AAP 2026 CONFERENCE: Full Schedule

12:00pm NZST

Tuesday July 7, 2026 12:00pm - 12:55pm NZST

An increasing number of prominent ethicists (McMahahn, Nussbaum) and effective altruists are advocating for 'wild animal suffering interventionism’ (WASI): that humanity has a strong duty to intervene into natural ecosystems to ameliorate wild animal suffering not caused by humans. Fulfilling this project requires intergenerational governance of all animal populations on earth and the development of powerful bio and surveillance technologies. These same technologies are also being developed for the purposes of ecological conservation. I argue that WASI and ecological conservation are fundamentally at odds as WASI must aim to eventually destroy ecosystems and wild animal populations. The nascent field of 'interspecies population ethics', posits that all moral subjects must be included in counterfactual populations, irrespective of species membership. I explore the population ethics accounts of McMahan, Parfit and O'Brien. This shows that WASI does not aim for a garden of Eden full of vast happy animal populations structured like natural ecological systems, as is claimed by WASI authors and their critics, but a world of (post)humans. This marks the encroachment of WASI into ecological conservation discourse as inherently anti-ecological. Emerging conflicts between WASI and conservationists are identified in New Zealand and Australia.

Speakers

James Curtin

Monash University

Tuesday July 7, 2026 12:00pm - 12:55pm NZST
N3.01

Bioethics, In Person

3:00pm NZST

Harm Reduction in Non-Suicidal Self Harm

Tuesday July 7, 2026 3:00pm - 3:55pm NZST

MSB1.01

"A clinician suggests to a person who physically injures themselves without suicidal intent to use red ink instead to simulate the injury without causing physical harm."

Debates about harm reduction in non-suicidal self-harm (NSSH) usually focus on questions of safety, proportionality, and autonomy from a third-person perspective concerned with outcomes and professional responsibilities. Harm reduction, in this context, refers to interventions aimed at reducing physical harm without necessarily requiring immediate cessation of NSSH.
I argue that this approach is incomplete because it overlooks the communicative dimension of harm reduction interventions. The ethical significance of these interventions depends not only on clinical intentions, but also on how they are framed, offered, and interpreted by the person receiving care. Ethical evaluation requires attention to both third-person justification and first-person experience. An intervention may be clinically appropriate and voluntary, yet still be experienced as dismissive, corrective, or validating depending on how it is framed and received within the clinical encounter. This gap between professional justification and personal meaning is ethically important because harm can arise not only through physical outcomes, but also through the meanings conveyed and interpreted in care relationships."

Speakers

Snita Ahir-Knight

Ōtākou Whakaihu Waka | University of Otago

Snita (she/her) is the Programme Lead for the lived experience education and research programme World of Difference | He Ao Whakatoihara kore within the Department of Psychological Medicine, Wellington. She was previously a visiting research scholar in philosophy and a teaching fellow... Read More →

Tuesday July 7, 2026 3:00pm - 3:55pm NZST
MSB1.01

Bioethics, In Person

AAP 2026 CONFERENCE

12:00pm NZST

James Curtin

3:00pm NZST

Snita Ahir-Knight

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