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Topic Overview ..................................................................................................................... 2
Research Guide ..................................................................................................................... 8
Definitions .......................................................................................................................... 11
Affirmative Case .................................................................................................................. 13
Affirmative Extensions......................................................................................................... 16
Factory Farming is Cruel ......................................................................................................................................16
Factory Farming is Inhumane ..............................................................................................................................17
Factory Farming is bad .........................................................................................................................................18
Animal Testing is Cruel ........................................................................................................................................19
Animal Testing does not help create cures..........................................................................................................20
The Fur Industry is Cruel ......................................................................................................................................21
Animals are Intelligent .........................................................................................................................................22
Animals Communicate .........................................................................................................................................23
Animal are feel pain .............................................................................................................................................23
Animals are Morally Relevant ..............................................................................................................................24
Animal Rights are important ................................................................................................................................25
Speciesism ...........................................................................................................................................................26
Animal Rights don’t cause bad consequences .....................................................................................................27
Humans need to treat animals well .....................................................................................................................28
Negative Case ...................................................................................................................... 29
Negative Extensions ............................................................................................................ 32
Animal Research is Justified.................................................................................................................................32
Animal Research is done humanely .....................................................................................................................34
Animal Agriculture/Hunting is Justified ...............................................................................................................35
Animals are Excluded from the Social Contract...................................................................................................36
Animals don’t have a claim to moral rights .........................................................................................................38
Animals are Amoral .............................................................................................................................................39
Animal Rights not justified ...................................................................................................................................40
Animals Lack Intelligence for Rights ....................................................................................................................41
Treating animals well does not mean they should have rights ...........................................................................42
Rejecting Animal Rights Does Not Endorse Cruelty .............................................................................................43
A2: Speciesism .....................................................................................................................................................44
A2: Speciesism continued ....................................................................................................................................45
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Topic Overview
RESOLVED: JUSTICE REQUIRES THE RECOGNITION OF ANIMAL RIGHTS.
An Introduction to Animal Rights
Although animals have recently risen to preeminence in ethical and moral philosophy, this is a fairly new
development. For most of Western academic history, animals were generally considered on par with inanimate
objects when they were considered at all. In the 1960’s, the growth of factory farming practices and increasingly
publicized research on primate and other animals’ mental capacities sparked interest in the ethical dimension of
human relationships with non-human animals. Peter Singer’s seminal work, Animal Liberation, and other scholarly
pieces in the 1970’s led to a rapid growth in the field. During the same time period, the proliferation of animal
rights and animal welfare organizations brought the issue to the forefront of popular consciousness and pressured
Congress to pass a number of new animal welfare regulations and restrictions. Despite these developments,
however, the moral status and treatment of animals by society remains more or less unchanged.
From the time of the ancient Greeks to the enlightenment, few philosophers seriously considered animals
in formulating ethical theories. Plato, Aristotle, and their peers devote little attention to animals except to draw
distinctions between people and animals on the basis of intellect, language, and capacity for moral reasoning. With
the spread of Christianity came the concept of human “dominion” over the natural world generally and animals in
particular. This idea helped to reinforce notions of human superiority and justified the consumption of animals for
food, clothing, etc…Early Christians like Augustine, however, did condemn unnecessary cruelty to animals on the
basis that it contributed to cruelty towards human beings. During the Enlightenment, attitudes towards animals
remained basically the same. Social contract theorist John Locke viewed animals as property akin to land or capital,
as did his contemporaries. Descartes went further, famously describing animals as ‘automatons,’ machines capable
of responding to stimuli but categorically distinct from human beings. This justified humans in treating animals in
any way they chose, which was bad news for the animals. In addition to using animals as a source of labor, food,
and clothing, scientists during the enlightenment and well into the 20 th century practiced vivisection, the
performance of surgery on fully conscious living creatures, for purposes of surgical education and the study of
anatomy.
Animals finally caught a philosophical break during the 1800s when Jeremy Bentham and J.S. Mill founded
the utilitarian school of thought. For utilitarians, it was difficult to find a reason to exclude animals from moral
consideration because the avoidance of pain was the building block of the philosophy. Without sound evidence
that, as Descartes had argued, animals didn’t feel pain, their exclusion was problematic. Bentham and Mill were
thus among the first academics to call for better treatment of animals. The same time period also saw the
establishment of the first animal welfare groups, institutions often associated with abolitionists. The ASPCA,
among others, didn’t call for animal rights but did demand better living conditions and treatment for animals.
These groups were sometimes highly influential and compelled many local and state governments to legislate the
treatment of some higher mammals like horses. This period also saw the initial development of the concept of
animal rights, although most thinkers of the time still opposed the concept.
Public interest in animal rights subsided for the next several decades. By the post-World War II period, the
condition of animal rights had actually deteriorated due to the widespread practice of factory farming the
increasing use of animals as research subjects. In the 1960’s, a group of scholars at Oxford University known as the
Oxford group began publishing material calling for the end of animal exploitation. Their work, coupled with the
publication of Ruth Harrison’s Animal Machines, a biting critique of factory farming, helped to spark renewed
interest in animal rights. A decade later, with Peter Singer’s work Animal Liberation, animal rights became a
primary issue in ethics and moral philosophy. Singer’s book generated several waves of literature attacking his
position (Fox, Cohen, etc…) and defending his position or adopting new justifications for animal rights (most
notably Regan).
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This flurry of literature on the subject helped generate support for a number of new animal rights
organizations, including People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) and the Animal Liberation Front (ALF).
Under pressure from these organizations, governments around the world began enacting new legislation aimed at
protecting animals. However, the scope of these laws has generally been very narrow and riddled with exemptions
for livestock animals and research animals. Animal rights groups have also attempted to secure animal liberation
using the judicial system, but so far these efforts have proved unsuccessful. In 2008, an Australian court rejected
the claim that a chimpanzee is a legal person, and similar lawsuits in the United States have also failed.
Today, the animal rights movement is somewhat divided along philosophical lines. Academics like Tom
Regan support animal rights on the basis of the inherent value of animals, and argue that the conception of
“natural rights” should be extended to sentient creatures. Utilitarian thinkers like Singer reject the natural rights
view and instead argue that animals should be granted equal consideration of interests. Both groups are distinct
from animal welfare advocates, who do not believe animals have rights per se but do support stronger anti-cruelty
laws, agricultural reforms, and greater regulation of animal testing. Many opponents of the animal rights
movement, for example Michael Fox, fall in to this camp.
Animal Rights and Social Contract Theory
Social contract is a term describing a range of theories, which seek to justify and explain the existence of
the state and systems of social order. Social contract theories arise from a “state of nature” or “original position”
in which individuals live in the absence of any social order or state control. This is a purely hypothetical condition
used to illustrate the disadvantages of the absence of any form of state. Without any sort of police force, rights are
essentially non-existent and individuals are entirely without protection. There is not security, no protection of life,
liberty or property, and life is, as Hobbes put it, “nasty, brutish, and short.” According to social contract theorists,
individuals in the state of nature are compelled to join together and establish rules for living for their mutual
benefit. Concepts of property rights, for example, require the cooperation of all members of a society; individuals
must agree to sacrifice their freedom to, for example, farm on someone else’s land in exchange for the assurance
that no one will farm on their own land. These agreed-upon rules or principles form the basis of the social contract.
Social contract theory is a valuable source of arguments against animal rights because animals are almost
certainly incapable of participating in the contract. First, we can be almost positive that no non-human animals
have the intellectual capacity or communicative ability to understand and respect the rights of others.
Conversations with dolphins about how they can’t eat this particular tuna because the fisherman has already
caught it are unlikely to be fruitful. Second, even if animals did have sufficient intellectual capacity, their interests
are often diametrically opposed in such a way as to make compromise impossible. Lions, for example, must hunt
and kill zebras in order to survive. Zebras, on the other hand, must not be hunted and killed by lions if they are to
survive. Among all rights, the right to life is probably the most fundamental because it is a prerequisite to all other
rights. If lions and zebras both had an intrinsic right to life, there would be no mechanism for adjudicating their
competitive claims. Humans can unite under a social contract with other humans because their survival needs do
not typically directly conflict. The predator-prey relationships in the natural world preclude this luxury for animals.
For this reason, social contract theorists like John Lock and John Rawls have either disregarded animals entirely in
their theories or have identified animals as objects of human property.
Animal Rights and Utilitarianism
Many thinkers examine the question of animal rights through the lens of utilitarianism, an ethical system
which determines the morality of an action by examining its consequences. In utilitarian ethics, the morally correct
position is that which acheives the greatest good for the greatest number. Utilitarianism has been used to justify
demands for animal rights and to deny the legitimacy of those demands.
Peter Singer, a professor at Princeton University and a prominent utilitarian thinker, is one of the
foremost animal rights thinkers. Singer argues that animals should be given ”equal consideration of interests” in
any ethical calculus because they have the ability to suffer and feel pain. The “ability to suffer” standard is
controversial because it requires that a human being unable to suffer due to impaired mental capacity, for
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example, is entitled to less consideration than a fully sentient animal. Singer justifies this Standard with an
“argument from marginal cases.” He says that any other standard for determining who is or is not worthy of ethical
consideration would have to leave out some humans and include some animals. If intelligence is the brightline, for
example, mentally impaired people should count less than dolphins or chimpanzees. If morality is the brightline,
we would have to exclude sociopaths from consideration. To Singer, the exclusion of animals from consideration is
arbitrary and ”speciesist,” akin to sexism or racism.
Importantly, equal consideration of interests isn´t the same as equal rights. Singer doesn´t think pigs
should be allowed to vote, for example, but he does believe that humans should consider the effects their actions
will have on pigs and other animals. This means that activities causing pain to animals like factory farming, medical
research, etc…are ethically permissible only if the pain caused is outweighed by the positive benefits of the
activity. Singer, and many other scholars, say this would only occur in very rare circumstances like medical research
on a deadly disease. Eating an animal would only be justified to prevent starvation of another animal with a higher
capacity to feel pain and pleasure.
Utilitarianism can also be used to deny animal rights claims in two primary ways. The first is to argue that
animals should not be given consideration under a utilitarian calculus. This requires drawing some distinction
between humans and animals. To avoid the marginal case argument discussed above, philosophers have usually
pointed to human potential. Even though severely retarded people aren´t intelligent, as human beings they have
the potential to be, which distinguishes them from other animals.
Second, some utilitarians argee that animal interests should be considered but deny that this would
change anything about human behavior. Their argument is that even though factory farming is probably fairly
unpleasant for livestock, livestock animals are not nearly as conscious of their plight as a human being would be.
Cows don´t realize they are about to be slaughtered, and they don´t know what live is like outside a feed lot.
Humans, on the other hand, are very aware of how much they like a juicy burger. These thinkers argue that
activites that harm animals are nearly always justified by the positive results they produce in humans, because
humans have a far greater capacity to feel pain and pleasure than do animals. If this argument is true,
utilitarianism would justify continuing to treat animals as we do.
Utilitarianism poses a number of significant problems as an ethical system, however. For one, it may be
unimaginably hard to actually calculate the utility of a particular action. We don’t know enough about human
psychology to accurately assess the impacts of certain actions, like whether spanking a child for wandering into the
street is good or bad for the child in the long run. We know even less about animal psychology or physiology,
which makes determining a moral course of action very difficult. Second, utilitarianism can be used to justify things
which most people find morally repugnant. Some utilitarians defend infantacide in certain conditions in the beleif
that it is better to kill a newborne child than to allow it to suffer in a miserable life. Ayn Rand famously argued that
utilitarian ethics jusfified the enslavement of 49% of the population for the benefit of 51%. That said, utilitarianism
has the advantage of being extremely intuitive in normal cases, and unlike many moral philosophies it does not
rely on an abstract and often unprovable metaphysics.
Rights-based Animal Liberation
Rights-based philosophies offer a non-utilitarian defense of animal rights. Scholars like Tom Regan,
agreeing with Singer about the need to respect sentient creatures but unwilling to endorse all-out utilitarianism,
helped to pioneer this field. Academics endorsing a rights-based view of animal liberation contend that, like
people, individual animals have inalienable rights. They justify this claim in several ways.
First, some rights-based theorists have argued that animal rights must be respected due to animals’
cognitive capacity. They point out that many animals exhibit greater intelligence than many humans, and that the
full extent of animal intelligence is not yet known by science. They also point to examples of animals exhibiting
“human” characteristics like language, problem-solving, the use of tools, and the expression of emotions of
reasons why the moral circle must be extended. These claims can be persuasive, but they tend to rely on empirical
data which can be disproved by future investigation or reinterpretation of the existing evidence. Additionally,
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there is virtually no evidence to indicate that any species of animal as a whole is more intelligent than Homo
sapiens.
The second justification for a rights-based approach relies on the concept of “intrinsic value,” and is more
appealing. Intrinsic value in this context is the idea that an animal has moral importance in and of itself, regardless
of what characteristics it displays. Regan links the idea of intrinsic value to his invented term “subject-of-a-life,” an
entity which is aware of itself and capable of acting autonomously. For Regan, any subject-of-a-life has rights which
must be recognized and respected regardless of its intelligence, its moral capability, its means of communication,
or any other factor. This justification is appealing because it avoids some of the moral hazards posed by
utilitarianism—Regan’s theory would never justify animal testing, would never allow infanticide, etc…On the other
hand, Regan’s theory may be a hard pill to swallow in some circumstances. He and his colleagues expressly identify
medial research on animals even if the research would definitely save human lives. Singer’s utilitarianism might
allow for testing in that circumstance.
The Affirmative
The first issue the affirmative debaters must consider is the scope of animal rights they are willing to
defend. Narrow interpretations of the resolution could focus exclusively on higher primates like chimpanzees,
gorillas and bonobos. Others could hone in on the cruelest practices of factory farming, like raising veal calves.
Narrow cases have the advantage of solving many of the negative’s best arguments about animal rights harming
human rights, but these advantages come at a cost. In any discussion of rights, it will be difficult to justify a narrow
scope. If chimpanzees get rights, why don’t spider monkeys or dolphins or orcas? If veal is inhumane, why aren’t
feed lots? Absent a coherent reason for the narrower scope, it can be difficult for the affirmative to win. Likewise,
broader cases have the advantage of greater philosophical consistency, but are more likely to cause harm to
humans. All in all, I recommend the big stick approach of a broader affirmative.
The best affirmative strategies on this topic will need to accomplish three objectives: first, they should
provide compelling evidence that animals have interests. Second, they must either prove the differences between
humans and animals non-existent or morally irrelevant. Third, they should move to establish that recognition of
animal rights would not cause substantial harm to human beings.
The first objective, demonstrating that animals have interests, should not prove difficult. Interests, in the
philosophical sense, are most easily defined as things that would be good the subject, or alternatively, the
avoidance of things that would be bad for the subject. For example, we might say that a mouse has an interest in
eating cheese and an interest in not having his back snapped in a trap. It’s vital that the affirmative win this point,
because if animals cannot be shown to have interests there is no way to establish how humans should behave
towards them. Fortunately, the task should be easy. Most authors, even many of those who oppose animal rights,
acknowledge that animals do have interests. It seems difficult to deny that animals benefit from seeking out
certain things and avoiding others. Objections tend to rest either on the old Cartesian argument that animals are
automatons, outdated since cognitive science indicates otherwise, or by attempting to separate interests from
“desires,” which can only be felt by humans. Both these arguments can be effectively pressed during cross
examination with questions about why we can assume humans and only humans want things. If we can’t assume a
dog scratching at the door wants to come inside, it’s difficult to justify assuming our neighbor wants to come inside
when he knocks at the door.
The second objective is more difficult. Virtually every author on the topic spends a substantial amount of
ink either refuting the claim that humans possess morally relevant characteristics lacked by animals or supporting
it. An increasing body of evidence suggests that higher animals like dolphins, primates, and whales are more
intellectually and linguistically complex than we were previously aware. Many animals, including those mentioned
above as well as elephants and parrots, have based “self-awareness” tests by recognizing their reflections in
mirrors. Stories about dogs courageously rescuing toddlers from certain death abound in the news. However,
there is not much of a case to support the argument that animals in general are anywhere near as sophisticated as
human beings in terms of mental capacity, moral capacity, or any other characteristic considered important.
