Catia Faria (born 1980)^[1] is a Portuguese moral philosopher and activist for animal rights and feminism. She is assistant professor in Applied Ethics at the Complutense University of Madrid,^[2] and is a board member of the UPF-Centre for Animal Ethics.^[3] Faria specialises in normative and applied ethics, especially focusing on how they apply to the moral consideration of non-human animals.^[3] In 2022, she published her first book, Animal Ethics in the Wild: Wild Animal Suffering and Intervention in Nature.^[4]

Education and career

Faria received a Bachelor of Arts in Philosophy from the University of Porto, a Master's in Cognitive Sciences from the University of Barcelona and a PhD in Moral Philosophy from Pompeu Fabra University.^[5] Faria's thesis was the first of its kind to defend the idea that humans should help non-human animals in the wild to reduce the problem of wild animal suffering; it was assessed by Genoveva Martí, Alasdair Cochrane and Jeff McMahan, and supervised by Paula Casal, Oscar Horta and Joao Cardoso Rosas.^[6]

Faria is assistant professor in Applied Ethics at the Complutense University of Madrid and formerly worked as a postdoctoral researcher for the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology at the University of Minho,^[2] as lecturer in Ethics and Sustainability at Pompeu Fabra University^[5] and was a visiting researcher at the Oxford Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics.^[7]

In 2015, Faria co-edited, with Eze Paez, a double volume of the journal Relations. Beyond Anthropocentrism, on the problem of wild animal suffering and ways to reduce it.^[8] She has also authored articles for the University of Oxford's Practical Ethics blog;^[9] Nietzsche's Horse, the Spanish online newspaper ElDiario.es's blog on animal issues;^[10] and Pikara Magazine, the online feminist magazine.^[11] In 2020, Faria co-authored, with Oscar Horta, a chapter on welfare biology in The Routledge Handbook of Animal Ethics.^[12] Her first book, Animal Ethics in the Wild: Wild Animal Suffering and Intervention in Nature, was published in 2022.^[4]

Philosophy

Faria is critical of the environmentalist view that nature should be left alone and argues that environmentalists intervene in nature constantly for anthropocentric benefit and to further their own aims;^[13] she asserts that animal and environmental ethics are incompatible because of their differing moral consideration of non-human animals.^[14] Faria claims that those who reject speciesism should give moral consideration to the well-being and interests of non-human animals in the wild, as sentient beings, and work towards reducing their suffering due to natural causes.^[13]

Faria argues that both intersectional feminism and antispeciesism are necessary in the fight for equality and justice. She is the originator of the concept of "xenozoopolis"; a hybrid of xenofeminism and antispeciesism,^[15] which calls for the abolition of the "human-alien binary".^[16] Faria also asserts that a feminist approach towards antispeciesism implies veganism.^[17]

Faria distances herself from ecofeminism, which she criticises for its view that the main source of harm for non-human animals in the wild is patriarchal culture and that the best way to help them is through conservation, as this is built on the premise that nature and natural processes are idyllic for non-human animals. Faria argues that this view of nature is inaccurate and that suffering is commonly experienced by these individuals. She asserts that while we should replace the existing male paradigms of intervention in nature, such as hunting, this does not mean that the solution is non-intervention. She instead contends that we should work towards helping these individuals.^[17]

Selected publications

• Faria, Catia (2022). Animal Ethics in the Wild: Wild Animal Suffering and Intervention in Nature. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9781009100632.
• Faria, Catia; Horta, Oscar (2020). "Welfare Biology". In Fischer, Bob (ed.). The Routledge Handbook of Animal Ethics. New York: Routledge. doi:10.4324/9781315105840-41. ISBN 978-1-351-60235-8. OCLC 1114567320. S2CID 241043958.
• ——; Paez, Eze (2019). "Why environmentalism cannot beat denialism: An antispeciesist approach to the ethics of climate change". In Almiron, Núria; Xifra, Jordi (eds.). Climate Change Denial and Public Relations: Strategic Communication and Interest Groups in Climate Inaction (1 ed.). Abingdon, Oxon; New York, NY: Routledge. doi:10.4324/9781351121798. ISBN 978-1-351-12179-8. S2CID 213336626.
• Almiron, Núria; Faria, Catia (2019-07-01). "Environmental and Animal Defense". American Behavioral Scientist. 63 (8): 1043–1046. doi:10.1177/0002764219830458. hdl:10230/42775. ISSN 0002-7642. S2CID 151299541.
• Almiron, Núria; —— (2019-05-29). "Climate Change Impacts on Free-Living Nonhuman Animals. Challenges for Media and Communication Ethics". Studies in Media and Communication. 7 (1): 37. doi:10.11114/smc.v7i1.4305. ISSN 2325-808X.
• Faria, Catia (May 2018). "A flimsy case for the use of non-human primates in research: a reply to Arnason". Journal of Medical Ethics. 44 (5): 332–333. doi:10.1136/medethics-2017-104444. ISSN 0306-6800. PMID 29032367. S2CID 207012970.
• —— (2016-06-30). "Why we should not postpone awareness of wild animal suffering". Animal Sentience. 1 (7). doi:10.51291/2377-7478.1099. ISSN 2377-7478.
• —— (2016-03-15). Animal ethics goes wild: The problem of wild animal suffering and intervention in nature (PhD thesis). Universitat Pompeu Fabra.
• —— (November 2015). "Disentangling Obligations of Assistance: a Reply to Clare Palmer's "Against the View That We Are Usually Required to Assist Wild Animals"". Relations. 3 (2): 211–218. doi:10.7358/rela-2015-002-fari.
• ——; Paez, Eze (2014). "Anthropocentrism and speciesism: conceptual and normative issues". Revista de Bioética y Derecho (32): 95–103. doi:10.4321/S1886-58872014000300009. ISSN 1886-5887.
• —— (2014). "Equality, priority and nonhuman animals". Dilemata: International Journal of Applied Ethics. 14: 225–236.
• —— (2010). "Zamir, Tzachi, Ethics and the Beast: A Speciesist Argument for Animal Liberation". Telos (in Spanish). 17 (1): 109–120.