ORCID

ORCID-ID: 0000-0002-9877-4009

In 2019, I completed my BSc degree in veterinary medicine at the University of Utrecht. In 2020, I completed my MA degree in Applied Ethics at the University of Utrecht. During both degrees, I concerned myself with reimagining the human-animal-relationship and questioned what is required of individuals and institutions in order to achieve justice for animals.  

In 2025, I got my doctorate degree in philosophy. My PhD thesis was part of the PRIMA Project “Beastly Politics – a theory of justice for nonhuman animals”. My supervisors are Prof. Dr. Angela Martin and Prof. Dr. Markus Wild. 

My PhD thesis „Speciesist Ignorance: Bridging animal ethics and the epistemology of ignorance” explored the concept of moral ignorance and its role in the political non-responsiveness to animal injustices. I identified ignorance as a major obstacle to asserting interspecies justice because of its self-sustaining nature. Moreover, the thesis explored the epistemic obligations of individuals and institutions regarding the human-animal-relationship—e.g to what extent social institutions have the obligation to produce and disseminate knowledge about animals’ lives, and individuals to question, deliberate, and reconsider. Lastly, the thesis explored how different actors must discourage the production of ignorance in order to halt its contribution of animal injustices.

• Animal Ethics
• One Health ethics
• Social Epistemology
• Epistemology of Ignorance
• Moral Blame
• Epistemic Responsibility

Research

I am researching the concept of One Health, which the One Health High Level Expert Panel has defined as “an integrated, unifying approach that aims to sustainably balance and optimize the health of people, animals, and ecosystems”.

My research includes conceptual analysis of One Health, to understand what research questions, methods and aims are included (and excluded) in this approach, whether it contains logical or ethical inconsistencies, and to what extent it differs from (and overlaps with) competing concepts such as Planetary Health, Global Health, and Veterinary Public Health.

Alongside this epistemological research, I will engage with ethical questions such as whether One Health is best understood as an egalitarian or hierarchical concept, as an ideal or a non-ideal concept, and whether the concept itself or its practical applications ought to be tweaked.

Van den Brandeler, E.L. (forthcoming). The epistemic obstacles of fairly including animals in One-Health decision-making. In EurSafe2026 Proceedings. Wageningen Academic Publishers.

van den Brandeler, E. L. (2024). Institutional epistemic barriers to anti-speciesist knowledge. InEurSafe2024 Proceedings(pp. 167-172). Wageningen Academic Publishers. brill. com/edcollchap-oa/book/9789004715509/BP000028.xml

van den Brandeler, E.L. (2024). Towards an Epistemology of 'Speciesist Ignorance'.Res Publica. doi. org/10.1007/s11158-024-09656-0

van den Brandeler, E. (2023). [Review of the book Protecting Animals Within and Across Borders - Extraterritorial Jurisdiction and the Challenges of Globalisation, by C. Blattner]. Studia Philosophica, 83.

van den Brandeler, E. (2021). The political turn of the animal ethical discourse-the need for a virtue ethical approach. InJustice and food security in a changing climate(p. 9). Wageningen Academic Publishers. www. wageningenacademic.com/doi/abs/10.3920/978-90-8686-915-2_26

The Vonne Lund Prize for Young Researchers 2021 - for the lecture and the paper: "The political turn of the animal ethical discourse - the need for a virtue ethical approach" Read more

HS 2026 Seminar "Limits of Knowing: Political epistemology and ethics [EN]", at the Department of Philosophy, University of Basel. Course design and teaching.

HS 2023 Seminar "The Epistemology and Ethics of Ignorance [EN]" at the Department of Philosophy, University of Basel. Course organisation and teaching.

International conference talks

Upcoming: The epistemic obstacles of fairly including animals in One-Health decision-making (conference talk). EurSafe Congress on Agriculture and Food systems: The Role of AI and Digitalisation. (9-12 September 2026)

Upcoming: The epistemic obstacles of fairly including animals in One-Health decision-making (conference talk). ^16th Braga Meetings on Ethics and Political Philosophy. Braga, Portugal, Centre for Ethics, Politics and Society (CEPS), University of Minho. (29 June - 1 July 2026)

Cultivating Epistemic Virtues for Fruitful Animal Politics (conference talk). Political Theory, Applied Ethics, and Animals. Sheffield, England, the United Kingdom. (16-17 Jan 2025)

Institutional Epistemic Barriers to Anti-Speciesist Knowledge (conference talk). EurSafe ^25th Congress on sustainable innovations for ethical food production and consumption, Ede (11-14 Sep 2024)

Epistemic Responsibilities of Public Institutions in the Human-Animal Relationship (conference talk). MANCEPT Workshops in Political Theory. Animals, Equality, and Democracy: Works in memory of Siobhan O'Sullivan. (4-6 Sep 2024)

Institutional Epistemic Obligations and Interspecies Justice: Analysing Decision-Making in Zoonotic Outbreaks and Climate Policies (conference talk). International Society for Environmental Ethics^21st Annual Summer Meeting on Environmental Change and Democracy. (24-26 June 2024)

Institutional Epistemic Obligations and Accountability for Democratic Deliberation (conference talk).^6th Topoi Conference on Social Epistemology and Argumentation. Free University Amsterdam. (29 April-05 May 2024)

Epistemic Barriers of Public Institutions in the Human-Animal Relationship (workshop talk). Rethinking Institutions for Nonhuman Animals. University of Basel (7-8 March 2024).

Institutional Epistemic Duties and Epistemic Violations in Public Health Decision-Making (conference talk). Swiss Society for Biomedical Ethics Annual Winter Seminar. (18-20 Jan 2024)

Ignorance as an individual and institutional strategy to avoid responsibility (conference session). ^16th World Congress of Bioethics in Basel. University of Basel, Switzerland (20-22 July 2022)

Speciesist Ignorance as an Obstacle to Animal Justice (conference talk). Society for Applied Philosophy, Edinburgh, Scotland, UK (29-30 June 2022)

The Political Turn of the Animal Ethical Discourse: The need for a virtue ethical approach. ^16th Eursafe Congress. On Justice and food security in a changing climate (24-26 June 2021). www. wageningenacademic.com/doi/epdf/10.3920/978-90-8686-915-2

Organizing events 

Two-day workshop "Rethinking Institutions for Nonhuman Animals", co-organised with Prof. Dr. Angela Martin. 7-8 March 2024, University of Basel.

Academic writing seminar. Jointly organised with Prof. Dr. Angela Martin and Christian Rodriguez-Perez. 12-14 February 2024. Philosophical Seminar, University of Basel.

Graphic design "Philosophische Gesellschaft Basel" for the philosophical seminar series (spring semester 2023, autumn semester 2024 and spring semester 2025).

Academic outreach 

Expert interview in the Swiss online magazine "Peeps" about animal testing commissions in Switzerland (2023)

Expert interview in the Dutch popular science magazine "Quest" on the topic of animal ethics (2020).