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Since the affirmative is unlikely to prove that animals and humans are literally equivalents, we’ll have to
settle for neutralizing human-animal differences as irrelevant to the concerns of justice. Several authors, most
notably Singer, make this precise argument. Singer’s call for “equal consideration of interests” explicitly
acknowledges that humans and animals are different in a variety of important ways. However, he argues, they
share a similarity of profound importance: they have the ability to suffer and feel pain. For Singer, this is the only
rational cutoff point for moral standing because it is the only line we can draw that would include all humans in the
moral equation. If intelligence were the rule, infants, senile people, and mentally retarded people would all fail to
qualify for moral consideration along with animals. If a sense of morality was the cutoff point, sociopaths would be
excluded. Drawing the line at the ability to feel pain avoids this problem—it includes all humans and all animals, at
least all animals with a central nervous system.
The third objective, proving that recognition of animal rights would not harm humans, is likely to prove
the most difficult. It’s hard to imagine a world in which animal rights are fully recognized and human quality of life
remains the same. At a minimum, we’d all have to give up leather jackets, medical testing on animals, and circuses.
We’d probably have to call it quits on hamburgers, too. The key winning this point for the affirmative will be to
show that any harm to humans would be easily outweighed by the massive benefit attained by animals. If animal
interests count, too, then harm to humans could be small enough to be acceptable. Towards this end, I’ve included
several cards indicating the high degree of pain caused by our current practices towards animals and evidence that
animal testing and factory farming aren’t really necessary for humans. In addition to this type of mitigation,
affirmatives could also take a hard line by arguing that even substantial loss of human life would be justified in
order to recognize animal rights. Several authors, most notably Regan, state unequivocally that conducting tests on
rats is wrong even if not conducting the tests causes humans to die. This approach has a lot of support in the
literature, but may be difficult for some judges to swallow, so I recommend you combine mitigation with this hard
line.
I suspect that a lot of affirmative cases on this topic will spend a lot of time spelling out in gory detail the
deplorable conditions of animals in research facilities, factory farms, and some zoos. While graphic descriptions
may make useful rhetorical devices, they miss the point of this resolution. Whether or not animal rights should be
recognized is not dependent on how we treat animals—it’s the other way around. Sound affirmatives will focus on
establishing what rights are and why animals have them, rather than the other way around.
The Negative
The negative side of this topic has the advantage of the culturally engrained “common sense” of human
superiority and the disadvantage of being accused of defending puppy torture. The best negative strategies will
focus on winning three important arguments: first, that animals can’t be considered as moral agents and therefore
do not have rights; second, that even if animals are moral agents, recognition of their rights would be completely
untenable; and third, that refusing to recognize animal rights does not mean endorsing the mindless torture of
animals (like puppies).
The first argument, that animals aren’t moral agents, could be a one-shot kill for the negative. The
affirmative pretty much has to win that animals are self-aware creatures which impose some sort of moral
obligation on humans. Winning that claim necessary condition for establishing that animals have rights, but it isn’t
sufficient. The negative’s best response arguments to this claim lie in social contract theory. Contract theorists
from Locke to Rawls predicate the existence of rights on the contract—it’s because all people agree to live
peacefully together in a society that we have an obligation to respect their rights and we theirs. Animals, however,
lack the capacity to join in the social contract. They have no real sense of right and wrong, so we can’t expect them
to respect our property rights, or even (in the case of tigers) our right to life. Moreover, animals have directly
conflicting vital interests. Humans can get together and agree to respect rights because we don’t need to eat each
other to survive. Lions and zebras don’t have that luxury. Nature makes it impossible for animals to participate in
the social contract, so if the social contract is the basis of rights then animals must not have them.
The second argument, that animals’ interests are secondary to human interests, takes a more moderate
stance than the first. It focuses more on the practical problems presented by animal rights. Animals are an
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essential part of modern human societies. We use them as food, clothing, companions, security guards, and
research guinea pigs (get it!?), all of which might be prohibited if animal rights were recognized. Furthermore,
some societies like the Intuits in Alaska and some tribes in Africa are completely dependent on animal flesh for
their survival. If humanity were to suddenly agree that animals have the right not to be eaten by people, what
would happen to these groups? This problem is made even worse by the concept of land rights. If we recognize the
right of wild animals to live freely, we have to make sure they have someplace to live. But what if we need that
land to grow crops to feed people? And what about the rodents that want to eat the crops? They, too, have a right
to live. These issues, particularly medical research, resonate with judges and offer the negative a chance to claim
the moral high ground by answering graphic stories about the abuse of animals with graphic stories about terrible
diseases that could not be cured without animal research. The key to winning on this argument is to show that the
harm caused to human beings from recognizing animal rights is so huge that it eclipses the harm caused to animals
by not recognizing their rights.
The third point negatives should strive to win is that refusing to recognize animal rights does not amount
to an endorsement of animal cruelty. Several authors make this point ad nauseam, as they should. Several
justifications for protecting animals from undue harm fall outside the scope of animal rights. For example,
Augustine, Singer, and Regan all point out that cruelty towards animals tends to lead to cruelty towards other
human beings. Several thinkers, including Cohen and Fox, emphasize that we can have obligations to animals
without saying they have rights. Rights are not the reciprocal of obligations, they argue. We may have an
obligation not to cause unnecessary pain to a sentient being, but that doesn’t mean the being has a right not to be
harmed. Again, this argument is important because it allows the negative to sidestep all the terrible, emotionallydriven accusations of baby monkey torture the affirmative is likely to lob.
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Research Guide
Elisa Aaltola, Researcher in Philosophy at University of Turku in Finland. “Animal Ethics and Interest Conflicts.”
Ethics and the Environment Vol. 10, No. 1 (Spring, 2005).
In this article, Aatola examines conflicts of interest between humans and animals and how to resolve
them. She discusses the problem through six different methodologies for conflict resolution: the rights model, the
interest model, the mental complexity model, the special relations model, the multi-criteria model, and the
contextual model. Of these, the contextual model is the strongest, and carries clear consequences for the practical
use of animals.
Michael Y. Barilan, Department of Behavioral Sciences at Tel Aviv University. “Speciesism as a Precondition to
Justice.” March, 2004.
Barilan provides a highly analytical argument for excluding animals from moral consideration. His thesis is
that the very structure of relationships between natural organisms makes it impossible for them to participate in
any form of social contract and that they are therefore excluded from moral relevancy. Lions and lambs cannot
possibly find any cooperative way of surviving alongside eachother.
Max Black, Professor of Philosophy (1972) The Labyrinth of Language, Harmondsworth: Penguin Books.
This book is focused on the development and operation of human languages, but Black does devote
considerable page space to language in relation to animals. He contends that while animals do communicate with
each other and with humans, this communication differs from human language because of the inability of animals
to communicate symbolically. He applies his criticism to the studies involving teaching sign language to great apes.
Carl Cohen, Professor of Philosophy at the University of Michigan. 2001. The Animal Rights Debate. Oxford:
Rowman and Littlefield Publishers.
Cohen presents a fairly vitriolic attack on animal rights theories, including those of Regan and Singer. He
focuses especially intently on establishing morally relevant differences between humans and animals, and
ultimately concludes that humans are entitled to rights because they are members of the species Homo sapiens.
He acknowledges that this conclusion is speciesist and argues that speciesism is not only morally defensible but
morally required. He also devotes substantial space to rebutting claims that research on animals is inhumane, and
offers a theoretical defense of experimentation.
David Degrazia, Professor of Philosophy at George Washington University. “The Moral Status of Animals and Their
Use in Research: A Philosophical Review.” Kennedy Institute of Ethics Journal Vol. 1, No. 1 (March 1991).
Degrazia provides a brief but extremely helpful summary of the views of Frey, Midgley, Regan, Sapontzis,
and Singer, five of the most important animal rights authors. Degrazia also applies these authors’ ethical views to
the specific problem of the use of animals in medical and other research environments, and discusses the various
problem that each theory faces in that particular context.
Joel Fienberg, Professor of Religion. “Human Duties and Animal Rights.” On the Fifth Day. Eds. Morris and Fox
(1986).
Fienberg’s article focuses primarily on religious objections to animal rights, but his discussion of the
presence of conscience and morality in animals is useful. His stance is that, while animals may understand that a
particular action is likely to result in punishment, they don’t understand the reason the punishment will result. For
Fienberg, this means they lack moral capacity.
R.G. Frey, 1980. Interests and Rights: The Case Against Animals. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Like Singer, Frey is an act utilitarian. However, he makes a compelling argument that animals lack the
capacity to have interests because they lack language. His principle argument is that language is essential to having
interests because interests are associated with concepts that cannot exist in a mind without linguistic ability.
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Michael Fox, Vice President of the Farm Animals and Bioethics section of the Human Society of the United States
and former psychology lecturer at Washinton University. The Case for Animal Experimentation: An Evolutionary
and Ethical Perspective (1986).
Fox, whose background is in clinical psychology, focuses his book on the ethics of using animals in medical
and human health testing. He spends much of the book on the ethical and moral debate surrounding animal
testing, addressing issues including animal intelligence, capacity to suffer, and the question of animal autonomy
and personhood. He also addresses the practical problems outlawing animal testing would pose, and comes down
decidedly for continuing to use animals as laboratory subjects.
Michael Fox, Adjunct Professor at Queens University. “Animal Liberation: A Critique.” Ethics Vol. 88, No. 2 (Jan.,
1978).
This critique of Singer’s seminal work focuses on the question of whether animals have moral agency. Fox
argues they do not, citing as evidence the diminished intellectual, moral, and linguistic capacities of animals. The
crux of his argument is that animals lack in autonomy and so cannot be considered equals in ethical calculus.
Michael P.T Leahy, Senior Lecturer in Philosophy at the University of Kent. Against Liberation: Putting Animals in
Perspective (1991).
Leahy’s book is a valuable resource for the negative. It sums up and attacks the positions held by Singer
and Regan, summarizes the case presented by Frey, and applies the work of several other philosophers including
Aristotle, Darwin, and Wittgenstein to the topic of animal rights. Leahy also includes an afterword in which he
answers critiques given by Singer and others. This section may be particularly useful in cutting response evidence.
Edwin Locke, Professor Emeritus at the University of Maryland. “Animal ‘Rights’ and the New Man-Haters.”
Accessed 7/8/10 http://www.aynrand.org/site/PageServer?pagename=objectivism_animal_rights.
In this brief article, Locke argues that morality is the basis of any rights claim. Though he doesn’t state it
explicity, his argument is similar to that of social contract theorists who also exclude animals. Locke also lobs some
ad-hominem attacks at animal rights advocates and accuses them of shoddy science.
H. J. McCloskey. 1987. The Moral Case for Animal Experimentation. The Monist 70 6:64-82.
McCloskey’s defense of animal experimentation is largely utilitarian. His thesis is that animal
experimentation is humane, that there is no alternative for many types of research, and that animal pain is
superficial compared to human pain. He also makes some theoretical arguments about why animals are not
members of the moral community and hence lack rights, although their pain is morally considerable.
Richard Posner, 7th Circuit Court of Appeals, “Animal Rights Debate Between Peter Singer and Richard Posner.”
Slate. (2001) http://www.utilitarian.net/singer/interviews-debates/200106--.htm, Accessed 7/14/10
This article is a series of letters exchanged between Singer and Posner debating the merits of animal
rights. The article is useful because it offers good response arguments to a number of claims likely to arise in
debates on both sides of the resolution.
Tom Regan. 1983. The Case for Animal Rights. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Regan, like Singer, takes a fairly radical stance in advocating the need for drastic reforms in the human
relationship with animals. Unlike Singer, however, Regan rejects strict utilitarianism and instead argues for a rightsoriented ethic towards animals. For example, while Singer would allow some animal research if the benefits clearly
outweigh the harm, Regan would be very reluctant to do so because of his immense respect for individual rights.
Tom Regan. 2003. Animal Rights, Human Wrongs: An Introduction to Moral Philosophy. Oxford: Rowman and
Littlefield Publishers.
Regan’s book is an easy-to-read introduction to ethical and moral philosophy centered on animal rights.
He examines the various foundations of ethical philosophy, including direct and indirect duty views, utilitarianism
and social contract theory from an animal rights perspective. This is an excellent resource for summing up the
implications of various philosophical systems on the topic.
S. F. Sapontzis 1987. Morals, Reason, and Animals. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.
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Sapontzis defends animal rights from a more nuanced position than Singer or Regan’s hard line. The
argument incorporates less well-known aspects of ethical philosophy including moral proximity and relatability,
and concludes that animals are not sufficiently distinct from human beings to justify mistreatment. The author also
discusses some particularly grizzly practices at factory farms.
Peter Singer. 1975. Animal Liberation: A New Ethics for Our Treatment of Animals. New York: New York Review of
Books.
Singer’s book jumpstarted the focus on the problem of animal rights in philosophy and ethics. He is an act
utilitarian and argues persuasively that because animals have the ability to suffer or feel pain, they are entitled to
equal consideration of interests. Whether this can be called an appeal for animal rights is questionable, however,
because Singer’s goal as a utilitarian is to maximize pleasure and minimize pain regardless of any one individual’s
rights. This book is exceptionally clearly written and is a superb starting point for affirmative research.
Peter Singer, Professor of Philosophy at Princeton University, “Animal Rights Debate Between Peter Singer and
Richard Posner.” Slate, (2001) http://www.utilitarian.net/singer/interviews-debates/200106--.htm, Accessed
7/14/10
This article is a series of letters exchanged between Singer and Posner debating the merits of animal
rights. The article is useful because it offers good response arguments to a number of claims likely to arise in
debates on both sides of the resolution.
Bonnie Steinbock, Professor of Philosophy at the State University of New York—Albany. “Speciesism and the Idea
of Equality.” Philosophy Vol. 53, No. 204 (1978).
Steinbock opposes animal rights on the basis that there are meaningful, relevant difference between
humans and non-human animals which justify speciesism. She claims that human intellect provides the necessary
cutoff point for rights due to its practical and philosophical implications. Steinbock also offers a compelling
argument that speciesism is a sensible reaction to this innate difference, while carefully pointing out that racism,
sexism, and other forms of intra-human discrimination are not.
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File Title
Definitions
JUSTICE: THE EXISTENCE OF A PROPER BALANCE
The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Politics, 2003, http://www.answers.com/topic/justice, accessed 7/12/2010.
DISCUSSION: This definition of justice is advantageous to the negative because of the ambiguity of the phrase
“proper balance.” The negative can argue that a proper balance will inevitably favor humans for some reason,
which means that even if all the affirmative arguments are true justice would still demand that animal rights not be
recognized.
JUSTICE: A STATE OF AFFAIRS IN WHICH CONDUCT OR ACTION IS BOTH FAIR AND RIGHT, GIVEN THE
CIRCUMSTANCES.
Duhaime Law Dictionary, http://www.duhaime.org/LegalDictionary/J/Justice.aspx, accessed 7/12/2010.
DISCUSSION: This definition of justice is fairly standard, but noticeably broad due to the phrase “given the
circumstances.” This allows either side to avoid being boxed into defend specific policy options (ie…universal
animal testing ban) because circumstances could conceivable justify most things.
REQUIRES: TO NEED OR MAKE NECESSARY
Cambridge Online Dictionary, http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/british/require#require__3, Accessed
7/13/10
DISCUSSION: A fairly typical interpretation, this could force the affirmative into a slightly harder burden of proof
than other interpretations. Here, the affirmative must establish that recognition of animal rights is a prerequisite
for justice.
