Last August, I accepted an invitation to edit a special issue of the Bangladesh Journal of Bioethics, devoted to animal ethics. The interest was so great that one issue became two, the first of which has just been published.
The first special issue is available here, my editorial, which includes brief summaries of the articles, is available here, and this is the table of contents:
- Editorial
- Robin Attfield (Cardiff University, U.K.) & Rebekah Humphreys (Trinity St. David’s University, U.K.):
Justice and Non-Human Animals – Part 1 - Eric X. Qi (Rice University, U.S.A.):
Special Relations, Special Obligations, and Speciesism - Yamikani Ndasauka & Grivas M. Kayange (University of Malawi, Malawi):
Existence and Needs: A case for the equal moral considerability of non-human animals - Sreetama Chakraborty (Belda College, India):
Animal Ethics: Beyond Neutrality, Universality, and Consistency - Gabriel Vidal Quiñones (Pontifical Catholic University of Chile, Chile):
Singerian Vegetarianism and the Limits of Utilitarianism: A path towards a Meaning Ethics
I am grateful to Shamima for recognizing the importance of rethinking our relationship with non-human animals, and for giving me the opportunity to serve as the guest editor of what is likely the first issue of an academic journal in Bangladesh wholly dedicated to issues of animal ethics. I also thank the contributors for choosing the Bangladesh Journal of Bioethics to publish their excellent work, and the reviewers for their insightful comments and suggestions.
I hope this will help start a broader conversation about the moral status of non-human animals in Bangladesh.
Rainer Ebert 