Portrait of Dr. Bob Fischer

Dr. Bob Fischer

  • Professor at Philosophy, College of Liberal Arts

Scholarly and Creative Works

2027

  • Gilbertson, E. N., & Fischer, R. W. (n.d.). The Ethics of Doping in Animal Sport. In The Oxford Handbook of Sports Ethics. Oxford University Press.

2025

  • Smith, K., & Fischer, B. (2025). Foundations Should Invest More in Staffing.
  • Fischer, B. (2025). Feeder Insects: The Ethics of Live Feeding in Zoos and Aquariums. Zoo Biology, 44(4), 353--359. https://doi.org/10.1002/zoo.21902
  • Barrett, M., Raffel, T., & Fischer, B. (2025). ‘Biologically Degenerate, Ecologically Marginal’: Parasites as a Case Study in Societal Values Impacting Ecological Research. Philosophy, Theory, and Practice in Biology, 17(2). Retrieved from https://journals.publishing.umich.edu/ptpbio/article/5837/galley/5641/download/
  • Fischer, B., & Picard, C. (2025). Good Intentions, Misaligned Incentives? Navigating Nagoya. American Entomologist, 71(4), 26--27. https://doi.org/10.1093/ae/tmaf064
  • Graham, M., & Fischer, B. (2025). Research sense: Incorporating animals’ sensory capacities in animal care and study design. Laboratory Animals, 00236772251385784. https://doi.org/10.1177/00236772251385784
  • Fischer, B., & Barrett, M. (2025). If De‐Extinction Doesn’t Satisfy, Why Not? American Entomologist, 71(3), 20--22. https://doi.org/10.1093/ae/tmaf054
  • Barrett, M., & Fischer, R. W. (2025). The Era beyond Eisemann et al. (1984): Insect Pain in the 21st Century. The Quarterly Review of Biology, 100(3), 161--187. https://doi.org/10.1086/737365
  • Perl, C. D., Kissinger, C., Godfrey, R. K., Castillo, E. M., Fischer, B., & Barrett, M. (2025). Identifying trends in reporting on the ethical treatment of insects in research. PLOS ONE, 20(8), e0328931. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0328931
  • Fischer, B., & Barrett, M. (2025). On the Utility of the Pathological Complexity Thesis. Philosophia. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11406-025-00884-z
  • Fischer, B., & Tomberlin, J. K. (2025). The Weight of Evidence: Professional Ethics and Expert Testimony in Forensic Entomology. American Entomologist, 71(2), 22--24. https://doi.org/10.1093/ae/tmaf027
  • Kanepajs, A., Basu, A., Ghose, S., Li, C., Mehta, A., Mehta, R., … Anthis, J. R. (2025). What do Large Language Models Say About Animals? Investigating Risks of Animal Harm in Generated Text. In Proceedings of the 2025 ACM Conference on Fairness, Accountability, and Transparency (pp. 1387--1410). New York, NY, USA: Association for Computing Machinery. https://doi.org/10.1145/3715275.3732094
  • Fischer, B. (2025). Farming insects in the zoopolis? Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy, 0(0), 1--7. https://doi.org/10.1080/13698230.2025.2499368
  • Fischer, B. (2025). Should Researchers Use Fruit Flies Instead of Mice in Pain Research? Animal Behaviour and Welfare Cases, 2025, abwcases20250012. https://doi.org/10.1079/abwcases.2025.0012
  • Fischer, B. (2025). Beyond ordinal scales: making animal welfare count in policy analysis. Frontiers in Veterinary Science, 12. https://doi.org/10.3389/fvets.2025.1556475
  • De Jong, G. D., & Fischer, B. (2025). Deepfake Insects? Deciding How to Respond to a New Threat to Taxonomy. American Entomologist, 71(1), 20--22. https://doi.org/10.1093/ae/tmaf001
  • Fischer, B., Gottlieb, J., Schnell, A. K., & Barrett, M. (2025). Defending and refining the Birch et al. (2021) precautionary framework for animal sentience. Animal Welfare, 34, e28. https://doi.org/10.1017/awf.2025.27
  • Clatterbuck, H., & Fischer, B. (2025). Navigating Uncertainty about Sentience. Ethics, 135(2), 229--258. https://doi.org/10.1086/732624

2024

2023

2022

2021

2020

2019

2018

  • Fischer, B. (2018). Arguments for Consuming Animal Products. In A. Barnhill, M. Budolfson, & T. Doggett (Eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Food Ethics (pp. 241–266). New York: Oxford University Press.
  • Fischer, B. (2018). C. I. Lewis and the Benacerraf Problem. Episteme, 15(2), 154–165.
  • Fischer, B. (2018). Teaching for Our Good. In S. Cahn, A. Bradner, & A. Mills (Eds.), Philosophers in the Classroom: Essays on Teaching (pp. 159–169). Indianapolis, IN: Hackett.
  • Bower, M. E., & Fischer, B. (2018). Categorical Desires and the Badness of Animal Death. The Journal of Value Inquiry, 52, 97–111.
  • Fischer, B. (2018). Animal Rights and Incredulous Stares. Between the Species, 21(1), 216–231.
  • Demetriou, D., & Fischer, B. (2018). Dignitarian Hunting: A Rights-based Defense. Social Theory and Practice, 44(1), 49–73.
  • Bob, & Wiegman, I. T. (2018). Disassociation Intuitions. In Southwest Philosophy Review (1st ed., Vol. 34, pp. 85–92).
  • Ozturk, B. T., & Fischer, B. (2018). Speech and War: Rethinking the Ethics of Speech Restrictions. In D. A. Downs & C. W. Surpernant (Eds.), The Value and Limits of Academic Speech: Philosophical, Political, and Legal Perspectives (pp. 187–204). New York: Routledge.
  • Fischer, B. (2018). Philosophy in Review.
  • Fischer, B., & Lamey, A. (2018). Field Deaths in Plant Agriculture. Journal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics, 31, 409–428.
  • Fischer, B. (2018). Is Abolitionism Guilty of Racism? A Reply to Cordeiro-Rodrigues. Journal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics, 31, 295–306.
  • Fischer, B. (2018). Individuals in the Wild. Animal Sentience, 2018(170).
  • Fischer, B. (2018). Insider Talk: Challenging Food Choices. The Prindle Post. Retrieved from https://www.prindlepost.org/2018/08/insider-talk-challenging-food-choices/

