The Philosophy Series invited professor of philosophy Dr. Corinne M. Painter from Washtenaw Community College on March 7 to speak about the genuine liberation of non-human animals.
Painter explained took parts of her book, The Contemporary Crises of the Alienated Non-Human Animal: In Defense of the Vegan Imperative, and spoke about her views and ideas while connecting them to Marxism and liberation.
“I hadn’t thought about connecting Marxism and animal liberation in the way that she does” said senior philosophy major Katie Coulter. “I will definitely be thinking about that more.”
During a section of the lecture, Painter compared the application of Marx’s principle “from each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs” to non-human animals and discussed the social, political, economic and moral nature of this organizing principle.
“I thought it was a very convicted talk” assistant professor of philosophy Laura McMahon said. “It speaks to a lot of important moral and political issues. I imagine its quite controversial and provocative for a lot of the attendees but it seems to be a worthwhile thing to have here on campus to have people think seriously abut they live, the political system and how they eat.”
A crowd favorite was the topic of the Vegan Imperative. This is the rejection of “Iocavorism” and “compassionate carnivorism” and the impossibility of sustainable farms and “happy meat.”
“Her criticism of [factory farms that produce meat] that don’t live up to their own ideals was pretty compelling and required us to not look for so called ethical escapes of the dilemma,” McMahon said.
Many students interested in the philosophy series knew of Professor Painter from taking one of her philosophy classes at Washtenaw Community College so the philosophy speaker series coordinator and philosophy Professor Michael Doan asked her to be a part of the lecture and bring her insight to the table.
“As Dr. Painter was saying” said Doan, “…the number of people who use the Marxist approach to thinking of animal liberation is growing, so it’s a really exciting approach to the topic.”
Many professors and students stayed behind after the lecture to continue conversing about the lecture with Professor Painter.
“The main thing I learned was that a lot of human beings share interests with non-human animals, envisioning a world beyond capitalism” said Doan.
The next installment of the Philosophy Speaker Series will be on March 21 in Halle Library Room 300 at 5:30 p.m. with Peimin Ni speaking on the topic of the Gong Fu Reading of Confucianism and its implications on philosophy.
