Michael Allen Fox

Last updated

Michael Allen Fox
Born (1940-05-07) 7 May 1940 (age 82)
NationalityAmerican, Canadian, Australian
Alma mater University of Toronto
Notable workThe Case for Animal Experimentation (1986)
Deep Vegetarianism (1999)
Institutions Queen's University

Michael Allen Fox (born 7 May 1940) is an American/Canadian/Australian philosopher who was based at Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario from 1966 until his retirement in 2005. He is the author of a number of books, including The Case for Animal Experimentation: An Evolutionary and Ethical Perspective (University of California Press, 1986)—the arguments and conclusion of which he later rejected—Deep Vegetarianism (Temple University Press, 1999), The Accessible Hegel (Humanity Books, 2005), The Remarkable Existentialists (Humanity, 2009), Understanding Peace (Routledge, 2014) and Home: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford University Press, 2017).

Contents

Career

Fox studied for a Bachelor of Arts at Cornell University and then a Master of Arts and PhD at the University of Toronto. He began teaching in the Department of Philosophy at Queen's University in 1966, and remained at the institution until his retirement to Armidale, New South Wales, Australia, in 2005. He also took up visiting positions at the University of New England and the Australian National University. He was, in 1996, the University of Tasmania's James Martineau Memorial Lecturer. In addition to teaching at Queen's, he was the editor of Queen's Quarterly for a decade. [1] [2]

Fox's first monograph was The Case for Animal Experimentation: An Evolutionary and Ethical Perspective, which was published by the University of California Press in 1986. [3] Fox had been unimpressed by Peter Singer's call for animal liberation in the latter's 1975 book, and had dismissed Singer's arguments about the wrong of speciesism. Fox then published a series of papers challenging Singer's ideas, and advised several organisations on animal experimentation. [4] In The Case for Animal Experimentation, Fox argues that, in many cases, invasive animal testing is ethically justifiable, and that the ethical challenges to it can be overcome. He also explores a number of experiments that have received particular criticism from critics, including some addressed by Singer. Much of the book is given over to an explanation and exploration of the place of animal testing in science. Despite his defence of animal testing, Fox closes the book with a series of recommendations for how the system could be improved. The book was widely reviewed, [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] [10] and a paperback edition was released in 1988. [11]

Less than a year after the book's initial publication, Fox found himself "in radical disagreement with some of its major theses". [12] Fox published a paper in Between the Species retracting his arguments and offering a case against animal experimentation, describing The Case for Animal Experimentation as "an embarrassment" to him. Quoting his own words on human superiority, he wrote that he "now look[s] at these arrogant remarks with dismay". He reported that critical reviews and the comments of a personal friend had been able to awaken him from "dogmatic slumber" about human duties to animals. [4] Years later, Fox published a paper in Organization & Environment entitled "The Case Against Animal Experimentation", representing the "reversal of the view [he] once defended". This paper analysed and supplemented Joan Dunayer's critique of animal testing. [13]

After retracting his arguments in The Case for Animal Experimentation, Fox went on to author Deep Vegetarianism with Temple University Press in 1999. [14] In this book, Fox presents arguments in favour of vegetarianism, exploring its cultural and historical background and linking it with other progressive movements, especially feminist movements. [15] [16] [17]

In 2005, the same year as his retirement from Queen's, Fox published The Accessible Hegel, an introduction to the thought of G. W. F. Hegel, with the Humanity Books imprint of Prometheus Books. [18] [19] Since his retirement, he has published The Remarkable Existentialists (2009, Humanity Books), [20] an introduction to the thought of several figures associated with existentialism, [21] and Understanding Peace: A Comprehensive Introduction in 2013 with Routledge. [22] In the latter book, Fox presents peace as a way of life and an ideal to be aimed for, asking the question of why humans engage in violent activity and what can be done to prevent violence. [23] In 2016, his Home: A Very Short Introduction was published as a part of the Oxford University Press Very Short Introduction series. [24] [25]

Select bibliography

In addition to his books, Fox has published over 20 book chapters, over 40 peer reviewed journal articles, over 40 book reviews and a range of other popular, academic and technical works. [2]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Robert C. Solomon</span> American philosopher

Robert C. Solomon was a philosopher and business ethicist, notable author, and "Distinguished Teaching Professor of Business and Philosophy" at the University of Texas at Austin, where he held a named chair and taught for more than 30 years, authoring The Passions: Emotions and the Meaning of Life (1976) and more than 45 other books and editions. Critical of the narrow focus of Anglo-American analytic philosophy, which he thought denied human nature and abdicated the important questions of life, he instead wrote analytically in response to the continental discourses of phenomenology and existentialism, on sex and love, on business ethics, and on other topics to which he brought an Aristotelian perspective on virtue ethics. He also wrote A Short History of Philosophy and others with his wife, Professor Kathleen Higgins.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tom Regan</span> Philosopher and animal rights scholar

Tom Regan was an American philosopher who specialized in animal rights theory. He was professor emeritus of philosophy at North Carolina State University, where he had taught from 1967 until his retirement in 2001.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Richard H. Schwartz</span> American mathematician

Richard H. Schwartz is a professor emeritus of mathematics at the College of Staten Island; president emeritus of the Jewish Vegetarians of North America (JVNA); and co-founder and coordinator of the Society of Ethical and Religious Vegetarians (SERV). He is best known as a Jewish vegetarian activist and advocate for animal rights in the United States and Israel.

