This is a book that Rob Streiffer and I have recently completed under contract with Oxford University Press. I’m the lead author. Here’s a draft of our manuscript. Please do not circulate without permission.

Thanks to generous support from UW-Madison’s Dept. of Philosophy, UW-Madison’s Dept. of Medical History & Bioethics, and GVSU’s Dept. of Philosophy, we’ve secured funding to cover OUP’s open access fee. So, when the book is published, it’ll be freely available on OUP’s website.

We hope that the book will be of interest to both philosophers and animal advocates. For an idea of what the book is about, check out some details here, or just have a look at the following 100-word synopsis:

Killoren and Streiffer build a comprehensive moral theory founded in the radical idea that relationships are the wellspring of all moral obligation. They suggest that many people might already implicitly accept this theory, and show that this might explain why some animals are treated “like people” while some humans are treated “like animals.” They consider whether this theory might be recruited to support a robustly progressive animal ethic. And they investigate the theory at a deeply philosophical level. This book should interest philosophers, animal advocates, activists, and anyone who wants to understand or change the status quo for animals in our society.