Our species’ treatment of other animals raises deep questions of conscience, of consciousness, and of the consequences of human actions for other living beings. These are questions of science, but also questions of law and of power. Often, they are questions of who counts and who doesn’t. Throughout their careers, in distinct but related ways, our two guests today have made the case — in writing, in the courtroom, and in the classroom — that harms to other forms of life, including animals, the environment, and future generations, matter profoundly. Rather than accepting that these “other” beings reside outside the scope of law, they have argued that we must work to expand our moral imaginations and strive, be it ever asymptotically, toward the goal of universal recognition and respect for life.
Professors Doug Kysar and Jonathan Lovvorn are the Faculty Co-Directors of Yale Law School’s new Law, Ethics & Animals Program, also known as LEAP. LEAP is a multidisciplinary think-and-do tank dedicated to inspiring and empowering Yale scholars and students to address industrialized animal cruelty and its impacts, and to advance positive legal and political change for animals, people and the environment upon which they depend. In fall 2017, Lovvorn and Kysar co-taught the first full-credit course on animal law offered in Yale Law School’s history, building on years of growing student interest and reading groups. The class marked the beginning of a creative partnership and a dynamic collaboration between one of the nation’s most distinguished environmental law scholars and one of the nation’s most accomplished animal law practitioners.
Doug Kysar is Faculty Co-Director of the Law, Ethics & Animal Program, Deputy Dean, and Joseph M. Field ’55 Professor of Law at Yale Law School. He teaches and researches in the fields of torts, animal law, environmental law, climate change, products liability, and risk regulation. His work — including his book Regulating from Nowhere: Environmental Law and the Search for Objectivity — studies the way society uses laws and regulations to prevent, manage, and respond to threats of harm to life. In recent years, he has had a particular focus on climate change law and policy because climate change will bring harm to life on an almost unimaginable scale.
Jonathan Lovvorn is recognized as one of the most experienced and creative litigators and strategists for animal protection in the nation. For more than a decade, Lovvorn has served as Chief Counsel & Senior Vice President for Animal Protection Litigation at the Humane Society of the United States, where he founded, built and manages the nation’s largest animal protection litigation program. Lovvorn is a Lecturer, Senior Research Scholar, and Faculty Co-Director of the Law, Ethics, & Animals Program at Yale Law School. His teaching and scholarship focus on the intersection of animal law, environmental law, and food policy, and the search for practical legal solutions that advance diverse public interest causes. He has argued dozens of successful cases on behalf of animals and the environment, written hundreds of state and federal animal protection laws, and served as the primary legal strategist for major animal protection ballot measures.
Kysar recommendations:
- Things That Are by Amy Leach
- “Okja” by Joon-ho Bong
- “The Right Place” by Monsters of Folk
Lovvorn recommendations:
- A Friend of the Earth by T.C. Boyle
- Night of the Iguana by Tennessee Williams
- Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick
- Candide by Voltaire
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