2017

  • Fischer, B., & Ozturk, B. (2017). Facsimiles of Flesh. Journal of Applied Philosophy, 34(4).
  • Fischer, B. (2017). What Can You Build. In S. Bacharach & R. Cook (Eds.), LEGO and Philosophy (pp. 207–216). New York: Blackwell.
  • Fischer, B. (2017). Modal Empiricism: Objection, Reply, Proposal. In B. Fischer & F. Leon (Eds.), Modal Epistemology After Rationalism (pp. 263–280). Cham, Switzerland: Springer.
  • Fischer, B., & Leon, F. (2017). Modal Epistemology After Rationalism. Cham, Switzerland: Springer.
  • Fischer, B. (2017). Modal Justification via Theories. Cham, Switzerland: Springer.
  • Elder, M., & Fischer, B. (2017). Focus on Fish: A Call to Effective Altruists. Essays in Philosophy, 18(1), 1–23.
  • Fischer, B. (2017). The Moral Objection to Modal Realism. Erkenntnis, 82(5), 1015–1030.
  • Fischer, B. (2017). Between the Species.
  • Fischer, B. (2017). Chignell, Cuneo, and Halteman’s Philosophy Comes to Dinner. The Philosophical Review.
  • Fischer, B. (2017). J. M. Coetzee’s The Lives of Animals. Metapsychology. Retrieved from http://metapsychology.mentalhelp.net/poc/view_doc.php?type=book&id=7796&cn=139
  • Fischer, B. (2017). Wild Fish and Expected Utility. Bangladesh Journal of Bioethics, 8(1), 1–6. Retrieved from http://www.banglajol.info/index.php/BIOETHICS/article/view/31078/20936
  • Fischer, B. (2017). Between the Species.
  • Fischer, B. (2017). Metapsychology.
  • Fischer, B. (2017). Modal Epistemology. In 1000-Word Philosophy. Retrieved from https://1000wordphilosophy.com/modal-epistemology/

2016

  • Fischer, B. (2016). Bugging the Strict Vegan. Journal of Agricultural & Environmental Ethics, 29(2), 255–263.
  • Fischer, R. W. (2016). Disgust as Heuristic. Ethical Theory and Moral Practice, 19, 679–693.
  • Fischer, B. (2016). Hale on the Architecture of Modal Knowledge. Analytic Philosophy, 57(1), 76–89.
  • Fischer, B., & Leon, F. (2016). The Modal-Knowno Problem. Southwest Philosophy Review, 32(1), 225–232.
  • Fischer, B. (Ed.). (2016). College Ethics: A Reader on Moral Issues that Affect You. New York: Oxford University Press.
  • Fischer, B. (2016). You Can’t Buy Your Way Out of Veganism. Between the Species, 19(1), 193–209.
  • Fischer, B. (2016). What If Barron and Klein Are Right About Insect Sentience? Animal Sentience, 1(9). Retrieved from http://animalstudiesrepository.org/animsent/vol1/iss9/8/
  • Fischer, B. (2016). A Theory-based Epistemology of Modality. The Canadian Journal of Philosophy, 46(2), 228–247.
  • Fischer, B. (2016). Ellen K. Silbergeld’s Chickenizing Farms & Food. Metapsychology. Retrieved from http://metapsychology.mentalhelp.net/poc/view_doc.php?type=book&id=7785&cn=139

2015

2014

  • Fischer, R. W. (2014). Why It Doesn’t Matter Whether the Virtues Are Truth-Conducive. Synthese, 191, 1059–1073.
  • Fischer, R. W., & Gilbertson, E. N. (2014). Salvaging Serviceability in Metaphysics. Southwest Philosophy Review, 30(1), 105–115.
  • Fischer, R. W. (2014). Disgust and the Collection of Bovine Fetal Blood. In E. Aaltola & J. Hadley (Eds.), Animal Ethics and Philosophy: Questioning  the Orthodoxy (pp. 151–164). London: Rowman & Littlefield International.
  • Fischer, R. W. (2014). Meat: Ethical Considerations. In P. Thompson & D. Kaplan (Eds.), Encyclopedia of Food and Agricultural Ethics (pp. 1365–1371). New York: Springer.
  • Fischer, B. (2014). David Kaspar’s Intuitionism. Philosophy in Review. Retrieved from https://journals.uvic.ca/index.php/pir/article/view/13128/4036
  • Fischer, R. W. (2014). Lance Rips’ Lines of Thought. Philosophical Psychology.

2012

  • Fischer, R. W. (2012). Modal Knowledge, in Theory. Southwest Philosophy Review, 28(1), 227–236.