Josh Milburn
@joshmilburn.bsky.social
Senior Lecturer in Political Philosophy at Loughborough University. Books: Just Fodder (McGill-Queen's, 2022) and Food, Justice, and Animals (Oxford, 2023). Host of the podcast Knowing Animals. Website: https://josh-milburn.com
Reposted by Josh Milburn
✨️Call for abstracts✨️
Excited to be organizing together with @leonarddung.bsky.social, @birchlse.bsky.social and Albert Newen the RUB-LSE joint workshop
"Animal Minds: New Theories and New Observations"
Bochum 9-10 Feb 2026
Join us! 🦧🐦🐙🐀🐬🦀🐜
Abstracts due 1 Dec 2025
philevents.org/event/show/1...
Excited to be organizing together with @leonarddung.bsky.social, @birchlse.bsky.social and Albert Newen the RUB-LSE joint workshop
"Animal Minds: New Theories and New Observations"
Bochum 9-10 Feb 2026
Join us! 🦧🐦🐙🐀🐬🦀🐜
Abstracts due 1 Dec 2025
philevents.org/event/show/1...
Ruhr-University Bochum & London School of Economics joint workshop “Animal Minds: New Theories and New Observations”
The following speakers are confirmed: Colin Allen, Kristin Andrews, Jonathan Birch, Tomer Czaczkes, Rebecca Dreier, Leonard Dung, Albert Newen, Simone Pika, Sanja Sreckovic, and Daria Zakharova.
philevents.org
November 27, 2025 at 12:24 AM
✨️Call for abstracts✨️
Excited to be organizing together with @leonarddung.bsky.social, @birchlse.bsky.social and Albert Newen the RUB-LSE joint workshop
"Animal Minds: New Theories and New Observations"
Bochum 9-10 Feb 2026
Join us! 🦧🐦🐙🐀🐬🦀🐜
Abstracts due 1 Dec 2025
philevents.org/event/show/1...
Excited to be organizing together with @leonarddung.bsky.social, @birchlse.bsky.social and Albert Newen the RUB-LSE joint workshop
"Animal Minds: New Theories and New Observations"
Bochum 9-10 Feb 2026
Join us! 🦧🐦🐙🐀🐬🦀🐜
Abstracts due 1 Dec 2025
philevents.org/event/show/1...
Reposted by Josh Milburn
Recruiting a PhD student to join us at Univ Canterbury (Christchurch, NZ) to study how people perceive animal minds & how those perceptions shape moral concern, behaviour, & policy. Scholarship info:
www.canterbury.ac.nz/research/abo...
Rolling review starts Dec 2025 • Flexible Feb–July 2026 start
www.canterbury.ac.nz/research/abo...
Rolling review starts Dec 2025 • Flexible Feb–July 2026 start
November 19, 2025 at 8:52 AM
Recruiting a PhD student to join us at Univ Canterbury (Christchurch, NZ) to study how people perceive animal minds & how those perceptions shape moral concern, behaviour, & policy. Scholarship info:
www.canterbury.ac.nz/research/abo...
Rolling review starts Dec 2025 • Flexible Feb–July 2026 start
www.canterbury.ac.nz/research/abo...
Rolling review starts Dec 2025 • Flexible Feb–July 2026 start
Reminder: If you might like to apply for a Leverhulme postdoc working with me (or any of my @irph.bsky.social colleagues) the deadline for the internal competition is one week today. Reach out ASAP!
My School is supporting competitive applicants for the @leverhulme.ac.uk Early Career Fellowships (details below). I'm happy to support candidates in my research areas, including (among others) animals in moral/political philosophy.
If you want to apply, contact me ASAP. Internal deadline 1 Dec.
If you want to apply, contact me ASAP. Internal deadline 1 Dec.
Early Career Fellowships | The Leverhulme Trust
www.leverhulme.ac.uk
November 24, 2025 at 4:47 PM
Reminder: If you might like to apply for a Leverhulme postdoc working with me (or any of my @irph.bsky.social colleagues) the deadline for the internal competition is one week today. Reach out ASAP!