REQUIRES: TO CALL FOR AS SUITABLE OR APPROPRIATE
Merriam-Webster’s Online Dictionary, http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/requires, Accessed
7/13/2010
DISCUSSION: This interpretation may set a slightly lower burden for the affirmative, because it doesn’t necessarily
see animal rights as a prerequisite for justice, but rather appropriate for justice.
RECOGNITION: SPECIAL NOTICE OR ATTENTION
Merriam-Webster’s Online Dictionary, http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/recognition, Accessed
7/13/10
DISCUSSION: This definition is interesting in that the mere act of paying attention to animal rights or giving them
special notice would not necessarily require any sort of behavioral or policy adjustment. An affirmative case could
conceivably no-link all negative arguments
RECOGNITION: AGREEMENT THAT SOMETHING IS TRUE OR LEGAL
Cambridge Dictionaries Online, http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/british/recognition_1, Accessed
7/13/10
ANIMAL RIGHTS: IDEA THAT THE MOST BASIC INTERESTS OF NON-HUMAN ANIMALS SHOULD BE AFFORDED THE
SAME CONSIDERATION AS THE SIMILAR INTERESTS OF A HUMAN BEINGS.
Wise, Steven M. "Animal Rights", Encyclopædia Britannica, 2007, accessed May 17, 2010
DISCUSSION: This interpretation is valuable to any affirmative running Singer’s argument about equal
consideration of interests. It explicitly links animal rights to equal consideration, not necessarily equal treatment.
This is broad enough to allow the affirmative to avoid defending a complete ban on hunting or medical research,
for example.
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ANIMAL RIGHTS: THE RIGHTS OF ANIMALS TO BE TREATED WELL, FOR EXAMPLE BY NOT BEING USED FOR TESTING
DRUGS OR BY NOT BEING HUNTED.
Cambridge Dictionaries Online, http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/british/animal-rights, Accessed 7/13/10
DISCUSSION: This definition is very vague, which may be to the advantage of the affirmative. This would allow the
affirmative to pivot in later speeches on the meaning and scope of the word “well.” Does “well” mean the right to
be free from any harm by humans? Or only animals must not be harmed without a good reason?
ANIMAL: ANY MEMBER OF THE KINGDOM, ANIMALIA
Dictionary.com, http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/animal, 7/13/2010
DISCUSSION: This is the scientific definition of the word animal. Notably, Homo sapiens is a member of the
kingdom Animalia which means human rights can be viewed as a subset of animal rights. The affirmative might
argue that rejection of animal rights is tantamount to a rejection of human rights, therefore.
ANIMAL: SOMETHING THAT LIVES AND MOVES BUT IS NOT A HUMAN, BIRD, FISH, OR INSECT.
Cambridge Dictionaries Online, http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/british/animal_1, Accessed 7/13/10
DISCUSSION: This is a British definition. For some reason British people often think the word “animal” refers
exclusively to mammals. This interpretation could be useful for an affirmative wishing to defend the rights only of
higher animals with greater intelligence or capacity for suffering.
RIGHTS: COLLECTION OF ENTITLEMENTS PROTECTED BY THE GOVERNMENT
Law.dictionary.com, http://dictionary.law.com/Default.aspx?selected=1858, Accessed 7/13/2010.
DISCUSSION: This definition could change the debate somewhat because it views rights through the lens of the
government rather than as arising from personal duties or obligations.
RIGHTS: JUSTIFIED EXPECTATIONS ABOUT THE BENEFITS OTHER PEOPLE OR SOCIETY OUGHT TO PROVIDE.
Philosophypages.com, http://www.philosophypages.com/dy/r9.htm#rights, Accessed 7/13/2010
DISCUSSION: This conception of rights is more closely tied to the individual and community, which could shift the
focus of the debate away from policy and towards personal obligations towards animals.
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Affirmative Case
DEFINITIONS
JUSTICE: A STATE OF AFFAIRS IN WHICH CONDUCT OR ACTION IS BOTH FAIR AND RIGHT, GIVEN THE
CIRCUMSTANCES. (you wouldn’t give a madman back his sword as Socrates says in one of his dialogues)
Duhaime Law Dictionary, http://www.duhaime.org/LegalDictionary/J/Justice.aspx, accessed 7/12/2010.
RECOGNITION: AGREEMENT THAT SOMETHING IS TRUE OR LEGAL
Cambridge Dictionaries Online, http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/british/recognition_1, Accessed
7/13/10
ANIMAL RIGHTS: THE RIGHTS OF ANIMALS TO BE TREATED WELL, FOR EXAMPLE BY NOT BEING USED FOR TESTING
DRUGS OR BY NOT BEING HUNTED.
Cambridge Dictionaries Online, http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/british/animal-rights, Accessed 7/13/10
VALUE: JUSTICE
CRITERION: EQUAL CONSIDERATION OF INTERESTS
Equal consideration of interests is the moral principle that we should evaluate the interests of all beings effected
by a given action in determining whether or not that action is moral. The affirmative will prove that animals have
interests, and that justice requires that those interests be weighed equally because refusal to do so is baseless,
arbitrary, and prejudiced. I should note that equal consideration does not necessarily mean equal treatment; I
don’t advocate voting rights for pigs any more than I would advocate abortion rights for men. Rather, equal
consideration simply means that we must evaluate the impact of our actions on all sentient creatures.
CONTENTION 1: ANIMALS HAVE INTERESTS
ANIMALS FEEL PAIN—EXTERNAL BEHAVIOR PROVES
Singer, Peter, Professor of Philosophy at Princeton. Animal Liberation. 1990, pp 10-12.
Nearly all the external signs that lead us to infer pain in other humans can be seen in other species, especially the
species most closely related to us--the species of mammals and birds. The behavioral signs include writhing, facial
contortions, moaning, yelping or other forms of calling, attempts to avoid the source of the pain, appearance of
fear at the prospect of its repetition, and so on. In addition, we know that these animals have nervous systems
very like ours, which respond physiologically like ours do when the animal is in circumstances in which we would
feel pain: an initial rise of blood pressure, dilated pupils, perspiration, an increased pulse rate, and, if the stimulus
continues, a fall in blood pressure. Although human beings have a more developed cerebral cortex than other
animals, this part of the brain is concerned with thinking functions rather than with basic impulses, emotions, and
feelings. These impulses, emotions, and feelings are located in the diencephalon, which is well developed in many
other species of animals, especially mammals and birds.
ANIMALS FEEL PAIN—PHYSIOLOGY PROVES
Singer, Peter, Professor of Philosophy at Princeton. Animal Liberation. 1990, pp 10-12.
We also know that the nervous systems of other animals were not artificially constructed--as a robot might be
artificially constructed--to mimic the pain behavior of humans. The nervous systems of animals evolved as our own
did, and in fact the evolutionary history of human beings and other animals, especially mammals, did not diverge
until the central features of our nervous systems were already in existence. A capacity to feel pain obviously
enhances a species' prospects for survival, since it causes members of the species to avoid sources of injury. It is
surely unreasonable to suppose that nervous systems that are virtually identical physiologically, have a common
origin and a common evolutionary function, and result in similar forms of behavior in similar circumstances should
actually operate in an entirely different manner on the level of subjective feelings.
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This evidence establishes that animals do have interests, which clearly demonstrates that equal consideration of
those interests is at least possible.
SENTIENCE IS THE BASIS OF RIGHTS
Steinbock, Bonnie, Professor of Philosophy at the State University of New York—Albany. “Speciesism and the Idea
of Equality.” Philosophy Vol. 53, No. 204 (1978).
If the capacity to suffer is the reason for ascribing a right to freedom from acute pain, or a right to well being, then
it certainly looks as though these rights must be extended to animals as well. This is the conclusion Singer arrives
at. The demand for human equality rests on the equal capacity of all human beings to suffer and to enjoy well
being. But if this is the basis of the demand for equality, then this demand must include all beings which have an
equal capacity to suffer and enjoy well being. That is why Singer places at the basis of the demand for equality, not
intelligence or reason, but sentience. And equality will mean, not equality of treatment, but 'equal consideration of
interests'. The equal consideration of interests will often mean quite different treatment, depending on the nature
of the entity being considered. (It would be as absurd to talk of a dog's right to vote, Singer says, as to talk of a
man's right to have an abortion.)
The Steinbock evidence establishes that the ability of animals to feel pain is the only appropriate standard for
determining whose interests should be considered. We must evaluate animal interests as equal to human interests
for the sake of justice.
CONTENTION 2: HUMAN/ANIMAL DISTINCTIONS ARE ARBITRARY AND SPECIESIST
HUMAN-ANIMAL SIMILARITIES OUTWEIGH DIFFERENCES
Regan, Tom, Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at North Caroline State University. “The Case for Animal Rights.”
Animal Rights and Human Obligations, Eds. Singer and Regan, 1989.
Animals, it is true, lack many of the abilities humans possess. They can't read, do higher mathematics, build a
bookcase, or make baba ghanoush. Neither can many human beings, however, and yet we don't (and shouldn't)
say that they (these humans) therefore have less inherent value, less of a right to be treated with respect, than do
others. It is the similarities between those human beings who most clearly, most noncontroversially have such
value (the people reading this, for example), not our differences, that matter most. And the really crucial, the basic
similarity it simply this: we are each of us the experiencing subject of a life, a conscious creature having an
individual welfare that has importance to us whatever our usefulness to others. We want and prefer things,
believe and fee things, recall and expect things. And all these dimensions of our life including our pleasure and
pain, our enjoyment and suffering, our satisfaction and frustration, our continued existence or our untimely death
-- all make a difference to the quality of our life as lived, as experienced, by us as individuals. As the same is true of
those animals that concern us (the ones that are eaten and trapped, for example), they too must be viewed as the
experiencing subjects of a life, with inherent value of their own.
This evidence establishes that because there are no morally relevant differences between human beings, which
leads to the conclusion that refusing to evaluate the interests of animals is inherently speciesist.
INTELLIGENCE IS NOT A MORALLY RELEVANT DIFFERENCE
Aaltola, Elisa, Researcher in Philosophy at University of Turku in Finland. “Animal Ethics and Interest Conflicts.”
Ethics and the Environment Vol. 10, No. 1 (Spring, 2005).
As has been pointed out, the fact that Liz is mentally complex does not mean that she has a right to cut down an
old elm tree to satisfy her curiosity. The point is simple: even if a is more mentally complex than b, this does not
mean that a ought to be always prioritized in interest conflicts against b. The relation between the weight of
interests and mental complexity remains unjustified. To appreciate this, we only need to consider the
consequences of the model. If we are to concentrate solely on mental skills, we are entitled to use not only other
animals, but also other human beings to further our own benefit. Ultimately we could have a hierarchical society,
where each individual’s moral status would be proportional to how much she scores in a cognitive skills test.
LANGUAGE IS IRRELEVANT
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Singer, Peter, Professor of Philosophy at Princeton University. 1975. Animal Liberation: A New Ethics for Our
Treatment of Animals. New York: New York Review of Books.
It may be that the use of a public, rule-governed language is a pre-condition of conceptual thought. It may even be,
although personally I doubt it, that we cannot meaningfully speak of a creature having an intention unless that
creature can use language. But states like pain, surely, are more primitive than either of these, and seem to have
nothing to do with language. Indeed, as Jane Goodall points out in her study of chimpanzees, when it comes to the
expression of feelings and emotions, humans tend to fall back on non-linguistic modes of communication which
are often found among apes, such as a cheering pat on the back, an exuberant embrace, a clasp of hands, and so
on…so there seems to be no reason to at all to believe that a creature without language cannot suffer.
The evidence from Singer and Aaltola indicates that none of the typically mentioned reasons why humans are
superior to animals is legitimate, which means that refusing to evaluate the interests of animals is speciesist.
SPECIESISM IS WRONG
Regan, Tom, Professor of Philosophy at North Carolina State University 2003. Animal Rights, Human Wrongs: An
Introduction to Moral Philosophy. Oxford: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers.
The question, then, is whether any defensible, relevant reason can be offered in support of the speciesist
judgement that the moral importance of the pains of humans and those animals, equal in other respects (I note
that the same applies to equal pleasures, benefits, harms, and interests, for example), always should be weighted
in favor of the human being over the animal being? To this question, neither Rawls nor Cohen (nor any other
philosopher, for that matter) offers a logically relevant answer. To persist in judging human interests as being more
important than the like interests of other animals because they are human interests is not rationally defensible.
Speciesism is a moral prejudice. And (contrary to Cohen’s assurances to the contrary), it is wrong, not right
Behaving in a speciesist manner is wrong. Only by considering the interests of all sentient creatures equally can we
uphold the value of justice.
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Affirmative Extensions
Factory Farming is Cruel
FACTORY FARMING IS HORRIBLE TO ANIMALS
Tom Regan, Professor of Philosophy at North Caroline State University. “The Case for Animal Rights.” The Animal
Rights Debate. (2001)
In a word, calves raised in veal crates are denied virtually everything that answers to their nature. That they display
behavioral patterns (e.g., repetitive movements and tongue rolling) associated with psychological maladjustment
should surprise no one. These animals are not well, not in body, not in mind. When the day arrives for them to go
to their foreordained slaughter, not as the frolicsome creatures they might have been but as the stunted “fancy”
meat machines their producers and consumers have made them, death arguably offers these forlorn animals a
better bargain than the life they have known.
MEAT IS 100% UNNECESSARY FOR HUMANS
Tom Regan, Professor of Philosophy at North Caroline State University. “The Case for Animal Rights.” The Animal
Rights Debate. (2001)
The “protein myth” (“You have to eat meat to get your protein”) once employed wide currency among the general
public. Times have changed. Today, more and more people understand that all the protein humans need for
optimal health can be obtained without eating meat (a vegetarian diet) and without eating meat or any other food
derived from animals, including milk, cheese, and eggs (a vegan diet). Even the United States Department of
Agriculture (USDA), no friend of vegetarianism in the past, today waves a dietary flag of truce. In its most recent
assessment, the USDA acknowledges that vegetarianism and veganism offer positive, healthy dietary options.
FACTORY FARMING IS CRUEL TO COWS
People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), http://www.peta.org/mc/factsheet_display.asp?ID=103,
Accessed 7/14/10.
Cows who are free to roam pastures and care for their young form life-long friendships with one another and have
demonstrated the ability to be vain, hold grudges, solve problems, and play games. But cows raised for the meat
and dairy industries are often far removed from lush pastures and nursing calves. Cattle raised for beef may be
born in one state, fattened in another, and slaughtered in yet another. They are fed an unnatural diet of high-bulk
grains and other “fillers,” which can include expired dog and cat food, poultry feces, and leftover restaurant food.
They are castrated, their horns are ripped out, and they have third-degree burns inflicted on them (branding)—all
without any painkillers. During transportation, cattle are crowded onto trucks, where they suffer from trampling
and temperature extremes and lack food, water, and veterinary care. At the slaughterhouse, cattle may be hoisted
upside down by their hind legs and dismembered while they are still conscious. The kill rate in a typical
slaughterhouse is 400 animals per hour, and “the line is never stopped simply because an animal is alive,”
according to one slaughterhouse worker. Calves raised for veal are the male offspring of dairy cows. They’re taken
from their mothers within a few days of birth, and they are chained in stalls that have slatted floors and are only 2
feet wide and 6 feet long. Since their mothers’ milk is used for human consumption, the calves are fed a milk
substitute that is designed to help them gain at least 2 pounds a day. The diet is purposely low in iron so that the
calves become anemic and their flesh stays pale and tender
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Factory Farming is Inhumane
FACTORY FARMING IS CRUEL TO CHICKENS
People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), http://www.peta.org/mc/factsheet_display.asp?ID=103,
Accessed 7/14/10.
