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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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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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Hal Herzog's "Some We Love, Some We Hate, Some We Eat"

Animal Person

Herzog, unsurprisingly, uses “it” to refer to animals, eats and wears them, and “[does] not feel particularly guilty about it” (P.S., He watched cockfighting and killed and skinned animals, but won’t eat veal. On page 172, when Herzog writes, “I am conflicted over many moral issues involving animals,” I respond, “No kidding!”

Vegan 100
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Plant Rights

Animal Ethics

If Smith thinks that plant rights and animal rights stand or fall together, then he is confused, for there is a morally relevant difference between plants and animals, namely, that only the latter are sentient. Addendum: Smith appears not to understand the animal-rights movement.

Rights 40
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Majority Rules in the Language of Animal Rights

Animal Person

The animal rights movement, such as it is, is experiencing somewhat of a crisis of usage. Wrong and right are less useful and more fluid in language, but they're not in morality. Do you want people to stop using animals? Your belief about the rights of other sentients won't change.

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Animal Companions

Animal Ethics

Here are three paragraphs from a recent essay by Roger Scruton : As I suggested, science provides authority for this weird morality only when clothed in moral doctrine. The sleight of hand that gave us the “selfish” gene gives us the rights of baboons. And that explains, in part, the appeal of the animal-rights movement.

Animal 40
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J. Baird Callicott on Environmental Ethics

Animal Ethics

There are intractable practical differences between environmental ethics and the animal liberation movement. Very different moral obligations follow in respect, most importantly, to domestic animals, the principal beneficiaries of the humane ethic. Every paragraph is interesting.

Ethics 40