Reposted by Josh Milburn
Dr Catia Faria, board member of the UPF-Centre for Animal Ethics, is co-editing with Yip Fai Tse a Special Issue for The Journal of Ethics titled:
“AI, Animals, and the Future: Aligning AI Trajectories with Nonhuman Welfare.”
“AI, Animals, and the Future: Aligning AI Trajectories with Nonhuman Welfare.”
November 21, 2025 at 11:17 AM
Dr Catia Faria, board member of the UPF-Centre for Animal Ethics, is co-editing with Yip Fai Tse a Special Issue for The Journal of Ethics titled:
“AI, Animals, and the Future: Aligning AI Trajectories with Nonhuman Welfare.”
“AI, Animals, and the Future: Aligning AI Trajectories with Nonhuman Welfare.”
Reposted by Josh Milburn
Today is World Philosophy Day!
Philosophy is a big part of what we do here in IRPH (and not just on our PPE degree). One reason for this is that training in philosophy makes us into better thinkers. This is important in every discipline.
#philosophy #worldphilosophyday #philsky
Philosophy is a big part of what we do here in IRPH (and not just on our PPE degree). One reason for this is that training in philosophy makes us into better thinkers. This is important in every discipline.
#philosophy #worldphilosophyday #philsky
Studying philosophy does make people better thinkers, according to new research on more than 600,000 college grads
Philosophers are fond of saying that their field boosts critical thinking. Two of them decided to put that claim to the test.
theconversation.com
November 20, 2025 at 1:22 PM
Today is World Philosophy Day!
Philosophy is a big part of what we do here in IRPH (and not just on our PPE degree). One reason for this is that training in philosophy makes us into better thinkers. This is important in every discipline.
#philosophy #worldphilosophyday #philsky
Philosophy is a big part of what we do here in IRPH (and not just on our PPE degree). One reason for this is that training in philosophy makes us into better thinkers. This is important in every discipline.
#philosophy #worldphilosophyday #philsky
Reposted by Josh Milburn
What have you been up to since graduation? If you graduated from IRPH at Loughborough between May and July 2024, we need you!
You’ll have received an email about the Graduate Outcomes Survey. Check your inbox and take part by 30th November: make your voice count!
You’ll have received an email about the Graduate Outcomes Survey. Check your inbox and take part by 30th November: make your voice count!
November 19, 2025 at 3:12 PM
What have you been up to since graduation? If you graduated from IRPH at Loughborough between May and July 2024, we need you!
You’ll have received an email about the Graduate Outcomes Survey. Check your inbox and take part by 30th November: make your voice count!
You’ll have received an email about the Graduate Outcomes Survey. Check your inbox and take part by 30th November: make your voice count!
An article I wrote and photo I took appeared on Wikipedia's main page yesterday.
Did you know that local folklore links Boghead, a Northumbrian bastle house, to the story of Barty Milburn, an accomplished swordsman and killer of Scots?
Impossible to be sure, but Barty may be an ancestor of mine.
Did you know that local folklore links Boghead, a Northumbrian bastle house, to the story of Barty Milburn, an accomplished swordsman and killer of Scots?
Impossible to be sure, but Barty may be an ancestor of mine.
Boghead (bastle) - Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org
November 17, 2025 at 8:34 AM
An article I wrote and photo I took appeared on Wikipedia's main page yesterday.
Did you know that local folklore links Boghead, a Northumbrian bastle house, to the story of Barty Milburn, an accomplished swordsman and killer of Scots?
Impossible to be sure, but Barty may be an ancestor of mine.
Did you know that local folklore links Boghead, a Northumbrian bastle house, to the story of Barty Milburn, an accomplished swordsman and killer of Scots?
Impossible to be sure, but Barty may be an ancestor of mine.
Reposted by Josh Milburn
link.springer.com/article/10.1... In 2023, over a few beers in Lisbon, Devon Cass and I teamed up to explore whether animals can be subjected to the kinds of wrongs relational egalitarians are concerned with. The result was this paper just published in Philosophical Studies:
Relational equality and the status of animals - Philosophical Studies
Can the ideal of relational equality—or, more generally, the relational approach to justice—be applied to animals? Animals have, across time and place, held different social statuses (e.g. as incarnat...
link.springer.com
November 14, 2025 at 7:16 AM
link.springer.com/article/10.1... In 2023, over a few beers in Lisbon, Devon Cass and I teamed up to explore whether animals can be subjected to the kinds of wrongs relational egalitarians are concerned with. The result was this paper just published in Philosophical Studies:
Reposted by Josh Milburn
Yesterday, Professor Caroline Kennedy-Pipe told us about her 'island obsession' as part of the IRPH Research Seminars.
