Philosophy

The free dogs of India

These canines have independent, peaceful, happy lives without a pet’s constraints. Why are they being persecuted and culled?

Krithika Srinivasan & Chris Pearson

Where went the wolf?

The very attributes that make small dogs cute and popular are slowly strangling their ability to function as real animals

Jessica Pierce

Happy the person

She has deep emotions, complex social needs and a large, elephant brain. Her legal personhood should be recognised too

Lori Marino

Semiotics of dogs

In all its baroque and sometimes cruelly overbred forms, the dog is a paramount symbol of both human hopes and foibles

Katrina Gulliver

Freefall into darkness

Scientists study animals to illuminate human psychology. So why are we blind to the mental lives of our caged subjects?

Garet Lahvis

Against human exceptionalism

In a tight spot, you’d probably intuit that a human life outweighs an animal’s. There are good arguments why that’s wrong

Jeff Sebo

The posthuman dog

If humans were to disappear from the face of the Earth, what might dogs become? And would they be better off without us?

Jessica Pierce

It didn’t have to be this way

A bioethicist at the heart of the Italian coronavirus crisis asks: why won’t we talk about the tradeoffs of the lockdown?

Silvia Camporesi