and scientific assumptions. I also propose that Animal Individualism is more likely to prove effective in establishing progressive environmental policies insofar as it builds on existing legal concepts, especially the concept of moral rights, and political institutions, such as democratic states. I note that wild animals are not inherently more valuable than domestic animals and, finally, offer a brief outline of an animal rights environmental ethic.
Harming Some to Enhance Others. - 2015 - In Simon Bateman, Jean Gayon, Sylvie Allouche, Jerome Goffette & Michela Marzano (eds.), Inquiring into Animal Enhancement. London: Palgrave Macmillan. pp. 49-78.
Let us call the deliberate modification of an individual’s genome to improve it or its progeny intentional genetic enhancement. Governments are almost certain to require that any proposed intentional genetic enhancement of a human (IGEH) be tested first on (what researchers call) animal “models.” Intentional genetic enhancement of animals (IGEA), then, is an ambiguous concept because it could mean one of two very different things: an enhancement made for the sake of the animal’s own welfare, or an enhancement made for the sake of satisfying a human desire. In either case, experimental procedures are likely to entail substantial risks to the experimental animals. What rules should govern IGEA? I criticize the abolitionist conclusions of animal rightists—that no IGEA should be permitted—and I criticize the permissive conclusions of speciesists—that all IGEA should be permitted. Both views are unsatisfying. I suggest instead that current animal welfare law provides a defensible platform on which to begin building ethically justifiable policy in this area.
Do Machines have Prima Facie Duties? - 2015 - Joshua Lucas and Gary Comstock, in Simon Peter van Rysewyk and Matthijs Pontier, (eds.), Machine medical ethics (London: Springer, 2015), pp. 79-92.
A properly programmed artificially intelligent agent may eventually have one duty, the duty to satisfice expected welfare. We explain this claim and defend it against objections.
Killing Cows - 2015 - BBC Radio 4, Oct. 26, 2015. Follow-up Facebook discussion with Jeff McMahan and Gary Comstock.
"Carnivore and steak-lover Jo Fidgen attempts to work out whether killing cows for food can be morally justified." Interview with Peter Singer, Jeff McMahan, Tom Regan, Gary Comstock, and Jesse Prinz.
The Role of Philosophers in RCR Training. - 2014 - Journal of Microbiology Biological Education 15 (2): 139-142. 2014.
The expanding moral circle lends coherence to the usual hodge-podge of canonical RCR topics. As it is in a person’s own interest to report falsification, understand fabrication, avoid plagiarism, beware of intuition, and justify one’s decisions, it is useful to begin RCR discussions with the principle that we ought to do what is in our own long-term best interests. As it is in the interest of a person’s research group to articulate their reasons for their conclusions, to write cooperatively, review manuscripts professionally, and report statistics transparently, one can introduce the principle that we ought to keep our promises and contracts. As it is a basic matter of rights to respect human subjects, mentor inclusively, recognize intellectual property, and reveal both conflicts of interests and collaborations with private industry, an RCR instructor can introduce the idea that we ought to respect each individual’s moral rights. Finally, as many animals can feel pain, are subjects of their own lives, and have interests of their own, we must take seriously our role in their welfare as research subjects. In this last step, we expand the circle fully, considering animal experimentation, duties to future generations and the natural environment, and the larger social responsibilities of researchers while adopting a utilitarian principle: We ought to do what will maximize aggregate happiness.
Responsible Authorship. - 2013 - with James R. Wilson and Lonnie Balaban, in Comstock, Research Ethics: A Philosophical Guide to the Responsible Conduct of Research. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 118-132. Purchase.
Review of Gary Varner, Personhood, Ethics, and Animal Cognition: Situating Animals in Hare’s Two-Level Utilitarianism. - 2013 - Environmental Values, Vol. 22, No. 3, June 2013, pp. 417-420
Genetically Modified Foods: Golden Rice. - 2010 - Kristen Hessler, Ross Whetten, Carol Loopstra, Sharon Shriver, Karen Pesaresi Penner, Robert Zeigler, Jacqueline Fletcher, Melanie Torre & Gary Comstock - 2010 - In Gary Comstock (ed.), Life Science Ethics, 2nd. ed. Dordrecht: Springer. pp. 387-397. In Russian: Перепечатано с изменениями из.
