This year we welcome our newest colleague, Dr. Andrew Lopez.  Lopez recently completed his PhD at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario with his dissertation, “Knowing is for the Birds: Epistemic Injustice and Nonhuman Knowers.” Lopez will teach our popular environmental ethics course this fall and plans to teach courses in animal ethics, political philosophy, and Latin American philosophy in the coming semesters.

 

Tell us about your area of specialty within philosophy.

My primary field of study is animal philosophy. I use the label ‘animal philosophy’ here to include animal ethics as well as all the other fields of philosophy that animals pop up in, like epistemology and political philosophy. Animal philosophy excites me because of all the ways in which it really challenges some of the most influential and compelling views in Western philosophy. So many philosophers don’t quite know what to do about animals in their thinking, sometimes because they are so similar, other times because they are so different, and yet other times because they call into question what we think about ourselves.

Some philosophers are interested in animals only because of how they help us understand the human form of life; I think animals are fascinating in themselves, in all their diversity. Isn’t it wild that philosophers talk about “the human-animal distinction,” with one side of the binary consisting of one species, homo sapiens, and the other side lumping millions of species together?

I also draw heavily from work in feminist philosophy to think about ethics, knowledge, science, and politics, and much of this work shapes the way I approach issues in animal philosophy and political philosophy. Finally, I also read a lot of philosophy of biology and Latin American philosophy, particularly Mexican philosophy.

 

How did you get interested in pursuing philosophy in general and animal philosophy in particular?

Since I was a teen, I had a strong interest in—as Wilfrid Sellars put it—”understand[ing] how things in the broadest possible sense of the term hang together in the broadest possible sense of the term.” I attended community college after high school, and while completing my gen ed requirements took a variety of courses that explained things I was interested in, like psychology, sociology, history, and biology.

I eventually encountered philosophy and its aim to keep ‘an eye on the whole,’ and was hooked very quickly. After transferring to a four-year university, a professor of mine convinced me to take animals seriously and I’ve been concerned with them since.

The feminist influences on my thinking came later, during my MA working with Letitia Meynell, a feminist philosopher of science and biology. Everything came together with political philosophy and interspecies politics during my PhD, where I started thinking about animal ethics beyond individual conduct to a robust concern with the relationship between animals and the state.

 

How is your research relevant to students and the broader community?

My research interests focus on the cognitive and epistemic (or knowledge-focused) capacities of animals, and their relevance for ethics, knowledge production, and politics. I think many students, and people in general, care about the wellbeing of animals, particularly companion animals who are often seen as family members like cats and dogs. For those who worry about their animals living well, understanding how they engage with the world, what information is meaningful to them, and how they acquire it, can help us work with them to make sure they flourish. For a small example, we can think of how humans are so visually oriented, whereas dogs make their way about their worlds with their nose; how does this affect, positively and negatively, how we shape each other’s worlds?

Additionally, for those who work with animals in various capacities, particularly in scientific research and knowledge production, thinking about this epistemic dimension can help bolster our ethical thinking for those already familiar with the 3Rs (Replacement, Reduction, and Refinement) in animal research and develop better and more ethical forms of collaboration with animals.

 

Animal ethics has a long history at CSU with the ground-breaking work of the late Bernie Rollin. How do you see your research as similar to or different from his work?

Bernie Rollin had an incredible impact in animal ethics and veterinary ethics, and I hope to one day have even a fraction of his influence on future thinking in animal ethics. I am sad that we never spoke though I was a research assistant on an amicus curiae brief Bernie wrote with other philosophers.

I think there are various points of resonance between his work and mine, particularly on emphasizing animal mindedness and sentience, as well as animal natures. I differ a bit from him having a more open-ended view of what their natures might be and extending this into the political realm. For example, I consider how interspecies relations, politics, and societies might be enabled or created. I’m hoping to find like-minded people at CSU and want to make some interdisciplinary connections with students and faculty in the ecology graduate program.

 

How would you describe yourself as a teacher?  What do you most want students to learn through studying philosophy?

I like to think that I’m a welcoming and engaging teacher. As a teaching assistant, I had students tell me they decided to major in philosophy because of learning and discussing philosophy with me. And some former students still reach out to ask me questions about philosophy and academia.

In general, what I most try to impart to my students is that things are much more complicated than they seem: answers to questions we care about are difficult to come by, and the ready-to-hand ones we make use of are often on pretty flimsy grounds. This shouldn’t be reason to give up or to treat these questions with contempt but should be seen as an opportunity for different minds and perspectives to come together and collaborate on better answers.

 

What excites you most about coming to CSU?

I’ve known about Colorado State for many years as a department with strengths in environmental ethics and a place that values the intellectual traditions of peoples outside of the West. As someone with interests in animals and a penchant for holistic thinking, having colleagues who are experts in thinking about the environment presents a great opportunity to hone my thinking through discussions and collaborations with them.

At the same time, I am happy to be joining a department that takes pluralism seriously, both for what it does for the discipline of philosophy, as well as for my own edification. I hope to learn from my colleagues and their students as they bring their knowledge of other traditions to my courses and seminars. In the near future, I hope to contribute to this exchange by teaching Latin American philosophy.