The contemporary philosophical arm of the animal rights or liberation movement effectively began in 1975 with Peter Singer's book Animal Liberation. In this work, and in subsequent development of its ideas, Singer argues that the moral theory known as utilitarianism can be used to justify and defend moral claims of non-human animals. According to utilitarianism, a morally good action is one which promotes or produces the greatest amount of pleasure, happiness, or satisfaction of desires, and Singer argues, quite forcibly, that such promotion requires abandoning such practices as animal husbandry, and experimentation upon animals for scientific or commercial purposes. Singer's case for animal liberation, then, is anchored in his adoption of a utilitarian moral theory.
In 1983, Tom Regan published his important work The Case for Animal Rights. Rejecting Singer's utilitarianism, Regan argued that many sorts of non-human animals possess moral rights because they possess what he refered to as inherent value. In virtue of this, Regan argued, we are morally obligated to treat them in ways that respect this value. And, for Regan as for Singer, this requires us to abandon such practices as animal husbandry, vivisection, and so on. Inherent value for Regan is an objective property, and whether or not an individual possesses it does not in any way depend on whether he, she, or it is valued by others. Whether or not a person possesses inherent value depends only on their nature as the type of thing they are. And this places Regan, at least in one important respect, in the tradition constituted by the doctrine of natural rights. Or, at least, it makes him an important intellectual inheritor of this doctrine.
From the book Animal Rights by Mark Rowland, p.1 Palgrave Editions, 2009, New York
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