Sentientism | "Welfare protections have failed animals" - Legal Academic Dr Jane Kotzmann - Sentientism Ep:173 @Sentientism | Uploaded October 2023 | Updated October 2024, 1 hour ago.
Jane is an Alfred Deakin Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Deakin Law School. Jane obtained degrees in Commerce, Law (with Honours), and a PhD in human rights law from Deakin University, and a Postgraduate Diploma in Teaching (Teach for Australia) from the University of Melbourne. Jane has published research in relation to the human right to education, the human rights of disabled people, animal rights, and animal related laws. She has taught a variety of units, including human rights law, administrative law and contract law. She was a finalist for 'Academic of the Year' in the Australian Law Awards in 2019 and 2020. Her article titled 'Recognising the Sentience of Animals in Law: A Justification and Framework for Australian States and Territories’ was given an Australian Legal Research Award in 2022 for Best Early Career Research Article. Before embarking on her career in academia, Jane served as an associate in the inaugural Teach for Australia program. Prior to this, she was in private legal practice for a number of years, principally in commercial litigation.
In Sentientist Conversations we talk about the two most important questions: “what’s real?” & “what matters?” Sentientism is "evidence, reason & compassion for all sentient beings." The audio is on our Podcast: apple.co/391khQO & https://anchor.fm/sentientism.
We discuss:
00:00 Welcome
02:10 Jane's Intro
- Lawyer (“I didn’t really like that very much”), teaching high school (“enjoyable… but exhausting”), now academic research and teaching
- Human rights PhD, now animal law focused “I often think about concepts that exist in human rights literature and think about how they might apply… to the animal rights space”
04:40 What's Real?
- #catholic and #Anglican #Christian parents but neither “practicing”. Although some tension between the two families
- Attending #lutheran school at 15 “Lacking in some self-confidence… the religious angle… allowed me a way to feel like I could connect with something… I tried really hard… but I always struggled with trying to make myself believe something that… doesn’t have a great deal of evidence.”
- “I think there is something other than what we can see, touch, feel and taste – but I’m not going to commit to knowing what that is”
- What we can sense “humans can generally agree on those things… beyond that, there may be more – I don’t know”
- “Some very intelligent people I know are deeply religious… I have no problem with that except where they decide that that allows them to hurt others. That’s where I draw the line.”
11:42 What Matters?
- Parents' religions didn’t affect childhood ethics much
- Lutheran… “By and large… big hearted, generous, empathetic, wonderful people.” But “I took great pleasure… in debating the alleged sins of homosexuality with some of the pastors.”
- “I always found issues with these rigid rules that didn’t really make a lot of sense to me”
- Developing morality through reading fiction “I read a truck-load… through fiction I developed a strong sense of empathy… that’s what drove me then and drives me today”
14:54 Who Matters
- Living in India at 12 yrs old “I became #vegetarian at that point – it didn’t make my parents very happy… but I was always very certain with that”
- “#veganism back then was absolutely radical”
- Being pregnant and looking more deeply into the ethical, environmental and health issues of animal agriculture
- “it was a good 20 years between deciding to be vegetarian and deciding to be vegan… it was to be honest probably just a matter of fitting in.”
- Catholic school in India “I hated it… I felt lost… the Lutheran school was much more nurturing… understanding the individual and assisting the individual”
- Connecting animals and animal-based foods “it was sort of obvious… I just didn’t want to eat it… that turned into a fight… there’s a very stubborn component to my personality”
- Studying the Holocaust as a teenager “trying to comprehend how people could inflict that on other people – and not feel the horror that I would feel”
- “#humanrights are violated all the time… I guess the difference to me was… at least with us as a human species we can agree that this shouldn’t happen”
- “In the context of animals that’s totally lacking… most people think that it’s acceptable to treat animals the way that we do – I just find it astounding”
47:00 A Better World?
01:15:57 Follow Jane
- https://www.deakin.edu.au/about-deakin/people/jane-kotzmann
- Jane’s Cambridge Centre for #animalrights Law talk: “Sentience and Intrinsic Worth as a Pluralist Foundation for Fundamental Animal Rights” youtu.be/kRTPTlq2l_Q
& much more... (sentientism.info for full notes)
#sentientism is “Evidence, reason & compassion for all #sentient beings.” More at sentientism.info/. Join our "I'm a Sentientist" wall sentientism.info/wall/.
