Blog – Page 2 – Rainer Ebert

From China to the world: The universal spirit of the Spring Festival

January 29, 2025 is the first day of a new year, the Year of the Snake, on the lunisolar Chinese calendar. People of Chinese heritage all over the world are immersed in the festive joy of Chinese New Year – or the Spring Festival, as it is more commonly known. Just in time for this year’s Spring Festival, UNESCO inscribed the festival on its Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity. If you have ever seen the vibrant dragon and lion dances or wondered about the meaning behind the red envelopes handed out during this time, you have had a glimpse into the traditions of the Spring Festival. You may not know much about the details, but when it comes to family affection, the emotional core that defines the Spring Festival, you are surely no stranger.

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A hopeful 2025 begins with open ears and open hearts

Voltaire once wrote, “L’oreille est le chemin du cœur.” – The ear is the way to the heart. Few would argue against the importance of listening. Yet, in reality, we often respond passively, offering merely superficial acknowledgment, instead of truly listening. We would rather have others listen to us, and the rise of social media has made it easier to demand just that. As a result, the world has become noisier. Thoughts are expressed more readily, and shared more widely, yet people are feeling lonelier, and less connected. Whether it is the anxiety and uneasiness in one’s heart, the misunderstandings and estrangements among family and friends, or political conflicts, a lack of listening cannot escape sharing in the blame.

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Human Rights, Tanzania

Suluhu’s authoritarian grip tightens in Tanzania

When Samia Suluhu became President in 2021, there was real hope that Tanzania would move away from the oppressive authoritarianism of her predecessor, John Magufuli, and toward a more democratic style of governance. Three years later, little hope is left.

In just the last ten days, Tanzania’s democracy has suffered two serious blows. The first occurred in Dar es Salaam on September 23, when police were deployed in large numbers to prevent peaceful protests against killings and abductions of government critics, and opposition leaders, as well as journalists covering the protests, were arrested. The second blow came just hours ago from the Tanzania Communications Regulatory Authority (TCRA), which suspended the online media services licenses previously issued to the country’s leading newspapers, The Citizen and Mwananchi. The reason for the suspension is an animated video published on October 1. It shows Suluhu watching citizens lament the disappearances of family members on TV.

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Animal Ethics, Philosophy

ড. টম রেগান: প্রাণী-অধিকার দর্শন

অন্য যেসব প্রাণীকে মানুষ খায়, বিজ্ঞানে ব্যবহার করে, শিকার করে, ফাঁদ পেতে ধরে এবং বিচিত্র উপায়ে শোষণ করে, আমাদের কাছে তাদের উপযোগিতা ছাড়াও তাদের একটি স্বকীয় জীবন রয়েছে যা তাদের কাছে গুরুত্বপূর্ণ। তারা যে শুধু পৃথিবীর মাঝে অস্তিত্বশীল তা-ই নয়, তারা এ ব্যাপারে অবগতও বটে। তাদের জীবনে যা ঘটে তা তাদের কাছে গুরুত্বপূর্ণ। প্রত্যেকের একটি জীবন আছে যা জীবনধারীর কাছে উৎকৃষ্টতর বা নিকৃষ্টতররূপে প্রতিভাত হতে পারে।

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Animal Ethics, Philosophy

Humans and Other Animals: Rattling the Paradigm

Two colleagues at the University of South Africa – Motlatsi Khosi and Kala Bopape – and I are organizing an international animal ethics conference for students and early career practitioners, which will be held online on December 17, 18, and 19, 2024.

The conference is organized around three themes:

Philosophy and Ethical Theory
Activism and Community-centered Approaches
Cultural Production, Art, and Performance

78 abstracts from numerous countries were submitted in response to our call for abstracts, out of which nine were selected for presentation. On each conference day, there will be three sessions of 45 minutes.

The conference language is English. Attendance is free, and anybody anywhere is welcome to join! If you would like to attend, please register using this form no later than Friday, December 13, 2024.

You can find the complete program on our conference website. For a PDF copy, please click here. A poster is available here.

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Bangladesh, Human Rights

Accountability or oppression with a vengeance?

Last week’s political violence was by far the worst since I first visited and fell in love with this country fifteen years ago. Some media outlets report 150 lives lost, others 170. Among those who lost their lives are children and young adults, noninvolved bystanders, and security personnel. Once the dust settles and a careful tabulation is done, the actual number of deaths could well be multiples of the numbers circulating at the moment. In addition, thousands were injured, many of whom have a long road of recovery ahead, and some of whom will never fully recover.

