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From Today's Los Angeles Times

Animal Ethics

Lisa Edmondson, Los Angeles As an intelligent primate, I’d much rather be an ambassador for my species in a secure environment—served the best food and tended to by top-notch veterinarians—than take my chances in a national park where poverty and corruption result in little or no protection for the non-human residents.

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Tom Regan on the Use of Animals in Science

Animal Ethics

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]) There are also some things we cannot learn by using humans, if we respect their rights.

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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., But utilitarianism is not the theory its initial reception by the animal rights movement may have suggested.

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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.

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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 the Animal-Rights Movement

Animal Ethics

Moral philosophy is no substitute for political action. It is simply projustice, insisting only that the scope of justice be seen to include respect for the rights of animals. Success requires nothing less than a revolution in our culture's thought and action. Might does not make right; might does make law. Still, it can make a contribution.

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From Today's Wall Street Journal

Animal Ethics

In the name of moral consistency I became a vegetarian four years ago. Elaine Livesey-Fassel Los Angeles Why was a dog more worthy of not being dinner than a pig? My interactions with farm animals have been as affectionate and fun as any I've had with dogs or cats.