Everyone, Sentientist or not, is welcome in our groups. E.g.: facebook.com/groups/sentientism.
Jane is an Alfred Deakin Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Deakin Law School. Jane obtained degrees in Commerce, Law (with Honours), and a PhD in human rights law from Deakin University, and a Postgraduate Diploma in Teaching (Teach for Australia) from the University of Melbourne. Jane has published research in relation to the human right to education, the human rights of disabled people, animal rights, and animal related laws. She has taught a variety of units, including human rights law, administrative law and contract law. She was a finalist for 'Academic of the Year' in the Australian Law Awards in 2019 and 2020. Her article titled 'Recognising the Sentience of Animals in Law: A Justification and Framework for Australian States and Territories’ was given an Australian Legal Research Award in 2022 for Best Early Career Research Article. Before embarking on her career in academia, Jane served as an associate in the inaugural Teach for Australia program. Prior to this, she was in private legal practice for a number of years, principally in commercial litigation.
In Sentientist Conversations we talk about the two most important questions: “what’s real?” & “what matters?” Sentientism is "evidence, reason & compassion for all sentient beings." The audio is on our Podcast: apple.co/391khQO & https://anchor.fm/sentientism.
We discuss:
00:00 Welcome
02:10 Jane's Intro
- Lawyer (“I didn’t really like that very much”), teaching high school (“enjoyable… but exhausting”), now academic research and teaching
- Human rights PhD, now animal law focused “I often think about concepts that exist in human rights literature and think about how they might apply… to the animal rights space”
04:40 What's Real?
- #catholic and #Anglican #Christian parents but neither “practicing”. Although some tension between the two families
- Attending #lutheran school at 15 “Lacking in some self-confidence… the religious angle… allowed me a way to feel like I could connect with something… I tried really hard… but I always struggled with trying to make myself believe something that… doesn’t have a great deal of evidence.”
- “I think there is something other than what we can see, touch, feel and taste – but I’m not going to commit to knowing what that is”
- What we can sense “humans can generally agree on those things… beyond that, there may be more – I don’t know”
- “Some very intelligent people I know are deeply religious… I have no problem with that except where they decide that that allows them to hurt others. That’s where I draw the line.”
11:42 What Matters?
- Parents' religions didn’t affect childhood ethics much
- Lutheran… “By and large… big hearted, generous, empathetic, wonderful people.” But “I took great pleasure… in debating the alleged sins of homosexuality with some of the pastors.”
- “I always found issues with these rigid rules that didn’t really make a lot of sense to me”
- Developing morality through reading fiction “I read a truck-load… through fiction I developed a strong sense of empathy… that’s what drove me then and drives me today”
14:54 Who Matters
- Living in India at 12 yrs old “I became #vegetarian at that point – it didn’t make my parents very happy… but I was always very certain with that”
- “#veganism back then was absolutely radical”
- Being pregnant and looking more deeply into the ethical, environmental and health issues of animal agriculture
- “it was a good 20 years between deciding to be vegetarian and deciding to be vegan… it was to be honest probably just a matter of fitting in.”
- Catholic school in India “I hated it… I felt lost… the Lutheran school was much more nurturing… understanding the individual and assisting the individual”
- Connecting animals and animal-based foods “it was sort of obvious… I just didn’t want to eat it… that turned into a fight… there’s a very stubborn component to my personality”
- Studying the Holocaust as a teenager “trying to comprehend how people could inflict that on other people – and not feel the horror that I would feel”
- “#humanrights are violated all the time… I guess the difference to me was… at least with us as a human species we can agree that this shouldn’t happen”
- “In the context of animals that’s totally lacking… most people think that it’s acceptable to treat animals the way that we do – I just find it astounding”
47:00 A Better World?
01:15:57 Follow Jane
- https://www.deakin.edu.au/about-deakin/people/jane-kotzmann
- Jane’s Cambridge Centre for #animalrights Law talk: “Sentience and Intrinsic Worth as a Pluralist Foundation for Fundamental Animal Rights” youtu.be/kRTPTlq2l_Q
& much more... (sentientism.info for full notes)
#sentientism is “Evidence, reason & compassion for all #sentient beings.” More at sentientism.info/. Join our "I'm a Sentientist" wall sentientism.info/wall/.
Everyone, Sentientist or not, is welcome in our groups. E.g.: facebook.com/groups/sentientism.
