Search Results (37)

Humanity faces not isolated problems but a PolyCrisis, which is a set of 26 tightly interwoven existential crises spanning ecological collapse, planetary overheating, chronic disease epidemics, institutional fragility and social breakdown. Each crisis amplifies the others through cascading feedback loops, and 16 of these crises possess independently the capacity to cause human extinction or civilizational collapse. We are not entering an emergency, but we are already in a state of emergency. Multiple planetary boundaries have been transgressed, and climate tipping points are being crossed now. Extinction rates match historical great mass extinction events, while our food systems, primarily responsible for over half these crises, simultaneously drive hunger, obesity and chronic diseases. We argue that this PolyCrisis is not the result of isolated failures, but is best understood as the predictable, systemic outcome of Planet A, the prevailing Operating System of our mainstream civilization, characterized by economics of unbounded extraction and hoarding, violence-based and profit-based food systems, short-term thinking, and unlimited growth imperatives on a finite planet. Planet B is our proposed PolySolution framework, a complete alternative Operating System grounded in empirical reality and proven solutions. It integrates animal-free food systems releasing up to 5 billion hectares for rewilding, regenerative economics measuring non-violence and biocapacity, circular economy minimizing waste, technological restraint with democratic governance, seven-generation thinking, and PolyCommunity coordination, collaboration and co-creation of the PolySolution. It calls for the immediate emergency implementation of two planetary-scale MegaSolutions: (a) “Together Around Food”, implementing universal, free access to gourmet whole-food, plant-based vegan meals worldwide, eliminating hunger and accelerating food and health systems transformation, and (b) Cool, halting planetary overheating through agricultural emissions elimination, massive rewilding for carbon sequestration, and comprehensive stabilization of the life-support systems of our planet. Full article

Dog bite incidents constitute significant public health, animal welfare, and economic concerns with substantial physical and psychological consequences for victims. Despite legislative responses, research indicates that breed-focused interventions are ineffective in reducing dog bite risk. Human behaviour, caregiving practices, and environmental context all play central roles in the expression of human-directed canine aggression. Current methods of assessing dog bite risk remain largely unstructured, dog-centred, and reliant on subjective judgement and provocative behavioural testing. These approaches exhibit limited predictive validity and poor reliability, and are vulnerable to bias, raising serious concerns for public safety, judicial fairness, and animal welfare. Comparable challenges in human violence risk assessment led to the development of an evidence-based structured professional judgement (SPJ) assessment framework, which combines empirical risk factors with individualised case formulation and dynamic risk management. An SPJ framework for dog bite risk would ensure the systematic consideration of empirically supported static and dynamic risk factors relating to the dog, caregivers, and related environmental conditions, while supporting the development of targeted risk reduction strategies. Conclusion: Developing an SPJ approach offers a more scientifically grounded, ethically defensible, and prevention-focused method for managing dog bite risk, with potential benefits for public safety, animal welfare, and professional practice. Full article

This paper explores the ethical implications of an ongoing debate about evolution, animal suffering, and the goodness of God. Christopher Southgate describes a “fault-line” between those who believe the struggle, suffering, and destruction of the evolutionary process are aligned with God’s good purposes in creation and those who regard these evolutionary “disvalues” as contrary to God’s good purposes. Recent efforts at dialogue across the fault line have not resolved this basic disagreement, but have achieved notable consensus on eschatology: both sides share the hope of eschatological fulfilment for other-than-human creatures and an end to the suffering, struggle, and destruction of the present age. One under-explored aspect of this dialogue is its ethical significance; since evolutionary theodicies are theological evaluations of the natural world, they should inform our understanding of what we must do in response to its struggle and suffering. Having outlined the present state of the dialogue, I consider its implications for three particular ethical issues: (1) Eating meat. Southgate and Bethany Sollereder consider meat-eating in itself ethically unproblematic, for reasons not unconnected with their evolutionary theodicies. By contrast, I argue that the eschatological hope they, like me, affirm mandates Christians to refrain from avoidable violence toward our fellow-creatures. For many westerners, “avoidable violence” includes the killing of animals for food. (2) Ending extinction. Southgate has called for humans to be “co-redeemers,” sharing with God in the healing of the evolutionary process, including efforts to combat both anthropogenic and non-anthropogenic species extinction. Skeptical that humans are called to be co-redeemers, I agree that reducing anthropogenic species extinction is a proper act of repentance for the sin of ecological destruction, but am more wary of human attempts to prevent non-anthropogenic extinction. (3) Responding to pain. While I agree with Southgate and Sollereder that pain is usually biologically adaptive in this world, I refer to good scientific evidence for the existence of pain that is non-adaptive and detrimental to the flourishing of both humans and other animals. There is a prima facie ethical obligation to do what is in our power to relieve such pain. Full article