Chickens are inquisitive animals, and in their natural surroundings, they form friendships and social hierarchies,
recognize one another and develop pecking orders, love and care for their young, and enjoy full lives that include
dust-bathing, making nests, and roosting in trees. On factory farms, however, chickens are denied these activities
and suffer because of it. Laying hens live in battery cages stacked tier upon tier in huge warehouses. Confined
seven or eight to a cage, they don’t have enough room to turn around or spread even one wing. Conveyor belts
bring in food and water and carry away eggs. Farmers often induce greater egg production through “forced
molting”: Chickens are denied food and light for days, which leads to feather and weight loss. To prevent stressinduced behaviors caused by extreme crowding—such as pecking their cagemates to death—hens are typically
kept in semi-darkness, and the ends of their sensitive beaks are cut off with hot blades without any painkillers. The
wire mesh of the cages rubs their feathers and skin off and causes their feet to become crippled. Chickens can live
for more than a decade, but laying hens on factory farms are exhausted and unable to produce as many eggs by
the time they are 2 years old, so they are slaughtered. More than 100 million “spent” hens die in slaughterhouses
each year. Ninety-eight percent of the egg industry’s hens are confined to cages on factory farms. More than 9
billion “broiler” chickens are raised in sheds each year. Artificial lighting is manipulated to keep the birds eating as
often as possible. To keep up with demand and to reduce production costs, genetic selection calls for big birds and
fast growth (it now takes only six weeks to “grow out” a chick to “processing” weight), which causes extremely
painful joint and bone conditions. Undercover investigations into the “broiler” chicken industry have revealed that
birds routinely suffer from dehydration, respiratory diseases, bacterial infections, heart attacks, crippled legs, and
other serious ailments. At the slaughterhouse, chickens are hung upside down, their legs are forced into metal
shackles, their throats are cut, and they are immersed in scalding-hot water in defeathering tanks. They are often
conscious throughout the entire process
FACTORY FARMING IS CRUEL TO PIGS
People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), http://www.peta.org/mc/factsheet_display.asp?ID=103,
Accessed 7/14/10.
Pigs are very clean animals who take to the mud primarily to cool off and evade flies. They are just as friendly and
gregarious as dogs, and according to Professor Donald Broom at the Cambridge University Veterinary School,
“They have the cognitive ability to be quite sophisticated. Even more so than dogs and certainly three-year-olds.”
Mother pigs on factory farms in the U.S. spend most of their lives confined to crates that measure 7 feet long and 2
feet wide, barely larger than the pigs themselves. They display signs of extreme boredom and stress, such as biting
the bars of their cages and gnashing their teeth. Their piglets are taken away three weeks after birth and packed
into pens until they are singled out to be raised for breeding or for meat. Like chickens and turkeys, pigs are
genetically manipulated and pumped full of drugs, and many become crippled under their own weight. Although
pigs are naturally affable and social animals, the confinement of these crowded pens causes neurotic behaviors
such as cannibalism and tail-biting, so farmers cut off piglets’ tails without any painkillers and use pliers to break
off the ends of piglets’ teeth. Pigs are transported through all weather extremes, often freezing to the sides of
transport trucks in leading pig-slaughtering states such as Iowa and Nebraska, or dying from dehydration in states
such as North Carolina. According to industry statistics, more than 1 million pigs die en route to slaughter each
year. At the slaughterhouse, improper stunning means that many hogs reach the scalding-hot water baths—which
are intended to soften their skin and remove their hair—while they are still conscious. USDA inspection records
documented 14 humane slaughter violations at one processing plant, including finding hogs who “were walking
and squealing after being stunned [with a stun gun] as many as four times.” A PETA investigation found that
workers at an Oklahoma farm were killing pigs by slamming the animals’ heads against the floor and beating them
with a hammer. At a Hormel supplier in Iowa, PETA investigators witnessed rampant cruelty to animals, including
that workers beat pigs with metal gate rods and jabbed clothespins into pigs’ eyes and faces
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Factory Farming is bad
FACTORY FARMING IS BAD FOR HUMANS AND THE ENVIRONMENT
People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), http://www.peta.org/mc/factsheet_display.asp?ID=103,
Accessed 7/14/10.
Factory farms are harmful to the environment as well as being cruel to animals. The 3 trillion pounds of waste
produced by factory-farmed animals each year are usually sprayed on fields, and they subsequently run off into
waterways—along with the drugs and bacteria that they contain. According to the EPA, agricultural runoff is the
number one source of water pollution.Two-thirds of all agricultural land in the U.S. is used to raise animals for food
or to grow grain to feed them.(26) Chickens, pigs, cattle, and other animals raised for food are the primary
consumers of water in the U.S.—a single pig consumes 21 gallons of drinking water per day, while a cow on a dairy
farm drinks as much as 50 gallons daily. It takes more than 2,400 gallons of water to produce 1 pound of cow flesh,
whereas it takes about 180 gallons of water to produce 1 pound of whole-wheat flour. Food-related illnesses affect
more than 76 million people annually and kill more than 5,000. Consumer Reports found that two-thirds of
chickens studied were infected with either salmonella or campylobacter or both. Eggs pose a salmonella threat to
approximately one out of every 50 people each year in some parts of the U.S. Potentially deadly E. coli bacteria
sickens more than 62,000 people each year, and the USDA reports that most of the cattle slaughtered for food in
the U.S. are likely infected with it.
VEGAN DIET SUPPLIES ALL NECESSARY PROTEIN
People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), http://www.peta.org/mc/factsheet_display.asp?ID=105,
Accessed 7/14/10.
While virtually all vegan foods contain some protein, soybeans deserve special mention. Soybeans contain all the
essential amino acids and surpass all other plant foods in the amount of protein that they can deliver to humans.
The human body is able to digest 92 percent of the protein found in meat and 91 percent of the protein found in
soybeans. The availability of many different and delicious soy products (e.g., tempeh, tofu, and soy-based varieties
of hot dogs, burgers, and ice cream) in grocery and health-food stores suggests that the soybean, in its many
forms, can accommodate a wide range of tastes. Other rich sources of non-animal protein include legumes, nuts,
seeds, food yeasts, and freshwater algae. Although food yeasts, such as nutritional yeast and brewer’s yeast, do
not lend themselves to being the center of one’s diet, they are extremely nutritious additions to many dishes,
including soups, gravies, breads, casseroles, and dips. Most yeasts are 50 percent protein.
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Animal Testing is Cruel
TOXICITY TESTS ARE AWFUL
Tom Regan, Professor of Philosophy at North Caroline State University. “The Case for Animal Rights.” The Animal
Rights Debate. (2001)
The LD50 (test to discover what dosage of a chemical will kill 50% of subjects) works this way. The test substance is
orally administered to the test animals, some of whome are given the substance in more, others in less,
concentrated forms. In theory, anything and everything has a lethal dose. Even water has been shown to be lethal
to 50% of test animals, if enough is consumed in a short enough period of time. To control variables, and because
the animals themselves will not “volunteer” to swallow such things as paint thinner or Christmas tree spray, a
measured amount is passed through a tube and down the animals’ throats. Variables are also controlled by
withholding anesthetic. Anywhere from ten to sixty animals are used. Observation of their condition may last up to
two weeks, during which time the requisite 50% normally die, after which the remaining animals are killed and
their dissected bodies examined…tests like LD50 are the invisible history behind the “Harmful or fatal if
swallowed” labels on cans of items such as brake fluids, household lubricants, and industrial solvents.
ANIMAL RESEARCH IS GETTING MORE CRUEL, AND IT’S WASTEFUL
People For the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), http://www.peta.org/mc/factsheet_display.asp?ID=126
Accessed 7/14/10
Because of the unpredictable nature of genetic manipulation, any “mistakes” that are made can have disastrous
consequences for the animals involved. Transgenic pigs who were bred to grow faster and leaner have suffered
from arthritis, lethargy, abnormal skull growth, and impaired immune systems. The widely recognized potential for
genetic manipulation to result in adverse effects on animals’ health and well-being prompted the Canadian Council
on Animal Care to classify these experiments in the second-most severe “category of invasiveness”––with the
potential to cause “moderate to severe distress or discomfort.” The creation of new strains of genetically
manipulated animals is also incredibly wasteful and inefficient. Only between 1 and 10 percent of animals
successfully incorporate the foreign genetic material injected into their embryos; those who do not are killed.This
means that as many as 99 animals may be killed for every “viable” transgenic animal who is born. As a result, the
number of animals subjected to genetic-manipulation experiments in the U.K. since 1990 has increased more than
tenfold. Today, one out of every four animals in U.K. labs has been genetically manipulated in some way.
CAPTIVITY IS BAD FOR ANIMALS
Marc Bekoff and Ned Hettinger, Department of Environmental, Population, and Organismic Biology at the
University of Colorado—Boulder. “Animals, Nature, and Ethics.” Journal of Mammology. Vol. 95, No. 1 (Feb. 1994)
We also should not accept Howard's claim that the quality of animal lives is superior in human culture than in wild
nature. For example, with rare exceptions the life of a tiger is not improved by putting it in a zoo. Although its food
will be provided, hunting has played a large role in the evolution of tigers and is essential to a tiger's way of life.
Movement also will be severely restricted, and for animals that typically roam in search of food and shelter,
captivity produces an impoverished existence. Furthermore, it is not at all clear that captive animals live longer
than their wild counterparts. Further discussion is needed concerning if and how appeals to the "ways of nature"
bear on the morality of treatment of other animals by humans. Superficial appeals to nature's brutality to justify
the treatment of nonhumans will not do (for a field biologist's perspective).
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Animal Testing does not help create cures
TOXICITY TESTING ON ANIMALS IS INEFFECTIVE
People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), http://www.peta.org/mc/factsheet_display.asp?ID=91,
Accessed 7/14/10.
Acute toxicity testing began during the World War I era with the now infamous lethal dose 50 percent (LD50) test,
which even today, remains the most common form of animal-poisoning study. In this test, groups of animals are
force-fed increasing amounts of a substance until 50 percent of them die. Despite its decades of use, the LD50 test
and its more contemporary adaptations have never been scientifically validated to confirm that their results are
indeed predictive of chemical effects in people. One international study that examined the results of rat and
mouse LD50 tests for 50 chemicals found that these tests were able to predict toxicity in humans with only 65
percent accuracy––while a series of human cell-line tests was found to predict toxicity in humans with about 75
percent accuracy.
TESTING ON ANIMALS IS BAD SCIENCE
Andrew Rowan, Professor at Tufts University School of Veterinary Medicine and Director of the Tufts Center
Animals and Public Policy. “The Use of Animals in Experimentation: An Examination of the ‘Technical’ Arguments
Used to Criticize the Practice.” Animal Rights: The Changing Debate (1996).
Sharpe states that: ‘the real choice is not between dogs and children, it is between good science and bad science;
between methods that directly relate to humans and those that do not. By its very nature vivisection is bad
science: it tells us about animals, usually under artificial conditions, not about people.
ANIMAL RESEARCH DOES NOTHING TO CURE HUMAN DISEASE
People For the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), http://www.peta.org/mc/factsheet_display.asp?ID=126
Accessed 7/14/10
Diseases that are artificially induced in animals in a laboratory are never identical to those that occur naturally in
human beings. And because animal species differ from one another in many biologically significant ways, it
becomes even more unlikely that animal research will yield results that will be correctly interpreted and applied to
the human condition in a meaningful way. The fact that the species most often used in laboratory experiments are
chosen largely for nonscientific reasons, such as cost and ease of handling, casts further doubt on the validity of
this research. In addition, the results of animal experiments are often so variable and easily manipulated that
researchers have used them to “prove”––depending on the source of funding––that cigarettes do cause cancer
and that they do not! A careful scientific review of 10 randomly chosen “animal models” of human disease found
that they made little, if any, contribution toward the treatment of human patients
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The Fur Industry is Cruel
THE FUR INDUSTRY IS CRUEL TO ANIMALS
People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), http://www.peta.org/mc/factsheet_display.asp?ID=56,
Accessed 7/14/10.
The most commonly farmed fur-bearing animals are minks, followed by foxes. Chinchillas, lynxes, and even
hamsters are also farmed for their fur. Fifty-eight percent of mink farms are in Europe, 10 percent are in North
America, and the rest are dispersed throughout the world, in countries such as Argentina, China, and Russia. Mink
farmers usually breed female minks once a year. There are about three or four surviving kittens in each litter, and
they are killed when they are about 6 months old, depending on what country they are in, after the first hard
freeze. Minks used for breeding are kept for four to five years. The animals—who are housed in unbearably small
cages—live with fear, stress, disease, parasites, and other physical and psychological hardships, all for the sake of
an unnecessary global industry that makes billions of dollars annually.
FUR RANCHES ARE HORRIBLE PLACES
Tom Regan, Professor of Philosophy at North Caroline State University. “The Case for Animal Rights.” The Animal
Rights Debate. (2001)
The premium placed on not spoiling the coat carries over to the method of killing. No throat slitting here, as is true
in the case of the slaughter of veal calves. Noninvasive methods, none of which involves the use of anesthetics, are
the rule…these small animal are…frequently asphyxiated through the use of carbon dioxide or carbon monoxide. In
the case of fox, anal electrocution may be the method of choice. It works this way. First, a metal clamp is fastened
around the animals’ muzzle. Next, one end of an electrified metal rod is shoved up the fox’s anus. Then a switch is
turned on and the animal is electrocuted to death, from the inside out. When properly done, these methods yield
unblemished plelts.
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Animals are Intelligent
ANIMALS ARE INTELLIGENT AND HAVE PREFERENCES
Regan, Tom, Professor of Philosophy at North Carolina State University 2003. Animal Rights, Human Wrongs: An
Introduction to Moral Philosophy. Oxford: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers.
Writing of mammalian animals, Darwin observes that “there is no fundamental difference between man and the
higher animals and their mental faculties.” The difference in the mental life of human beings and other mammals,
he adds, is “one of degree, not of kind.” What Darwin means, I think, is that these animals are like us in having a
rich, unified mental life. Darwin himself catalogs the mental attributes he finds in other mammals, basing his
findings on his own and others’ observations of their behavior. It is an impressive list, including…such emotions as
terror, suspicion, courage, rage, shame, jealousy, grief, love, and affection, and such higher order cognitive abilities
as curiosity, attention, memory, imagination, and reason.
INTELLIGENCE IS NOT A MORALLY RELEVANT DIFFERENCE
Aaltola, Elisa, Researcher in Philosophy at University of Turku in Finland. “Animal Ethics and Interest Conflicts.”
Ethics and the Environment Vol. 10, No. 1 (Spring, 2005).
As has been pointed out, the fact that Liz is mentally complex does not mean that she has a right to cut down an
old elm tree to satisfy her curiosity. The point is simple: even if a is more mentally complex than b, this does not
mean that a ought to be always prioritized in interest conflicts against b. The relation between the weight of
interests and mental complexity remains unjustified. To appreciate this, we only need to consider the
consequences of the model. If we are to concentrate solely on mental skills, we are entitled to use not only other
animals, but also other human beings to further our own benefit. Ultimately we could have a hierarchical society,
where each individual’s moral status would be proportional to how much she scores in a cognitive skills test.
TESTS MEASURING ANIMAL INTELLIGENCE ARE ANTHROPOCENTRIC
Elisa Aaltola, Professor of Philosophy at the University of Turku, Finland. “Personhood and Animals: Three
Approaches.” Accessed July 4, 2010: http://www.cep.unt.edu/ISEE2/aaltola.pdf
The approach to animal minds has tended to be anthropocentric. Animals have been expected to demonstrate
capacities in a similar manner to humans without paying attention to matters such as species-specific traits.
Cognitive capacities have been defined through the human point of view, placing the human version of the
capacities as the “prototype” for any capacities…animals have been expected to be “Little scientists”, where as
human beings are given “allowances” in their capacities: “When people fail to live up to this idea, we say they are
all too human. When animals fail, they are said to be machine-like”… “It is not just that humans are different from
‘other animals’; ‘every [kind of] animal is the smartest’ if you know how to ask questions of its intelligence that are
appropriate to its way of life rather than questions dictated by beliefs in an underlying animal stupidity. “Other
animals are not simply a package of territoriality or other ‘drives’, but complex, decision-making
creatures engaging with their environment.”
