Professor Jonathan Birch explores Gandhi’s Ahimsaism, Insects, and Animal Sentience

“Let’s make a world in which all sentient beings are respected, even the smallest ones.” This mission guides our Invertebrate Sentience research area.

But what does respect for individual insects look like in practice - especially when public health, veterinary, and agricultural systems still depend on harming them? Is using an insecticide‑treated malaria net to protect a child ethically different from large‑scale commercial pesticide use - and on what basis?

A new special edition of the Journal of Practical Ethics turns to Indian animal ethics, focusing on Gandhi’s progressive ahimsaism. Grounded in the ideal of ahimsa - nonviolence and noninjury - this framework allows duties to avoid harm to be overridden by duties of care, under specific conditions and still guided by that ideal. It offers a structured way to distinguish between potentially justified and unjustified harms to insects: practical ethics for a world where care and harm are deeply entangled.

Our Centre Director Professor Jonathan Birch provides an exposition and analysis of the framework. The edition also includes commentaries from Dr Angie Pepper, Dr Gary O’Brien, Dr Samantha Hurn & Dr Alexander Badman‑King (co-authored), followed by a final response.

You can read the special edition here: https://uehiro.ox.ac.uk/article/jpe-ahimsa.