Animal Rights Debate Research Articles

Negotiating Empathy

This article proposes an ecocritical reading of two lithographs by Italian Brazilian artist Angelo Agostini to shed light on the tensions between the abolitionist movement and the animal rights movement in Brazilian visual culture. This question is never discussed in scholarship about nineteenth-century Brazil. Moreover, studies on the history of animal rights in the country focus on the republican period, when the first associations and laws for the protection of animals were created. This article, conversely, reconstructs the history of a seldom-remembered Society for the Protection of Animals, active between 1885 and 1890 in Rio de Janeiro, during the last years of the monarchy. Through visual documentation concerning this society and its negative local reception, I reflect on slavery’s connections to the animal rights debate during the last decades of the nineteenth century. I argue that two causes—abolitionism and animal welfare—were competing for visibility in this fundamentally unequal society. Artists like Agostini contributed to the polemic by using a combined aesthetic that questioned what they perceived as an incongruous situation: protecting animals before abolishing human slavery.

Animal advocacy and the radical right: the case of Sweden

ABSTRACT Why does the radical right care so much about animals? In this study, we argue that the salience of animal advocacy within the radical right can be explained by its compatibility with these parties’ broader ideological framework. By analysing official documents from the radical right party the Sweden Democrats, we find that its animal advocacy is shaped by an ideological core consisting of nativism, authoritarianism and populism. The SD argues, for example, that immigrants are more violent towards animals; that animal cruelty must be strongly punished; and that mistreatment of animals is contrary to the moral intuitions of ‘the people’. Rather than only being used instrumentally to denigrate the cultural practices of immigrants, however, the policies reflect a broader commitment to animal well-being. Still, they differ from the egalitarian and rights-based agenda of ‘animalist’ parties, promoting as they do a paternalistic animal-welfare agenda where compassion is owed to animals not because they are our equals, but rather because they are dependent on us. The findings improve our understanding of the radical right ideology and of how ethical principles in the animal-rights debate are integrated into broader ideological frameworks and translated into party policy.

About the Authors

About the Authors

Reconciling the Irreconcilable: A Property Rights Approach to Resolving the Animal Rights Debate

Abstract Libertarianism is understood to be a “deontological theory of law” that purportedly applies exclusively to humans. According to some libertarians, however, “one of the greatest weaknesses of libertarian theory” is that there are no provisions outlawing the abuse and torture of animals even though this seems to be one of “the most heinous acts it is possible to do”. Moreover, a few of these libertarians go even further and claim that this legal philosophy of non-aggression should actually be extended to include other animals. The purpose of this paper is to reconcile this seemingly irreconcilable situation by arguing that it is a “continuum problem” and offering a principled, libertarian compromise that resolves the animal rights debate using the non-aggression principle (NAP) and private property rights.

Rule-Consequentialism and the Significance of Species

According to rule-consequentialism, we ought to follow the principles that would result in the best consequences if they were generally accepted. These principles constitute the ideal code. My aim is to make clear what the ideal code says about what we owe to animals. I argue that it accords moral status to them: the rule-consequentialist should acknowledge both general duties and special obligations to animals. However, in the ideal code there is no place for animal rights, conceived as deontological constraints. Within the animal rights debate, I conclude, rule-consequentialism is superior to some of the most prominent ethical theories in its agreement with widely shared moral intuitions. But some of its practical implications regarding the proper treatment of animals remain unclear. This point is illustrated by a discussion of what Jeff McMahan called ‘benign carnivorism’.

The Animal Rights Debate: Abolition or Regulation? - By Gary L. Francione & Robert Garner

The Animal Rights Debate: Abolition or Regulation? - By Gary L. Francione & Robert Garner

The animal rights debate: abolition or regulation?

The simple, but quite unusual plan, promised much: two leading academics (Gary Francione and Robert Garner) prepared to make their respective cases with conviction and candour, followed by a lively debate between them, during which no stone need be left unturned. In prospect, then, was an opportunity for nuances to be clarified, misunderstandings dispelled and some common ground established. But while it proved to be an enthralling engagement, the apparent inability of one author to concede even an inch of ground to the other’s case meant that the divide between the viewpoints was, regrettably, no narrower at the end than at the beginning. [...]