Intuitive Level System Rules: Commentary on “Utilitarianism and the Evolution of Ecological Ethics”. - 2008 - Science and Engineering Ethics 14 (4):575-579.
Review of Dale Jamieson, Morality's Progress: Essays on Humans, Other Animals, and the Rest of Nature. - 2005 - Philosophical Review 114 (3):416-419.
Subsistence Hunting. - 2004 - In Steve F. Sapontzis, Food for Thought: The Debate over Eating Meat. Amherst, N.Y.: Prometheus Books. pp. 359-370.
For many centuries indigenous people along the United States’ northwest coastline hunted gray whales for food and fiber. Enveloped in religious mythology and using hand-held harpoons, the Makah braved choppy waters in slim boats to bring whale meat to shore. By the 1970s commercial whaling had decimated whale populations and, with all eight great whale species listed as endangered, the International Whaling Commission (IWC) issued a moratorium. The Makah ceased whaling. Convinced that whales should not be killed—except, perhaps, in situations where human life depends on it—the animal defender decides to try to intervene to stop the Makah. Could such intervention by justified by arguments analogous to those used to justify interventions to stop slavery, apartheid, or female circumcision? Or would any such intervention inevitably be yet another misguided case of cultural imperialism?
What are the Ethical Issues Surrounding Genetic Modification of Nature? - 2003 - In William K. Purves, David Sadava, Gordon H. Orians, and Craig Heller, eds., Life: The Science of Biology, 7th ed. (Gordonsville, VA: W. H. Freeman, 2003), p. 389.
Ethics and Genetically Modified Foods. - 2001 - SCOPE, GH Food Controversy Forum, © American Association for Advancement of Science.
Is it ethically justified to pursue genetically modified (GM) crops and foods? Comstock first considers intrinsic objections to GM crops that allege that the process of making GMOs is objectionable in itself. He argues that there is no justifiable basis for the objections — i.e. GM crops are not intrinsically ethically problematic. He then considers extrinsic objections to GM crops, including objections based on the precautionary principle, which focus on the potential harms that may result from the adoption of GM organisms. He argues that these concerns have some merit. However, they do not justify giving up GM crops altogether. Instead, they require that GM crops be developed carefully and with appropriate oversight. Comstock then presents the positive case for GM crops that he endorses. It is based on three considerations: (i) the right of people to choose to adopt GM technology; (ii) the balance of likely benefits over harms to consumers and the environment from GM technology; and (iii) the wisdom of encouraging discovery, innovation, and careful regulation of GM technology.
Parts of this article were previously published in "Make Plans on the Hoof," 2000.
“___________,” reprinted in Michael Ruse and David Castle, eds. Genetically Modified Foods (NY: Prometheus Books, 2002), pp. 88-107. ISBN: I9781573929967
“___________,” in Spanish as “¿Acoso a la naturaleza? Sobre los argumentos éticos en contra de las plantas transgénicas,” by Enrique Iáñez, in Iáñez, ed. Plantas transgénicas: de la Ciencia al Derecho (Granada: Editorial Comares, 2002), pp. 79-94. SKU: 13-562-0115
“___________,” reprinted in Cristina Beckert, ed. Etica Ambiental uma ética para o futuro (Lisboa: Centro de Filosofia da Universidade de Lisboa, 2003), pp. 13-34. ISBN/ISNN: 978-972-8531-12-5
“___________,”in Portuguese as “A Ética e os Alimentos Geneticamente Modificados,” in Humberto Rosa, ed., Bioética para as Ciências Naturais (Lisboa: Fundação Luso-Americana, 2004), pp. 203-234. ISBN 9789728654085
“___________,” reprinted in Tom Beauchamp, LeRoy Walters, Jeffrey Kahn, and Anna Mastroianni, eds. Contemporary Issues in Bioethics, 7th ed., (Wadsworth/Thomson Learning, 2008), pp. 752-759. ISBN-13: 9780495006732
“___________,” in German as "Ethik und genetisch modifizierte Lebensmittel” in Gerhard Wiegleb und Andreas Briese, eds., Ethik in den Lebenswissenschaften (Münster: Verlag Monsenstein und Vannerdat, 2008). ISBN 978-3-86582-727-2
"___________,” reprinted in David Kaplan, ed., Readings in the Philosophy of Technology, 2nd ed. (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2009), pp. 484-497. ISBN: 978-0-7425-6536-4
"___________,” reprinted in Franz-Theo Gottwald, Hans Werner Ingensiep, and Marc Meinhardt, eds., Food Ethics (New York: Springer, 2010), pp. 49-66. 978-1489984562
"___________,” reprinted in David Kaplan, ed., The Philosophy of Food (University of California Press, 2012), pp. 122-139. ISBN: 9780520269347
"___________,” reprinted in David Schmidtz and Elizabeth Willott, eds., Environmental Ethics: What Really Matters, What Really Works, 2nd ed. (Oxford University Press, 2012), pp. 598-609. ISBN: 978-0199793518
"___________,” reprinted in Ronald Sandler, ed., Ethics and Emerging Technologies (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013), pp. 473-485. ISBN:
978-1-137-34908-8
"___________,” reprinted in Russ Shafer-Landau, ed., Living Ethics: An Introduction with Readings (New York: Oxford University Press, 2018), pp. 663-640. ISBN: 9780197608876
“___________,” in Chinese as , tr. Yipin Xie, Academia Ethica 10 (2021), pp. 155-171.
