Introduction to animal rights : your child or the dog? / Gary L. Francione ; foreword by Alan Watson.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Francione, Gary L. (Gary Lawrence), 1954-

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Animal rights--United States.

Animal rights.

United States.

Animal welfare--United States.

Animal welfare.

Physical Description:

xxxviii, 229 pages, 8 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations ; 23 cm

Place of Publication:

Philadelphia : Temple University Press, 2000.

Summary:

Two-thirds of Americans polled by the Associated Press agree with the following statement: "An animal's right to be free of suffering should be just as important as a person's right to live free of suffering." More than 50 percent of Americans believe that killing animals to make fur coats or to hunt them for sport is wrong. But these same Americans eat hamburgers, take their children to circuses and rodeos, and use products developed using animal testing. How do we justify our inconsistency?

In this easy-to-read introduction, law professor and animal rights advocate Gary Francione looks at our conventional moral thinking about animals. Using examples, analogies, and thought-experiments, he reveals the dramatic inconsistency between what we say we believe about animals and how we actually treat them.

Most Western nations have "humane treatment" laws that reflect our belief that animals should not be subjected to "unnecessary" suffering Why, then, do we still confine calves in dark. cramped crates in order to make their meat more tender? Why do we drip caustic solutions into the eyes of rabbits, or pack chickens so tightly together in their permanent cages that we must burn off their beaks in order to keep them from killing each other? For the same reason. Francione argues, that nineteenth-century humane treatment laws for slaves did not prevent slave-owners from killing and mutilating their property."

Introduction to Animal Rights provides a guidebook to examining our social and personal ethical beliefs, h takes us through concepts of property and equal consideration to arrive at the basic contention of animal rights: that everyone-human and non-human-has the right not to betreated as a means to an end. Along the way, it illuminates concepts and theories such as the nature of "rights" and "interests" and the theories of Locke, Descartes, and Bentham.

Filled with fascinating information and cogent arguments, this imminently controversial book never fails to inform, enlighten, and educate.

Contents:

The diagnosis: our moral schizophrenia about animals

Vivisection

The cause of our moral schizophrenia: animals as property

The cure for our moral schizophrenia: the principle of equal consideration

Robots, religion, and rationality

Having our cow and eating her too

Animal rights: your child or the dog.

Notes:

Accompanied by 1 slip of errata.

Includes bibliographical references (pages 189-224) and index.

ISBN:

1566396913

1566396921

OCLC:

40575274