Josh Jowitt

Why Look at Animals? with Jo-Anne McArthur and Zed Nelson - Kairos Thursday December 11th, 6.30 for 7pm How can contemporary photography, by focussing on our broken bonds with animals and the rest of the natural world, help drive a paradigm shift in our priorities an...

If you‘re in London on the 11th December, there’s a great event exploring the role of photography in building empathy towards nonhuman animals. I can really recommend events at this venue, it’s a wonderful space: www.kairos.london/event/why-lo...

Test. Cricket.

If you work on animals and AI, consider submitting an abstract to this excellent special issue in the Journal of Ethics, co-ordinated by the no-less-excellent Catia Faria (UCM) and Yip Fai Tse (NUS). Reposts also appreciated: link.springer.com/collections/...

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Clarification: Zoe's birthday, not mine.

Malham cove. Limestone cliff face framed by hawthorne trees

Limestone pavement at top of Malham cove looking out over valley below. Fine rain causing haze.

Dry valley. Steep glacial valley with drystone wall running through centr

River aire flowing through a valley surrounded by mossy trees at dusk

Birthday weekend with @whiterxbbit.bsky.social in Malham

The Edinburgh Europa Institute has just put out a call for papers for its annual PhD/ECR Workshop, which will take place in April 2026. The theme for this year is ‘Defending the Union’ and the deadline to submit your abstract is Jan 30th. You can find more details below- feel free to share/repost!

The Department of Social Law at the @mpisoc.bsky.social, Munich, invites applications for a PhD Position in Law within ‘The Eco-Social State’. Explore the role of law in ecological transformation. More information and to apply by 1 December: www.mpisoc.mpg.de/karriere/ste... #AcademicOpportunities

Behold my Hallowe’en name.

Michigan Court of Appeals denies that animals can be 'persons' in law because they cannot participate in the social contract. Again with that tired old chestnut?

www.courts.michigan.gov/siteassets/c...

Speaking as a professional moral philosopher: are you out of your god damned mind? What kind of absurd bullshit is this? JFC no, what the hell man? What the ever living fuck is this abomination?!

Fuck me.

I'll believe it when he gives us York Minster back.

The Pope tweets: "The poor are not there by chance or by blind and cruel fate. Nor, for most of them, is poverty a choice. Yet, there are those who still presume to make this claim, thus revealing their own blindness and cruelty. #DilexiTe" Someone replies: "I was so hopeful I could be a Catholic again after the disaster that Francis was, guess we just get Francis 2.0 now and I am heartbroken. How do I stay a Catholic now...I don't want to lose faith but I am. You belong to someone else, not God."

heartbroken to learn the pope sympathizes with the poor. how can i continue to believe in god

Theories of Normative Legitimacy Beyond the State and the Role of their Conceptual Dimension: A Methodological Insight from Raz’s Service Conception of Authority - Res Publica Many contemporary accounts of normative legitimacy beyond the State have tried to apply legitimacy requirements traditionally developed to justify State authority to non-State entities. This has often resulted into a State-centric ‘impasse’, where the structural differences between domestic and non-State exercises of normative power have led many to conclude that legitimacy cannot ever be achieved in a robust sense at the international, supranational, and global level, and that we should either abandon the concept or put forward very minimal normative requirements. Against this backdrop, this paper argues that we ought to get out of the State-centric impasse to make sure that theories of non-State legitimacy retain their normative grasp and prescriptive function by striking a better balance between idealism and realism. To do so, theories of normative legitimacy beyond the State should incorporate a methodological insight drawn from Joseph Raz’s service conception of authority: namely, the dependency of its normative dimension of what makes authority legitimate on a conceptual dimension of what authority entails. Up until this point, the legacy of Raz’s theory in relation to the study of non-State authority has typically been limited to the question of whether its normative legitimacy requirements can be successfully translated into the global domain. However, the most valuable yet under-investigated aspect of the service conception for the study of non-State legitimacy goes beyond its Normal Justification Thesis (NJT) and can be found in this reliance of its normative dimension on its conceptual dimension. As the paper shows, this element of the service conception may be particularly instructive for how putative theories of legitimacy beyond the State ought to be developed even in those cases in which the NJT is not picked out as the definitive way to assess the legitimacy of non-State authorities. Overall, this paper argues that moving past State-centric standards of legitimacy in our assessment of non-State regulatory entities requires us to choose substantive criteria of legitimacy that, similarly to the one adopted by Raz’s service conception, are drawn from a conceptual understanding of what it means to hold authority.

My paper ’Theories of Normative Legitimacy Beyond the State and the Role of their Conceptual Dimension: A Methodological Insight from Raz’s Service Conception of Authority’ has just been published on Res Publica (Springer Nature)! link.springer.com/article/10.1.... 1/4

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I'm seconding this. Every Thursday evening I set an out of office to the effect that Friday is ring-fenced research time.

Which reminds me...

Everything about this looks excellent.

Plural Visions of Law: The Legacy of Joseph Raz - Res Publica Res Publica -

It was a real pleasure to co-edit this special issue of Res Publica (@springernature.com) with @drjoshdoeslaw.bsky.social, which celebrated and examined the intellectual legacy of the late Joseph Raz. link.springer.com/article/10.1...

Two part panel of a scene from Mean Girls. Top panel has Aaron sat in front of Cady. Text reads 'On October 3rd he asked me what day it was.' Bottom panel shows similar scene with Cady speaking to Aaron, text reading 'It's October 3rd.'

Happy Mean Girls Day to all who celebrate.

Obsessed with Paramore again.

#Primates
We’ve lost one of our pioneers

What better day to launch a podcast than International Podcast Day? 🎉

We are thrilled to announce the Centre's podcast Animal Rights Tour is live!

The podcast offers bitesized episodes that explore the past, present, and potential future of animal rights law. (1/2)

Away with you.

How the world’s taste for soya is eating Brazil’s Amazon Cultivation of the crop has made a few wealthy but at a huge cost to untouched forest as it spreads across vast areas of former wilderness

The fact that this article on soy causing deforestation doesn't cover how all that soy is being used is a wild media failure. The vast majority (70-80%) is being fed to animals.

It's not the "world's taste for soya" it's the world's taste for meat.
www.theguardian.com/global-devel...

"There have likely been 10,000 or more university redundancies in the academic year 2024-25..."

🚨 Just out in Jurisprudence: a special issue, edited by D. Dyzenhaus and G.B. Ratti, devoted to the close relationship between HLA Hart and Norberto Bobbio.

It comprises a.o. the translations into English of five essays by Bobbio, substantial excerpts from the Hart-Bobbio correspondence...

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a cartoon of a monkey laying upside down on the floor Alt: a crying cartoon monkey slides from its bed on the floor visibly dispirited

Ah, Monday morning. The glorious Monday morning fills my heart with pride and joy.