Animal Rights in History

Abstract

In this chapter I shall be reviewing the work of some of the more important thinkers who contributed to the development of an animal rights consciousness in the past. I shall also be examining a small group of historical works that, over the last 35 years or so, have helped to create a climate in which speculation on the relationship between humans and Non–Humans is a respectable, if not mainstream, activity within the academic world. It is, of course, the case that a concern for animals is by no means limited to philosophers and critics. Indeed, one of the chief things that motivated me to write this book now was precisely what seemed to me to be the discrepancy between the huge public interest in animal matters and the relative lack of a corresponding discourse in academia.