Animal rights

Animal rights, or animal liberation, is the movement to protect non-human animals from being exploited by humans. It is a radical movement, insofar as it aims not merely to attain more humane treatment for animals, but to include many animals within the moral community — that is, all those whose basic interests (for example, in not being made to suffer unnecessarily) ought to be given the same consideration as our own similar interests. The claim, in other words, is that non-human animals must no longer be regarded legally or morally as property, or treated merely as resources for human purposes, but should instead be regarded as persons. To this end the movement advocates that many animals be given legal rights to protect their basic interests.

References

• Bentham, Jeremy. Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation, 1781.
• Regan, Tom. The Case for Animal Rights, New York: Routledge, 1984
• Singer, Peter. Animal Liberation, second edition, New York: Avon Books, 1990
• The Origins of Speciesism by Hugh LaFollette and Niall Shanks, Philosophy 1996, pp. 41-60
• Animal, Vegetable, or Woman?: A Feminist Critique of Ethical Vegetarianism by Kathryn Paxton George
• The Great Ape Project
• Meet Your Meat a PETA-produced slaughterhouse tour narrated by Alec Baldwin