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Animals Communicate
ANIMALS CAN COMMUNICATE LIKE HUMANS
Fox, Michael, Vice President of the Farm Animals and Bioethics section of the Human Society of the United States
and former psychology lecturer at Washinton University. The Case for Animal Experimentation: An Evolutionary
and Ethical Perspective (1986).
The capacity for language used to be thought of as Homo sapiens’ most distinctive behavior trait. We now realize
that this belief was naïve. Animals of a wide variety communicate among themselves in their own often complex
and indecipherable ways, and captive chimpanzees can be taught to manipulate humanly meaningful symbols,
teach their young to do likewise, and communicate with one another using these same signs.
LANGUAGE IS IRRELEVANT
Singer, Peter, Professor of Philosophy at Princeton University. 1975. Animal Liberation: A New Ethics for Our
Treatment of Animals. New York: New York Review of Books.
It may be that the use of a public, rule-governed language is a pre-condition of conceptual thought. It may even be,
although personally I doubt it, that we cannot meaningfully speak of a creature having an intention unless that
creature can use language. But states like pain, surely, are more primitive than either of these, and seem to have
nothing to do with language. Indeed, as Jane Goodall points out in her study of chimpanzees, when it comes to the
expression of feelings and emotions, humans tend to fall back on non-linguistic modes of communication which
are often found among apes, such as a cheering pat on the back, an exuberant embrace, a clasp of hands, and so
on…so there seems to be no reason to at all to believe that a creature without language cannot suffer.
Animal are feel pain
ANIMALS FEEL PAIN—PHYSIOLOGY PROVES
Singer, Peter, Professor of Philosophy at Princeton. Animal Liberation. 1990, pp 10-12.
We also know that the nervous systems of other animals were not artificially constructed--as a robot might be
artificially constructed--to mimic the pain behavior of humans. The nervous systems of animals evolved as our own
did, and in fact the evolutionary history of human beings and other animals, especially mammals, did not diverge
until the central features of our nervous systems were already in existence. A capacity to feel pain obviously
enhances a species' prospects for survival, since it causes members of the species to avoid sources of injury. It is
surely unreasonable to suppose that nervous systems that are virtually identical physiologically, have a common
origin and a common evolutionary function, and result in similar forms of behavior in similar circumstances should
actually operate in an entirely different manner on the level of subjective feelings.
ANIMALS FEEL PAIN—EXTERNAL BEHAVIOR PROVES
Singer, Peter, Professor of Philosophy at Princeton. Animal Liberation. 1990, pp 10-12.
Nearly all the external signs that lead us to infer pain in other humans can be seen in other species, especially the
species most closely related to us--the species of mammals and birds. The behavioral signs include writhing, facial
contortions, moaning, yelping or other forms of calling, attempts to avoid the source of the pain, appearance of
fear at the prospect of its repetition, and so on. In addition, we know that these animals have nervous systems
very like ours, which respond physiologically like ours do when the animal is in circumstances in which we would
feel pain: an initial rise of blood pressure, dilated pupils, perspiration, an increased pulse rate, and, if the stimulus
continues, a fall in blood pressure. Although human beings have a more developed cerebral cortex than other
animals, this part of the brain is concerned with thinking functions rather than with basic impulses, emotions, and
feelings. These impulses, emotions, and feelings are located in the diencephalon, which is well developed in many
other species of animals, especially mammals and birds.
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Animals are Morally Relevant
SUFFERING IS THE CRITERION FOR MORAL CONSIDERATION
Jeremy Bentham, English Philospher and Jurist. Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation, p. 283
(1789)
The day has been, I grieve to say in many places it is not yet past, in which the greater part of the species, under
the denomination of slaves, have been treated by the law exactly upon the same footing, as, in England for
example, the inferior races of animals are still. The day may come when the rest of the animal creation may
acquire those rights which never could have been witholden from them but by the hand of tyranny. The French
have already discovered that the blackness of the skin is no reason a human being should be abandoned without
redress to the caprice of a tormentor. It may one day come to be recognized that the number of the legs, the
villosity of the skin, or the termination of the os sacrum are reasons equally insufficient for abandoning a sensitive
being to the same fate. What else is it that should trace the insuperable line? Is it the faculty of reason or perhaps
the faculty of discourse? But a full-grown horse or dog, is beyond comparison a more rational, as well as a more
conversable animal, than an infant of a day or a week or even a month, old. But suppose the case were otherwise,
what would it avail? the question is not, Can they reason?, nor Can they talk? but, Can they suffer?
HUMAN-ANIMAL SIMILARITIES OUTWEIGH DIFFERENCES
Regan, Tom, Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at North Caroline State University. “The Case for Animal Rights.”
Animal Rights and Human Obligations, Eds. Singer and Regan, 1989.
Animals, it is true, lack many of the abilities humans possess. They can't read, do higher mathematics, build a
bookcase, or make baba ghanoush. Neither can many human beings, however, and yet we don't (and shouldn't)
say that they (these humans) therefore have less inherent value, less of a right to be treated with respect, than do
others. It is the similarities between those human beings who most clearly, most noncontroversially have such
value (the people reading this, for example), not our differences, that matter most. And the really crucial, the basic
similarity it simply this: we are each of us the experiencing subject of a life, a conscious creature having an
individual welfare that has importance to us whatever our usefulness to others. We want and prefer things,
believe and fee things, recall and expect things. And all these dimensions of our life including our pleasure and
pain, our enjoyment and suffering, our satisfaction and frustration, our continued existence or our untimely death
-- all make a difference to the quality of our life as lived, as experienced, by us as individuals. As the same is true of
those animals that concern us (the ones that are eaten and trapped, for example), they too must be viewed as the
experiencing subjects of a life, with inherent value of their own.
DIFFERENT CAPACITIES JUSTIFY DIFFERENT TREATMENT, NOT DIFFERENT RIGHTS
Steinbock, Bonnie, Professor of Philosophy at the State University of New York—Albany. “Speciesism and the Idea
of Equality.” Philosophy Vol. 53, No. 204 (1978).
What is Singer's response? He agrees that non-human animals lack certain capacities that human animals possess,
and that this may justify different treatment. But it does not justify giving less consideration to their needs and
interests. According to Singer, the moral mistake which the racist or sexist makes is not essentially the factual error
of thinking that blacks or women are inferior to white men. For even if there were no factual error, even if it were
true that blacks and women are less intelligent and responsible than whites and men, this would not justify giving
less consideration to their needs and interests.
SENTIENCE IS THE BASIS OF RIGHTS
Steinbock, Bonnie, Professor of Philosophy at the State University of New York—Albany. “Speciesism and the Idea
of Equality.” Philosophy Vol. 53, No. 204 (1978).
If the capacity to suffer is the reason for ascribing a right to freedom from acute pain, or a right to well being, then
it certainly looks as though these rights must be extended to animals as well. This is the conclusion Singer arrives
at. The demand for human equality rests on the equal capacity of all human beings to suffer and to enjoy well
being. But if this is the basis of the demand for equality, then this demand must include all beings which have an
equal capacity to suffer and enjoy well being. That is why Singer places at the basis of the demand for equality, not
intelligence or reason, but sentience. And equality will mean, not equality of treatment, but 'equal consideration of
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interests'. The equal consideration of interests will often mean quite different treatment, depending on the nature
of the entity being considered. (It would be as absurd to talk of a dog's right to vote, Singer says, as to talk of a
man's right to have an abortion.)
Animal Rights are important
ABILITY TO RECOGNIZE RIGHTS IS NOT REQUIRED TO HAVE RIGHTS
Bekoff, Marc and Ned Hettinger, Department of Environmental, Population, and Organismic Biology at the
University of Colorado—Boulder. “Animals, Nature, and Ethics” Feb. 1994
"A right," Howard tells us, "implies concomitant responsibilities, which certainly are not displayed by animals." If
this were true, human infants, mentally disabled humans, and those who suffer from different forms of dementia,
including Alzheimer's disease, also would lack rights because they too have no responsibilities. Ethicists, caregivers,
and many others who are concerned with the rights of young (prelinguistic) humans or those humans who are
mentally impaired find this conclusion to be extremely disturbing.
ABSENT ABSOLUTE CERTAINTY, ASSUME ANIMAL EQUALITY
Bekoff, Marc, Professor of Biology at the University of Colorado—Boulder. “Specieism and Expanding the
Community of Equals.” Bioscience Vol. 48, No. 8 (Aug. 1998).
Even within the confines of moral individualism, decisions about how individuals may be used are extremely
difficult. As Linzey has stressed, as humans' own moral sensibilities develop and our scientific understanding
increases, moral distinctions are likely to change as well. I have argued that when we are un- sure about an
individual's ability to reason or to think, then we should assume that he or she can do so, in his or her ways. And
when we are uncertain about an individual's ability to experience pain, anxiety, and suffering, then we must
assume that he or she can do so. We should err on the side of the animals. In the end, it really is the compromising
of other lives that needs to be dealt with in a serious manner, regardless of whether individuals are smart or are
able to feel pain and to suffer physically or psychologically.
ABILITY TO FEEL PAIN, NOT INHERENT VALUE, IS THE CRITERION FOR RELEVANCE
Richard Ryder, former chairman of the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. “All Beings that Feel
Pain Deserve Human Rights.” (2005) http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2005/aug/06/animalwelfare Accessed
7/14/10.
Our concern for the pain and distress of others should be extended to any "painient" - pain-feeling - being
regardless of his or her sex, class, race, religion, nationality or species. Indeed, if aliens from outer space turn out
to be painient, or if we ever manufacture machines who are painient, then we must widen the moral circle to
include them. Painience is the only convincing basis for attributing rights or, indeed, interests to others. Many
other qualities, such as "inherent value", have been suggested. But value cannot exist in the absence of
consciousness or potential consciousness. Thus, rocks and rivers and houses have no interests and no rights of
their own. This does not mean, of course, that they are not of value to us, and to many other painients, including
those who need them as habitats and who would suffer without them.
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Speciesism
SPECIESISM IS DISCRIMINATION ON THE BASIS OF SPECIES MEMBERSHIP
Peter Singer, Professor of Philosophy at Princeton University, Animal Liberation (1975).
Speciesism is…a prejudice or bias in favor of the interests of members of one’s own species and against those of
members of other species.
MORAL INTUITION DOES NOT JUSTIFIY SPECIESISM
Peter Singer, Professor of Philosophy at Princeton University, “Animal Rights Debate Between Peter Singer and
Richard Posner.” Slate, http://www.utilitarian.net/singer/interviews-debates/200106--.htm, Accessed 7/14/10
But on the whole, I am more suspicious of common moral intuitions than you seem to be. It is not so long ago that
laws persecuting homosexuals were justified by references to the sound moral instincts of ordinary people, and
even the Nazis claimed to rest their laws on "the healthy sensibility of the people." Isn't it likely that such reactions
rest on instincts that have their roots in our evolutionary history? If so, while we would ignore them at our peril,
we do not have to grant them any probative weight. In other words, the fact that people commonly have a given
moral reaction does not go much distance toward showing that this reaction is the one they ought to have. Hence I
would turn on its head what you say in regard to the clash between intuitive moral reactions and philosophy:
Insofar as we are thinking, ethically reflective beings, it is the instinctive reactions, not the philosophy, that have to
go. If you do not accept this, then are you also prepared to defend the preference Americans show for those of
their own racial or ethnic group? Is it even possible, consistently with the view of ethics that you appear to take,
for us to argue on ethical grounds against racism, if we live in a society in which the racist intuitions are deeply
entrenched?
SPECIESISM IS WRONG
Regan, Tom, Professor of Philosophy at North Carolina State University 2003. Animal Rights, Human Wrongs: An
Introduction to Moral Philosophy. Oxford: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers.
The question, then, is whether any defensible, relevant reason can be offered in support of the speciesist
judgement that the moral importance of the pains of humans and those animals, equal in other respects (I note
that the same applies to equal pleasures, benefits, harms, and interests, for example), always should be weighted
in favor of the human being over the animal being? To this question, neither Rawls nor Cohen (nor any other
philosopher, for that matter) offers a logically relevant answer. To persist in judging human interests as being more
important than the like interests of other animals because they are human interests is not rationally defensible.
Speciesism is a moral prejudice. And (contrary to Cohen’s assurances to the contrary), it is wrong, not right.
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Animal Rights don’t cause bad consequences
ANIMAL RIGHTS DOESN’T MEANS AMOEBA RIGHTS
Regan, Tom, Professor of Philosophy at North Carolina State University. 2003. Animal Rights, Human Wrongs: An
Introduction to Moral Philosophy. Oxford: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers.
A common criticism of animal rights attempts to reduce the idea to absurdity…the criticism alleges that if any
nonhuman animal has rights, then every nonhuman animal has rights…Is it absurd to believe in amoeba rights?
“Absurd” might be too harsh a word. “False” is more temperate and expresses my thinking. Why? Because I have
no good reason to believe that such simple forms of animate life are subjects-of-a-life and very good reasons (for
example, reasons based on comparative anatomy and physiology) for believing that they are not. Thus, the rights
view offers principled grounds for believing in the rights of some non-human animals without our having to believe
in the rights of all nonhuman animals, amoebas included.
ANIMALS EAT ANIMALS…THAT DOESN’T MEAN PEOPLE SHOULD EAT ANIMALS
Regan, Tom, Professor of Philosophy at North Carolina State University. 2003. Animal Rights, Human Wrongs: An
Introduction to Moral Philosophy. Oxford: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers.
Critics point out that lions eat gazelles, then ask how it can be wrong if we eat chickens. The most obvious
difference in the two cases is that lions have to eat other animals in order to survive. We do not. So what a lion
must do does not logically translate into what we may do. Besides, it is worth noting how much this objection
diverges from our normal practice. Most Americans live in houses that have central heating and indoor plumping,
ride in cars, and wear clothes. Other animals do not do any of these things. Should we therefore stop living as we
live and stat imitating them? Should we go feral, leaving our home home and our clothes behind? I know of no
critic of animal rights who advocates anything remotely like this. Why, then, place what carnivorous animals eat in
a unique category as being the one thing animals do that we should imitate?
NO BRIGHTLINE IS NECESSARY FOR ANIMAL RIGHTS
Regan, Tom, Professor of Philosophy at North Carolina State Univewrsity. 2003. Animal Rights, Human Wrongs: An
Introduction to Moral Philosophy. Oxford: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers.
“Critics sometimes challenge animal rights by asking, “Where do you draw the line? How do you know exactly
which animals are subjects-of-a-life and which animals are not?” There is an honest answer to these vexing
questions: We do not know exactly where to draw the line…But neither do we need to know this. We do not need
to know exactly how tall a person must be to be tall, before we can know that Shaq O’Neal is tall. We do not need
to know exactly how old a person must be to be old, before we know that Grandma Moses was old. Similarly, we
do not need to know exactly where an animal must be located on the phylogenic scale to be a subject-of-a-life,
before we can know that the animals who concern us—the mammals and birds who are raised to be eaten, those
who are ranched or trapped for their fur, or those who are used as models of human disease, for example, are
subjects-of-a-life.
ANIMAL RIGHTS DOES NOT REQUIRE SACRIFICING BASIC HUMAN INTERESTS
Peter Singer, Professor of Philosophy at Princeton University, “Animal Rights Debate Between Peter Singer and
Richard Posner.” Slate, http://www.utilitarian.net/singer/interviews-debates/200106--.htm, Accessed 7/14/10
You also attribute to me the peculiar position that "provided only that a chimpanzee has 1 percent of the mental
ability of a normal human being, would require the sacrifice of the human being to save 101 chimpanzees." There
is nothing in my position that requires me to draw that conclusion. Even if the words "1 percent of the mental
ability of a normal human being" can be given a clear sense, I have never said that mental ability can be aggregated
in this way so as to decide which lives should be saved. On the contrary, in books like Practical Ethics and
Rethinking Life and Death I have suggested that the ability to see oneself as existing over time, with a past and a
future, is an important part of what makes killing some beings more seriously wrong than killing others. So if
having only 1 percent of the mental ability of a normal human being means that an animal lacks that capacity, then
there are grounds to reject the mathematical approach that you describe.
