Bob Fischer
I teach in the Department of Philosophy at Texas State University. I write about ethical issues related to animals. My CV is available here; you can reach me here.
I direct the Society for the Study of Ethics and Animals, which hosts conversations here and an annual workshop right before this. When the call for the next workshop is available, I'll post it here.
Textbooks
Ethics, Left and Right: The Moral Issues That Divide Us. Oxford University Press, 2019.
College Ethics: A Reader on Moral Issues That Affect You. Oxford University Press, 2017. Second Edition: 2020.
For some thoughts about this project, please see my post at Daily Nous. You can find a review of the book here.
Monographs and Multi-author Volumes
What We Owe Other Animals, w/ Anja Jauernig. Under contract with Routledge.
Wildlife Ethics: Animal Ethics in Wildlife Management and Conservation, w/ Christian Gamborg, Jordan Owen Hampton, Clare Palmer, and Peter Sandoe. Under contract with Blackwell.
Animal Ethics — A Contemporary Introduction. Under contract with Routledge.
The Ethics of Eating Animals: Usually Bad, Sometimes Wrong, Often Permissible. Routledge, 2019.
Modal Justification via Theories. Springer, 2017; NDPR Review.
Edited Volumes
The Routledge Handbook of Animal Ethics. Routledge, 2019.
Modal Epistemology After Rationalism. Edited with Felipe Leon; Springer, 2017.
The Moral Complexities of Eating Meat. Edited with Ben Bramble; Oxford University Press, 2015; NDPR Review.
Articles and Chapters
Forthcoming
"Boycotting and Public Mourning," Res Publica.
"How Lewis Can Meet the Integration Challenge," w/ Eric Gilbertson; Journal of Philosophical Research.
"In Defense of Disenhancement," Neuroethics and Nonhuman Animals, ed. Andrew Fenton, L. Syd M Johnson, and Adam Shriver; Springer.
"The Freegan Challenge to Veganism," w/ Josh Milburn; Ethical Diets and Animal Ethics — Beyond Extensionism, ed. Mark Alfino. Springer.
"The Problem with Person-rearing Accounts of Moral Status," w/ Travis Timmerman; Thought.
2019
"Collecting Insects to Conserve Them: A Call for Ethical Caution," w/ Brendon Larson; Insect Conservation and Diversity.
“Don’t Demean ‘Invasives’: Conservation and Wrongful Species Discrimination,” w/ C. E. Abbate; Animals.
"How to Reply to Some Ethical Objections to Entomophagy," Annals of the Entomological Society of America.
"In Defense of Backyard Chickens," w/ Josh Milburn; Journal of Applied Philosophy.
"Individuals in the Wild," Animal Sentience.
"Moral Bioenhancement Probably Won't Improve Things for Animals (and May Make Them Worse)," Topoi.
"Nonideal Ethics and Arguments against Eating Animals," Environmental Values.
2018
"Animals as Honorary Humans," Ethical Vegetarianism and Veganism, ed. Andrew Linzey and Clair Linzey; Routledge.
"Animal Rights and Incredulous Stares," Between the Species.
"Arguments for Consuming Animal Products," The Oxford Handbook of Food Ethics, ed. Anne Barnhill, Mark Budolfson, and Tyler Doggett; Oxford University Press.
"C. I. Lewis and the Benacerraf Problem," Episteme.
"Categorical Desires and the Badness of Animal Death," w/ Matt Bower, The Journal of Value Inquiry.
"Dignitarian Hunting: A Rights-based Defense," w/ Dan Demetriou Social Theory and Practice.
"Disassociation Intuitions," w/ Isaac Wiegman; Southwest Philosophy Review.
"Field Deaths in Plant Agriculture," w/ Andy Lamey; Journal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics.
"Is Abolitionism Guilty of Racism? A Reply to Cordeiro-Rodrigues," Journal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics.
"Speech and War: Rethinking the Ethics of Speech Restrictions," w/ Burkay Ozturk; The Value and Limits of Academic Speech: Philosophical, Political, and Legal Perspectives, ed. Donald Alexander Downs and Chris W. Surprenant; Routledge.
"Teaching for Our Good," Philosophers in the Classroom: Essays on Teaching, ed. Steven Cahn, Alexandra Bradner, and Andrew Mills; Hackett.
2017
"Facsimiles of Flesh," w/ Burkay Ozturk; Journal of Applied Philosophy.
"Focus on Fish: A Call to Effective Altruists," w/ Max Elder; Essays in Philosophy.
"Modal Empiricism: Objection, Reply, Proposal," Modal Epistemology After Rationalism, ed. Bob Fischer and Felipe Leon; Springer.
"The Moral Objection to Modal Realism," Erkenntnis.
"Wild Fish and Expected Utility," Bangladesh Journal of Bioethics.
2016
"A Theory-based Epistemology of Modality," The Canadian Journal of Philosophy.
"Bugging the Strict Vegan," Journal of Agricultural & Environmental Ethics.
"Disgust as Heuristic," Ethical Theory and Moral Practice.
"Hale on the Architecture of Modal Knowledge," Analytic Philosophy.
"What if Klein & Barron Are Right About Insect Sentience?" Animal Sentience.
"You Can't Buy Your Way Out of Veganism," Between the Species.
2015
"Against Blaming the Blameworthy," in The Moral Complexities of Eating Meat, ed. Ben Bramble and Bob Fischer; Oxford University Press.
"Theory Selection in Modal Epistemology," American Philosophical Quarterly.
2014
"Disgust and the Collection of Bovine Fetal Blood," in Animal Ethics and Philosophy: Questioning the Orthodoxy, ed. Elisa Aaltola and John Hadley; Rowman & Littlefield.
"Why It Doesn't Matter Whether the Virtues Are Truth-Conducive," Synthese.
2012
"Why Incest Is Usually Wrong," Philosophy in the Contemporary World.
General Audiences
"Beyond the Neighborhood," w/ Jennifer Fischer; Mister Rogers and Philosophy, ed. Eric J. Mohr and Holly K. Mohr; Open Court, 2019.
"Why Writing Better Will Make You a Better Person," The Chronicle of Higher Education, June 2019.
"Insider Talk: Challenging Food Choices," Prindle Post, August 2018
"What Can You Build?" LEGO and Philosophy, ed. Roy T. Cook and Sondra Bacharach; Blackwell, 2017.
"Modal Epistemology," 1000-Word Philosophy, December 2017
"The Matter of Meat," CBC Radio's Ideas, November 2016
"When Vegans Won't Compromise," w/ James McWilliams The New York Times, August 2015
"From Outrage to Integration," Prindle Post, July 2015
"Why Act When It Doesn't Make a Difference?," Prindle Post, May 2015