The emphasis should be on decreasing consumption rather than on trying to shift demand from wild to captive stocks – and to do that, we need to be wary of quick fixes such as artificially raising prices. That can lead to unwanted effects, such as creating perceived scarcity that drives up consumer desire – think here of “luxury” goods such as shark fin.
AuthorDr Jonathan Birch
Dr Jonathan Birch is an Associate Professor of Philosophy at the London School of Economics and Political Science, and Principal Investigator (PI) on the Foundations of Animal Sentience project. In addition to his interest in animal sentience, cognition and welfare, he also has a longstanding interest in the evolution of altruism and social behaviour.
He joined the LSE in 2014. Before moving to London, he was a Junior Research Fellow at Christ’s College, Cambridge. He completed his PhD at the University of Cambridge in 2013, with a dissertation entitled Kin Selection: A Philosophical Analysis.
He has published widely on various topics in the philosophy of the biological sciences, in journals such as Current Biology, The American Naturalist, Biological Reviews, Trends in Cognitive Sciences, Nous, Philosophy of Science, and The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science. His first book, The Philosophy of Social Evolution, was published by Oxford University Press in 2017.
In 2014, he was one of four UK philosophers honoured with a Philip Leverhulme Prize, which recognize “the achievement of outstanding researchers whose work has already attracted international recognition and whose future career is exceptionally promising”.