On Nonhuman Slavery

Did you like this? Share it:Tweet

Some folks insist animal rights is like believing in religion. But religion asks followers to believe things nobody can see, while animal rights advocates ask people to see things nobody wants to believe. ~ Craig Burton, American novelist Did you like this? Share it:Tweet

This speech was given by Tom Regan, at the Royal Institute of Great Britain in 1989. The other animals humans eat, use in science, hunt, trap and exploit in a variety of other ways have a life of their own that is of importance to them, apart from their utility to us. They are not [...]

“To advocate the rights of animals is far more than to plead for compassion or justice towards the victims of ill-usage ; it is not only, and not primarily, for the sake of the victims that we plead, but for the sake of mankind itself. Our true civilization, our race-progress, our humanity (in the best [...]

“‘There are so many daunting human problems we face,’ so [the] objection goes, ‘from famine and war, to health care and illiteracy. After we solve these problems, then we can turn our attention to animal rights.’ You don’t have to be a cynic to see that this is a recipe for perpetual neglect of animal [...]

Once we no longer subscribe to our idea of human entitlement, everything changes. Ask vegans for their own experiences, and you’ll likely hear people who strongly feel that opting out of the human pattern of dominion has brought them a better quality of life and an abiding feeling of peace between themselves and other animals…In [...]

The other animals humans eat, use in science, hunt, trap, and exploit in a variety of ways, have a life of their own that is of importance to them apart from their utility to us. They are not only in the world, they are aware of it. What happens to them matters to them. Each [...]

Animal-rights activists are famous for talking about what we don’t want. But what kind of rights do we want? Let’s start by thinking about why we use the term “rights” at all. We’ve constructed a system that treats everything and everyone on the planet as a person or as a piece of property. Water and [...]

Animal exploitation is the most widespread and deeply entrenched form of social injustice in the history of the human race. [It] is the injustice with no boundaries in time or geography. We emerged from the shadows of the preliterate past with spear and bow in hand and livestock in captivity. There is no society remembered [...]

Did you like this? Share it:Tweet