Ben Almassi

Governors State University, Liberal Arts, Faculty Member

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I am happy to share that my new book Nontoxic: Masculinity, Allyship, and Feminist Philosophy was published earlier this year as part of the Palgrave Pivots series. The book is completely free and available open access! https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-031-13071-7

In other welcome news: my first book, Reparative Environmental Justice in a World of Wounds (Lexington Books 2020) is now available in paperback! https://rowman.com/ISBN/9781498592079/Reparative-Environmental-Justice-in-a-World-of-Wounds

Generally speaking, I am interested in philosophical issues that arise at the intersection of social epistemology and practical ethics especially concerning matters of trust. For me, this includes epistemology of expertise, public trust in scientific practice, standpoint theory and situated knowledge, scientific misconduct and research ethics; community based participatory research, knowledge across difference, allyship across difference, and relational repair.

I am a Professor of Philosophy at Governors State University, on Chicago's far southside. I am also program coordinator for Interdisciplinary Studies, affiliate faculty in Gender & Sexuality Studies, Political & Social Justice Studies, and for new graduate certificate in Restorative Justice at GSU.

Before joining the GSU faculty in 2013, I spent four years at the College of Lake County in northern Chicagoland. I completed my doctorate at the University of Washington in 2009 before moving from Seattle to Chicago. I miss the coffee and mountains, but the Chicago plains do allow for easier biking!

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What We Owe Owls: Nonideal Relationality among Fellow Creatures in the Old Growth Forest

Relations: Beyond Anthropocentrism, 2023

Though many of us have constructed our lives (or have had them constructed for us) such that it i... more Though many of us have constructed our lives (or have had them constructed for us) such that it is easy to ignore or forget, human lives are entangled with other animals in many ways. Some interspecies relations would arguably exist in some form or another even under an ideal model of animal ethics. Others have an inescapably non-ideal character-these relationships exist as they do because things have gone wrong. In such circumstances we have reparative duties to animals we have wronged because we have wronged them. Here I draw upon Christine Korsgaard's Fellow Creatures (2018) and other nonideal approaches to animal ethics to critically assess the United States Fish & Wildlife Service practice of killing barred owls to protect endangered spotted owls in the old growth forest of the Pacific Northwest. This is a difficult case to be sure, but one that can benefit from non-ideal moral assessment in terms of interspecies relational repair. I argue for increased spotted owl habitat preservation and forest restoration as an alternative to barred owl removal that better aligns with both nonideal relational animal ethics and stated US Fish & Wildlife Service values.

Ben Almassi

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