My first book, Just Fodder: The Ethics of Feeding Animals, was published in 2022 by McGill-Queen’s University Press. The book explores a range of ethical dilemmas that are raised by human practices of feeding animals, and develops a novel theory of animal rights that pays close attention to the ways that human and animal lives are entangled.
You can read more about the book at the McGill-Queen’s University Press website, and you can see me presenting some of the ideas from the book here. You can find a discount code for the book in the image on this Tweet.
Ian Werkheiser interviewed me about the book for the Thought About Food podcast. You can listen to part 1 here and part 2 here. In addition, Siobhan O’Sullivan interviewed me about the book for Knowing Animals (you can listen to the episode here); Kyle Johannsen interviewed me about the book for the New Books Network (you can listen to the episode here); and Emi Leese interviewed me about the book for Think Like a Vegan (you can listen to the episode, which focusses on companion animals, here).
I also spoke to the ethologist Marc Bekoff about Just Fodder for his ‘Animal Emotions’ column in Psychology Today; you can read that interview here. (The psychologist Hank Rothgerber also discussed the book in his Psychology Today column here.)
Serrin Rutledge-Prior reviewed the book in Contemporary Political Theory; you can read the review here. Kyle Johannsen reviewed the book in the Journal of Moral Philosophy; you can read it here (or a free-to-read version is here). A review of the book by Garaleh Salahi was published by The Vegan Society here, and a review by Andreas Matthias was published on the Daily Philosophy website here. (I subsequently wrote a short response to some of Matthias’s criticisms, which you can read here.)
The book was the subject of a workshop at the University of Sheffield in 2022, with contributions from Clare Palmer, Angie Pepper, and Gary O’Brien. A symposium on the book, partially based on the workshop, is in the process of being published in the journal Food Ethics. O’Brien’s paper, ‘On Our Moral Entanglements with Wild Animals’, is available open access here; Palmer’s paper, ‘Human Responsibility for Predation’, is available is available here; Pepper’s paper, ‘Discussion of Josh Milburn’s Just Fodder: The Ethics of Feeding Animals‘, is available here; and Leon Borgdorf’s paper, ‘Josh Milburn’s Just Fodder: The Ethics of Feeding Animals‘, is available here. You can read my response to all four papers, also published in the Food Ethics symposium, here.
Here is some praise the book has received:
‘[Just Fodder is] beautifully crafted and argued work, and ultimately a deeply hopeful perspective on the possibilities for just human-animal relationships.’ – Sue Donaldson, co-author of Zoopolis: A Political Theory of Animal Rights
‘Just Fodder paves the way for a new road of enquiry into a topic that is not itself new at all: we have been directly or indirectly impacting on animals’ diets for millennia. That philosophers—to say nothing of political theorists—have largely failed to seriously address the ethics of feeding animals is likely a reflection of how they have, until relatively recently, failed to take animal ethics in general seriously. Just Fodder—beyond being itself a lucid and thoughtful account of an important topic—is therefore a heartening indication of the current state of animal ethics, and an exciting sign of the inquiries still to come.’ – Serrin Rutledge-Prior, Contemporary Political Theory
‘Josh Milburn’s book Just Fodder: The Ethics of Feeding Animals explores a diverse range of relatively neglected issues in animal ethics. … [It] is an excellent book that makes a substantial contribution to animal ethics. I highly recommend it.’ – Kyle Johannsen, Journal of Moral Philosophy
[Just Fodder] is a very valuable contribution to a debate that we must eventually have in our societies. Instead of randomly and inconsistently embracing some aspects of vegetarianism or veganism while still feeding our pets animal products, we should engage more in discussion of the type that this book makes possible. We should clarify what our values are, what rights we think that animals have (or should have), and then design our responses to the issues of animal rights in rational and straightforward ways that satisfy our requirements and respect our values. Books like Milburn’s are invaluable contributions to this process of clarifying where we want to go as a society, whether we individually agree with their conclusions or not.’ – Andreas Matthias, Daily Philosophy
‘I can really recommend Josh Milburn’s recent Just Fodder (McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2022). Although … I don’t agree with everything, it’s a great and thought-provoking book and an obligatory read for anyone who considers themselves an ethical companion to animals.’ – Sara Van Goozen, York Centre for Political Theory
‘…my critical remarks … are a testament to Milburn’s accessible writing and enthusiasm for the topic. The book does an excellent job of marrying together insights from animal ethics, food ethics, and the philosophy of food, and of setting out a systematic approach to addressing the many ethical challenges associated with feeding animals. With increasing public interest in animal issues and increasing numbers of animal companions, I am sure that this is only the start of the conversation.’ – Angie Pepper, Food Ethics
Josh Milburn 