Gary Steiner

A Defense of Liberal Political Principles

By, Gary Steiner, Professor of Philosophy at Bucknell University

Abstract

Gary Steiner will problematize the confrontation between liberal and poststructuralist approaches to animals, and offer a defense of liberal political principles—individual autonomy and responsibility, the rule of law, etc.—while acknowledging their limitations.

Bio

Gary Steiner is John Howard Harris Professor of Philosophy at Bucknell University, where he has taught since 1987. He works in ethics and political philosophy, with special focus on the moral status of animals. He is the author of Descartes as a Moral Thinker: Christianity, Technology, Nihilism (2004), Anthropocentrism and Its Discontents: The Moral Status of Animals in the History of Western Philosophy (2005), Animals and the Moral Community: Mental Life, Moral Status, and Kinship (2008), and Animals and the Limits of Postmodernism (2013). He is currently working on a book project that examines the respective roles and mutual interplay of reason and emotion in the moral life,in connection with which he has recently been awarded a John William Miller Fund Fellowship. Together with Gary Francione, he edits the “Critical Perspectives on Animals” series for Columbia University Press.