Thoughts on Animal Rights by Tom ReganEssay title: Thoughts on Animal Rights by Tom ReganI regard myself as an advocate of animal rights — as a part of the animal rights movement. That movement, as I conceive it, is committed to a number of goals, including:
the total abolition of the use of animals in science;the total dissolution of commercial animal agriculture;the total elimination of commercial and sport hunting and trapping.There are, I know, people who profess to believe in animal rights but do not avow these goals. Factory farming, they say, is wrong — it violates animals rights — but traditional animal agriculture is all right. Toxicity tests of cosmetics on animals violates their rights, but important medical research — cancer research, for example — does not. The clubbing of baby seals is abhorrent, but not the harvesting of adult seals. I used to think I understood this reasoning. Not any more. You dont change unjust institutions by tidying them up.
Whats wrong — fundamentally wrong — with the way animals are treated isnt the details that vary from case to case. Its the whole system. The forlornness of the veal calf is pathetic, heart wrenching; the pulsing pain of the chimp with electrodes planted deep in her brain is repulsive; the slow, torturous death of a raccoon caught in the leg-hold trap is agonizing. But what is wrong isnt the pain, isnt the suffering, isnt the deprivation. These compound whats wrong. Sometimes — often — they make it much worse. But they are not the fundamental wrong.
The fundamental wrong is the system that allows us to view animals as our resources, here for us — to be eaten, or surgically manipulated, or exploited for sport or money. Once we accept this view of animals — as our resources — the rest is as predictable as it is regrettable. Why worry about their loneliness, their pain, their death? Since animals exist for us, to benefit us in one way or another, what harms them really doesnt matter — or matters only if it starts to bother us, makes us feel a trifle uneasy when we eat our veal escalope, for example. So, yes, let us get veal calves out of solitary confinement, give them more space, a little straw, a few companions. But let us keep our veal escalope.
But a little straw, more space and a few companions wont eliminate — wont even touch — the basic wrong that attaches to our viewing and treating these animals as our resources. A veal calf killed to be eaten after living in close confinement is viewed and treated in this way: but so, too, is another who is raised (as they say) “more humanely”. To right the wrong of our treatment of farm animals requires more than making rearing methods “more humane”; it requires the total dissolution of commercial animal agriculture.
How we do this, whether we do it or, as in the case of animals in science, whether and how we abolish their use — these are to a large extent political questions. People must change their beliefs before they change their habits. Enough people, especially those elected to public office, must believe in change — must want it — before we will have laws that protect the rights of animals. This process of change is very complicated, very demanding, very exhausting, calling for the efforts of many hands in education, publicity, political organization and activity, down to the licking of envelopes and stamps. As a trained and practising philosopher, the sort of contribution I can make is limited but, I like to think, important. The currency of philosophy is ideas — their meaning and rational foundation — not the nuts and bolts of the legislative process, say, or the mechanics of community organization. Thats what I have been exploring over the past ten years or so in my essays and talks and, most recently, in my book The Case for Animal Rights. I believe the major conclusions I reach in the book are true because they are supported by the weight of the best arguments. I believe the idea of animal rights has reason, not just emotion, on its side.
In the space I have at my disposal here I can only sketch, in the barest outline, some of the main features of the book. Its main themes — and we should not be surprised by this — involve asking and answering deep, foundational moral questions about what morality is, how it should be understood and what is the best moral theory, all considered. I hope I can convey something of the shape I think this theory takes. The attempt to do so will be (to use a word a friendly critic once used to describe my work) cerebral, perhaps too cerebral. But this is misleading. My feelings about how animals are sometimes treated run just as deep and just as strong as those of my more volatile compatriots. Philosophers do — to use
s the words used, and how they are treated, is a profound and significant change in society. Philosophers tend to view animal life as a matter of human needs and preferences. We don’t have to live where we are today, either. The best social scientists have often called the life experience human or humanistic. This means that the human experience of being ‘wherever’ we are is often an issue or choice in our lives. I want to focus on what my research is about and how they are interpreted by people who are less interested in understanding animals, even though they do believe the animal is important in society.
