David Sztybel (born 2 February 1967) is a Canadian philosopher specializing in

animal ethics Animal ethics is a branch of ethics which examines human-animal relationships, the moral consideration of animals and how nonhuman animals ought to be treated. The subject matter includes animal rights, animal welfare, animal law, speciesism, an ...

Education and career

Sztybel was born in

Toronto Toronto ( ; or ) is the capital city of the Canadian province of Ontario. With a recorded population of 2,794,356 in 2021, it is the most populous city in Canada and the fourth most populous city in North America. The city is the anch ...

Ontario Ontario ( ; ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada.Ontario is located in the geographic eastern half of Canada, but it has historically and politically been considered to be part of Central Canada. Located in Central C ...

. He obtained his BA in philosophy in 1991, his MA in 1994, and his PhD in 2000 – for a thesis entitled "Empathy and Rationality in Ethics" – from the

University of Toronto The University of Toronto (UToronto or U of T) is a public university, public research university in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, located on the grounds that surround Queen's Park (Toronto), Queen's Park. It was founded by royal charter in 1827 ...

."Education"
davidsztybel.info, accessed 2 June 2012. He fulfilled an Advisory Research Committee Post-Doctoral Fellowship at Queen's University (2001-2002), held a fellowship at the

Oxford Centre for Animal Ethics The Ferrater Mora Oxford Centre for Animal Ethics is an organisation based in Oxford which promotes animal ethics. History The centre was founded in Oxford in 2006 by Andrew Linzey, a member of the Faculty of Theology at the University of Oxf ...

(2007–2011), and a research fellowship at the

University of Vienna The University of Vienna (german: Universität Wien) is a public research university located in Vienna, Austria. It was founded by Duke Rudolph IV in 1365 and is the oldest university in the German-speaking world. With its long and rich hist ...

(2011 to present). Most of his work is related to

animal rights Animal rights is the philosophy according to which many or all Animal consciousness, sentient animals have moral worth that is independent of their Utilitarianism, utility for humans, and that their most basic interests—such as avoiding s ...

. Sztybel has been a

vegan Veganism is the practice of abstaining from the use of animal product—particularly in diet—and an associated philosophy that rejects the commodity status of animals. An individual who follows the diet or philosophy is known as a vegan. ...

since 1988.

Research

Sztybel has developed a new theory of

which he terms "best caring", as outlined in his paper "The Rights of Animal Persons". Criticizing conventional theories of rights based on intuition, traditionalism or common sense, compassion,

Immanuel Kant Immanuel Kant (, , ; 22 April 1724 – 12 February 1804) was a German philosopher and one of the central Enlightenment thinkers. Born in Königsberg, Kant's comprehensive and systematic works in epistemology, metaphysics, ethics, and ...

's theory,

John Rawls John Bordley Rawls (; February 21, 1921 – November 24, 2002) was an American moral, legal and political philosopher in the liberal tradition. Rawls received both the Schock Prize for Logic and Philosophy and the National Humanities Medal in ...

's theory, and

Alan Gewirth Alan Gewirth (November 28, 1912 – May 9, 2004) was an American philosopher, a professor of philosophy at the University of Chicago, and author of '' Reason and Morality'' (1978), ''Human Rights: Essays on Justification and Applications'' (19 ...

's theory, Sztybel devises a new theory of rights for human and nonhuman animals. Sztybel bases his theory, in part, on the idea that sentient beings are ends-in-themselves, a theory of emotional cognition which verifies that some things really are good or bad for sentient beings. This is a non-

utilitarian In ethical philosophy, utilitarianism is a family of normative ethical theories that prescribe actions that maximize happiness and well-being for all affected individuals. Although different varieties of utilitarianism admit different charac ...

or "individuals-respecting" theory that defends the proposition that all sentient beings should be legally recognized as persons.Sztybel, D
"The Rights of Animal Persons"
''Animal Liberation Philosophy and Policy Journal'', 4(1), 2006. He is critical of utilitarianism and the traditional feminist

ethics of care The ethics of care (alternatively care ethics or EoC) is a normative ethical theory that holds that moral action centers on interpersonal relationships and care or benevolence as a virtue. EoC is one of a cluster of normative ethical theories t ...