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Humans need to treat animals well
WELFARE IS INSUFFICIENT, RIGHTS MUST BE RECOGNIZED.
Francione, Gary L., Co-Director of the Rutgers Animal Rights Law Center. “Animal Rights: An Incremental
Approach.” Animal Rights: The Changing Debate. Ed. Garner p. 46-7.
Despite the existence of literally hundreds of animal welfare laws that require the ‘humane’ treatment of animals,
eight billion animals annually in the United States alone are raised in barbaric conditions of intensive agriculture
and slaughtered on brutal assembly lines of death. Current standards of animal welfare also permit the use of
animals for completely trivial purposes, such as circuses, zoos, rodeos, pigeon shoots, and the wearing of luxury
items like fur. Indeed, in light of the development of intensive agricultural practices, the uses of animals in
bioengineering, and the destruction of entire ecosystems to accommodate ostensibly limitless human expansion, it
may be argued that the plight of animals in 1994 is much worse than it was in 1894. And throughout that entire
period, there were animal welfare laws that protected animals from ‘unnecessary’ cruelty.
HUMANS MUST TREAT ANIMALS BETTER THAN NATURE DOES
Bekoff, Marc and Ned Hettinger, Department of Environmental, Population, and Organismic Biology at the
University of Colorado—Boulder. “Animals, Nature, and Ethics.” Journal of Mammology. Vol. 95, No. 1 (Feb. 1994)
Do we really want an ethic that sanctions treatment of animals by humans as long as it is better than what nature
typically has in store for similar animals? For example, would we allow mammalogists who are accused of animal
cruelty to justify their behavior with the argument that they caused them less suffering than their wild predators
would have caused them? Although the sorts of lives animals lead in the wild is an important consideration for
insuring appropriate care and management of animals (e.g., animals in zoos and wildlife parks), an ethic that
permits any use of animals by humans that causes them less suffering or allows them a longer life than is typical
for wild animals is far too weak.
CRUELTY TO ANIMALS LEADS TO CRUELTY TO HUMANS
Regan, Tom, Professor of Philosophy at North Carolina State University 2003. Animal Rights, Human Wrongs: An
Introduction to Moral Philosophy. Oxford: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers.
Recent studies confirm, what people of common sense have long suspected, that a pattern of cruelty to animals in
a person’s youth is frequently correlated with a pattern of violent behavior toward humans in adult life. This is
certainly a reason to discourage cruelty to animals. Still, this cannot be the only reason, nor can it be the main one,
if cruelty-kindness is interpreted as a direct duty view. Interpreted this way, both the duty to be kind and the duty
not to be cruel are owed to animals themselves.
UTILITARIANISM IS BETTER THAN CONTRACT THEORY
Regan, Tom, Professor of Philosophy at North Carolina State University. 2003. Animal Rights, Human Wrongs: An
Introduction to Moral Philosophy. Oxford: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers.
Utilitarianism’s egalitarianism clearly represents an improvement over simple and Rawlsian contractarianism when
it comes to saying who has moral standing. Who counts morally? For utilitarians, the answer is, “All those who
have interests.” Who does not count morally? For utilitarians, the answer is, “Whatever does not have interests.”
Because rationally competent members of various minority groups have interests, these individuals (unlike the
verdict available to simple contractarians) have moral standing according to utilitarians. And because children who
lack a sense of justice have interests, these children (unlike the verdict reached by Rawlsian contractarians) have
moral standing too. Everyone’s interests count, and equal interests must be counted equally, no matter whose
interests they are.
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Negative Case
VALUE: JUSTICE
CRITERION: UPHOLDING THE SOCIAL CONTRACT
The social contract is an unwritten agreement between all members of society to surrender some freedoms, like
the freedom to harm others, in exchange for assurances that our basic property rights will be respected by others.
The social contract is the foundation of justice because it is the source and defines the scope of all rights possessed
by members of a society. The negative will prove that animals are not party to the social contract and
consequently have no rights.
CONTENTION 1: ANIMALS CANNOT PARTICIPATE IN THE SOCIAL CONTRACT
NATURE PREVENTS ANIMALS FROM PARTICIPATION IN SOCIAL CONTRACT
Barilan, Y. Michael, Department of Behavioral Sciences at Tel Aviv University. “Speciesism as a Precondition to
Justice.” Politics and the Life Sciences Vol. 23 No. 1 (March, 2004).
Consider the following worlds: Wl: 500 lions starve, 500 lambs range happily. W2: 500 lions are satiated, 500 lambs
are mangled. W3: 250 lions starve, 250 lions are satiated, 250 lambs range freely, 250 lambs are mangled by the
250 satiated lions, and so forth. From a utilitarian perspective, worlds Wl, W2, and W3 are equivalent. The lion and
the lamb cannot move in behind the "veil of ignorance" because the former cannot realize its own good without
eating the latter. An animal-rights advocate would never know how to negotiate behind such a veil. A would-be
lion must participate in the deliberations in ways that would undermine the welfare of a would-be lamb, and vice
versa. Deliberation would become even more hopelessly intricate when factoring in all life-forms sharing the
ecosystem within which justice is due to be realized. A veiled animal advocate would have to stay mute to avoid
self-contradiction.
OPPOSING NEEDS OF SPECIES MAKE ANIMAL RIGHTS IMPOSSIBLE
Barilan, Y. Michael, Department of Behavioral Sciences at Tel Aviv University. “Speciesism as a Precondition to
Justice.” Politics and the Life Sciences Vol. 23 No. 1 (March, 2004).
Some Anonymi (morally relevant animals) we cannot invite into the community of justice simply because their way
of living is incompatible with the circumstances of justice. The lion, the lamb, and the gorilla may count as such.
Each seems morally considerable, but none is morally sociable, and those not morally sociable cannot truly be
morally considerable, since moral rights cannot be exercised in isolation from a society of justice.
This evidence establishes that the basic structure of relationships between different species makes a social
contract including animals impossible to image.
ANIMALS ARE EXCLUDED FROM CONCEPTIONS OF JUSTICE
Rawls, John, Professor of Philosophy at Harvard University. A Theory of Justice (1971).
…No account is given of the right conduct in regard to animals and the rest of nature. A conception of justice is but
one part of a moral view. While I have not maintained that the capacity for a sense of justice is necessary in order
to be owed the duties of justice, it does seem that we are not required to give strict justice anyway to creatures
lacking this capacity. But it does not follow that there are no requirements at all in regard to them, nor in our
relations with the natural world…They are outside the scope of the theory of justice, and it does not seem possible
to extend the contract doctrine so as to include them in a natural way.
As Rawls notes, there is no way to include animals in a theory of justice because they cannot participate in the
social contract.
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ANIMALS HAVE NO CONSCIENCE.
Fienberg, Joel, Professor of Religion. “Human Duties and Animal Rights.” On the Fifth Day. Eds. Morris and Fox
(1986).
Well-trained dogs sometimes let their masters down; they anticipate punishment or other manifestations of
displeasure; they grovel and whimper, and they even make crude efforts at redress and reconciliation. But do they
feel remorse and bad conscience? They have been conditioned to associate manifestations of displeasure with
departures from a norm, and this is a useful way of keeping them in line, but they haven’t the slightest inkling of
the reasons for the norm. They don’t understand why departures from the norm are wrong, or why their masters
become angry or disappointed. They have a concept perhaps of the mala prohibita—the act that is wrong because
it is prohibited, but they have no notion of the mala in se—the act that is prohibited because it is wrong. Even in
respect to the mala prohibita their understanding is grossly deficient, for they have no conception of rightful
authority. For dogs, the only basis of their master’s “right” to be obeyed is his de facto power over them. Even
when one master steals a beast from another, or when an original owner deprives it of its natural freedom in the
wild, the animal will feel no moralized emotion, such as outraged propriety or indignation.
That animals lack understanding for why certain things are wrong and others are right is a fundamental barrier to
their participation in a social contract. Without any understanding as to why something is wrong, animals would be
incapable of being members of a society.
CONTENTION 2: RECOGNIZING ANIMAL RIGHTS WOULD VIOLATE HUMAN RIGHTS
ANIMAL RIGHTS IS IRRECONCILABLE WITH HUMAN AGRICULTURE
Benton, Ted, Professor of Sociology at the University of Essex. “Animal Rights: an Eco-Socialist View.”
Even someone convinced by the arguments of both utilitarians and rights-theorists that vegetarianism is morally
required will surely accept that the growing of sufficient vegetable food will itself have ecological effects. Large
areas of land will still be required for the growing of food for humans which might otherwise have sustained large
populations of herbivorous animals, and their predators. It is also hard to imagine how such purely arable systems
could operate without some method of prima facie rights-infringing pest control…The philosophy of animals rights
seems not well placed to deal with these issues.
Conflict between humans and animals over arable land means that recognizing animal rights would necessarily
harm human property rights.
MILLIONS IN AFRICA MUST EAT MEAT TO SURVIVE
Cohen, Carl, Professor of Philosophy at the University of Michigan. 2001. The Animal Rights Debate. Oxford:
Rowman and Littlefield Publishers.
In the Horn of Africa, where agriculture cannot sustain the population, and drought results in periodic famines
because livestock suffer, cattle are the principal source of food. In Ethiopia and Eritrea and Somalia and Sudan, and
also in Kenya and Uganda farther south, respecting the “rights” of those cattle will result in the early death of
millions of people. Replacing the nutrition that animals provide is simply not possible there, and elsewhere.
INUITS MUST HUNT TO SURVIVE
Cohen, Carl, Professor of Philosophy at the University of Michigan. 2001. The Animal Rights Debate. Oxford:
Rowman and Littlefield Publishers.
In many human communities animal products are essential for survival. Ceasing to use them would entail a
wholesale transformation of diet, of work, of life itself. Such a transformation would probably prove impossible for
many and would result in uncountable deaths. Parts of the price of implementing animal rights would be the
resultant impact on entire human cultures…The Inuit peoples of the Arctic are utterly dependent on hunting and
fishing; their very bodies have evolved so as to be able to survive on the high-calorie fats that alone make life
possible in so frigid an environment.
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MEDICAL RESEARCH ON ANIMALS IS ESSENTIAL TO HUMAN SURVIVAL
Still, Tom, President of the Wisconsin Technology Council. “Beyond the Protests, Instances of Mistreatment are
Rare.” Accessed 7/8/2010 http://wistechnology.com/articles/2489/
Animal-based research has helped provide cures and treatments in those case and many more. Biotechnology
companies have depended on animal research to develop more than 160 drugs and vaccines approved by the U.S.
Food and Drug Administration, according to the Biotechnology Industry Organization. Those discoveries have
helped hundreds of millions of people worldwide and prevented incalculable human suffering. In addition, BIO has
reported, animal research has led to 111 USDA-approved biotech-derived veterinary biologics and vaccines that
improve the health of livestock, poultry and companion animals.
The above evidence includes just a few examples of the many ways human property rights, and even the right to
life, would be inexcusably harmed by recognition of animal rights. We owe nothing but kindness to animals and
any other entities incapable of participating in the social contract. We do owe fair consideration to fellow humans.
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Negative Extensions
Animal Research is Justified
MUST UNDERSTAND ANIMALS TO MAXIMIZE THEIR INTERESTS
Howard, Walter E., Professor of Wildlife and Fisheries Biology at the University of California-Davis. “Animal
Research is Defensible.” Journal of Mammology, Vol. 74, No. 1 (Feb., 1993).
To effectively promote something requires understanding it. To make a responsible estimate of how large a
monkey's cage should be, we need to understand in what sense and to what degree confinement is harmful to the
monkey. To decide reasonably how many monkeys should be placed in a cage, we need to understand the
companionship needs of monkeys and how monkeys interact in groups. And to do all of this requires grasping a
great deal about the nature of monkeys—biological, psychological, and social. As another example, when we give
repeated electric shocks to rats, how bad, qualitatively, are their experiences? Do they experience only pain, or
also highly emotional forms of suffering? Answering such questions is necessary for determining the extent of
harm caused by particular cases of inflicted pain, suffering, and other unpleasant experiences.
RESEARCH ANIMALS ONLY EXIST FOR RESEARCH PURPOSES
Howard, Walter E., Professor of Wildlife and Fisheries Biology at the University of California-Davis. “Animal
Research is Defensible.” Journal of Mammology, Vol. 74, No. 1 (Feb., 1993).
Humans, in their moral consciousness, often accept the doctrine that animals should not be mistreated. But note,
this is an obligation made to humanity, not to non-human animals. A right implies concomitant responsibilities,
which certainly are not displayed by animals. People for Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) claim that 5.7 million
animals-mostly frogs and pigs-are killed every year to be used in high school and college classes. None of these
animals would be born if not wanted, and they have a quality life and die humanely rather than live nature's
torturous life. From the stand point of a quality life, the need for this resource produces an improvement of life for
some individuals of these species.
LINK: ANIMAL RIGHTS MEANS NO MEDICAL RESEARCH ON ANIMALS
Regan, Tom, Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at North Caroline State University and Animal Rights Activist. “The
Case for Animal Rights.” Animal Rights and Human Obligations, Eds. Singer and Regan, 1989.
In the case of the use of animals in science, the rights view is categorically abolitionist. Lab animals are not our
tasters; we are not their kings. Because these animals are treated routinely, systematically as if their value were
reducible to their usefulness to others, they are routinely, systematically treated with a lack of respect, and thus
are | their rights routinely, systematically violated. This is just as true when they are used in trivial, duplicative,
unnecessary or unwise research as it is when they are used in studies that hold out real promise of human
benefits. We can't justify harming or killing a human being (my Aunt Bea, for example) just for these sorts of
reason. Neither can we do so even in the case of so lowly a creature as a laboratory rat. It is not just refinement or
reduction that is called for, not just larger, cleaner cages, not just more generous use of anesthesia or the
elimination of multiple surgery, not just tidying up the system. It is complete replacement. The best we can do
when it comes to using animals in science is -- not to use them. That is where our duty lies, according to the rights
view.
THERE IS NO GOOD SUBSTITUTE FOR LIVE ANIMAL RESEARCH
Fox, Michael, Adjunct Professor at Queens University. “Animal Liberation: A Critique.” Ethics Vol. 88, No. 2 (Jan.,
1978).
Singer points out that there are alternatives to experiments on animals, such as the use of tissue cultures and
computer simulations. No doubt further advances will be made in these areas. But he misleads the reader
seriously when he suggests that virtually all animal experiments could be eliminated by such surrogates. For the
biomedical researcher and the teacher there is no substitute for a complete and healthy cardiovascular or central
nervous system.
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Animal Research is done humanely
ANIMAL RESEARCH IS REGULATED AND HUMANE
Howard, Walter E., Professor of Wildlife and Fisheries Biology at the University of California-Davis. “Animal
Research is Defensible.” Journal of Mammology, Vol. 74, No. 1 (Feb., 1993).
Current use of animals in research is highly regulated. Abuses are rare and the benefits of the knowledge acquired
to people and animal welfare are enormous. Before animals are used in research, there should be a reasoned
judgement that the benefit derived from the research is sufficient to justify the use of animals and that reasonable
means will be employed to provide for the welfare of its subjects. There is an extensive review process of proposed
methods to be used and how the animals will be affected to ensure that only the lowest number necessary will be
used. The use of alternatives to animals in research, when available, is ethically commendable, but alternatives will
never be able to replace all needs of labo ratory and field research with live animals. Responsible mammalogy is
ethically and morally justified and desirable.
MEDICAL RESEARCH ON ANIMALS IS ESSENTIAL TO HUMAN SURVIVAL
Still, Tom, President of the Wisconsin Technology Council. “Beyond the Protests, Instances of Mistreatment are
Rare.” Accessed 7/8/2010 http://wistechnology.com/articles/2489/
Animal-based research has helped provide cures and treatments in those case and many more. Biotechnology
companies have depended on animal research to develop more than 160 drugs and vaccines approved by the U.S.