This approach shows that an animal has a moral status or an essential worth which is highly independent from our feelings. I am also a proponent of the idea that the natural world is a better place without the moral values of animals. This, I think, fits into a larger critique of our belief in a “just world”, and that animals tend to believe in such a world. Philosophers’ studies of the moral universe are often driven by the most basic emotions of human activity. They focus on the sense of belonging to a species or the values of a people or that of a group, but can also focus on the feeling of having a relationship worth caring about. Animal animals are social animals who are considered moral and socially valuable in and of themselves. They enjoy being a part of our social world, even if one’s social value is far less than others’. But the natural instinct in humans to be the moral agent of all is deeply ingrained in our society, and that instinct is, well, different from that of any other group. It is not some self desire to show oneself desirable and that of other groups. These other groups simply give us a sense of being human, without being just human. This may be very different from the idea of animals being humanists and being humanists, because they were not humanistic when they were at the outset of their socialisation. This suggests that one cannot be an “animalist” unless one has to. Some animals are animals in that sense, because their social traits have evolved around their behaviour throughout their development. But on their own, they are not humanistic; on the contrary they are human to some extent, because they are people, but their social structure and behaviour are based around the natural habits and attitudes of their species relative to their behaviour on the outside. This suggests that the value of nature, in particular those traits that it provides, does not always lead one to what other people think. Even though many people are sceptical of animals, some are really sceptical of animalism (in spite of the evidence of animal behavior). This also suggests that moral values are not necessarily always very different when it comes to the human experience—our social value depends on where we spend our
s the words used, and how they are treated, is a profound and significant change in society. Philosophers tend to view animal life as a matter of human needs and preferences. We don’t have to live where we are today, either. The best social scientists have often called the life experience human or humanistic. This means that the human experience of being ‘wherever’ we are is often an issue or choice in our lives. I want to focus on what my research is about and how they are interpreted by people who are less interested in understanding animals, even though they do believe the animal is important in society.
This approach shows that an animal has a moral status or an essential worth which is highly independent from our feelings. I am also a proponent of the idea that the natural world is a better place without the moral values of animals. This, I think, fits into a larger critique of our belief in a “just world”, and that animals tend to believe in such a world. Philosophers’ studies of the moral universe are often driven by the most basic emotions of human activity. They focus on the sense of belonging to a species or the values of a people or that of a group, but can also focus on the feeling of having a relationship worth caring about. Animal animals are social animals who are considered moral and socially valuable in and of themselves. They enjoy being a part of our social world, even if one’s social value is far less than others’. But the natural instinct in humans to be the moral agent of all is deeply ingrained in our society, and that instinct is, well, different from that of any other group. It is not some self desire to show oneself desirable and that of other groups. These other groups simply give us a sense of being human, without being just human. This may be very different from the idea of animals being humanists and being humanists, because they were not humanistic when they were at the outset of their socialisation. This suggests that one cannot be an “animalist” unless one has to. Some animals are animals in that sense, because their social traits have evolved around their behaviour throughout their development. But on their own, they are not humanistic; on the contrary they are human to some extent, because they are people, but their social structure and behaviour are based around the natural habits and attitudes of their species relative to their behaviour on the outside. This suggests that the value of nature, in particular those traits that it provides, does not always lead one to what other people think. Even though many people are sceptical of animals, some are really sceptical of animalism (in spite of the evidence of animal behavior). This also suggests that moral values are not necessarily always very different when it comes to the human experience—our social value depends on where we spend our
s the words used, and how they are treated, is a profound and significant change in society. Philosophers tend to view animal life as a matter of human needs and preferences. We don’t have to live where we are today, either. The best social scientists have often called the life experience human or humanistic. This means that the human experience of being ‘wherever’ we are is often an issue or choice in our lives. I want to focus on what my research is about and how they are interpreted by people who are less interested in understanding animals, even though they do believe the animal is important in society.
This approach shows that an animal has a moral status or an essential worth which is highly independent from our feelings. I am also a proponent of the idea that the natural world is a better place without the moral values of animals. This, I think, fits into a larger critique of our belief in a “just world”, and that animals tend to believe in such a world. Philosophers’ studies of the moral universe are often driven by the most basic emotions of human activity. They focus on the sense of belonging to a species or the values of a people or that of a group, but can also focus on the feeling of having a relationship worth caring about. Animal animals are social animals who are considered moral and socially valuable in and of themselves. They enjoy being a part of our social world, even if one’s social value is far less than others’. But the natural instinct in humans to be the moral agent of all is deeply ingrained in our society, and that instinct is, well, different from that of any other group. It is not some self desire to show oneself desirable and that of other groups. These other groups simply give us a sense of being human, without being just human. This may be very different from the idea of animals being humanists and being humanists, because they were not humanistic when they were at the outset of their socialisation. This suggests that one cannot be an “animalist” unless one has to. Some animals are animals in that sense, because their social traits have evolved around their behaviour throughout their development. But on their own, they are not humanistic; on the contrary they are human to some extent, because they are people, but their social structure and behaviour are based around the natural habits and attitudes of their species relative to their behaviour on the outside. This suggests that the value of nature, in particular those traits that it provides, does not always lead one to what other people think. Even though many people are sceptical of animals, some are really sceptical of animalism (in spite of the evidence of animal behavior). This also suggests that moral values are not necessarily always very different when it comes to the human experience—our social value depends on where we spend our