Agricultural Ethics. - 2000 - Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy Edward Craig, ed. (London) (pdf).
Make Plans on the Hoof. - 2000 - Times Higher Education Supplement (London) 22-29 December, p. 19 (pdf).
The Iowa State University Model Bioethics Institutes. - 1999 - Bulletin of Science, Technology & Society 19(4):323-328 (pdf).
Is it Unnatural to Genetically Engineer Plants? - 1998 - Weed Science 46(6): 647-651.
_______________. In Spanish: ¿La Naturaleza acosada? Sobre los argumentos éticos en contra de las plantas transgénicas. Una versión modificada de este trabajo formará parte del libro colectivo Plantas transgénicas: ciencia, sociedad y derecho, dentro de la “Biblioteca de Derecho y Ciencias de la Vida” de Editorial Comares y el Ministerio de Sanidad y Consumo. Traducción: Enrique Iáñez
Editor and author of a New Foreword to John Styles, The Animal Creation: Its Claims on Our Humanity Stated and Enforced, published by T. Ward in 1839 in London (Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen Press, 1997).
Do Agriculturalists Need a New, an Ecocentric, Ethic? 1994 Presidential Address to the Agriculture, Food, and Human Values Society. - 1995 - Agriculture and Human Values 12 (1):2-16.
In 1973, Richard Sylvan began his seminal essay, "Do We Need a New, an Environmental Ethic?" with these words: "It is increasingly said that ... Western civilization ... stands in need of a new ethic ... setting out people's relations to the natural environment." In the intervening years, it has increasingly been said that Western civilization is in need of ecocentrism, an ethic according to which a thing's value is derived from its contribution to the integrity, stability, and beauty of ecosystems. Do those interested in agricultural ethics need a new, an ecocentric, ethic? I argue that the answer is no. Agriculturalists must look elsewhere for an adequate ethic setting out our relations to the natural environment.
An Extensionist Environmental Ethic. - 1995 - Biodiversity and Conservation 4 (8): 827-837.
Environmental ethics consists of a set of competing theories about whether human actions and attitudes to nature are morally right or wrong. Ecocentrists are holists whose theory locates the primary site of value in biological communities or ecosystems and who tend to regard actions interfering with the progress of an ecosystem toward its mature equilibrium state as prima facie wrong. I suggest that this form of ecocentrism may be built on a questionable scientific foundation, organismic ecology, and that a better scientific foundation for environmental ethics may be found in individualistic neo-Darwinian population biology. However, the latter approach probably requires a corresponding shift away from ethical holism and toward approaches locating value primarily in individuals. I call such environmental ethicists ‘extensionists’ and briefly outline an extensionist environmental ethic.
Ethics and Agricultural Biotechnology: More Opposing Viewpoints, Introduction. - 1995 - Gary Comstock (ed.) Journal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics 8 (2):95-97.
Introduction. - 1994 - Journal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics 7 (1):1-6.
The Truth of Religious Narratives. - 1993 - International Journal for Philosophy of Religion 34 (3):131 - 150.
The Moral Irrelevance of Autonomy. - 1992 - Between the Species 8 (1):4.
Ethical and Environmental Considerations in the Release of Herbicide Resistant Crops. - 1992 - Jack Dekker and Gary Comstock. Agriculture and Human Values 9 (3):31-43.
