Lawrence Finsen is a professor of philosophy at
University of Redlands
The University of Redlands is a private university headquartered in Redlands, California. The university's main, residential campus is situated on 160 acres (65 ha) near downtown Redlands. An additional eight regional locations throughout Califo ...
in California, specializing in
animal ethics
Animal ethics is a branch of ethics which examines human-animal relationships, the moral consideration of animals and how nonhuman animals ought to be treated. The subject matter includes animal rights, animal welfare, animal law, speciesism, an ...
. With his wife
Susan Finsen, he is the author of ''The Animal Rights Movement in America: From Compassion to Respect'' (1994).
[Rollin, Bernard E. "Ethics, animal welfare and ACUCs," in John P. Gluck, Tony DiPasquale, F. Barbara Orlans. ''Applied Ethics in Animal Research''. Purdue University Press, 2002, p. 114.]
Education
Finsen attended public schools in
Newton, Massachusetts
Newton is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States. It is approximately west of downtown Boston. Newton resembles a patchwork of thirteen villages, without a city center. According to the 2020 U.S. Census, the population of Ne ...
. He obtained his BA in philosophy in 1973 from
Lake Forest College
Lake Forest College is a private liberal arts college in Lake Forest, Illinois. Founded in 1857 as Lind University by a group of Presbyterian ministers, the college has been coeducational since 1876 and an undergraduate-focused liberal arts i ...
, and his PhD in philosophy in 1982 from the
State University of New York at Buffalo
The State University of New York at Buffalo, commonly called the University at Buffalo (UB) and sometimes called SUNY Buffalo, is a public research university with campuses in Buffalo and Amherst, New York. The university was founded in 1846 ...
for a thesis on
Roderick Chisholm
Roderick Milton Chisholm (; November 27, 1916 – January 19, 1999) was an American philosopher known for his work on epistemology, metaphysics, free will, value theory, and the philosophy of perception.
The '' Stanford Encyclopedia of Philoso ...
and the
mind-body problem. He became interested in
animal rights
Animal rights is the philosophy according to which many or all Animal consciousness, sentient animals have moral worth that is independent of their Utilitarianism, utility for humans, and that their most basic interests—such as avoiding s ...
after reading
Peter Singer
Peter Albert David Singer (born 6 July 1946) is an Australian moral philosopher, currently the Ira W. DeCamp Professor of Bioethics at Princeton University. He specialises in applied ethics and approaches ethical issues from a Secularit ...
's ''
Animal Liberation'' (1975). He joined the philosophy department at Redlands in 1979, and has taught courses in England on the animal rights movement, in mainland Europe on the
Holocaust
The Holocaust, also known as the Shoah, was the genocide of European Jews during World War II. Between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews across German-occupied Europe; ...
, and in 2004 spent a semester teaching at
Reitaku University in Japan.
["Lawry Finsen"]
University of Redlands, accessed 30 May 2012.
"Lawry Finsen personal page"
, University of Redlands, accessed 30 May 2012.
Finsen focuses in particular on the issue of collective responsibility in relation to the treatment of animals, the extent to which individual actors feel impotent in the face of industrial processes such as
factory farming, and whether such situations nevertheless confer on those individuals a moral responsibility.
[
]
Selected publications
*"Animal Rights, Animal Liberation: Seminal Ideas in the Movement to Extend Moral Consideration to Nonhuman Animals," ''Studies in Moralogy'', September 2005.
*"The ALF and the Unnecessary Fuss Video" in Kelly Wand (ed). ''The Animal Rights Movement''. Greenhaven Press, 2003.
*"Faculty As Institutional Citizens: Reconceiving Service and Governance Work," in Linda A. McMillan & William G. (Jerry) Berberet. ''New Academic Compact: Revisioning the Relationship Between Faculty and Their Institutions''. Anker Pub Co, 2001.
*with Nancy Carrick. ''The Persuasive Pen: An Integrated Approach to Reasoning and Writing''. Jones & Bartlett, 1997.
*with Susan Finsen. ''The Animal Rights Movement in America: From Compassion to Respect''. Twayne Publishers, 1994.
"Comment on James Nelson's 'Animals in "Exemplary" Medical Research: Diabetes as a Case Study'"
''Between the Species'', Vol. 5 (1989) Issue 4.
"Institutional Animal Care and Use Committees: A New Set of Clothes for the Emperor?"
''Journal of Medicine and Philosophy'', 1988 May;13(2):145-158.
*with Susan Finsen
"How clever was the old fox?"
''Between the Species'', Vol. 4 (1988) Issue 2.
"'His Heart Exposed to Prying Eyes, To Pity Has No Claim': Reflections on Hogarth and the Nature of Cruelty"
''Between the Species'', Vol. 2 (1986) Issue 1.
See also
* List of animal rights advocates
References
Year of birth missing (living people)
Living people
20th-century American philosophers
American animal rights scholars
American ethicists
Animal ethicists
Historians of animal rights
University at Buffalo alumni
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