Food and Drug Administration, according to the Biotechnology Industry Organization. Those discoveries have
helped hundreds of millions of people worldwide and prevented incalculable human suffering. In addition, BIO has
reported, animal research has led to 111 USDA-approved biotech-derived veterinary biologics and vaccines that
improve the health of livestock, poultry and companion animals.
HUMANS ARE NICER TO ANIMALS THAN NATURE
Howard, Walter E., Professor of Wildlife and Fisheries Biology at the University of California-Davis. “Animal
Research is Defensible.” Journal of Mammology, Vol. 74, No. 1 (Feb., 1993).
Nature's right-to-life requires taking lives no matter how cruelly. But when people exploit wild animals it is usually
followed by replacement of others of that species, most of which would have no life at all if some had not been
killed. And because of our ethics and social customs, people are an un- usually efficient and humane predator. In
contrast to the brutality of natural predation, people must operate under regulations to protect the exploited
animals and their populations. Billions of rodents, livestock and other animals are raised annually and managed for
our use. These genetically and behaviorally different domestic animals would not be born, to live a quality and
longer than average life, if not wanted. Domestic species are genetically programmed to depend upon humans for
their safe existence and, fortunately, they always die relatively humanely rather than suffering one of nature's
brutal deaths.
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Animal Agriculture/Hunting is Justified
LINK: ANIMAL RIGHTS MEANS NO COMMERCIAL AGRICULTURE
Regan, Tom, Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at North Caroline State University. “The Case for Animal Rights.”
Animal Rights and Human Obligations, Eds. Singer and Regan, 1989.
As for commercial animal agriculture, the rights view takes a similar abolitionist position. The fundamental moral
wrong here is not that animals are kept in stressful close confinement or in isolation, or that their pain and
suffering, their needs and preferences are ignored or discounted. All these are wrong, of course, but they are not
the fundamental wrong. They are symptoms and effects of the deeper, systematic wrong that allows | these
animals to be viewed and treated as lacking independent value, as resources for us -- as, indeed, a renewable
resource. Giving farm animals more space, more natural environments, more companions does not right the
fundamental wrong, any more than giving lab animals more anesthesia or bigger, cleaner cages would right the
fundamental wrong in their case. Nothing less than the total dissolution of commercial animal agriculture will do
this, just as, for similar reasons I won't develop at length here, morality requires nothing less than the total
elimination of hunting and trapping for commercial and sporting ends. The rights view's implications, then, as I
have said, are clear and uncompromising.
LINKS: ANIMAL RIGHTS IS IRRECONCILABLE WITH HUMAN AGRICULTURE
Benton, Ted, Professor of Sociology at the University of Essex. “Animal Rights: an Eco-Socialist View.”
Even someone convinced by the arguments of both utilitarians and rights-theorists that vegetarianism is morally
required will surely accept that the growing of sufficient vegetable food will itself have ecological effects. Large
areas of land will still be required for the growing of food for humans which might otherwise have sustained large
populations of herbivorous animals, and their predators. It is also hard to imagine how such purely arable systems
could operate without some method of prima facie rights-infringing pest control…The philosophy of animals rights
seems not well placed to deal with these issues.
INUITS MUST HUNT TO SURVIVE
Cohen, Carl, Professor of Philosophy at the University of Michigan. 2001. The Animal Rights Debate. Oxford:
Rowman and Littlefield Publishers.
In many human communities animal products are essential for survival. Ceasing to use them would entail a
wholesale transformation of diet, of work, of life itself. Such a transformation would probably prove impossible for
many and would result in uncountable deaths. Parts of the price of implementing animal rights would be the
resultant impact on entire human cultures…The Inuit peoples of the Arctic are utterly dependent on hunting and
fishing; their very bodies have evolved so as to be able to survive on the high-calorie fats that alone make life
possible in so frigid an environment.
MILLIONS IN AFRICA MUST EAT MEAT TO SURVIVE
Cohen, Carl, Professor of Philosophy at the University of Michigan. 2001. The Animal Rights Debate. Oxford:
Rowman and Littlefield Publishers.
In the Horn of Africa, where agriculture cannot sustain the population, and drought results in periodic famines
because livestock suffer, cattle are the principal source of food. In Ethiopia and Eritrea and Somalia and Sudan, and
also in Kenya and Uganda farther south, respecting the “rights” of those cattle will result in the early death of
millions of people. Replacing the nutrition that animals provide is simply not possible there, and elsewhere.
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Animals are Excluded from the Social Contract
NATURE PREVENTS ANIMALS FROM PARTICIPATION IN SOCIAL CONTRACT
Barilan, Y. Michael, Department of Behavioral Sciences at Tel Aviv University. “Speciesism as a Precondition to
Justice.” Politics and the Life Sciences Vol. 23 No. 1 (March, 2004).
Consider the following worlds: Wl: 500 lions starve, 500 lambs range happily. W2: 500 lions are satiated, 500 lambs
are mangled. W3: 250 lions starve, 250 lions are satiated, 250 lambs range freely, 250 lambs are mangled by the
250 satiated lions, and so forth. From a utilitarian perspective, worlds Wl, W2, and W3 are equivalent. The lion and
the lamb cannot move in behind the "veil of ignorance" because the former cannot realize its own good without
eating the latter. An animal-rights advocate would never know how to negotiate behind such a veil. A would-be
lion must participate in the deliberations in ways that would undermine the welfare of a would-be lamb, and vice
versa. Deliberation would become even more hopelessly intricate when factoring in all life-forms sharing the
ecosystem within which justice is due to be realized. A veiled animal advocate would have to stay mute to avoid
self-contradiction.
UTILITARIANISM IS INCOMPATIBLE WITH THE NATURAL WORLD. (to give the right to live to some you would have
to deny it to others-lions eat lambs)
Barilan, Y. Michael, Department of Behavioral Sciences at Tel Aviv University. “Speciesism as a Precondition to
Justice.” March, 2004.
Even if lions and lambs were reasoned to value pain and pleasure differently, equivalence could still be maintained
simply by adjusting the numbers starving, ranging, satiated, and mangled. Therefore, utilitarians finds themselves
committed equally to a world in which all lions suffer and to a world in which all lions are happy. Such an outcome
if meaningful at all cannot guide action. W2 appears balanced or even fair, but only in the eyes of an outsider and
only after species is factored in and individual rights are ignored. Even if ecological harmony were somehow
optimized, individual points of view would not be reconciled.
OPPOSING NEEDS OF SPECIES MAKE ANIMAL RIGHTS IMPOSSIBLE
Barilan, Y. Michael, Department of Behavioral Sciences at Tel Aviv University. “Speciesism as a Precondition to
Justice.” Politics and the Life Sciences Vol. 23 No. 1 (March, 2004).
Some Anonymi (morally relevant animals) we cannot invite into the community of justice simply because their way
of living is incompatible with the circumstances of justice. The lion, the lamb, and the gorilla may count as such.
Each seems morally considerable, but none is morally sociable, and those not morally sociable cannot truly be
morally considerable, since moral rights cannot be exercised in isolation from a society of justice.
NATURE DICTATES ONLY HUMANS CAN LIVE JUSTLY because to be just you can’t live off of someone else
Barilan, Y. Michael, Department of Behavioral Sciences at Tel Aviv University. “Speciesism as a Precondition to
Justice.” Politics and the Life Sciences Vol. 23 No. 1 (March, 2004).
Only agents that do not harbor life plans that unequivocally impose suffering or exploitation on others can
conceive of ethics based on the avoidance of suffering and on respect. If my life plan and moral identity were
dependent on the infliction of suffering suppose I was a vampire who could not survive without biting humans for
their blood? An ethics of non-suffering would undermine my moral and physical existence. No human's good life
is inescapably conditional on the exploitation of another human. Vampires, no matter how intelligent,
sentient, compassionate, and even innocent, cannot participate in a just society. They may even
contribute to ethical theory, but they cannot have moral rights. Luckily, they do not exist.
ANIMALS ARE EXCLUDED FROM CONCEPTIONS OF JUSTICE
Rawls, John, Professor of Philosophy at Harvard University. A Theory of Justice (1971).
…No account is given of the right conduct in regard to animals and the rest of nature. A conception of justice is but
one part of a moral view. While I have not maintained that the capacity for a sense of justice is necessary in order
to be owed the duties of justice, it does seem that we are not required to give strict justice anyway to creatures
lacking this capacity. But it does not follow that there are no requirements at all in regard to them, nor in our
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relations with the natural world…They are outside the scope of the theory of justice, and it does not seem possible
to extend the contract doctrine so as to include them in a natural way.
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Animals don’t have a claim to moral rights
ANIMALS ARE OUTSIDE THE MORAL REALM
Cohen, Carl, Professor of Philosophy at the University of Michigan. 2001. The Animal Rights Debate. Oxford:
Rowman and Littlefield Publishers.
Do you believe that baby zebra has the right not to be slaughtered? Or that the lioness has the right to kill that
baby zebra to feed her cubs? Perhaps you are inclined to say, when confronted with such natural rapacity
(duplicated in various forms millions of times each day on planet earth), that neither is right or wrong, that neither
the zebra nor the lioness has a right against the other. Then I am on your side. Rights are pivotal in the moral realm
and must be taken seriously, yes; but zebras and lions are rats do not live in the moral realm; their lives are totally
amoral. There is no morality for them; animals do no moral wrong, ever. In their world, there are no wrongs and
there are no rights.
HAVING INTERESTS DOESN’T MEAN HAVING RIGHTS.
Leahy, Michael P.T., Senior Lecturer in Philosophy at the University of Kent. Against Liberation: Putting Animals in
Perspective (1991).
Just as it is not good to deprive a dog of warmth so it is bad to expose a valuable oil-painting to strong sunlight,
implying that they both have a good which can be compromised. It is perfectly proper to claim that it might not be
in the interests of a new Rolls Royce to be driven as if it were a Dodgem car…Although terms like ‘harm’, ‘benefit’,
and ‘good’ are used of sentient creatures, it is Frey’s contention that they are not solely applicable to them…If we
wish to exclude these interests of plants and artifacts, and one certainly would not wish to make way for ‘machine
rights’, then it would seem that we must also exclude those generated by animal needs.
HAVING INHERENT VALUE DOES NOT MEAN HAVING RIGHTS
Cohen, Carl, Professor of Philosophy at the University of Michigan. 2001. The Animal Rights Debate. Oxford:
Rowman and Littlefield Publishers.
The argument for animal rights that is grounded on their “inherent value” is utterly fallacious, an egregious
example of the fallacy of equivocation—that informal fallacy in which two or more meanings of the same word or
phrase are confused in the several propositions of an argument…Recognizing that there has been an unmarked
shift from one meaning of “inherent value” to another, we see immediately that the argument built on that shift is
worthless. The “case” for animal rights evaporates…
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Animals are Amoral
ANIMALS LACK MORALITY, THE FOUNDATION OF RIGHTS
Locke, Edwin, Professor Emeritus at the University of Maryland. “Animal ‘Rights’ and the New Man-Haters.”
Accessed 7/8/10 http://www.aynrand.org/site/PageServer?pagename=objectivism_animal_rights.
Rights are ethical principles applicable only to beings capable of reason and choice…Animals do not survive by
rational thought (nor by sign languages allegedly taught to them by psychologists). They survive through inborn
reflexes and sensory-perceptual association. They cannot reason. They cannot learn a code of ethics…Only man
has the power to deal with other members of his own species by voluntary means: rational persuasion and a code
of morality rather than physical force. To claim that man's use of animals is immoral is to claim that we have no
right to our own lives and that we must sacrifice our welfare for the sake of creatures who cannot think or grasp
the concept of morality. It is to elevate amoral animals to a moral level higher than ourselves —a flagrant contradiction.
Of course, it is proper not to cause animals gratuitous suffering. But this is not the same as inventing a bill of rights
for them—at our expense.
ANIMALS LACK MORAL AGENCY
Cohen, Carl, Professor of Philosophy at the University of Michigan. 2001. The Animal Rights Debate. Oxford:
Rowman and Littlefield Publishers.
To be a moral agent is to be able to grasp the generality of moral restrictions on our will. Humans understand that
some acts may be in our interest and yet must not be willed because they are simply wrong. This capacity for
moral judgment does not arise in the animal world;rats can neither exercise nor respond to moral claims. My dog
knows that there are certain things he must not do, but he knows this only as the outcome of his learning about his
interests, the pains he may suffer if he does what has been taught forbidden. He does not know, he cannot know
that any conduct is wrong…Right is not in their [animals’] world. But right and wrong are the very stuff of human
moral life, the ever=present awareness of human beings who can do wrong and who by seeking (often but not
always) to avoid wrong conduct prove themselves members of a moral community in which rights may be
exercised and respected.
ANIMALS HAVE NO CONSCIENCE.
Fienberg, Joel, Professor of Religion. “Human Duties and Animal Rights.” On the Fifth Day. Eds. Morris and Fox
(1986).
Well-trained dogs sometimes let their masters down; they anticipate punishment or other manifestations of
displeasure; they grovel and whimper, and they even make crude efforts at redress and reconciliation. But do they
feel remorse and bad conscience? They have been conditioned to associate manifestations of displeasure with
departures from a norm, and this is a useful way of keeping them in line, but they haven’t the slightest inkling of
the reasons for the norm. They don’t understand why departures from the norm are wrong, or why their masters
become angry or disappointed. They have a concept perhaps of the mala prohibita—the act that is wrong because
it is prohibited, but they have no notion of the mala in se—the act that is prohibited because it is wrong. Even in
respect to the mala prohibita their understanding is grossly deficient, for they have no conception of rightful
authority. For dogs, the only basis of their master’s “right” to be obeyed is his de facto power over them. Even
when one master steals a beast from another, or when an original owner deprives it of its natural freedom in the
wild, the animal will feel no moralized emotion, such as outraged propriety or indignation.
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Animal Rights not justified
MORAL INTUITION REJECTS ANIMALS RIGHTS
Richard Posner, 7th Circuit Court of Appeals, “Animal Rights Debate Between Peter Singer and Richard Posner.”
Slate. http://www.utilitarian.net/singer/interviews-debates/200106--.htm, Accessed 7/14/10
But I do not agree that we have a duty to (the other) animals that arises from their being the equal members of a
community composed of all those creatures in the universe that can feel pain, and that it is merely "prejudice" in a
disreputable sense akin to racial prejudice or sexism that makes us "discriminate" in favor of our own species. You
assume the existence of the universe-wide community of pain and demand reasons why the boundary of our
concern should be drawn any more narrowly. I start from the bottom up, with the brute fact that we, like other
animals, prefer our own—our own family, the "pack" that we happen to run with (being a social animal), and the
larger sodalities constructed on the model of the smaller ones, of which the largest for most of us is our nation.
Americans have distinctly less feeling for the pains and pleasures of foreigners than of other Americans and even
less for most of the nonhuman animals that we share the world with. Now you may reply that these are just facts
about human nature; that they have no normative significance. But they do. Suppose a dog menaced a human
infant and the only way to prevent the dog from biting the infant was to inflict severe pain on the dog—more pain,
in fact, than the bite would inflict on the infant. You would have to say, let the dog bite (for "if an animal feels pain,
the pain matters as much as it does when a human feels pain," provided the pain is as great). But any normal
person (and not merely the infant's parents!), including a philosopher when he is not self-consciously engaged in
philosophizing, would say that it would be monstrous to spare the dog, even though to do so would minimize the
sum of pain in the world.
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Animals Lack Intelligence for Rights
ANIMALS LACK SPEECH, THE BASIS OF SELF-KNOWLEDGE
Black, Max, Professor of Philosophy (1972) The Labyrinth of Language, Harmondsworth: Penguin Books.