Herbicide resistant crops have been characterized as the solution for many environmental problems associated with modern crop production, being described as powerful tools for farmers that may increase production options. We are concerned that these releases are occurring in the absence of forethought about their impact on agroecosystems, the broader landscape, and the rural and urban economies and cultures.
Should We Genetically Engineer Hogs? - 1992 - Between the Species 8 (4):5.
The paper argues that we should not genetically engineer hogs to suit the preferences of farmers and consumers.
Response: The Rights of Animals and Family Farmers. - 1991 - Between the Species 7 (3):10.
Genetically Engineered Herbicide Resistance, Part Two. - 1990 - Journal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics 3 (2):114-146.
Should we continue to support publicly funded research on genetically engineered herbicide resistant crops? In Part Two, I argue against qualified endorsement (QE), and for qualified opposition (QO).
Genetically Engineered Herbicide Resistance, Part One. - 1989 - Journal of Agricultural Ethics 2 (4):263-306.
Should we continue to support publicly funded research on genetically engineered herbicide resistant crops? In Part One, I discuss the difference between science and ethics, presented a brief history of weed control, and explained three moral principles undergirding my environmentalist perspective. I then argue that unqualified endorsement (E) of the research is unjustified, as is unqualified opposition (O). In Part Two, I argue against qualified endorsement (QE), and for qualified opposition (QO).
Is Postmodern Religious Dialogue Possible? - 1989 - Faith and Philosophy 6 (2):189-197.
Not long ago, interreligious conversations were regulated by the ideals of truth, goodness, and beauty. We are suspicious of these noble sounding ideals today. In a world of liberation theology, feminist criticism, and the hermeneutics of suspicion, can there be any new, “postmodern,” rules to govern our religious dialogues? Not able to consult any general theory, or “metanarrative,” in order to provide the answer, I simply tell the story of the only postmodern Catholic I have ever known. On the basis of that experience, I argue that something like the old rules will have to accompany us into the new age.
Everything Depends on the Type of the Concepts That the Interpretation is Made to Convey: Max Kadushin Among the Narrative Theologians. - 1989 - Modern Theology 5 (3):215-237. Purchase.
The Case Against bGH. - 1988 - Agriculture and Human Values 5 (3):36-52.
In the voluminous literature on the subject of bovine growth hormone (bGH) we have yet to find an attempt to frame the issue in specifically moral terms or to address systematically its ethical implications. I argue that there are two moral objections to the technology: its treatment of animals, and its dislocating effects on farmers. There are agricultural biotechnologies that deserve funding and support. bGH is not one of them.
Two Types of Narrative Theology. - 1987 - Journal of the American Academy of Religion LV (4): 687-717. Purchase.
Truth or Meaning: Ricoeur Versus Frei on Biblical Narrative. - 1986 - Journal of Religion 66 (2):117-140. Purchase.
For Frei's response, see his letter here (and published here, pp. 36-41).
For critical discussion, see Kenneth Surin's "Animadversions: Taking Stock of Gary Comstock" in Turnings of Darkness and Light (Cambridge University Press, 1989, pp. 206-217). Surin thinks Comstock misinterprets Frei because Comstock doesn't see "that 'truth' for Frei is located preeminently in the sphere of pragmatics" whereas "Comstock wants a Christianity which lends itself, in main part at least, to systematic description in terms of an overarching and thus canonical epistemological or metaphysical theory. Frei and his Yale confreres of course prefer an approach which gives 'thick descriptions' of the life of faith communities, and so will have no truck with such systematization. In the process, they forswear the kind of 'truth-theory' Comstock seems to want the theologian to embrace, i.e. a 'theory' which, ideally, takes the form of a set of factual or quasi-factual judgements about, say, the resurrection, so that any disagreement between the believer and non-believer over the biblical narrative can in principle be resolved via a 'public conversation' about this narrative's 'truth'" (p. 211).
The Yoruba and Religious Change. - 1979 - Journal of Religion in Africa X(1):1-12. Purchase.
The Yoruba of southwestern Nigeria are one of the most extensively studied native groups. Consequently, these Yoruba materials promise to be a sufficiently rigorous testing ground for certain comprehensive theoretical typologies in history and sociology of religion. This paper tests some recent paradigms for dealing with religious change against the evidence of Yoruba studies.
A legacy list of online publications is here.
ORCID ID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3134-655X
Report abuse