Post-stress cognitive impairment (PSCI) is defined as a persistent neuropsychiatric condition characterized by deficits in memory consolidation, executive functioning, and environmental interaction following exposure to violent stress. Despite its high incidence, PSCI remains underdiagnosed and lacks effective therapeutic strategies, posing a substantial societal burden and highlighting a critical gap in neuropsychiatric research. A major constraint in mechanistic studies is the persistent reliance on conventional paradigms, notably the Y-maze and novel object recognition test. Their limited sensitivity and poor translational relevance to human cognitive dysfunction, compounded by slow methodological innovation, significantly impede progress. Furthermore, the specific brain regions or neuronal populations contributing to PSCI pathogenesis are insufficiently explored. To address this, we assessed post-stress cognitive impairment in mice using a triple approach: Skinner box assays, traditional behavioral paradigms, and integrated 3D ethological analysis. This multi-method framework provides novel insights for refining animal models and advancing mechanistic understanding. Using c-Fos-based whole-brain screening, we identified the dentate gyrus (DG) as a key region involved in PSCI. Stress caused by violence markedly increased activity in DG CaMKII-expressing neurons. Chemogenetic inhibition of these neurons effectively alleviated stress-induced mild cognitive impairment phenotypes. In summary, by applying novel behavioral assessment tools, this study demonstrates that DG CaMKII neurons play a critical role in regulating post-stress cognitive impairment. Full article

Murder-suicide, also referred to as homicide-suicide, results in multiple casualties. The victims are typically human, and cases involving the inclusion of pets, sometimes termed “murder-suicide-peticide”, have been rarely reported worldwide. The aim of this study is to present and examine the characteristics of three forensic veterinary cases in which pets were found dead alongside human victims in suspected domestic murder-suicide incidents in Japan. We analyzed information provided by the police agency about the owners, families, and the animals, as well as necropsy findings of three cases. In all three cases, it was determined that both the human and animal victims died from the same cause, suggesting a tendency for perpetrators to kill pets using the same methods as those used on human victims. Murder-suicide is regarded as the most extreme form of domestic violence and abuse. Ongoing interdisciplinary research is essential for developing effective intervention strategies to protect vulnerable individuals, both human and non-human, within the household. Full article

Numerous studies have evidenced that neuropsychiatric disorders (mental illness and emotional disturbances) with aggression (or violence) pose a significant challenge to public health and contribute to a substantial economic burden worldwide. Especially, social disorganization (or social inequality) associated with childhood adversity has long-lasting effects on mental health, increasing the risk of developing neuropsychiatric disorders. Intestinal bacteria, functionally as an endocrine organ and a second brain, release various immunomodulators and bioactive compounds directly or indirectly regulating a host’s physiological and behavioral homeostasis. Under various social challenges, stress-induced dysbiosis increases gut permeability causes serial reactions: releasing neurotoxic compounds, leading to neuroinflammation and neuronal injury, and eventually neuropsychiatric disorders associated with aggressive, violent, or impulsive behavior in humans and various animals via a complex bidirectional communication of the microbiota–gut–brain (MGB) axis. The dysregulation of the MGB axis has also been recognized as one of the reasons for the prevalence of social stress-induced injurious behaviors (feather pecking, aggression, and cannibalistic pecking) in chickens. However, existing knowledge of preventing and treating these disorders in both humans and chickens is not well understood. In previous studies, we developed a non-mammal model in an abnormal behavioral investigation by rationalizing the effects of gut microbiota on injurious behaviors in chickens. Based on our earlier success, the perspective article outlines the possibility of reducing stress-induced injurious behaviors in chickens through modifying gut microbiota via cecal microbiota transplantation, with the potential for providing a biotherapeutic rationale for preventing injurious behaviors among individuals with mental disorders via restoring gut microbiota diversity and function. Full article

This essay examines a little-known but important installation entitled Insure the Life of an Ant, conceived by artist Mike Malloy and displayed at the O.K. Harris Gallery in New York in April of 1972. This provocative and idiosyncratic piece confronted gallery-goers, who became viewer–participants, with the option of killing or saving a live ant displayed like a sculpture on a pedestal, either by pushing a button or not. The artist made the piece, which can function almost like a psychology experiment, to engender a “moral dilemma”. I explore the particular role of affect in a participatory art installation, distinct from response to inanimate art. I investigate the roles of emotion and reason in dealing with the work; whether ratiocination can be considered an “anti-affect”; and how the tension between competing thoughts and feelings helped create a psychological drama. The essay looks at how an art space can operate as a zone of moral exceptionalism to encourage questionable actions. It also locates the piece in relation to the emergence of a more behaviorist art in the early 1970s, as discussed by critic Gregory Battcock, and the larger notion of postmodernism. Other contexts investigated include art and animal rights and issues of sentience and speciesism; social and military violence, including capital punishment and the Vietnam War; the 1961 Milgram experiment; Hannah Arendt’s concept of the “banality of evil” as a Nazi war criminal defense; and other works of art involving maltreatment or violence toward both human and non-human animals, including those by Marina Abramović, Marco Evaristti, and Edward and Nancy Reddin Kienholz. Full article

