Catia Faria (born 1980)^[1] is a Portuguesemoral philosopher and activist foranimal rights andfeminism. She is assistant professor in Applied Ethics at theComplutense University of Madrid,^[2] and is a board member of theUPF-Centre for Animal Ethics.^[3] Faria specialises innormative andapplied ethics, especially focusing on how they apply to the moral consideration of non-human animals.^[3] In 2022, she published her first book,Animal Ethics in the Wild: Wild Animal Suffering and Intervention in Nature.^[4]

Faria earned aB.A. in Philosophy from theUniversity of Porto, aM.A. in Cognitive Sciences from theUniversity of Barcelona and aPhD in Moral Philosophy fromPompeu Fabra University.^[5] Faria's thesis was the first of its kind to defend the idea that humans should help non-human animals in the wild to reduce the problem ofwild animal suffering; it was assessed by Genoveva Martí,Alasdair Cochrane andJeff McMahan, and supervised byPaula Casal,Oscar Horta, and Joao Cardoso Rosas.^[6]

Faria is assistant professor in Applied Ethics at theComplutense University of Madrid. She formerly worked as a postdoctoral researcher for thePortuguese Foundation for Science and Technology at theUniversity of Minho,^[2] as lecturer in Ethics and Sustainability atPompeu Fabra University,^[5] and was a visiting researcher at theOxford Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics.^[7]

In 2015, Faria co-edited, with Eze Paez, a double volume of the journalRelations. Beyond Anthropocentrism, on the problem of wild animal suffering and ways to reduce it.^[8] She has also authored articles for theUniversity of Oxford'sPractical Ethics blog;^[9]Nietzsche's Horse, the Spanish online newspaperElDiario.es's blog on animal issues;^[10] andPikara Magazine, the online feminist magazine.^[11] In 2020, Faria co-authored, with Oscar Horta, a chapter onwelfare biology inThe Routledge Handbook of Animal Ethics.^[12] Her first book,Animal Ethics in the Wild: Wild Animal Suffering and Intervention in Nature, was published in 2022.^[4]

Faria is critical of theenvironmentalist view that nature should be left alone and argues that environmentalists intervene in nature constantly foranthropocentric benefit and to further their own aims;^[13] she asserts thatanimal and environmental ethics are incompatible because of their differing moral consideration of non-human animals.^[14] Faria claims that those who rejectspeciesism should give moral consideration to the well-being and interests of non-human animals in the wild, assentient beings, and work towards reducing their suffering due to natural causes.^[13]

Faria argues that bothintersectional feminism and antispeciesism are necessary in the fight for equality and justice. She is the originator of the concept of "xenozoopolis"; a hybrid ofxenofeminism and antispeciesism,^[15] which calls for the abolition of the "human-alien binary".^[16] Faria also asserts that a feminist approach towards antispeciesism implies a commitment toveganism.^[17]

Faria distances herself fromecofeminism, which she criticises for its view that the main source of harm for non-human animals in the wild is patriarchal culture and that the best way to help them is through conservation, as this is built on the premise that nature and natural processes are idyllic for non-human animals. Faria argues that this view of nature is inaccurate and that suffering is commonly experienced by these individuals. She asserts that while we should replace the existing male paradigms of intervention in nature, such ashunting, this does not mean that the solution is non-intervention. She instead contends that we should work towards helping these individuals.^[17]