Svalbard (Norway) and Bornholm (Denmark) provide fascinating cases for war studies scholarship, and 2025 geopolitics potentially make them more important than ever.
Svalbard (Norway) and Bornholm (Denmark) provide fascinating cases for war studies scholarship, and 2025 geopolitics potentially make them more important than ever.
November 13, 2025 at 12:05 PM
Yesterday, Professor Caroline Kennedy-Pipe told us about her 'island obsession' as part of the IRPH Research Seminars.
Svalbard (Norway) and Bornholm (Denmark) provide fascinating cases for war studies scholarship, and 2025 geopolitics potentially make them more important than ever.
Svalbard (Norway) and Bornholm (Denmark) provide fascinating cases for war studies scholarship, and 2025 geopolitics potentially make them more important than ever.
Reposted by Josh Milburn
📢Interested in applying for #Leverhulme Early Career #Fellowships 2025 (3yrs full time) with @irph.bsky.social @lborouniversity.bsky.social? Note our internal demand-management deadline of 4pm on 1 Dec (!), & pls contact potential supervisors asap: www.leverhulme.ac.uk/early-career...
November 12, 2025 at 11:04 AM
📢Interested in applying for #Leverhulme Early Career #Fellowships 2025 (3yrs full time) with @irph.bsky.social @lborouniversity.bsky.social? Note our internal demand-management deadline of 4pm on 1 Dec (!), & pls contact potential supervisors asap: www.leverhulme.ac.uk/early-career...
Intriguing new article: Elan Abrell responds to my/Rachel Robison-Greene’s challenges to his case against cultivated meat.
The technology, he argues, cannot challenge industrial animal agriculture.
brill.com/view/journal...
The technology, he argues, cannot challenge industrial animal agriculture.
brill.com/view/journal...
brill.com
November 12, 2025 at 6:58 PM
Intriguing new article: Elan Abrell responds to my/Rachel Robison-Greene’s challenges to his case against cultivated meat.
The technology, he argues, cannot challenge industrial animal agriculture.
brill.com/view/journal...
The technology, he argues, cannot challenge industrial animal agriculture.
brill.com/view/journal...
Last week, I was lucky enough to visit Cambridge to speak in the Seminar on Contemporary Political Thought. Huge thanks to Sarah Fine, @profclarechambers.bsky.social, and @tobiasmueller.bsky.social for the invitation. (The picture is me at the beautiful Peterhouse; Antoni Mikocki gave me a tour!)
November 12, 2025 at 1:05 PM
Last week, I was lucky enough to visit Cambridge to speak in the Seminar on Contemporary Political Thought. Huge thanks to Sarah Fine, @profclarechambers.bsky.social, and @tobiasmueller.bsky.social for the invitation. (The picture is me at the beautiful Peterhouse; Antoni Mikocki gave me a tour!)
Reposted by Josh Milburn
"While ultra-processed plant-based foods are less healthy than whole plant foods, they may offer better cardiometabolic outcomes than unprocessed animal-based products. [P]roducts such as plant-based milks, meat analogs, and margarine may facilitate dietary shifts."
link.springer.com/article/10.1...
link.springer.com/article/10.1...
Ultra-processed Plant Foods: Are They Worse than their Unprocessed Animal-Based Counterparts? - Current Nutrition Reports
Purpose of the Review This review aims to compare the impact of unprocessed animal foods with ultra-processed plant-based alternatives, particularly plant-based milks, plant-based meat analogs, and ma...
link.springer.com
November 6, 2025 at 11:08 PM
"While ultra-processed plant-based foods are less healthy than whole plant foods, they may offer better cardiometabolic outcomes than unprocessed animal-based products. [P]roducts such as plant-based milks, meat analogs, and margarine may facilitate dietary shifts."
link.springer.com/article/10.1...
link.springer.com/article/10.1...
