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Person-Post: Carl Saucier-Bouffard – Associate Fellow

5th January 2009

is a professor in the Department of Humanities at Dawson College in Montreal, Canada, where he teaches courses in environmental and animal ethics. He graduated with a BA (First Class Honours) in Political Science from McGill University in 2004. He won a British Chevening scholarship to the University of Oxford gaining an MPhil in Political Theory in 2007. His MPhil dissertation examined the different modes of political communication used by Peter Singer and Martin Luther King, Jr. in delineating the boundaries of the moral community. He subsequently completed a research internship at the Martin Luther King Jr., Research and Education Institute at Stanford University in 2008, where he provided research assistance for two of Professor Clayborne Carson’s publications. His main research interests are the moral status of non-human animals, and the social movements working towards the expansion of our sphere of moral consideration, including the animal rights movement. His most recent research has focused on the psychological conditions that are likely to make non-academics receptive to the demands of these social movements. For instance, he spent the summer of 2012 at Stanford University’s Center for Compassion and Altruism Research and Education (CCARE) in order to complete the Compassion Cultivation Training course and to study the effects of contemplative practices on compassionate behaviour. He is the author of an article on the legal rights of great apes for The Global Guide to Animal Protection (forthcoming from the University of Illinois Press). He was also involved with the political aspect of the animal rights movement during his stint as a House of Commons researcher in the United Kingdom in 2003, where he worked on behalf of Mrs Julie Morgan MP on an ultimately successful bill making it illegal to hunt with hounds. In his efforts to educate the public about the importance of making ethical food choices, he co-launched the Quebec Meatless Mondays campaign in 2010. He also regularly collaborates with the Montreal Vegetarian Association to organise public events and to publish online documents on issues relevant to animal ethics.