The Animal Rights Debate: Abolition or Regulation? By Gary L. Francione and Robert Garner. Columbia University Press: New York, NY, USA, 2010; Paperback, 144 pp; $23.05; ISBN: 978-0231149556; Hardcover, 288 pp; $74.10; ISBN: 978-0231149549

The simple, but quite unusual plan, promised much: two leading academics (Gary Francione and Robert Garner) prepared to make their respective cases with conviction and candour, followed by a lively debate between them, during which no stone need be left unturned. In prospect, then, was an opportunity for nuances to be clarified, misunderstandings dispelled and some common ground established. But while it proved to be an enthralling engagement, the apparent inability of one author to concede even an inch of ground to the other’s case meant that the divide between the viewpoints was, regrettably, no narrower at the end than at the beginning. [...]

Animal ethics and human identity in JM Coetzee's The lives of animals

ABSTRACT The article aims to position JM Coetzee's The lives of animals within the animal rights debate and assess both his use of and his failure to use key philosophical texts in the animal rights movement. This task is complicated by his adoption of the controversial persona, Elizabeth Costello, who paradoxically uses reason to attack reason and continuously evokes the Holocaust analogy. The paper attempts to understand her views in relation to the leading animal rights philosophers, Peter Singer and Tom Regan, but also emphasizes her departure from their respectively utilitarian and rights-based positions, offsetting these against the positions of Mary Midgley, deep ecology, ecofeminism and the virtue ethics of Alasdair MacIntyre. The paper concludes with a consideration of views expressed by Coetzee in an interview and a speech.

The animal rights debate

The animal rights debate

Carl Cohen and Tom Regan, The Animal Rights Debate (Book Review)

Carl Cohen and Tom Regan, The Animal Rights Debate (Book Review)

Defending animal rights

Tom Regan, universally recognized as the intellectual leader of the animal rights movement, presents a historically important, multifaceted discussion of some responses to the question, Do animals have rights? More than a contest of wills representing professional and economic interests, the animal rights debate is also a divisive, enduring topic in normative ethical theory. Addressing key issues in this sometimes acrimonious debate, Regan responds thoughtfully to his critics while dismantling the conception that and only human beings are worthy of the moral status that is the basis of rights. In a set of essays that reflects his thinking on animal and human rights over the past decade, Regan sketches the philosophical positions espoused by those who want to abolish animal exploitation, reform it to minimize suffering, or maintain the status quo. He considers the moral grounds for limiting human freedom when it comes to human interactions with nonhuman animals. He puts the issue of animal rights in historical context, drawing parallels between animal rights activism and other social movements, including the antislavery movement in the nineteenth century and the gay-lesbian struggle today. He also outlines the challenges to animal rights posed by deep ecology and ecofeminism to using animals for human purposes and addresses the ethical dilemma of the animal rights advocate whose employer uses animals for research. Systematically unraveling claims that human beings are rational and therefore entitled to superior moral status, Regan defends the inherent value of all individuals who are subjects of a life and decries the speciesism that pretends to separate human from nonhuman animals. Independent of any benefits humans might derive from exploiting animals, Regan shows how, on a philosophical level, there is no sustainable defense for separating human and nonhuman animals as beings of absolute, as opposed to instrumental, value.

A Critical Assessment of Varner's Proposal for Consensus and Convergence in the Biomedical Research Debate

In The Prospects for Consensus and Convergence in the Animal Rights Debate Gary E. Varner altempts to provide a direction for reconciliation between utilitarian and inherent value views on the subject of biomedical research testing on nonhuman animals. 1 These two views are opposed because the former allows some testing and the latter does not. In this paper I will argue that Varner's prospect fails because its implications are in too strong ofan opposition to the inherent value view. First, I will sketch those basics of Singer's and Regan's views that are relevant to our discussion. Second, I will critically analyze the attempt by Gary Varner to open the way for convergence between the utilitarian and the inherent value views. I will then critically analyze a principle used by Regan, the worseoff' principle. Finally, out of these analyses I will suggest a new direction for exploration of the possibility of rapprochement between the utilitarian and inherent value views. II

