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Bangladesh Journal of Bioethics 2017; 8(1) 

Editorial 

 

Do you remember Harambe, the 17-year-old silverback who was shot dead after a boy fell 

into the gorilla enclosure at the Cincinnati Zoo, Cecil, the lion who was shot with an arrow by 

an American dentist in Zimbabwe, and Marius, the giraffe who was killed and fed to other 

animals at the Copenhagen Zoo? 

 

Every once in a while, a news story about the human-caused death of an animal sparks global 

outrage, briefly lights up the comments sections on the internet, and reminds us of the 

inconsistency in how think about non-human animals. According to the Food and Agriculture 

Organization of the United Nations, we kill approximately two thousand animals for food per 

second, not including fish and other marine animals. All of these animals have rich emotional 

lives that matter to them, and what we do to them is as bad, and often much worse, than what 

was done to Harambe, Cecil, and Marius. Most farm animals are raised in filthy and 

unnatural conditions, and are subject to routine mutilations and other mistreatment. They are 

transported in ways that are at best unpleasant and at worst horrific, and they die violent 

deaths. Yet, most of us – while expressing our moral indignation about the treatment of 

Harambe, Cecil, and Marius – rarely spare a thought for the animals we eat. 

 

Morally speaking, there does not seem to be much of a difference between what happened in 

Cincinnati, Zimbabwe, and Denmark and what happens in factory farms and slaughterhouses 

in every part of the world, every day. If anything, there was a better reason to kill Harambe – 

namely, to avert danger from a child – than there is to kill animals for food. We do not need 

to consume animal products to live a healthy and fulfilled life. In fact, careful studies have 

found that a well-balanced plant-based diet decreases the chances of suffering from diseases 

such as diabetes, heart disease, stroke, and some cancers, and benefits the environment. 

 

The way we think about and treat non-human animals is deeply confused, and scholars are in 

a unique position to provide some clarity. The Bangladesh Journal of Bioethics hence 

decided to dedicate two special issues to the relationship between human beings and other 

animals, and asked me to be the guest editor. This is the second of the two special issues, and 

contains the following five articles: 

 

The number of fish killed annually by the fishing industry, even on the most conservative 

estimate, is more than ten times larger than the number of terrestrial animals killed annually 

for food, and yet animal advocates largely focus on the latter in their efforts to reduce animal 

suffering. Bob Fischer (“Wild Fish and Expected Utility”) does the math and argues that 

considerations of expected utility call that focus into question. He concludes that animal 

advocacy organizations owe an explanation of why they are not directing more of their 

resources to fish. 

 



Bangladesh Journal of Bioethics 2017; 8(1) 

Akande Michael Aina and Ofuasia Emmanuel (“The Chicken Fallacy and the Ethics of 

Cruelty to Non-Human Animals”) challenge the common view that non-human animals are 

mere resources that we can use as we please, and ask whether Peter Singer’s ethics of animal 

liberation is a plausible alternative. They think it is not, in part because it denies moral status 

to non-sentient life, and take another approach that draws from Charles Darwin’s theory of 

evolution. They argue that cruelty to non-human animals, with whom they claim we are on an 

equal moral footing, betrays our trusting and neighborly relationship with them. 

 

Iván Ortega Rodríguez (“Animal Citizenship, Phenomenology, and Ontology: Some 

reflections on Donaldson’s & Kymlicka’s Zoopolis”) provides a brief summary of the 

position Sue Donaldson and Will Kymlicka defend in their ground-breaking book Zoopolis, 

and argues that they are mistaken in failing to consider an important metaphysical difference 

between human beings and other animals. While human and non-human animals share a 

common environment, only human interaction constitutes what he calls a “world.” That 

difference, however, does not undermine the case for animal rights but rather strengthens it. 

 

Rhyddhi Chakraborty (“Animal Ethics and India: Understanding the Connection through 

the Capabilities Approach”) takes a critical look at a wide range of legal provisions in Indian 

law designed to protect non-human animals. She argues that, despite such provisions, non-

human animals continue to suffer greatly at the hands of human beings in India, which is 

partly due to the lack of a comprehensive ethical vision. She suggests that the capabilities 

approach can provide such a vision, and concludes by making a number of policy 

recommendations to improve animal welfare in India. 

 

Robin Attfield and Rebekah Humphreys (“Justice and Non-Human Animals”) complete 

their argument for the claim that our treatment of non-human animals is a matter of justice, 

the first part of which can be found in the previous issue of this journal. 

  

I thank the contributors for choosing this journal to share their exciting ideas, and the 

reviewers for their insightful comments and suggestions. I am also indebted to Professor 

Shamima Parvin Lasker and Ms. Tahera Ahmed for their cooperation and trust. 

 

If you, dear reader, are new to the academic debate over the moral status of non-human 

animals, and if the two Bangladesh Journal of Bioethics special issues on animal ethics have 

made you curious, as I hope they did, I would like to recommend to you two classics of the 

animal ethics literature: Peter Singer, Animal Liberation: A New Ethics for Our Treatment of 

Animals (New York: New York Review/Random House, 1975); and Tom Regan, The Case 

for Animal Rights (Berkeley/Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1983). 

 

I hope you will enjoy reading through this issue, and I am sending you my warm regards. 

 

Rainer Ebert 

Guest Editor  

Bangladesh Journal of Bioethics 

Department of Philosophy 

University of Johannesburg 

South Africa 

rainerebert@gmail.com 

http://www.rainerebert.com 

 