Aggression can be conceptualized as any behavior, physical or verbal, that involves attacking another person or animal with the intent of causing harm, pain or injury. Because of its high prevalence worldwide, aggression has remained a central clinical and public safety issue. Aggression can be caused by several risk factors, including biological and psychological, such as genetics and mental health disorders, and socioeconomic such as education, employment, financial status, and neighborhood. Research over the past few decades has also proposed a link between alcohol consumption and aggressive behaviors. Alcohol consumption can escalate aggressive behavior in humans, often leading to domestic violence or serious crimes. Converging lines of evidence have also shown that trauma and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) could have a tremendous impact on behavior associated with both alcohol use problems and violence. However, although the link between trauma, alcohol, and aggression is well documented, the underlying neurobiological mechanisms and their impact on behavior have not been properly discussed. This article provides an overview of recent advances in understanding the translational neurobiological basis of aggression and its intricate links to alcoholism and trauma, focusing on behavior. It does so by shedding light from several perspectives, including in vivo imaging, genes, receptors, and neurotransmitters and their influence on human and animal behavior. Full article

Broadly speaking, the literary history of human–nonhuman metamorphoses conveys certain ethics regarding human-to-human relations by mediating these relations through metaphors of inhumanity. Where such transformations appear in the literature of the present, however, the human is often decentered, fostering an uneasy consort between human and nonhuman beings and ways of being. Taking the fiction of South Korean author, Han Kang, as a case study, this essay examines the political or civic value of reinvigorating vegetal or arboreal transformation in contemporary stories that unfold against a backdrop of global climate change and ecological collapse. I argue that Han’s work depicts the mimicry of or engagement with nonhuman forms of life as both passive strategies for resisting human acts of violence and exploitation and alternative models of sociality and care. Drawing especially on the unruliness of plants and non-animal organic matter, Han’s translated works invite readers to consider what human subjects can learn about both individual and networked, interspecies modes of protest from green subjectivity. Full article

We examine the ecosystem degradation of the Kaipara moana as an example of the nexus of settler colonialism and slow violence. Settler colonialism is a type of domination that violently interrupts Indigenous people’s interactions and relationships with their land-, sea-, and water-scapes. Slow violence provides a conceptual framework to explore the slow and invisible erosion of ecosystems and to make visible how unseen violence inflicted upon nature (such as deforestation and sedimentation pollution) also unfolds at the intimate scale of the Indigenous body and household. Here, we present how the structural violence of settler colonialism and ecological transformations created a form of settler colonial slow violence for humans and more-than-humans which highlights the ethical and justice features of sustainability because of the link with settler-colonialism. We argue for the need to include local knowledge and lived experiences of slow violence to ensure ethical and just ensuring practices that better attend to the relationships between Indigenous peoples and their more-than-human kin (including plants, animals, rivers, mountains, and seas). We build on this argument using auto- and duo-ethnographic research to identify possibilities for making sense of and making visible those forms of harm, loss and dispossession that frequently remain intangible in public, political and academic representations of land-, sea-, and water-scapes. Situated in the Kaipara moana, Aotearoa New Zealand, narratives are rescued from invisibility and representational bias and stories of water pollution, deforestation, institutional racism, species and habitat loss form the narratives of slow violence. (Please see Glossary for translation of Māori language, terms and names.) Full article

With many felid species in widespread decline, re-thinking the messy felid–human entanglements is a necessary step for fostering coexistence as current conservation frameworks centered on human exceptionalism and widespread violence toward wild animals are conspicuously failing felids. This paper argues for fostering a critical awareness of how we understand our relationships with nonhuman animals, particularly in the context of conservation. We bring two distinct but related interdisciplinary fields into a dialogue to critically question the values and conceptual assumptions that frame the practices of felid conservation today. Compassionate conservation and multispecies studies share many synergies and conceptual overlaps despite emerging from different academic domains. We identified four key areas for further exploration: (1) A shift in emphasis from practices of killing to the underlying assumptions that make forms of killing permissible and ethically unproblematic. (2) Re-engagement with individuals, not just species, in conservation settings. (3) Unsettling human exceptionalism through an emphasis on the agency of animals and an ethic involving compassion. (4) Acknowledging the ways in which humans co-become with other animals and cultivating relationships of multispecies cohabitation and flourishing. Full article