. He also takes issue with the traditional notion of animal welfare, which supports the use of animals if steps are taken to avoid "unnecessary" suffering, the parameters of which vary. Sztybel argues that we would never call the same treatment of humans, mentally disabled or otherwise, to be consistent with their welfare. He coined the term "animal illfare" to describe conventional animal treatment. He holds that true animal welfare would only entail wishing animals good (never anything avoidably malicious). He supports that fully realized substantial animal rights correspond to a significant respect for all

sentient Sentience is the capacity to experience feelings and sensations. The word was first coined by philosophers in the 1630s for the concept of an ability to feel, derived from Latin '' sentientem'' (a feeling), to distinguish it from the ability to ...

beings. Sztybel contends that Singer's philosophy of animal liberation is not really about liberating animals in general; he accuses Singer of being a speciesist for defending the vivisection of animals on the ground that they have inferior cognitive capacities. In so doing, Singer is effectively sanctioning the harmful treatment of nonhuman animals on the basis of a species-characteristic which does not justify violent treatment. He also provides a critique of the

abolitionist Abolitionism, or the abolitionist movement, is the movement to end slavery. In Western Europe and the Americas, abolitionism was a historic movement that sought to end the Atlantic slave trade and liberate the enslaved people. The British ...

views of

Gary L. Francione Gary Lawrence Francione (born May 1954) is an American academic in the fields of law and philosophy. He is Board of Governors Professor of Law and Katzenbach Scholar of Law and Philosophy at Rutgers University in New Jersey. He is also a visitin ...

and Joan Dunayer, who argue that animal rights supporters should not pursue a welfarist approach. A defense of suffering-reduction laws and a discussion of the logical problems of anti-welfarism are featured in Sztybel's article "Animal Rights Law: Fundamentalism versus Pragmatism".

Selected publications

*"Animal Rights Law: Fundamentalism versus Pragmatism." ''Journal for Critical Animal Studies'' 5 (1) (2007): 1-37. https://web.archive.org/web/20090205001448/http://www.criticalanimalstudies.org/JCAS/Journal_Articles_download/Issue_6/sztybel.pdf *"The Rights of Animal Persons." ''Animal Liberation Philosophy and Policy Journal'' 4 (1) (Spring 2006): 1-37. https://web.archive.org/web/20090106123436/http://www.criticalanimalstudies.org/JCAS/Journal_Articles_download/Issue_5/sztybel.pdf * "Can the Treatment of Animals Be Compared to the Holocaust?" ''Ethics and the Environment'' 11 (Spring 2006): 97-132. * "A Living Will Clause for Supporters of Animal Experimentation." ''Journal of Applied Philosophy'' 23 (May 2006): 174-189. *"Animal Rights: Autonomy and Redundancy." ''Journal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics'' 14 (3) (2001): 259-73. *"Taking Humanism Seriously: 'Obligatory' Anthropocentrism." ''Journal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics'' 13 (3/4) (2000): 181-203. *"Marxism and Animal Rights." ''Ethics and the Environment'' 2 (Fall 1997): 169-85. *Three articles for ''The Encyclopedia of Animal Rights and Animal Welfare'', pp. 130–32. Edited by

Marc Bekoff Marc Bekoff (born September 6, 1945 in Brooklyn, NY) 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 ...

Westport, Connecticut Westport is a town in Fairfield County, Connecticut, United States, along the Long Island Sound within Connecticut's Gold Coast. It is northeast of New York City. The town had a population of 27,141 according to the 2020 U.S. Census. History ...

: Greenwood Publishing Group, 1998: "

René Descartes René Descartes ( or ; ; Latinized: Renatus Cartesius; 31 March 1596 – 11 February 1650) was a French philosopher, scientist, and mathematician, widely considered a seminal figure in the emergence of modern philosophy and science. Ma ...

", "Distinguishing Animal Rights from Animal Welfare", and "

Jainism Jainism ( ), also known as Jain Dharma, is an Indian religion. Jainism traces its spiritual ideas and history through the succession of twenty-four tirthankaras (supreme preachers of ''Dharma''), with the first in the current time cycle bein ...

". *"How I Became Vegan" in Michael Lanfield ''The Interconnectedness of Life: We Are Interconnected''. pp. 96. We Are Interconnected Films, 2015.

Notes

External links

David Sztybel's Philosophy and Animal Rights Page
{{DEFAULTSORT:Sztybel, David 1967 births 21st-century Canadian philosophers Bioethicists Canadian animal rights scholars Canadian veganism activists Living people Activists from Toronto University of Toronto alumni

Education and career

Research

See also

Selected publications

Notes

External links