Daniel A. Dombrowski is an American philosopher and professor emeritus of philosophy at Seattle University. He was the president of the Metaphysical Society of America (2018–19).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Stephen R. L. Clark</span> British philosopher

Stephen Richard Lyster Clark is an English philosopher and professor emeritus of philosophy at the University of Liverpool. Clark specialises in the philosophy of religion and animal rights, writing from a philosophical position that might broadly be described as Christian Platonist. He is the author of twenty books, including The Moral Status of Animals (1977), The Nature of the Beast (1982), Animals and Their Moral Standing (1997), G.K. Chesterton (2006), Philosophical Futures (2011), and Ancient Mediterranean Philosophy (2012), as well as 77 scholarly articles, and chapters in another 109 books. He is a former editor-in-chief of the Journal of Applied Philosophy (1990–2001).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">James Rachels</span> American philosopher and ethicist

James Webster Rachels was an American philosopher who specialized in ethics and animal rights.

<i>Irrational Man</i> 1958 book by William Barrett

Irrational Man: A Study in Existential Philosophy is a 1958 book by the philosopher William Barrett, in which the author explains the philosophical background of existentialism and provides a discussion of several major existentialist thinkers, including Søren Kierkegaard, Friedrich Nietzsche, Martin Heidegger, and Jean-Paul Sartre. Irrational Man helped to introduce existentialism to the English-speaking world and has been identified as one of the most useful books that discuss the subject, but Barrett has also been criticized for endorsing irrationality and for giving a distorted and misleading account of Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">History of vegetarianism</span> History of a food and dietary choice

The earliest records of vegetarianism as a concept and practice amongst a significant number of people are from ancient India, especially among the Hindus and Jains. Later records indicate that small groups within the ancient Greek civilizations in southern Italy and Greece also adopted some dietary habits similar to vegetarianism. In both instances, the diet was closely connected with the idea of nonviolence toward animals, and was promoted by religious groups and philosophers.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Humanitarian League</span> British advocacy group

The Humanitarian League was a British radical advocacy group formed by Henry S. Salt and others to promote the principle that it is wrong to inflict avoidable suffering on any sentient being. It was based in London and operated between 1891 and 1919.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Marc Bekoff</span> American biologist

Marc Bekoff is an American biologist, ethologist, behavioural ecologist and writer. He was a professor of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of Colorado Boulder for 32 years. He cofounded the Jane Goodall Institute of Ethologists for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, and he is Professor Emeritus of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of Colorado Boulder.

Some observers believe that existentialism forms a philosophical ground for anarchism. Anarchist historian Peter Marshall claims "there is a close link between the existentialists' stress on the individual, free choice, and moral responsibility and the main tenets of anarchism".

<i>Animals, Men and Morals</i>

Animals, Men and Morals: An Inquiry into the Maltreatment of Non-humans (1971) is a collection of essays on animal rights, edited by Oxford philosophers Stanley and Roslind Godlovitch, both from Canada, and John Harris from the UK. The editors were members of the Oxford Group, a group of postgraduate philosophy students and others based at the University of Oxford from 1968, who began raising the idea of animal rights in seminars and campaigning locally against factory farming and otter hunting.

Allen William Wood is an American philosopher specializing in the work of Immanuel Kant and German Idealism, with particular interests in ethics and social philosophy. One of the world’s foremost Kant scholars, he is the Ruth Norman Halls professor of philosophy at Indiana University, Ward W. and Priscilla B. Woods Professor, Emeritus, at Stanford University, and has held professorships and visiting appointments at numerous universities in the United States and Europe. In addition to popularising and clarifying the ethical thought of Kant, Wood has also mounted arguments against the validity of trolley problems in moral philosophy.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Michael Huemer</span> American philosopher

Michael Huemer is a professor of philosophy at the University of Colorado, Boulder. He has defended ethical intuitionism, direct realism, libertarianism, veganism, and philosophical anarchism.

<i>The Sexual Politics of Meat</i> 1990 book by Carol J. Adams

The Sexual Politics of Meat: A Feminist-Vegetarian Critical Theory is a 1990 book by American author and activist Carol J. Adams published by Continuum. The book was first written as an essay for a college course taught by Mary Daly and includes material such as interviews from vegetarian feminists in the Boston–Cambridge area. The Sexual Politics of Meat has been translated into nine languages and re-published for its 25th anniversary edition as a part of the Bloomsbury Revelations series.

