Pablo Magaña

Coalitionary intra-group aggression by wild female bonobos Sonya Pashchevskaya and colleagues document a potentially fatal attack of a male bonobo by a group of females.

If this doesn’t end bonobos’ reputation as the hippies of the great apes I don’t know what will. www.cell.com/current-biol...

Foggy Cádiz

Just published: my review of Ethical Omnivores: Better Eating for everyone, by Samantha Noll.

It's good we now have a sustained philosophical defence of this position. But I suggest that there are lots of places where Noll's arguments fall short.

link.springer.com/article/10.1...

Caring for the Future, Caring for All This online seminar series brings together researchers from philosophy, political science, psychology, and related disciplines to explore how humans think or should think about decisions concerning fu...

In this first session, Stefan Schubert (co-author of the recent book “Effective Altruism and the Human Mind”, OUP 2025) will give a talk entitled “Caring for the Future, Caring for All.” You’re welcome to join us. Please find more info. in the link below:

philevents.org/event/show/1...

‼️How do we think about future generations? And how should we? On October 9 at 1pm CET we’re kicking off the first of a series of online seminars on “Moral Minds and Ethical Futures: Empirical and Normative Perspectives,” co-organized by
@hugoviciana.bsky.social (U. of Sevilla) and me.

Proof that backward causation is real!

Fingers crossed!

Definitely! Thanks a lot! :)

Thanks, Rike! Congrats to you as well on your recent book chapter (which I will also read to become more familiar with the debates on compromise you mentioned). A week of good news 🙌

Thanks, Matt! I hope you find it interesting :)

Should you let AI train your dog? The lawless world of AI and animals Artificial intelligence could transform our relationships with animals, but more must be done to make sure AI works for the interests of other species.

My new Centre for Animal Sentience is launching on 30 Sept, and you can read more about one of our priority areas - Animals and AI - in this new blog post. blogs.lse.ac.uk/europpblog/2...

Thanks for sharing, Josh! (Also on Twitter/X) 🙂

Book cover and details for History and Theory of Compromise, open access, to be published 2026

Coming out soon!
I've written a chapter for this book, where I compare compromise between persons to compromise within a person.
Looking forward to reading the other chapters!!
Many thanks to the editors for putting this together 🙏
@karstenmause.bsky.social

#academicsky

More generally, and whether or not realism is tenable, I think the error-theoretic account these authors suggest is interesting, and nicely illuminates aspects of speciesism. So I am also happy using it a bit more opportunistically (without the realist attachment haha).

Thanks for reading it! Yes, I think it's fair to say realist ideology critique is a type of error theory, combined with a strong skepticism about moral normativity. I am more optimistic, but my metaethical views are not super stable, so I am happy hedging my bets 😄

Thanks for sharing, Steve! I am still a "moralist" to be honest, but I now think there's a version of realism I can really understand (and that, crucially, seems compatible with anti-speciesism!).

Ideology, Red in Tooth and Claw: Realist Ideology Critique and Animals Click on the article title to read more.

onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/... Political realists believe that we shouldn’t criticize political phenomena on moral grounds. If they are right, are animal ethicists in trouble? Can we still criticize speciesist social orders? In this new paper, I argue that we can.

Some new theoretical economics papers modelling the implications of AGI on the economy.

These two papers argue that a true AGI-level AI (equivalent to a human genius), if achieved, would eventually displace most human labor and reduce the economic value of remaining human work to near-zero.

When autocratization is reversed: episodes of U-Turns since 1900 The world is in a “wave of autocratization.” Yet, recent events in Brazil, the Maldives, and Zambia demonstrate that autocratization can be halted and reversed. This article introduces “U-Turn” as ...

“52% of all autocratization episodes become U-Turns, which increases to 73% when focusing on the last 30 years. The vast majority of U-Turns (90%) lead to restored or even improved levels of democracy”

V-Dem data

Yess, all well. Thankfully, it was a very short flight 🙏

On the day I was flying back to Dublin several airports have suffered a cyber attack and Dublin Airport's T-2 has been evacuated. So OBVIOUSLY there had to be really scary turbulence during the flight.

Post lunch, Sara van Goozen is talking to our conference on the ethical and legal stats of animals used as military mascots. We're learning about Wojek the Bear. Fascinating stuff.

Black and white photo of the Padrao dos Descobrimentos (sailboat-shaped stone monument in Lisbon) surrounded by containers.

My new article, "Calling Trauma, Elite Capture, and Hermeneutical Injustice," is out in Phil Quarterly!

It's a deeply personal project, drawing on family history to examine how privileged groups use claims of trauma to control narratives and to suggest a new way to think of epistemic injustice. 🧵

Now on the Oxford University Press website, complete with cover: Sue Donaldson and Will Kymlicka's Animals and the Right to Politics, the long-awaited sequel to 2011's Zoopolis.

An expected release date of 11 December. Just in time for Christmas!

global.oup.com/academic/pro...

On the tension between liberalism and animal rights My friend and comrade Jonathan Birch has gifted me with another guest post. The first of his, which I also enjoyed, can be found here . I ...

A genuinely wonderful guest post by @birchlse.bsky.social on the tension between liberalism and animal rights, and what sort of social order might be called for if one were to take the suffering of animals with all due moral significance it deserves.

sootyempiric.blogspot.com/2025/09/on-t...

YouTube video by Sophomore Lounge Ryan Davis & the Roadhouse Band - "New Threats from the Soul"

youtu.be/H693oWpeM4E?... In love with this song. Echoes of Silver Jews, Uncle Tupelo, the Jayhawks and the Flying Burrito Brothers... and yet so unique. Solid candidate for album of the year IMO

Have you seen animals on the ballot?🗳️

Around the world, animal rights issues have been decided through public votes, referenda, citizen initiatives, and formal petitions. Yet, a comprehensive global database of these initiatives doesn’t exist, and we believe this strategic tool is often overlooked.

When I die, I'd like to have a word with him.

Justo hace un par de noches soñé que viajaba a París y la Torre Eiffel había desaparecido. Yo estaba indignadísimo, imagínate el chasco.

Matt Berninger at Vicar St. Top 3 concerts of the year, maybe the best.