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Tom Regan on the Animal-Rights Movement

Animal Ethics

It is simply projustice, insisting only that the scope of justice be seen to include respect for the rights of animals. The animal rights movement is not for the faint of heart. How we change the dominant misconception of animals—indeed, whether we change it—is to a large extent a political question.

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Joel Feinberg (1926-2004) on the Logic of Animal Rights

Animal Ethics

I believe that this view of the moral status of animals is radically mistaken, not because its distinguished proponents are somehow misinformed about the facts or insensitive in their attitudes, but rather because they misunderstand the basic terms of their own moral vocabulary even as applied to human beings.

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Joel Feinberg (1926-2004) on Animal Rights

Animal Ethics

But it seems to me, nevertheless, that in general, animals are among the sorts of beings of whom rights can meaningfully be predicated and denied. We must now ask ourselves for whose sake ought we to treat (some) animals with consideration and humaneness? Joel Feinberg , "The Rights of Animals and Unborn Generations," chap.

2004 40
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Tom Regan on Utilitarianism

Animal Ethics

The initial attractiveness of utilitarianism as a moral theory on which to rest the call for the better treatment of animals was noted in an earlier context. Because animals are sentient (i.e., Because animals are sentient (i.e.,

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Tom Regan on the Use of Animals in Science

Animal Ethics

There are also some things we cannot learn by using humans, if we respect their rights. The rights view merely requires moral consistency in this regard. ( Tom Regan , The Case for Animal Rights , updated with a new preface [Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2004], 388 [first edition published in 1983])

Science 40
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Tom Regan on Endangered Species

Animal Ethics

If people are encouraged to believe that the harm done to animals matters morally only when these animals belong to endangered species, then these same people will be encouraged to regard the harm done to other animals as morally acceptable.

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Tom Regan on Kant's View of Animals

Animal Ethics

That Kant should hold such a view should not be surprising; it is a direct consequence of his moral theory, the main outlines of which may be briefly, albeit crudely, summarized. As such, no moral agent is ever to be treated merely as a means. Moral agents are not nonrational, do not have "only a relative value," and are not things.