I am a moral and political philosopher interested in questions about human/animal relationships, food, liberal/libertarian political theory, war, and applied ethics. I am a Senior Lecturer in Political Philosophy in the Department of International Relations, Politics and History in the School of Social Sciences and Humanities at Loughborough University, where I lead the university’s politics, philosophy, and economics degree. In 2025, the Britain and Ireland Association for Political Thought awarded me their Early Career Prize (more information).
My first book, Just Fodder: The Ethics of Feeding Animals was published by McGill-Queen’s University Press in 2022 (more information). My second book, Food, Justice, and Animals: Feeding the World Respectfully was published by Oxford University Press in 2023 (more information). Among other projects, I am currently thinking about animals and the ethics of warfare and writing my third book, Animals, State, and Utopia: Robert Nozick’s Animal Ethics, which will be published by Oxford University Press (more information).
Since 2019, I have been a regular co-convenor of the Animal Politics sessions at the MANCEPT Workshops, and since 2020, I have been the host of the animal studies podcast Knowing Animals. I am also a member of the Research Advisory Committee of the Vegan Society.
I joined Loughborough in 2022 as a British Academy Postdoctoral Fellow and Lecturer in Political Philosophy; my Fellowship was completed in 2023, and I was promoted to Senior Lecturer in 2025.
Prior to beginning at Loughborough…
- I worked as British Academy Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Politics and International Relations at the University of Sheffield (2019-22), where I was mentored by Alasdair Cochrane and undertook a project called Food Justice and Animals: Feeding the World Respectfully.
- I worked as an Associate Lecturer in Political Philosophy in (what was then) the Department of Politics at the University of York (2017-19)
- I worked as a Postdoctoral Fellow in Animal Studies in the Department of Philosophy at Queen’s University in Canada (2016-17), where I was mentored by Will Kymlicka. My project was called Just Fodder: The Ethics and Politics of Feeding Animals.
- I read for my PhD in Philosophy in (what was then) the School of Politics, International Studies, and Philosophy at Queen’s University Belfast (2013-16). My thesis, The Political Turn in Animal Ethics, was supervised David Archard and Jeremy Watkins, and examined by Tom Walker and Robert Garner, and funded by a grant from Northern Ireland’s Department for Employment and Learning. (As a PhD student, I won the 2016 Res Publica postgraduate essay prize.)
- I read for a BA and an MA in Philosophy in (what was then) the Department of Politics, Philosophy, and Religion at Lancaster University (2009-2013). At Lancaster, I worked with lots of people, but both of my dissertations were supervised by Sam Clark.
I’m originally from near Barrow-in-Furness, Cumbria. I now live in York with my wife Becky and our dogs Hollie and Casper. Interests outside of academia include British wildlife, vegetable gardening, vegan food/drink, reading, video games, board games, TV, and films.
Josh Milburn 