Reverence for the Earth is Animal Rights Ethics

Abstract

This article presents a historical overview of the animal rights movement (ARM), discussing its emergence, growth, and changes through time. discussion examines the key issues that have proven to be a rallying point for its members and reviews the main intellectual contributions of the seminal figures who have defined the moral philosophy on which many of these issues are based. In providing a historical perspective, this article aims to show that the development of the ethical underpinnings of the animal rights movement go beyond mere animal rights, that animal liberation is human and environmental liberation, too. I The emergence of the animal rights movement is not an accident, nor is there a single cause that prompted its beginnings. Rather, diverse sociocultural conditions interacting over different historical periods have gradually led up to the present situation in which the established Westernized view and treatment of other humans, animals, and the environment is under scrutiny by distinct activist groups, such as animal rights. Just like their ancestors of the 19th century, advocates of animal rights of the 20th century contend that our