• ——; Almiron, Núria (2024).Especismo y lenguaje [Speciesism and Language] (in Spanish). Madrid: Plaza y Valdés.ISBN 9788417121730.
• —— (2022).Animal Ethics in the Wild: Wild Animal Suffering and Intervention in Nature.Cambridge University Press.ISBN 9781009100632.
• ——;Horta, Oscar (2020)."Welfare Biology". In Fischer, Bob (ed.).The Routledge Handbook of Animal Ethics. New York: Routledge.doi:10.4324/9781315105840-41.ISBN 978-1-351-60235-8.OCLC 1114567320.S2CID 241043958.
• ——; Paez, Eze (2019)."Why environmentalism cannot beat denialism: An antispeciesist approach to the ethics of climate change". In Almiron, Núria; Xifra, Jordi (eds.).Climate Change Denial and Public Relations: Strategic Communication and Interest Groups in Climate Inaction (1 ed.). Abingdon, Oxon; New York, NY: Routledge.doi:10.4324/9781351121798.ISBN 978-1-351-12179-8.S2CID 213336626.
• Almiron, Núria; —— (2019-07-01)."Environmental and Animal Defense".American Behavioral Scientist.63 (8):1043–1046.doi:10.1177/0002764219830458.hdl:10230/42775.ISSN 0002-7642.S2CID 151299541.
• Almiron, Núria; —— (2019-05-29)."Climate Change Impacts on Free-Living Nonhuman Animals. Challenges for Media and Communication Ethics".Studies in Media and Communication.7 (1): 37.doi:10.11114/smc.v7i1.4305.ISSN 2325-808X.
• —— (May 2018)."A flimsy case for the use of non-human primates in research: a reply to Arnason".Journal of Medical Ethics.44 (5):332–333.doi:10.1136/medethics-2017-104444.ISSN 0306-6800.PMID 29032367.S2CID 207012970.
• —— (2016-06-30)."Why we should not postpone awareness of wild animal suffering".Animal Sentience.1 (7).doi:10.51291/2377-7478.1099.ISSN 2377-7478.
• —— (2016-03-15).Animal ethics goes wild: The problem of wild animal suffering and intervention in nature (PhD thesis). Universitat Pompeu Fabra.
• —— (November 2015)."Disentangling Obligations of Assistance: a Reply to Clare Palmer's "Against the View That We Are Usually Required to Assist Wild Animals"".Relations.3 (2) 7:211–218.doi:10.7358/rela-2015-002-fari.
• ——; Paez, Eze (2014)."Anthropocentrism and speciesism: conceptual and normative issues".Revista de Bioética y Derecho (32):95–103.doi:10.4321/S1886-58872014000300009.ISSN 1886-5887.
• —— (2014)."Equality, priority and nonhuman animals".Dilemata: International Journal of Applied Ethics.14:225–236.
• —— (2010)."Zamir, Tzachi,Ethics and the Beast: A Speciesist Argument for Animal Liberation".Telos (in Spanish).17 (1):109–120.

• Hill, Kristine (2024). "Can we ignore animal suffering?".Society & Animals.33 (3):329–332.doi:10.1163/15685306-bja10201.
• Bobier, Christopher (2023)."Catia Faria, "Animal Ethics in the Wild: Wild Animal Suffering and Intervention in Nature"".Philosophy in Review.43 (2):25–27.doi:10.7202/1100432ar.ISSN 1206-5269.
• Katz, Tristan David (2023). "Catia Faria: Animal Ethics in the Wild".Ethical Theory and Moral Practice.26 (5):833–5.doi:10.1007/s10677-023-10406-z.
• Milburn, Josh (2023)."Catia Faria,Animal Ethics in the Wild: Wild Animal Suffering and Intervention in Nature (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2023), pp. ix + 222".Utilitas.35 (4).Cambridge University Press:329–332.doi:10.1017/S0953820823000201.
• Bekoff, Marc (19 July 2023)."Should We Try to Alleviate the Suffering of Wild Animals?".Psychology Today. Retrieved19 July 2023.
• Arco, Antonio (2018-03-21)."Catia Faria: "Los seres humanos y los no humanos merecemos todos el mismo respeto"" [Catia Faria: "Human beings and non-humans all deserve the same respect"].La Verdad (in Spanish). Retrieved2021-02-13.
• Persinger, Corinne (2025). "Catia Faria.Animal Ethics in the Wild: Wild Animal Suffering and Intervention in Nature".Environmental Ethics.47 (1):101–5.Bibcode:2025EnEth..47..101P.doi:10.5840/enviroethics20254716.

• Catia Faria publications onAcademia.edu
• Catia Faria publications onelDiario.es
• Catia Faria publications onMedium
• Obligations of Assistance and Wild Animals with Catia Faria onKnowing Animals (episode 97)
• Post-Darwinian Nature and Ethics (in Spanish)

• 1980 births
• Living people
• 21st-century Portuguese philosophers
• Academic staff of the Complutense University of Madrid
• Animal ethicists
• Animal rights scholars
• Feminist ethicists
• Scholars of feminist philosophy
• People from Porto
• Pompeu Fabra University alumni
• Portuguese animal rights activists
• Portuguese ethicists
• Portuguese feminists
• Portuguese women activists
• University of Barcelona alumni
• University of Porto alumni
• Scholars of veganism
• Wild animal suffering writers
• Writers from Porto
• Portuguese feminist writers

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