Animal rights and human obligations

264 Pages·1976·9.791 MB·English

by  Tom Regan, Peter Singer

THOMAS J. BATA LI BRARY
TRENT UNIVERSITY
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Digitized by the Internet Archive
in 2019 with funding from
Kahle/Austin Foundation
https://archive.org/details/animalrightshumaOOOOunse
Animal Rights
and
Human Obligations
EDITED
BY
TOM REGAN PETER SINGER
North Carolina State University La Trobe University
PRENTICE-HALL, INC., ENGLEWOOD CLIFFS, NEW JERSEY
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Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Main entry under title:
Animal rights and human obligations.
Bibliography: p. 246
1. Animals, Treatment of—Addresses, essays,
lectures. 2. Animals, Treatment of—Moral and
religious aspects—Addresses, essays, lectures.
I. Regan, Tom II. Singer, Peter.
HV4711.A56 179'.3 75-29432
ISBN 0-13-037531-4
ISBN 0-13-037523-3 pbk.
© 1976 by PRENTICE-HALL, INC., Englewood Cliffs, N.J.
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form
or by any means without permission in writing
from the publisher.
10 987654321
Printed in the United States of America
PRENTICE-HALL INTERNATIONAL, INC., London
PRENTICE-HALL OF AUSTRALIA, PTY. LTD., Sydney
PRENTICE-HALL OF CANADA, LTD., Toronto
PRENTICE-HALL OF INDIA PRIVATE LIMITED, New Delhi
PRENTICE-HALL OF JAPAN, INC., Tokyo
PRENTICE-HALL OF SOUTHEAST ASIA (PTE.), Singapore
PREFACE
Although human beings eat other animals, experiment upon them, and
destroy their habitats, we rarely pause to consider whether our practices
toward them are ethically defensible.
Now there are signs of a reconsideration of our usual attitude to
animals. The environmental movement has made millions aware of what
we have done to wild animals. When whole species disappear forever,
we can hardly fail to think about what we have done. New discoveries
about the abilities of nonhuman animals, including the ability of chim¬
panzees to learn a complex sign language, have made us realize how
closely related we are to the other animals. The threat of global famine
has led to a spate of articles pointing out that modern methods of rear¬
ing animals for food waste more protein than they produce, and this in
turn leads some people to ask. If the mass rearing and slaughter of
animals does not help to keep us fed, how is this practice to be justified?
Meanwhile the long-simmering issue of vivesection periodically flashes
into prominence in a manner that shows that it is by no means dead.
When details of a U.S. Air Force proposal to use 200 beagles to test
poisonous gases became public in 1973, the Defense Department received
more letters of protest than it had received about the bombing of North
Vietnam.
Is this concern for animals sloppy sentimentalism or an awakening of
the conscience of the tyrant species to the nature of the tyranny we ex¬
ercise over other species? To foster serious discussion of this question,
we have brought together in this volume some of the most important
writings, ancient and modern, on our relations with nonhuman animals.
We have selected articles that contain argument, whether for or against
existing practices, rather than those that are mainly rhetoric or appeals
to emotion. In this way we hope that our collection will contribute to a
clearer and more rational debate about the rights of animals and our
obligations to them.
T.R./P.S.
iii
260962
CONTENTS
TOM RECAN
Introduction 1
I
CONTEMPORARY REALITIES
^ PETER SINGER
Down on the Factory Farm 23
RICHARD RYDER
<s
Experiments on Animals
II
ANIMAL AND HUMAN NATURE
THE BIBLE
God Created Man in His Own Image 51
ARISTOTLE
How Humans Differ from Other Creatures 53
SAINT THOMAS AQUINAS
Differences between Rational and Other Creatures 56
RENE DESCARTES
Animals Are Machines 60
VOLTAIRE
A Reply to Descartes 67
IV
V Contents
DAVID HUME
Of the Reason of Animals 69
CHARLES DARWIN
Comparison of the Mental Powers of Man
and the Lower Animals 72
MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE
The Language of Animals 82
PETER JENKINS
Teaching Chimpanzees to Communicate 85
MARY MIDGLEY
The Concept of Beastliness 93
III
DO HUMANS HAVE OBLIGATIONS TO OTHER ANIMALS?
ARISTOTLE
Animals and Slavery 109^~~
^\ PLUTARCH
Of Eating of Flesh 111 l
SAINT THOMAS AQUINAS
^ On Killing Living Things
and the Duty to Love Irrational Creatures 118
IMMANUEL KANT
s Duties to Animals i22^r~~
ARTHUR SCHOPENHAUER
A Critique of Kant 124 ■
\ JEREMY BENTHAM
A Utilitarian View 129
JOHN STUART MILL l/
A Defense of Bentham — 131
ALBERT SCHWEITZER
The Ethic of Reverence for Life 133
>y HENRY S. SALT
The Humanities of Diet 139
PETER SINGER
_All Animals Are Equal 148
Contents
ROBERT J. WHITE
^ A Defense of Vivisection 163
IV
DO ANIMALS HAVE RIGHTS?
HENRY S. SALT
Animals' Rights 173
JOSEPH RICKABY
Of the So-called Rights of Animals 179
x D.G. RITCHIE
Why Animals Do Not Have Rights 181
HENRY S. SALT
Logic of the Larder 185
JOEL FEINBERG
Can Animals Have Rights? 190
V TOM REGAN
*- Do Animals Have a Right to Life? 197
JAMES RACHELS
— Do Animals Have a Right to Liberty? 205
DONALD VANDEVEER
Defending Animals by Appeal to Rights 224
JAMES RACHELS
A Reply to VanDeVeer 230
EPILOGUE
JONATHAN SWIFT
A Modest Proposal 234
DESMOND STEWART
The Limits of Trooghaft 238
Further Reading 246
Biographical Notes
248