Jay Quigley’s TED Talk provides a great primer on speciesism, a pervasive form of discrimination against animals that permeates all animal eating cultures, and shows how it fuels the socially accepted commodification and killing of billions of famed animals. He also provides hope and practical advice on how to end their suffering and bring our food choices more in alignment with our values.
Quigley just completed a PhD in philosophy at Florida State University in May of this year and alternates between the roles of teaching assistant and graduate instructor. While his PhD concentrated on moral theory, his current philosophical interests are in applied ethics — particularly the ethics of how we treatment other animals, our duties to the poor, and career choices. And he frequently presents in community forums on ethical issues pertaining to global poverty and animal welfare. His academic website is at http://myweb.fsu.edu/jgq07/.
Quigley plans to continue doing animal advocacy and pursuing a holistic approach to his career path which he describes as an “earn to give” software developer. He’ll be attending Dev Bootcamp this summer to work on attaining professional web development skills and plans to work as a web developer for the foreseeable future. “Gaining and using tech skills is not only engaging, but the money and the skills can both be used for good, including for helping animals and the nonprofits that advocate for them,” explains Quigley. “In my spare time, I’ll continue to enjoy writing on important and neglected applied ethics topics, such as the ethics of keeping companion animals and the ethics of animal experimentation.”
He’s also planning to read and try to popularize current scientific and philosophical positions regarding:
- interspecies comparisons of well-being
- potential innovations to reduce wild animal suffering
- status of pain/suffering in insects, bivalves, & fish
- How confrontational should animal activists be?
In his free time, Jay might be found biking, playing music and singing (sometimes in Spanish), or playing Ultimate.