Reposted by Josh Milburn
AASA is very excited to announce that the winner of the inaugural round of the Siobhan O' Book Prize is Yamini Narayanan for the incredible book Mother Cow Mother India (Stanford UP, 2023)! url.au.m.mimecastprotect.com/s/GCu8CL7EwM...
Mother Cow, Mother India | Stanford University Press
India imposes stringent criminal penalties, including life imprisonment in some states, for cow slaughter, based on a Hindu ethic of revering the cow as sacred. And yet India is among the world's lead...
url.au.m.mimecastprotect.com
November 6, 2025 at 11:53 AM
AASA is very excited to announce that the winner of the inaugural round of the Siobhan O' Book Prize is Yamini Narayanan for the incredible book Mother Cow Mother India (Stanford UP, 2023)! url.au.m.mimecastprotect.com/s/GCu8CL7EwM...
My School is supporting competitive applicants for the @leverhulme.ac.uk Early Career Fellowships (details below). I'm happy to support candidates in my research areas, including (among others) animals in moral/political philosophy.
If you want to apply, contact me ASAP. Internal deadline 1 Dec.
If you want to apply, contact me ASAP. Internal deadline 1 Dec.
Early Career Fellowships | The Leverhulme Trust
www.leverhulme.ac.uk
November 6, 2025 at 4:37 PM
My School is supporting competitive applicants for the @leverhulme.ac.uk Early Career Fellowships (details below). I'm happy to support candidates in my research areas, including (among others) animals in moral/political philosophy.
If you want to apply, contact me ASAP. Internal deadline 1 Dec.
If you want to apply, contact me ASAP. Internal deadline 1 Dec.
It was a genuine pleasure to be the subject of a two-hour grilling on animals and war at York yesterday – and then immediately jump into a one-hour grilling on animals and food systems at Dublin City University.
A fantastic session of our workshop in political theory today, with Josh Milburn @joshmilburn.bsky.social presenting his thought-provoking work on war for animals.
November 5, 2025 at 8:53 AM
It was a genuine pleasure to be the subject of a two-hour grilling on animals and war at York yesterday – and then immediately jump into a one-hour grilling on animals and food systems at Dublin City University.
On the latest episode of Knowing Animals, I speak to Doris Schneeberger about her 2024 Palgrave book Envisioning a Better Future for Nonhuman Animals: Towards Future Animal Rights Declarations. The episode is available free below or in all the usual places.
knowinganimals.libsyn.com/episode-243-...
knowinganimals.libsyn.com/episode-243-...
November 3, 2025 at 12:15 PM
On the latest episode of Knowing Animals, I speak to Doris Schneeberger about her 2024 Palgrave book Envisioning a Better Future for Nonhuman Animals: Towards Future Animal Rights Declarations. The episode is available free below or in all the usual places.
knowinganimals.libsyn.com/episode-243-...
knowinganimals.libsyn.com/episode-243-...
Reposted by Josh Milburn
Articles suggesting Musk‘s Grokipedia is an enterprise that is in any way intended to further knowledge are either extremely naive or foolishly charitable. Grokipedia‘s purpose is the exact opposite. It is to undermine trust, erode knowledge, & spread far-right ideology, full-stop.
November 3, 2025 at 8:41 AM
Articles suggesting Musk‘s Grokipedia is an enterprise that is in any way intended to further knowledge are either extremely naive or foolishly charitable. Grokipedia‘s purpose is the exact opposite. It is to undermine trust, erode knowledge, & spread far-right ideology, full-stop.
Reposted by Josh Milburn
Sheffield Hallam University complied with Beijing demand to halt research about human rights abuses in China, leading to a major project on supply chains and forced labour being dropped. It was reinstated after threat of legal action but chilling effect remains www.theguardian.com/education/20...
UK university halted human rights research after pressure from China
Exclusive: Leading professor at Sheffield Hallam was told to cease research on supply chains and forced labour in China after demands from authorities
www.theguardian.com
November 3, 2025 at 7:23 AM
Sheffield Hallam University complied with Beijing demand to halt research about human rights abuses in China, leading to a major project on supply chains and forced labour being dropped. It was reinstated after threat of legal action but chilling effect remains www.theguardian.com/education/20...
