My Books

Duty and The Beast

The moral status of animals is a subject of controversy both within and beyond academic philosophy, especially regarding the question of whether and when it is ethical to eat meat. A commitment to animal rights and related notions of animal protection is often thought to entail a plant-based diet, but recent philosophical work challenges this view by arguing that, even if animals warrant a high degree of moral standing, we are permitted – or even obliged – to eat meat. Andy Lamey provides critical analysis of past and present dialogues surrounding animal rights, discussing topics including plant agriculture, animal cognition, and in vitro meat. He documents the trend toward a new kind of omnivorism that justifies meat-eating within a framework of animal protection, and evaluates for the first time which forms of this new omnivorism can be ethically justified, providing crucial guidance for philosophers as well as researchers in culture and agriculture.

Reviews of Duty and the Beast

“Provides us with a far better appreciation of the challenges to which vegetarians and vegans must respond. . . . Duty and the Beast is a very good book published at a very opportune time. Lamey’s expositions are pointed and detailed, and many of his suggestions are innovative and persuasive.”–Mark Bernstein, Journal of Animal Ethics

“A highly sophisticated, yet lucid and innovative, philosophical investigation on how non-human animals ought to be treated. Those who appreciate philosophical thought experiments and/or science-informed discussions on ethics will find Lamey’s work essential reading.”–Markku Oksanen, Environmental Values

“An important contribution worthy of close study.”–Christopher Bobier, Metapsychology Online Reviews

“Rigorously researched and argued.”–Margaret Betz, Choice Reviews

Frontier Justice

Frontier Justiceis a gripping, eye-opening exploration of the world-wide refugee crisis. Combining reporting, history and political philosophy, Andy Lamey sets out to explain the story behind the radical increase in the global number of asylum-seekers, and the effects of North America and Europe’s increasing unwillingness to admit them.

He follows the extraordinary efforts of a set of Yale law students who sued the U.S. government on behalf of a group of refugees imprisoned at Guantánamo Bay; he recounts one refugee family’s harrowing journey from Saddam Hussein’s Iraq to contemporary Australia via the world’s most dangerous ocean crossing; and he explores the fascinating case of Ahmed Ressam, the so-called Millennium bomber who filed a refugee claim in Canada before attempting to blow up the Los Angeles airport. Lamey casts new light on a host of broader subjects, from the reasons why terrorists who pose as refugees have an overwhelming failure rate to the hidden benefits of multiculturalism.

Throughout Lamey’s account, he focuses on the rights of people in search of asylum, and how those rights are routinely violated. But Frontier Justice does not merely point out problems. This book offers a bold case for an original solution to the international asylum crisis, one which draws upon Canada’s unique approach to asylum-seekers. At the centre of the book is a new blueprint for how the rights of refugees might be enforced, and a vision of human rights that is ultimately optimistic and deeply affirmative.

In exploring one of the most pressing questions of our age, Lamey provides an absorbing and unsettling look at a world in which, as he notes, there are many rights for citizens, few for human beings.

Frontier Justice on Amazon

Reviews of Frontier Justice

The Rights of Refugees by Doug Saunders – The Literary Review of Canada

“Lamey has produced a superb and immensely readable work.”
July 10, 2011

The Globe and Mail on Frontier Justice

“Andy Lamey tackles this timely and critical debate with an intellect and a passion that are formidable. Frontier Justice could, quite possibly, have a lasting effect on policy in Canada and elsewhere.”
Apr 23, 2011

One of the best books of 2011

The Hill Times (Ottawa) names Frontier Justice one of the best books of 2011.
Feb 8, 2012

Fortress Australia alive and well in asylum-seeker debate

The Weekend Australian: “From the perspective of the Australian debate, Andy Lamey’s Frontier Justice provides a welcome corrective . . . thoughtful and rewarding.”
Feb 4, 2012

Frontier Justice in Top 20 Foreign Policy Books of 2011

Embassy magazine (Ottawa) declares Frontier Justice one of the Top 20 Foreign Policy Books of 2011.
Oct 16, 2011

Voice of reason on refugees

The Chronicle Herald (Halifax): “A book that pulses with intellectual curiosity and energy . . . a calm, lucid voice in a debate often sidetracked by terrorist panic and hypocrisy about human rights.”
May 3, 2011

Powerful and Dramatic

The Age (Melbourne): “Rivalling the film Casablanca for drama and romance is the refugee story of philosopher Hannah Arendt’s escape from Germany in 1933 and her reunion with her second husband after the invasion of France. Without passport or visa, Arendt managed to cross the border through a house that had its front door in Germany and back door in Czechoslovakia. Later, while in Paris, she met another German refugee and married him. They were separated after being interned but met again in the south of France. Lamey tells this story as a way of exploring the plight of the modern refugee and Arendt’s own position on the ‘impossibility of human rights’ for refugees, inspired by what she experienced and witnessed during the war. It’s a powerful introduction to a discussion of the contemporary refugee crisis.”
Nov 11, 2011

Reconciling Rights and Sovereignty

Inside Edition (Melbourne): “Frontier Justice would make useful reading for the prime minister’s expert panel on asylum seekers.”

WorldCat

Copies of Frontier Justice available for loan in your area may be found at WorldCat.