Review of Wesley J. Smith's A Rat is a Pig is a Dog is a Boy: The Human Cost of the Animal Rights Movement

Abstract

Ingrid Newkirk’s notorious assertion that “a rat is a pig is a dog is a boy” provides the title for Wesley J. Smith’s book decrying the animal-liberation movement and propounding the doctrine of human exceptionalism. More than simply a claim about the superior mental powers of Homo sapiens, human exceptionalism holds that humans possess a unique moral worth that endows them alone, among all living creatures, with the right never to be treated merely as means to the ends of others. The idea that humans have this exceptional moral status is hardly new, but the fact that it has now become an “ism” reflects the current struggle over where to draw the boundaries of the moral community.