The human–animal relationship is ancient, complex and multifaceted. It may have either positive effects on humans and animals or poor or even negative and detrimental effects on animals or both humans and animals. A large body of literature has investigated the beneficial effects of this relationship in which both human and animals appear to gain physical and psychological benefits from living together in a reciprocated interaction. However, analyzing the literature with a different perspective it clearly emerges that not rarely are human–animal relationships characterized by different forms and levels of discomfort and suffering for animals and, in some cases, also for people. The negative physical and psychological consequences on animals’ well-being may be very nuanced and concealed, but there are situations in which the negative consequences are clear and striking, as in the case of animal violence, abuse or neglect. Empathy, attachment and anthropomorphism are human psychological mechanisms that are considered relevant for positive and healthy relationships with animals, but when dysfunctional or pathological determine physical or psychological suffering, or both, in animals as occurs in animal hoarding. The current work reviews some of the literature on the multifaceted nature of the human–animal relationship; describes the key role of empathy, attachment and anthropomorphism in human–animal relationships; seeks to depict how these psychological processes are distorted and dysfunctional in animal hoarding, with highly detrimental effects on both animal and human well-being. Full article

In 2008, the Dutch Party for the Animals submitted a proposal to ban religious slaughter without prior stunning. The proposal was widely supported in the Lower House but finally rejected in the Upper House in 2012, mainly on the grounds of religious freedom. Academia was keen to study the polemic, but no research has attempted to study the controversy through a lens of racialization. This is remarkable, given the well-documented increase in Islamophobia and the political use of racism since (at least) the turn of the millennium in The Netherlands (and the geopolitical “West” at large). In this article, I demonstrate that a racializing dynamic is actually part and parcel of the Dutch controversy. I apply a reflexive thematic analysis to study archival material from the Dutch Parliamentarian debate and show that the dispute foremost references Islamic slaughter. Appeals to civilization, accusations of barbarism, dystopian warnings against Islamization, and invocations of Judeo-Christianity are discursive elements that feature in the debate and have racializing ramifications for Muslims. By unmasking this racializing dynamic, I offer a means to empirically explore the ways in which taxonomies of religion and race intersect with and through the politicization of animal ethics. When considering religious slaughter it is essential, I ultimately maintain, to observe the violence caused by socially constructed racial and species differences. Only if we hold both in serious regard do we have a chance to begin to imagine ourselves in relation to others differently and move towards more just futures—for humans and non-humans alike. Full article

Societies have proscribed bestiality, or sex between humans and nonhuman animals, since the earliest recorded legal codes. In the early American colonies, religious prohibitions against bestiality provided the grounds for punishing those who engaged in such acts. In the 1800′s, Henry Bergh imported the animal welfare approach to the United States, which modernized the legislative treatment of animals in the country. Until recently, however, many laws in the U.S. have been outdated and vague and have utilized moralistic terminology. Since the 1960′s, a growing body of literature has developed suggesting that individuals who harm animals may also interpersonally offend. This concept, known as the Link, has served as a major motivation for advocates to promote new legislation criminalizing bestiality, to modernize old state statutes, and to expand penalties for individuals convicted of having sex with animals. Unfortunately, data supporting the Link between bestiality and interpersonal violence are limited and of questionable generalizability to the broad public. The Link’s weaknesses can assist in guiding further research. This article summarizes the history of bestiality law, the current state of bestiality legislation in the United States, the body of Link-related literature on bestiality and interpersonal violence and other problematic sexual behaviors, and the empirical weaknesses and needs revealed by this legislation. Full article

There is a strong association between animal abuse and interpersonal violence; therefore, veterinarians may encounter both. Dealing with animal abuse cases is beneficial for advancing animal welfare and the overall public health. Veterinarians play an important role in identifying and responding to this relationship. This study estimated the incidence of animal abuse encountered by veterinarians, examined veterinarians’ awareness of the relationship between animal abuse and human abuse, examined veterinarians’ attitudes towards how they deal with abuse cases, and related demographic characteristics to their attitudes of intervention and the frequency of encountering abuse cases. An anonymous self-administered questionnaire was designed and distributed through social media. Our results show that respondents’ motivation to interfere for animal abuse cases was positively related to their moral or legal responsibility, willingness to assist, and agreement of mandatory reporting. Our results indicated that respondents who believed they had been provided with adequate training were more willing to deal with animal abuse, more capable of distinguishing abuse cases, and did not believe that dealing with abuse cases was beyond their ability. However, more than 60% of our respondents self-evaluated that the animal cruelty awareness training courses were insufficient. Hence, in addition to the traditional role of veterinarians, identifying and responding to animal cruelty should be enhanced through education. Full article