BIOGRAPHY

After studying at Rice University and the University of Paris, Steve received his Ph.D. in philosophy from Yale in 1971.  That same year, he began teaching philosophy at the California State University campus in Hayward and continued to do so until failing vision forced him to retire from teaching in 1997.  His philosophical specialties were Ethics, particularly animal rights and moral relativism, 20th century European philosophy, particularly French existentialism, and logic.  He published a book on animal rights, Morals, Reason, and Animals, with Temple University Press, edited another on vegetarianism, Food for Thought, The Debate over Eating Meat, for Prometheus Books, and wrote a third on moral relativism, Subjective Morals, published by University Press of America.  He contributed dozens of articles, both academic and popular, to a wide variety of journals and magazines.  He co-founded and for a decade co-edited the animal rights journal Between the Species.  With his wife, Jeanne Gocker, Steve co-founded and continues to direct Hayward Friends of Animals, a non-sheltering S.P.C.A., which sponsors Second Chance, Helping the Pets of People in Need.  Second Chance helps low-income dog owners living on the Mendocino Coast feed, care for, spay or neuter, and get veterinary care for their companion animals.  You can check out their website at www.SecondChanceFortBragg.org. His recent literary efforts have focused on the short story, several of which have appeared in publications of the California Writers Clubs and Writers of the Mendocino Coast.  [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Sapontzis]