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Adelmannsfelden postcard

Sadly, postcards are not as popular anymore as they once were, which is why in many places they are increasingly hard to find. Postcrossing has been trying to revive the culture of sending postcards, with remarkable success, and there are communities of collectors across the globe.

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Animal Ethics, Philosophy, Society

A personal choice?

When people are treated monstrously, we say they are “treated like animals.” This is because we treat animals monstrously. We mistreat and abuse them on farms, transport them in cramped and stressful conditions, torture them in laboratories, hunt them for sport, and use them for our entertainment in circuses and zoos. You know that, I know that, everyone knows that. And yet, the horror continues, and it continues on a scale that is truly mind-boggling.

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Animal Ethics, Philosophy

In memory of Carl Cohen

I only now learned that American philosopher Carl Cohen passed away earlier this year, at the age of 92. He was buried at Forest Hill Cemetery in Ann Arbor, Michigan.

Carl speaking at the University of Heidelberg on July 26, 2006

Carl speaking at the University of Heidelberg on July 26, 2006

I first met Carl in July 2006, when he spoke at a conference about the moral status of animals at the University of Heidelberg. Even though I thought he was dead wrong about animals, his passion for philosophical debate and his genuine appreciation of reasoned disagreement made a lasting impression on me, and shaped how I think about the nature and role of philosophy. He was a true champion of diversity of opinion and did not shy away from opinions that are unpopular. If that is where he thought the best arguments lead, that is where he went. He publicly and forcefully argued against affirmative action in college admissions, and for the right of neo-Nazis to march in Skokie, a Chicago suburb where a significant number of Holocaust survivors lived. Like Socrates and any philosopher worth their salt, he was a troublemaker.

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Animal Ethics, Religion, Society

Western Hypocrisy and Muslim Whataboutism, as Every Year

In May 2020, when people were panic-buying toilet paper and supply chains were crumbling due to COVID-19, Iowa’s largest pork producer found itself with thousands of pigs that no longer had commercial value. Led by the logic of profit maximization, Iowa Select Farms decided that keeping the pigs alive was not worth the cost. The pigs had to die, and their deaths had to be fast and cheap.

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Animal Ethics, Philosophy, Tanzania

Ukombozi wa Wanyama

Animal Liberation, a 1975 book by Australian philosopher Peter Singer, is widely considered one of the founding texts of the modern animal liberation movement. It develops a new ethics for our treatment of nonhuman animals, according to which their interests should be given the same consideration as the like interests of humans, and calls for an end to practices such as factory farming and animal testing. The book has had a lasting impact on generations of scholars and students and has influenced countless people in all corners of the world to adopt a vegan diet.

Almost half a century after its first publication, Animal Liberation is now finally available in Swahili! The book was translated by Deogratius Simba and published by Dar es Salaam-based publisher Mkuki na Nyota. It is available for purchase at the TPH Bookshop at 24 Samora Avenue in Dar es Salaam, and everywhere else where Mkuki na Nyota’s books are sold. The retail price is 30,000 TSh. If you are a student at the University of Dar es Salaam (UDSM), you can find a copy of the book at the library of UDSM’s Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies.

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Animal Ethics, Philosophy

Irresponsible scholarship

If the ultimate test of our humanity is how we treat nonhuman animals, then we are failing spectacularly. Earth is home to vastly more farm animals than wild mammals and birds, and almost all of them live in factory farms – where conditions vary from horrible to horrific – and die violently. The sheer numbers make our treatment of animals one of the most pressing moral issues of our time. You do not need to be an animal rights advocate to recognize this truth. If you believe that animals have any moral standing at all, that unlike stones they matter, at least a little bit, then the monstrous amount of gratuitous suffering we routinely inflict on animals should offend your moral sense. A Gallup poll found that a majority of Americans in fact are either somewhat or very concerned about the way in which the animals we raise for food are treated, and extend that concern to the animals used in entertainment and research as well.

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Human Rights, LGBT rights, Society, Tanzania

Mtu na Jinsia

Je, unajua tofauti kati ya utambulisho wa kijinsia, muonekano wa kijinsia, jinsia ki-anatomia, na mwelekeo wa kijinsi? Baadhi ya marafiki na mimi tumeunda kitini cha ukurasa mmoja, kulingana na Genderbread Person ya Sam Killermann, ambayo inafafanua dhana hizi kwa njia inayoweza kufikiwa na ya kuvutia. Ni zana nzuri ya kufundishia na njia nzuri ya kuanzisha mazungumzo muhimu, iwe shuleni, chuo kikuu, matukio ya kijumuiya, au warsha za utetezi. Ni bure kwa mtu yeyote kupakua na kutumia kwa madhumuni ya elimu, na kukuza uvumilivu, kuelewa, na kuthamini tofauti za binadamu.