Reposted by Josh Milburn
I don't trust people who are out of the office with limited access to email. What the hell are you doing
October 31, 2025 at 5:33 PM
I don't trust people who are out of the office with limited access to email. What the hell are you doing
Reposted by Josh Milburn
Myths about our ancestors' meaty diets animate modern politics and culture wars about food and identity. But the history of human diets tells a different story about food's past and lets us be more rational about its future.
@gnrosenberg.bsky.social & I for @vox.com
www.vox.com/future-perfe...
@gnrosenberg.bsky.social & I for @vox.com
www.vox.com/future-perfe...
The myth of the carnivore caveman
You are not going to like where our ancestors got their protein.
www.vox.com
October 31, 2025 at 12:35 PM
Myths about our ancestors' meaty diets animate modern politics and culture wars about food and identity. But the history of human diets tells a different story about food's past and lets us be more rational about its future.
@gnrosenberg.bsky.social & I for @vox.com
www.vox.com/future-perfe...
@gnrosenberg.bsky.social & I for @vox.com
www.vox.com/future-perfe...
Reposted by Josh Milburn
Thanks very much to The Royal Institute of Philosophy for awarding me the Nayef Al-Rodhan Book Prize 2025. Thanks as well to the ERC who funded it, Peter Momtchiloff who commissioned it for OUP, all my LSE team members past and present, and everyone who made the book possible!
October 30, 2025 at 10:00 AM
Thanks very much to The Royal Institute of Philosophy for awarding me the Nayef Al-Rodhan Book Prize 2025. Thanks as well to the ERC who funded it, Peter Momtchiloff who commissioned it for OUP, all my LSE team members past and present, and everyone who made the book possible!
Reposted by Josh Milburn
This is the most stunning legal turn-around I'm aware of. AR activists are charged with burglary for freeing dogs from Ridglan. The charges are dropped. The activists succeed in getting a special prosecutor appointed to investigate Ridglan for animal cruelty. Now Ridglan will close. Incredible.
We are thrilled to report that beagle experimentation breeder Ridglan Farms will CLOSE. This follows the 2022 closure of Envigo, & leaves only one large breeder of beagles for experiments (Marshall Farms). Congratulations to everyone who helped achieve this goal. More details to come.
October 29, 2025 at 11:34 AM
This is the most stunning legal turn-around I'm aware of. AR activists are charged with burglary for freeing dogs from Ridglan. The charges are dropped. The activists succeed in getting a special prosecutor appointed to investigate Ridglan for animal cruelty. Now Ridglan will close. Incredible.
Reposted by Josh Milburn
Remember this, whenever someone says "alternative proteins - yuck!"
www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...
www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...
Beef, pork, chicken: the world loves cheap meat. If people knew what really goes in it, that love affair would be over | Devi Sridhar
Antibiotic use in farming is now rampant. How meat is produced in China may mean the drugs you need here won’t work, says Prof Devi Sridhar, chair of global public health at the University of Edinburg...
www.theguardian.com
October 21, 2025 at 3:32 PM
Remember this, whenever someone says "alternative proteins - yuck!"
www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...
www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...
Reposted by Josh Milburn
I'm hiring! A 2-year postdoc on my ERC project "KNOW-HOW" at the Cogito: Epistemology Research Centre University of Glasgow. (Deadline for applications 9 November.) Please share with anyone you think might be interested. Details below
www.jobs.gla.ac.uk/job/research...
www.jobs.gla.ac.uk/job/research...
Research Associate in Philosophy
College of Arts and HumanitiesSchool of Humanities Research Associate in PhilosophyVacancy Reference: 184814Salary: Grade 7, £41,064 - £46,049 per annum We have an opportunity for a Research Associ...
www.jobs.gla.ac.uk
October 20, 2025 at 5:33 PM
I'm hiring! A 2-year postdoc on my ERC project "KNOW-HOW" at the Cogito: Epistemology Research Centre University of Glasgow. (Deadline for applications 9 November.) Please share with anyone you think might be interested. Details below
www.jobs.gla.ac.uk/job/research...
www.jobs.gla.ac.uk/job/research...