24 Facts About Gary Varner

Gary Edward Varner was an American philosopher specializing in environmental ethics, philosophical questions related to animal rights and animal welfare, and R M Hare's two-level utilitarianism.

Gary Varner started a research project in 2001 that looked at animals in Hare's two-level utilitarianism.

Gary Varner completed a Bachelor of Arts in philosophy at Arizona State University in 1980, before studying for a Master of Arts in philosophy at the University of Georgia, which he completed in 1983.

Gary Varner became director of graduate studies in 1994, a post he kept until 2010.

Gary Varner was promoted to full professor in 2010, and acted as department head from 2011 to 2014.

Varner had been working on questions about R M Hare and animals since 2001, when he taught a graduate class exploring the subject; given that Peter Singer was a student of Hare, Varner was interested in exploring whether Hare's philosophy endorsed Singer's conclusions about animal liberation.

In 2017, Gary Varner's Defending Biodiversity: Environmental Science and Ethics, co-authored with the University of Guelph ecologist Jonathan Newman and the Guelph philosopher Stefan Linquist, was published by Cambridge University Press.

Gary Varner died on June 28,2023, after a period with cancer.

The approach follows in the tradition of the work of Kenneth Goodpaster and Paul W Taylor, though Varner's approach differs from Taylor's in its focus on interests rather than duties, with Varner showing clear utilitarian commitments.

Gary Varner argues that the burden of proof is with holists to defend the claim that ecosystems have interests or have value for some other reason.

Gary Varner next considers desires as the paradigmatic basis of interests, exploring which beings have desires.

Jon Jensen, who reviewed the book for Ethics and the Environment, raised a similar worry, arguing that Gary Varner did not sufficiently justify his claim that biological interests are inherently morally significant.

In Part I, Gary Varner offers considerable endorsement of Harean philosophy.

Gary Varner interprets Hare as understanding that utilitarianism derives from prescriptivism, and affirms Hare's argument on this point.

Gary Varner goes on to discuss the utility of Intuitive-Level System rules; these are the rules that one lives by in day-to-day life, which, though ultimately justified by it, do not derive their content from utilitarian calculation.

In Part II, Gary Varner adopts a higher-order thought theory of consciousness and reviews evidence for animal consciousness.

Gary Varner goes on to argue that most animals lack a biographical sense of self, something possessed by paradigmatic humans.

In Part III, Gary Varner explores the replaceability argument in the context of two-level utilitarianism.

Animals typically kept on farms are, for Gary Varner, replaceable, meaning that certain forms of animal agriculture are permissible.

Gary Varner's claims that there is a prima facie good in creating more happy animals and more happy humans, the latter meaning that there is a prima facie good in human procreation, and a prima facie wrong in abortion.

Gary Varner then considers a range of proposals for sustainable, humane agriculture, including replacing cattle with buffalo and engineering blind chickens.

Gary Varner defends demi-vegetarianism, holding that humans should eat less meat and be more selective about where their meat comes from; factory farming, for example, is likely unacceptable.

The book closes with a consideration of the relationship between a Harean approach to animal ethics and Singer's approach; Gary Varner argues that Singer has employed two-level utilitarianism, and implicitly supports the idea of near-persons.

Gary Varner argues that Singer, despite the latter's advocacy for vegetarianism, presents a theory that supports certain forms of humane agriculture.