Call for Papers

Call for Papers: 2025 Annual Oxford Animal Ethics Summer School

The Ethics of Captivity

Billions of animals are kept captive worldwide every year. The range of confinements include the use of animals in agriculture, fur farming, experimentation, aquaculture, fashion, breeding, and trade, as well as menageries, zoos, canned hunts, circuses, and aquariums.

The tenth Annual Oxford Animal Ethics Summer School will address fundamental questions: How many, if any, of these practices can be morally justified? Why should humans want to keep animals captive on such a vast scale? What harm is done to animals by denying them their basic desire to be free? What can be done legally, culturally, and politically to help humans move beyond this worldwide practice?

We invite academics worldwide, including historians, biologists, social scientists, legal scholars, psychologists, theologians, philosophers, veterinarians, as well as, professional animal protectionists, to join us as we discuss this important, and, under-researched, area of moral enquiry.

The Summer School will be held at Merton College, Oxford, from 4-7 August, 2025. Please send abstracts (no more than 150 words) of potential presentations by 3 February 2025, to the Director of the Summer School, Dr Clair Linzey at depdirector@oxfordanimalethics.com.

All selected papers will be considered for publication in a book volume or in the Journal of Animal Ethics.