Animals, Ethics, and Justice: Capitalism as an Animal Ethics Problem

Animals, Ethics, and JusticeBeyond the Human: Sharing the Planet with Nonhuman AnimalsSession: Capitalism as an Animal Ethics ProblemSpeaker: Prof. Dinesh Wadiwel (University of Sydney)July 8, 2026, 12 pm Berlin/ 8 pm Sydney About the SeriesAnimals, Ethics, and Justice: Beyond the Human is a webinar series organized and hosted by Dr. Kathrin Herrmann that explores what it means to live responsibly with other animals on a shared planet. Across societies, nonhuman animals are often treated as resources, tools, or background to human life in areas such as science, food systems, urban environments, education, and environmental policy. This series brings together scholars, educators, practitioners, and advocates who are working to rethink these relationships through the lens of animal protection, ethics, and justice. The series is grounded in the concept of multispecies justice, which recognizes that animals are morally relevant beings whose lives are shaped by human institutions. From this perspective, protecting animals cannot be separated from addressing broader challenges such as climate change, biodiversity loss, and planetary health. Rather than focusing narrowly on welfare improvements or harm reduction, the series asks how our legal, economic, educational, and scientific systems might be transformed in order to support more ethical, just, and compassionate forms of coexistence between humans and other animals. Across the series, speakers will discuss a range of topics including human–animal relations, animal ethics and political theory, wildlife coexistence, the role of companion animals in society, the ethics of education and knowledge production, climate change, and the political and economic structures that shape life across species. Webinar: Capitalism as an Animal Ethics Problem Traditional approaches in animal ethics have often argued that the exploitation of animals, including in factory farming and animal experimentation, results primarily from a failure to recognize the moral worth of animals.In this talk, Professor Dinesh Wadiwel suggests that our treatment of animals may be better understood as the outcome of a “handshake” between two powerful forces: anthropocentrism and capitalism.Drawing on examples from contemporary food systems, he will examine how a model of overproduction driven by profit has intensified the use of animals and animal products while fundamentally reshaping global food systems.Professor Wadiwel will argue that improving the lives of animals requires more than changes in individual attitudes or ethical reflection alone. Instead, meaningful progress for animals requires transforming food systems while simultaneously reconsidering the economic structures that drive animal exploitation. From this perspective, imagining economies that allow flourishing beyond the human becomes a key challenge for contemporary animal ethics. Free registration at https://jh.zoom.us/.../register/WN_wtkZPaa3T0qag5BMvqWVjQ... About the SpeakerDinesh Wadiwel is Associate Professor in Human Rights and Socio-Legal Studies at the University of Sydney, where his work focuses on social and political theory, human rights, and animal ethics. He is the author of The War against Animals (Brill, 2015) and Animals and Capital (Edinburgh University Press, 2023). He is also the co-editor, together with Matthew Chrulew, of Foucault and Animals (Brill, 2016). In addition to his work in animal ethics, Professor Wadiwel is an active disability rights researcher and was part of a team that produced two reports for the Australian Royal Commission into Violence, Abuse, Neglect and Exploitation of People with Disability.