Environmental Ethics: Lori Gruen, Prof. of Philosophy, Wesleyan University

Tue, March 5th, 2024
7:00 pm - 8:00 pm

  • This event has passed.

Professor and Chair of Philosophy, at Wesleyan University, Lori Gruen, will give a Class of 1960 Scholars Lecture in Environmental Studies focusing on environmental ethics, Griffin 3. 

“Empathy and Justice Beyond the Human.”
Abstract: In our concern for the more than human world, many discussions have focused on individual animal suffering and threats to entire species. What happens when we instead ask questions about what meaningful relationships between humans and animals are possible, what makes their lives livable, and what role empathy can play in helping us to promote better relationships with others, both human and nonhuman?

Lori Gruen is a leading scholar in Animal Studies and Feminist Philosophy.  She works primarily in ethics and social and political philosophy and is a prolific scholar. She is the author and editor of over a dozen books, including Ethics and Animals: An Introduction (Cambridge, 2011, second edition 2021), Entangled Empathy (Lantern, 2015), Animal Crisis (Polity, 2022) co-authored with Alice Crary, Carceral Logics (Cambridge, 2022) co-edited with Justin Marceau, Critical Terms for Animal Studies (Chicago, 2018), Ecofeminism: Feminist Intersections with Other Animals and the Earth (Bloomsbury 2014, second edition 2022, co-edited with Carol J. Adams), Ethics of Captivity (Oxford, 2014), and others.  Gruen’s work focuses on ethical and political issues that impact those often overlooked in traditional philosophical investigations, e.g. women and other marginalized genders, people of color, incarcerated people, and non-human animals. She is a Fellow of the Hastings Center for Bioethics, was a Faculty Fellow at Tufts’ Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine’s Center for Animals and Public Policy, is a fellow of the Brooks Animal Studies Academic Network and was the first and founding chair of the Faculty Advisory Committee of the Center for Prison Education at Wesleyan. Gruen has documented the history of The First 100 chimpanzees in research in the US and has an evolving website that documents the journey to sanctuary of the remaining chimpanzees in research labs, The Last 1000.

Gruen has written on a range of topics in practical ethics, feminist philosophy and political philosophy. Her current projects include exploring captivity and the ethical and political questions raised by carceral logics.

Sponsored by the Center for Environmental Studies, The Class of 1960 Scholars Program, and the Philosophy Department.

More Information

Event/Announcement Navigation