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Human Rights, Society

Kupiga watoto sio sawa

Isipokuwa kama unajilinda mwenyewe au unamlinda mtu mwingine, kumpiga mtu ni shambulio, na shambulio ni kinyume cha sheria. Hakuna mjadala juu yake, na hakuna sababu nzuri sana kwa nini iwe hivyo. Watu wana haki ya kuheshimiwa. Kumpiga mtu sio tu husababisha maumivu ya mwili – ni udhalilishaji. Ndiyo maana ni nchi chache tu ambazo bado zinatumia mateso ya kimwili kama adhabu. Tunaposoma makala za habari kuhusu nchi zinazowapiga watu viboko kwa uharibifu wa kitu fulani au kuiba, wengi wetu hukwazika na kushangaa: “Ni unyama ulioje!” Tumechoka na kuchoshwa na vurugu. Ubinadamu umepitia mambo mabaya mengi sana, na imekuwa nadra sana kwa binadamu kufanya mambo mema. Vurugu inapaswa kuwa suluhu ya mwisho, na itumike tu inapobidi.

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Human Rights, Society

Hitting kids is never OK

Unless you are defending yourself or someone else, hitting a stranger is assault, and assault is illegal. There is no question about it, and there are very good reasons why that is so. People have the right to be treated with respect. Hitting someone not only causes physical pain – it is degrading. That’s also why only a few countries still use the infliction of physical pain as punishment. When reading news articles about countries caning people for vandalism or stealing, most of us react with indignation: “How barbaric and backward!” We are sick and tired of violence. Humanity has seen too much of it, and hardly ever has it done any good. Violence should be the last resort, only to be used when absolutely necessary.

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Animal Ethics, Philosophy

Montreal Declaration on Animal Exploitation

The Montreal Declaration on Animal Exploitation is a public condemnation of animal exploitation. As of now, more than 500 researchers in moral and political philosophy from across the globe and various philosophical traditions have signed the Declaration. I am one of them. In philosophy, such agreement is rare. Its part of a growing consensus that common human practices that involve treating non-human animals as mere commodities are fundamentally unjust and morally indefensible.

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Animal Ethics, Bangladesh, Society

Veganizing Bangladesh

I just got back from a trip to what the British newspaper The Telegraph once called “the world’s most vegetarian country.” The country is Bangladesh, where – according to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) – the average person consumes only about four kilograms of meat annually. For comparison, in the United States, the per-capita meat consumption is 120 kilograms.

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Bangladesh’s first-ever Postcrossing event

Photo: Mahmud Hossain Opu (Dhaka Tribune)

The use of postcards to send greetings to friends and family has sharply declined in recent times, mainly due to the rise of email and social media. Postcards take days, weeks, or even months to reach, and buying and posting them requires both time and money. Yet, there is magic in sending handwritten postcards that cannot be found in the digital world. Postcards travel large distances and pass many eyes before they reach their intended recipients and at the same time are more intimate and personal than an email or social media post. Kept in a safe place, a postcard is a physical reminder that someone thought of you, and cared enough to make the effort of sending it. It is a memory that lasts.

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Animal Ethics, Human Rights, Philosophy

New article, defending a novel account of full and equal moral status

My new article in the Zeitschrift für Ethik und Moralphilosophie (Journal for Ethics and Moral Philosophy) is perhaps the most important article I have written to date. It builds on arguments I made in previous publications – including in this article and this article – and presents a novel account of full and equal moral status, according to which it is no less seriously wrong to kill a non-human conscious animal than it is to kill you or me.

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Human Rights, Society, Tanzania

Ni zaidi ya suala la familia!

Ni janga kubwa na lisilo na kifani. Linaleta uchungu na mateso kwa wanawake na familia zao. Linaharibu jamii katika kila nchi na tamaduni. Lakini cha kushangaza, ni mara chache linazungumziwa, na kwa hakika halishughulikiwi kwa uharaka, tofauti kabisa na janga lingine lolote, ambalo limewahi kuwepo angalau kwa miaka miwili iliyopita. Tanzania ni mfano wa nchi ambayo janga hili limejikita sana lakini linafichwa. Katika nchi kama hii yenye mandhari nzuri, visiwa vya kupendeza, na wanyama wa porini wa kuvutia, kufichwa kwa janga hili kunaleta kizungumkuti.

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