<i>An Essay on Abstinence from Animal Food, as a Moral Duty</i> Book by Joseph Ritson

An Essay on Abstinence from Animal Food, as a Moral Duty is a book on ethical vegetarianism and animal rights written by Joseph Ritson, first published in 1802.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">J. Howard Moore</span> American zoologist and philosopher

John Howard Moore was an American zoologist, philosopher, educator, humanitarian and socialist. He is considered to be an early, yet neglected, proponent of animal rights and ethical vegetarianism, and was a leading figure in the American humanitarian movement. Moore was a prolific writer, authoring numerous articles, books, essays, pamphlets on topics including animal rights, education, ethics, evolutionary biology, humanitarianism, socialism, temperance, utilitarianism and vegetarianism. He also lectured on many of these subjects and was widely regarded as a talented orator, earning the name the "silver tongue of Kansas" for his lectures on prohibition.

<i>The Universal Kinship</i> 1906 book by J. Howard Moore

The Universal Kinship is a 1906 book by American zoologist, philosopher, educator and socialist J. Howard Moore. In the book, Moore advocated for a secular sentiocentric philosophy, called the Universal Kinship, which mandated the ethical consideration and treatment of all sentient beings based on Darwinian principles of shared evolutionary kinship, and a universal application of the Golden Rule; a direct challenge to anthropocentric hierarchies and ethics. The book was endorsed by Henry S. Salt, Mark Twain and Jack London, Eugene V. Debs and Mona Caird. Moore expanded on his ideas in The New Ethics, published in 1907.

<i>Why I Am a Vegetarian</i> 1895 pamphlet on vegetarianism

Why I Am a Vegetarian is an 1895 pamphlet based on an address delivered by J. Howard Moore before the Chicago Vegetarian Society. It was reprinted several times by the society and other publishers.

<i>The Ethics of Diet</i> 19th-century book

The Ethics of Diet: A Catena of Authorities Deprecatory of the Practice of Flesh-eating is an 1883 book by Howard Williams, on the history of vegetarianism. The book was influential on the development of the Victorian vegetarian movement.

References

  1. ↑ "Michael Fox". Queen's University. Retrieved 13 November 2016.
  2. 1 2 "Professor Michael Fox". University of New England. Archived from the original on 22 August 2011.
  3. ↑ Fox, Michael A. (1986). The Case for Animal Experimentation. Berkeley, California: University of California Press.
  4. 1 2 Fox, Michael Allen (1987). "Animal experimentation: A philosopher's changing views". Between the Species 3 (2): 55–60, 75, 80, 82.
  5. ↑ Cartmill, Matt (1986). "Animal rights and wrongs". Natural History . 95 (7): 66–9.
  6. ↑ Watson, Richard A. (1986). "The Case for Animal Experimentation: An Evolutionary and Ethical Perspective. Michael Allen Fox". Quarterly Review of Biology 61 (4): 526–528.
  7. ↑ McGuire, Michael T. (1986). "Animals". JAMA . 256 (8): 1054–5.
  8. ↑ Dawkins, Marian Stamp (1987). "The case for animal experimentation: An evolutionary and ethical perspective". Trends in Neurosciences . 10 (2): 97.
  9. ↑ Richmond, Caroline (1986). "The case for animal experimentation". Trends in Biochemical Sciences . 11 (10): 411–2.
  10. ↑ Burke, Robert and Jerrold Tannenbaum (1986). "The ethics of animal research: Two views". The Scientist . 1 (1): 19–20, 22.
  11. ↑ Fox, Michael A. (1988). The Case for Animal Experimentation. Berkeley, California: University of California Press.
  12. ↑ Fox, Michael Allen (1986). "Author reverses views on animal rights". The Scientist 1 (3).
  13. ↑ Fox, Michael (2000). "The case against animal experimentation: Comments on Dunayer's 'in the name of science'". Organization & Environment . 13 (4): 463–7.
  14. ↑ Fox, Michael Allen (1999). Deep Vegetarianism. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: Temple University Press.
  15. ↑ Lockie, Stewart, Jen Hayward, and Nell Salem (2002). "Book reviews". Agriculture and Human Values19 (4): 361–3.
  16. ↑ Goering, Sara (1999). "Michael Allen Fox, Deep Vegetarianism". Ethics 111 (3): 632–4.
  17. ↑ Philbrow, Anne (2000). "Michael Allen Fox, Deep Vegetarianism". Philosophy in Review 20 (2): 103–5.
  18. ↑ Fox, Michael Allen (2005). The Accessible Hegel. Amherst, New York: Humanity Books.
  19. ↑ Bates, Jennifer (2007). "Michael Allen Fox, The Accessible Hegel". Philosophy in Review 27 (1). Open Access logo PLoS transparent.svg
  20. ↑ Fox, Michael Allen (2009). The Remarkable Existentialists. Amherst, New York: Humanity Books.
  21. ↑ Fairfield, Paul (2010). "Michael Allen Fox, The Remarkable Existentialists". Philosophy in Review 30 (1). Open Access logo PLoS transparent.svg
  22. ↑ Fox, Michael Allen (2013). Understanding Peace. London: Routledge.
  23. ↑ Harris, Ian (2015). "Matthew Allen Fox. Understanding Peace: A Comprehensive Introduction. New York: Routledge, 2014." Peace & Change 40 (2): 276–8.
  24. ↑ Fox, Michael Allen (2016). Home: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
  25. ↑ "New book by Michael Fox". Queen's University. Retrieved 27 December 2016.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.