Jeff Sebo

Jeffrey Raymond Sebo (born February 24, 1983) is an American philosopher and animal rights activist. He works at New York University, where he is an associate professor of environmental studies and an affiliated professor of bioethics, medical ethics, philosophy, and law. He is the director of the university's Center for Environmental and Animal Protection, director of the university's Center for Mind, Ethics, and Policy, and co-director of the university's Wild Animal Welfare Program. Sebo specializes in animal ethics, bioethics, and environmental ethics; agency, well-being, and moral status; moral, legal, and political philosophy; ethics of activism, advocacy, and philanthropy. In 2022, he published his first sole-authored book, ''Saving Animals, Saving Ourselves''. This was followed by '' The Moral Circle: Who Matters, What Matters, and Why'' in 2025.

Early life and education

Sebo is the son of Sheryl L. Sebo, an organist, and Eric J. Sebo, a systems special operations manager, of Plano, Texas. He studied philosophy and sociology at Texas Christian University, graduating ''summa cum laude'' with a BA in 2005. In the same year, he published his first academic article, "A Critique of the Kantian Theory of Indirect Duties to Animals," in ''Animal Liberation Philosophy & Policy.'' During his studies, he founded two animal rights groups in Fort Worth, Texas, one that hosted movie nights and ran leafletting campaigns and another that facilitated care for feral cats. Sebo completed his PhD at New York University in 2011. His dissertation, ''The Personal Is Political'', was supervised by Derek Parfit, John Richardson, Sharon Street, and J. David Velleman (chair of the committee).

Career

After graduating, Sebo took a postdoc at New York University (NYU) in animal and environmental studies until 2014, when he took up a one-year postdoctoral position in bioethics with the National Institutes of Health. From 2015 to 2017, Sebo worked as a research assistant professor of philosophy at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he was the associate director of the Parr Center for Ethics at the university. He returned to NYU in 2017 as a clinical assistant professor in environmental studies, with affiliate roles in bioethics, medical ethics, and philosophy. From 2018, he was the founding director of NYU's MA in animal studies; this was integrated in the Center for Environmental and Animal Protection, also founded in 2018, which was directed by Dale Jamieson.https://as.nyu.edu/departments/environment/news/the-nyu-department-of-environmental-studies-announces-leadership.html

Sebo's first book was 2018's ''Food, Animals and the Environment: An Ethical Approach'', a book devoted to food ethics, co-authored with Christopher Schlottmann.Reviews of ''Food, Animals and the Environment'':
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* In the same year, Sebo was among those filing an amicus brief in support of granting legal personhood to chimpanzees. ''Chimpanzee Rights: The Philosopher's Brief'' was published by Routledge in 2018; Sebo was one of 13 authors, along with Kristin Andrews, Gary L. Comstock, G. K. D. Crozier, Sue Donaldson, Andrew Fenton, Tyler M. John, L. Syd M. Johnson, Robert C. Jones, Will Kymlicka, Letitia Meynell, Nathan Nobis, and David Pena-Guzman.Reviews of ''Chimpanzee Rights: The Philosophers’ Brief'':
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Sebo was promoted to clinical associate professor in 2020. His first sole-authored book, ''Saving Animals, Saving Ourselves'', was published by Oxford University Press in 2022. NYU launched its Mind, Ethics, and Policy Program (directed by Sebo) and its Wild Animal Welfare Program (co-directed by Sebo and Becca Franks) in the same year. The following year, he became an associate professor and the deputy director of the Centre for Environmental and Animal Protection. The Center for Mind, Ethics, and Policy, of which Sebo was the founding director, was launched in 2024, funded by endowments from The Navigation Fund and Macroscopic Ventures. Sebo became the director of the Center for Environmental and Animal Protection in 2024, Jamieson having retired from the NYU faculty in 2022, with Franks taking over as director of the animal studies MA programme.

In 2024, Sebo, along with Jonathan Birch and Kristin Andrews, launched the New York Declaration on Animal Consciousness. Sebo was included in Vox's 2024 "Future Perfect 50", a list highlighting individuals making significant contributions to a better future.

His second sole-authored book, '' The Moral Circle: Who Matters, What Matters, and Why'', was published in 2025 by W. W. Norton, and Sebo became the principle investigator of NYU's new Wildlife Inclusive Local Development (WILD) Lab. As of 2025, he is an associate professor of environmental studies and an affiliated professor of bioethics, medical ethics, philosophy, and law. He is the director of the university's Center for Environmental and Animal Protection, director of the university's Center for Mind, Ethics, and Policy, and co-director of the university's Wild Animal Welfare Program.

NGO work

Sebo has been a board member of Minding Animals International since 2014, a mentor and contributing writer at Sentient Media from 2020 and a senior research affiliate at the Legal Priorities Project since 2021; he was an executive committee member of the Animals & Society Institute from 2012 to 2020, board member of Animal Charity Evaluators from 2015 to 2021 and an advisory member of the Sentience Institute from 2018 to 2020.

Personal life

In 2014, Sebo married Maryse Mitchell-Brody, a psychotherapist, in a ceremony officiated by a Universal Life minister. The couple lived together in Brooklyn, New York, with their dog Smoky until their separation and divorce in 2022.

Selected publications

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References

External links

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In Conversation with Jeff Sebo: How to Prevent Future Pandemics
(video)

Taking AI Welfare Seriously - Interview with Jeff Sebo
(video)

{{DEFAULTSORT:Sebo, Jeff

1983 births
Living people
21st-century American male writers
21st-century American philosophers
Activists from Texas
American animal rights activists
American animal rights scholars
American bioethicists
American ethicists
American male non-fiction writers
American political philosophers
Animal ethicists
Environmental ethicists
Medical ethicists
New York University alumni
New York University faculty
People associated with effective altruism
Philosophers from Texas
Texas Christian University alumni
Writers from Texas