Man is the only animal that can talk (homo loquens). More generally, he is the only animal that can use symbols
(words, pictures, graphs, numbers, etc.). He alone can bridge the gap between one person and another, conveying
thoughts, feelings, desires, attitudes, and sharing in the traditions, conventions, the knowledge and the
superstition of his culture: the only animal that can truly understand and misunderstand. On this skill depends
everything that we call civilization. Without it, imagination, thought—even self-knowledge—are impossible.
INTELLIGENCE IS THE CUT-OFF POINT FOR RIGHTS
Steinbock, Bonnie, Professor of Philosophy at the State University of New York—Albany. “Speciesism and the Idea
of Equality.” Philosophy Vol. 53, No. 204 (1978).
We do not think that those with greater capacities ought to have their interests weighed more heavily than those
with lesser capacities, and this, he thinks, shows that differences in such capacities are irrelevant to equality. But it
does not show this at all. Kevin Donaghy argues (rightly, I think) that what entitles us human beings to a privileged
position in the moral community is a certain minimal level of intelligence, which is a prerequisite for morally
relevant capacities. The fact that we would reject a hierarchical society based on degree of intelligence does not
show that a minimal level of intelligence cannot be used as a cut-off point, justifying giving greater consideration
to the interests of those entities which meet this standard.
VIRTUALLY ALL HUMANS HAVE CAPACITIES WHICH ALL ANIMALS LACK
Fox, Michael, Adjunct Professor at Queens University. “Animal Liberation: A Critique.” Ethics Vol. 88, No. 2 (Jan.,
1978).
The search for attributes that all humans, without exception, share in common and which are supposed to furnish
the grounds for the assigning of moral rights to them, as well as to any sufficiently similar beings, is bound to be
futile; for even the capacity of humans to experience pain and pleasure falls short of complete universality, as we
have just seen. But then if we shift our attention instead to capacities that are nearly or virtually universal among
humans, as we are forced to do, it will be seen that humans generally possess them and (probably) no animals do
and, hence, that the concept of a moral right to equitable treatment makes no sense except as applied to humans.
AUTONOMY IS ESSENTIAL FOR RIGHTS
Fox, Michael, Adjunct Professor at Queens University. “Animal Liberation: A Critique.” Ethics Vol. 88, No. 2 (Jan.,
1978).
I have drawn attention to certain cognitive capacities (critical self-awareness, concept manipulation, and the use of
a sophisticated language) because these are the essential tools or vehicles by means of which an agent's
autonomy. Regan assumes that the use of language is an uncomplicated phenomenon and that granting animals
the same language capacities as humans is unproblematic. This is certainly empirically false, but it is also
philosophically naive. As McCloskey points out, it is not just the capacity to use language that is involved when we
refer to humans' linguistic endowment as a criterion for the assigning of rights; it is their capacity to use language
"to express thoughts, decisions, wishes, choices." Ethics is evolved, made known to himself reflexively, and
manifested or expressed. The possession of these cognitive capacities, therefore, is a necessary prerequisite for
autonomy, which is the capacity for self-conscious, voluntary, and deliberate action, in the fullest sense of these
words. Autonomy, which thus entails certain cognitive capacities, is necessary (and, together with the capacity to
enjoy and suffer, sufficient) for the possession of moral rights. It follows that all (and only) those beings which are
members of a species of which it is true in general (i.e., typically the case at maturity, assuming normal
development) that members of the species in question can be considered autonomous agents are beings endowed
with moral rights
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File Title
Treating animals well does not mean they should have rights
OBLIGATIONS TO TREAT ANIMALS WELL DOESN’T PROVE THEY HAVE RIGHTS
Cohen, Carl, Professor of Philosophy at the University of Michigan. 2001. The Animal Rights Debate. Oxford:
Rowman and Littlefield Publishers.
How, then, are rights and obligations related? When looked at from the viewpoint of one who holds a right and
addresses the target of that right, they appear correlative. But they are plainly not correlative when looked at from
the viewpoint of one who recognizes an obligation self-imposed, an obligation that does not stem from the rights
of another. Your right to the money I owe you creates my obligation to pay it, of course. But many of my
obligations to the needy, to my neighbors, to sentient creatures of every sort, have no foundation in their rights.
The premise that rights and obligations are reciprocals, that every obligation flows from another’s right, is utterly
false. It is inconsistent with our intuitive understanding of the difference between what we believe we ought to do
and what others can justly demand we do.
EVEN IF ANIMALS HAVE INTRINSIC VALUE, IT DOESN’T MEAN THEY HAVE RIGHTS.
Fox, Michael, Adjunct Professor at Queens University. “Animal Liberation: A Critique.” Ethics Vol. 88, No. 2 (Jan.,
1978).
Let us assume, for the sake of argument, that it could be shown to everyone's satisfaction that animals experience
pleasure and pain in the same way and to the same degree as humans and, further, that many also reason, have
emotions, use some form of symbolic communication, and have a sense of self-identity. It still would not follow
that these facts would qualify such animals to be recipients of moral rights. For, as H. J. McCloskey has recently
pointed out, to appreciate (1) that the existence of certain higher animals is intrinsically valuable because they
possess some capacities (like sentience, intelligence, emotionality), the exercise of which enables them to enjoy a
quality of life that humans can recognize as of value, (2) that they are capable of suffering psychologically as well
as physically, and, (3) that as a consequence of 1 and 2, good reasons are required to be given for killing such
beings is not tantamount to, and does not entail, assigning animals moral rights.
THE GREAT APE PROJECT PROVES HUMANS ARE MORALLY UNIQUE FROM CLOSEST RELATIVES
Barilan, Y. Michael, Department of Behavioral Sciences at Tel Aviv University. “Speciesism as a Precondition to
Justice.” Politics and the Life Sciences Vol. 23 No. 1 (March, 2004).
The "Great Ape Project" (GAP), which is arguably the most ambitious animal-rights effort extant, demonstrates this
point as well as the moral unsociability of even the most "human-like" animals. GAP campaigns for sanctuaries
"where the needs, interests and rights of the apes come first." This vision implicitly admits to our inability to mix
morally with apes. The project actually protects individual apes only from humanity, not from each other, not even
from disease, whereas a truly recipient-dependent justice (El) would be blind to the sources of misfortune.
Besides, GAP does not reckon with the welfare of other life forms, which the apes might abuse in the sanctuary or
which might be disadvantaged by GAP on the apes' behalf. GAP is a speciesist project whose benefactors are apes,
who are believed to be human-like. Ironically, if, indeed, proximity to being human is measured on a scale of moral
sociability rather than on that of intelligence or physical characteristics, apes are not the most "human- like"
animals.
REJECTING ANIMAL RIGHTS DOES NOT MEAN REJECTING RIGHTS FOR INFANTS, SENILE PEOPLE…
Cohen, Carl, Professor of Philosophy at the University of Michigan. 2001. The Animal Rights Debate. Oxford:
Rowman and Littlefield Publishers.
Objections of this kind are common but miss the point badly. They arise from a misunderstanding of what it means
to say that humans live in a moral world. Human children, like elderly adults, have rights because they are human.
Morality is an essential feature of human life; all humans are moral creatures, infants and the senile included.
Rights are not doled out to this individual person of that one by somehow establishing the presence in them of
some special capacity. This mistaken vision would result in the selective award of rights to some individuals but not
others, and the cancellation of rights when capacities fail. On the contrary, rights are universally human, arise in
the human realm, apply to humans generally. This criticism (suggesting the loss of rights by the senile or the
comatose, etc.) mistakenly treats the essential moral feature of humanity as though it were a screen for sorting
humans, which it most certainly is not.
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File Title
Rejecting Animal Rights Does Not Endorse Cruelty
MISTREATING ANIMALS IS BAD, BUT NOT BECAUSE THEY HAVE RIGHTS.
Fox, Michael, Adjunct Professor at Queens University. “Animal Liberation: A Critique.” Ethics Vol. 88, No. 2 (Jan.,
1978).
Undoubtedly animals should not be maltreated. They should not be made to suffer needlessly or excessively."
Singer and Regan are surely correct to single out animals' capacity to suffer as the reason why we should treat
them humanely. But it is no more clear how this extends moral rights to them than how our dawning ecological
sense that we ought not to waste natural resources and systematically ravage the environment would establish
moral rights for trees, lakes, or mineral deposits. What should be said is that we have an obligation to avoid
mistreating animals, but that this is an obligation without a corresponding right on the part of the beings affected
by our behavior.
ANIMAL WELFARE IS NOT THE SAME AS ANIMAL RIGHTS
Cohen, Carl, Professor of Philosophy at the University of Michigan. 2001. The Animal Rights Debate. Oxford:
Rowman and Littlefield Publishers.
Animal welfare is not at issue here. Basic care for animals is today a moral concern almost universally shared.
Sentient animals must be treated with careful regard for the fact that they can feel pain; decent people will always
exhibit that concern and will rightly insist that the animals we use be fed and housed properly, handled
considerately. Regulations ensuring such humane treatment are not in dispute; they are entirely justified.
ANIMAL WELFARE IS NOT THE SAME AS ANIMAL RIGHTS
Francione, Gary L., Co-Director of the Rutgers Animal Rights Law Center. “Animal Rights: An Incremental
Approach.” Animal Rights: The Changing Debate. Ed. Garner p. 44.
The rights position is contrasted with the welfare position, which ‘generally holds that animals may be used for
human benefit, or for the benefit of other animals, provided the animals are treated humanely. Animal welfare is
couched in terms of obligations of humans to provide humane care and treatment of animals rather than interms
of moral or legal rights of animals.’ The author adds that despite any ambiguity concerning the concept of animal
rights, one thing is clear: ‘animal rights is not an extension of animal welfare’.
ANIMAL PAIN SHOULD BE WEIGHED, BUT NOT WEIGHED EQUALLY.
Cohen, Carl, Professor of Philosophy at the University of Michigan. 2001. The Animal Rights Debate. Oxford:
Rowman and Littlefield Publishers.
I certainly do not mean to suggest that the pain of animals is unworthy of consideration. Their pain is morally
considerable, of course; animals are not machines. I note this again with emphasis. But in making a calculation of
long-term utility, it is one thing to say that the pains of animals must be weighed, and another thing entirely to say
that all animal and human pains must be weighed equally. Accepting the truth that lower animals are sentient
surely does not oblige one to accept the liberationist conviction that animal experiences are morally equivalent to
the experiences of humans.
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File Title
A2: Speciesism
SPECIESISM IS DIFFERENT FROM RACISM, SEXISM
Steinbock, Bonnie, Professor of Philosophy at the State University of New York—Albany. “Speciesism and the Idea
of Equality.” Philosophy Vol. 53, No. 204 (1978).
There is, however, an important difference between racism or sexism and 'speciesism'. We do not subject animals
to different moral treatment simply because they have fur and feathers, but because they are in fact different
from human beings in ways that could be morally relevant. It is false that women are incapable of being benefited
by education, and therefore that claim cannot serve to justify preventing them from attending school. But this is
not false of cows and dogs, even chimpanzees. Intelligence is thought to be a morally relevant capacity because of
its relation to the capacity for moral responsibility.
SPECIESISM IS THE CORRECT MORAL POSITION
Cohen, Carl, Professor of Philosophy at the University of Michigan. 2001. The Animal Rights Debate. Oxford:
Rowman and Littlefield Publishers.
…in this sense speciesism, in spite of the overtones of the word, is a correct moral perspective, and by no means an
error or corruption. We incorporate the different moral standing of different species into our overall moral views;
we think it reasonable to put earthworms on fishhooks but not cats; we think it reasonable to eat the flesh of cows
but not the flesh of humans. The realization of the sharply different moral standing of different species we
internalize; that realization is not some shameful insensitivity but is rather an essential feature of any moral system
that is plausible and rational. In the conduct of our day-to-day lives, we are constantly making decisions and acting
on these moral differences among species. When we think clearly and judge fairly, we are all speciesists, of course.
SPECIESISM IS NOT PARALLEL TO RACISM
Cohen, Carl, Professor of Philosophy at the University of Michigan. 2001. The Animal Rights Debate. Oxford:
Rowman and Littlefield Publishers.
Racism is evil because humans really are equal, and the assumption that some races are superior to others is false
and groundless. Giving advantages to some humans over others on the basis of skin color is outrageous…But
among the species of animate life—between humans and rats, between dogs and sea urchins—the morally
relevant differences are enormous, and almost universally appreciated. Sea urchins have no brains whatever, while
dogs have very powerful brains. Humans engage in moral reflection, while rats are somewhat foreign to that
enterprise. Humans are members of moral communities, recognizing just claims even when those claims work
against their own interests. Human beings have rights by nature, and those rights do give humans a moral status
very different from that of sea urchins, rats, or dogs.
NO BRIGHTLINE FOR WHICH ANIMALS GET RIGHTS
Cohen, Carl, Professor of Philosophy at the University of Michigan. 2001. The Animal Rights Debate. Oxford:
Rowman and Littlefield Publishers.
The octopi, on a very different evolutionary branch, are no “higher” than insects on the phylogenetic scale,
although they have nervous systems, the apparent capacity to solve simple problems, and probably subjective
experience of a kind sufficient to count them as “subjects-of-a-life”—in which case they would (on Regan’s view)
have rights demanding respect. But the octopi are mollusks, and if some mollusks have rights other mollusks are
surely entitled to the same regard—which would expand the realm of rights-holders to include the billions of tiny
krill that populate the polar oceans, millions of which, every day, lose any rights they might have had to the great
whales which consume them by the ton
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File Title
A2: Speciesism continued
ANIMAL RIGHTS ADVOCATES USE EMOTIONAL PLOYS AND SELECTIVE EMPHASIS
Richard Posner, 7th Circuit Court of Appeals, “Animal Rights Debate Between Peter Singer and Richard Posner.”
Slate. http://www.utilitarian.net/singer/interviews-debates/200106--.htm, Accessed 7/14/10
You say that some readers of Animal Liberation have been persuaded by the ethical arguments in the book, and
not just by the facts and the pictures. But if so, it is probably so only because these readers do not realize the
radicalism of the ethical vision that powers your view on animals, an ethical vision that finds greater value in a
healthy pig than in a profoundly retarded child, that commands inflicting a lesser pain on a human being to avert a
greater pain to a dog, and that, provided only that a chimpanzee has 1 percent of the mental ability of a normal
human being, would require the sacrifice of the human being to save 101 chimpanzees. If Animal Liberation had
emphasized these implications of your utilitarian philosophy, it would have had many fewer persuaded readers;
and likewise if it had sought merely to persuade our rational faculty, and not to stir our empathetic regard for
animals.
PETER SINGER IS A JERK
Roger Scrunton, Visiting Professor of Philosophy at Oxford University, “Animal Rights.” http://www.cityjournal.org/html/10_3_urbanities-animal.html, accessed 7/14/10.
Meanwhile, Princeton University's Center for the Study of Human Values has appointed the Australian philosopher
Peter Singer, author of the seminal Animal Liberation (1975), to a prestigious chair, causing widespread disgust on
account of Singer's vociferous support for euthanasia. (Defenders of animal rights not infrequently also advocate
the killing of useless humans.) Singer's works, remarkably for a philosophy professor, contain little or no
philosophical argument. They derive their radical moral conclusions from a vacuous utilitarianism that counts the
pain and pleasure of all living things as equally significant and that ignores just about everything that has been said
in our philosophical tradition about the real distinction between persons and animals
SINGER AND REGAN ARE RADICALS AND DISREGARD THE COMMON-SENSE
ASPECT OF THE USE OF ANIMALS
The American Physiological Society 2006 http://www.the-aps.org/pa/animals/quest2.html
Singer, Regan, and others have used explanations of animal rights to win agreement
with their belief that human beings should not use animals. However, this is a radical
notion, given all the ways that human beings are dependent upon animals for life and
livelihood. A more common-sense approach is to recognize that there are compelling
reasons to use animals for medical research and other purposes, and at the same time to
affirm our obligation to treat animals with compassion.