Howdy,
I’ve seen that when someone joins Felicifia s/he introduces herself here and tells the rest what her interests are and what she does. So I’ll do that...
My main interest is in the question of speciesism. I’m particularly concerned with the problem of the suffering of nonhuman animals in the wild. I’m also interested in related issues having to do with normative and applied ethics.
As for what I do, I’m been involved in the animal advocacy/vegan movement. As for what I do for a living, well, for some years I was teaching moral philosophy at the University of Santiago de Compostela, in Galicia, Spain, which is where I come from. I’m now working as a visiting researcher at the Philosophy Department at Rutgers University, in New Jersey. And that’s basically it! I can be contacted at fb here: http://www.facebook.com/masalladelaespecie
Nice to meet y’all, folks!

Welcome, Oscar! It's always great to be joined by people who care about the problem of wild-animal suffering. Feel free to comment on some of the previous forum posts related to that issue, including this, this, and this.

Hello Oscar,

You mentioned you are involved in animal advocacy / vegan movement. I am very interested to know what kind of work you do around in this area. What made you choose this & what has been your experience so far? I can imagine it must be hard to be a vegatarian in Europe, leave alone a vegan. I gave up on all animal products years ago except dairy... but am currently trying to knock that off my list too Its always good to come across people who have already walked down that path.

You also said you taught moral philosophy... I haven't had any formal background in this subject but am drawn to it time & again. Perhaps I could write you a mail separately on this.

Hi Oscar,

Are you the Oscar that I know, whom I met at the Estivales de la question animale a few years ago and then at London at an CIWF symposium?

If so, I hope your stay in the US is fruitful and pleasant. I'm also happy to see that you define yourself as utilitarian; I had supposed that you were more "animal rights" oriented, because of the name of a group you were active in; though I think that you had stated that that name didn't have strong implications regarding ethics.

I too am happy that you care about the issue of wild animal suffering! I recently gave a talk on the issue of predation at a transhumanist seminary, arguing that the animal movement should be progressist, instead of dreaming of returning to some natural "paradise", and that it is incoherent to hold that animal suffering matters, but only when it is inflicted by humans.

I'm now going to read some of the stuff that Alan has pointed out on the issue.

David