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Musings

Critter News

I'm reading a book about women in the American abolitionist movement. There are a lot of similarities between that movement and today's animal rights movement (such as it is.but that's another post). Quakers, for example, were the early abolitionists in the US. Just look at the pro-life movement.

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Majority Rules in the Language of Animal Rights

Animal Person

Here's a hint from the authors: In the end, it's not the grammarians and usage experts who decide what's right. In the eighteenth century, for example, grammarians tried to stamp out the use of "wrote" as the past tense of "write." The animal rights movement, such as it is, is experiencing somewhat of a crisis of usage.

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On the Psychological Continuum

Animal Person

So, while this fact does not need to concern us, if we are thinking about ethical principles, for example based on rational arguments leading to deontological ethics, that changes when we are talking about how to move society towards this ethical ideal. In contrast, abstract-rational entities, like personhood or rights, are not.