Archive for January 13th, 2008
Peter Singer’s Case for Animal Liberation
Peter Singer is Professor of Bioethics at Princeton University and is considered one of the world’s most influential people. His book Animal Liberation (1975) is the most influential book written on the subject, having in a sense started the animal rights movement. Singer argues that animal liberation today is analogous to racial and gender justice in the past. Just as people once thought it incredible that women or blacks should be treated as equal to white men, so now speciesists mock the idea that all animals should be given equal consideration. What equalizes all sentient beings is our ability to suffer. In that, we and animals are equal and deserving equal consideration of interests. Singer’s argument is a utilitarian one, having as its goal the maximization of interest satisfaction.
