Making a difference on behalf of animals living in the wild: interview with Jeff McMahan

Abstract

Jeff McMahan currently holds the prestigious White’s Chair of Moral Philosophy at Oxford University. He has previously been a professor of philosophy at Rutgers University (USA). He has written extensively about theoretical and applied ethics, two of his most notable contributions being The Ethics of Killing: Problems at the Margins of Life and Killing in War. Professor McMahan is also known for his work in animal ethics, being one the first major philosophers to seriously address the situation of animals in nature. In his New York Times article The Meat Eaters he defends the view that if the suffering of nonhuman animals is morally relevant, then we should also be concerned with the suffering of animals living in the wild. In this way, he concludes that we should intervene for their benefit whenever it is in our power to do so.