The Prospects for Consensus and Convergence in the Animal Rights Debate

Controversies over the use of nonhuman animals (hence-forth animals) for science, nutrition, and recreation are often presented as clear-cut standoffs, with little or no common ground between opposing factions and, consequently, with little or no possibility for consensus-formation. As a philosopher studying these controversies, my sense is that the apparent intransigence of opposing parties is more a function of political posturing than theoretical necessity, and that continuing to paint the situation as a clear-cut standoff serves the interests of neither side. A critical look at the philosophical bases of the animal rights movement reveals surprising potential for convergence (agreement at the level of policy despite disagreement at the level of moral theory) and, in some cases, consensus (agreement at both levels).[1] Recognizing this should make defenders of animal research take animal rights views more seriously and could refocus the animal rights debate in a constructive way. In response to the growth of the animal rights movement, animal researchers have begun to distinguish between animal lights views and animal welfare views, but they have not drawn the distinction the way a philosopher would. Researchers typically stress two differences between animal welfarists and animal rightists. First, welfarists argue for reforms in research involving animals, whereas rightists argue for the total abolition of such research. Second, welfarists work within the system, whereas rightists advocate using theft, sabotage, or even violence to achieve their ends. A more philosophical account of the animal rights/animal welfare distinction cuts the pie very differently, revealing that many researchers agree with some animal rights advocates at the level of moral theory, and that, even where they differ dramatically at the level of moral theory, there is some potential for convergence at the level of policy. Animal Welfare: The Prospects for Consensus Peter Singer's Animal Liberation is the acknowledged Bible of the animal rights movement. Literally millions of people have been moved to vegetarianism or animal activism as a result of reading this book. PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) distributed the first edition of the book as a membership premium, and the number of copies in print has been cited as a measure of growth in the animal rights movement. However, Singer wrote Animal Liberation for popular consumption, and in it he intentionally avoided discussion of complex philosophical issues.[2] In particular, he avoided analyzing the concepts of 'rights' and harm,' and these concepts are crucial to drawing the animal rights/animal welfare distinction in philosophical terms. In Animal Liberation, Singer spoke loosely of animals moral but all that he intended by this was that animals (at least some of them) have some basic moral standing and that there are right and wrong ways of treating them. In later, more philosophically rigorous work--summarized in his Practical Ethics, a second edition of which has just been issued[3]--he explicitly eschews the term noting that, as a thoroughgoing utilitarian, he must deny not only that animals have moral but also that human beings do. When moral philosophers speak of an individual having moral rights, they mean something much more specific than that the individual has some basic moral standing and that there are right and wrong ways of treating him or her. Although there is much controversy as to the specifics, there is general agreement on this: to attribute moral rights to an individual is to assert that the individual has some kind of special moral dignity, the cash value of which is that certain things cannot justifiably be done to him or her (or it) for the sake of benefit to others. For this reason, moral rights have been characterized as trump cards against utilitarian arguments. Utilitarian arguments are based on aggregate benefits and aggregate harms. …

Is Justification of Animal Research Necessary?-Reply

In Reply. —I am grateful that Drs Bernstein, Regan, Rowan, and Singer chose to criticize directly the issues raised in my paper rather than to attack the value of research using animals. Research using animals has benefited human and nonhuman animals immensely. The ethical question is whether such research can be justified, and if so, how? The purpose of my article was twofold: to show that the ethical methods used by the most important ALRM philosophers are inadequate; and, to entice those who support animal research to consider more critically their own philosophical positions. Arguments for using animals in research require moral justification. By showing that ALRM philosophies deserve serious attention (despite their flaws), my hope is that more constructive arguments will emerge on both sides of the animal rights debate. For Bernstein and Singer, nonanalytical ethical traditions (eg, religious, metaphysical, or ethnic) that do not play by analytical rules

Personality Differences between Pro- and Antivivisectionists

AbstractWe examined the possibility that opinions on the animal rights debate reflect differences in personality. Our survey of 1055 college students compared scores on the Myers-Briggs Type Inventory and other personality measures with scores on the Animal Research Survey. We found people supportive of animal experimentation more likely to be male, masculine, conservative and less empathic than those opposed to it. Animal rights advocates were more likely to support vegetarianism and to be more ecologically concerned. They also indicated less faith in science. Students likely to encounter animal experimentation in their studies (psychology, biology majors) tended to oppose animal experimentation more than others. Intuitive and feeling types were more opposed to animal experimentation than were sensate and thinking types. Extraverted-sensate and extraverted-thinking types were more likely to favor animal experimentation than were extraverted-intuitive and extraverted-feeling types. Implications of these results are discussed.

Ritual murmur: The undercurrent of protest against religious slaughter of animals in Britain in the 1980s

The campaign against the so‐called ‘ritual slaughter’ of animals has been hijacked by right‐wing extremists, including members of the National Front, in a bid to incite racial intolerance of Muslims and Jews. The arguments and the terminology used by some animal rights supporters, including the well‐known national organization, Compassion in World Farming, tend to encourage xenophobia and racism, engendering an ‘us’ and ‘them’ approach to the animal rights debate.