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What Is Animal Liberation?
Excerpts From Philosopher
Peter Singer's Groundbreaking Work
“Animal Liberation” may sound
more like a parody of other liberation movements than a serious objective. The
idea of “The Rights of Animals” actually was once used to parody the case for
women's rights. When Mary Wollstonecraft published her Vindication of the
Rights of Women in 1792, her views were widely regarded as absurd, and
before long, an anonymous publication appeared entitled A Vindication of the
Rights of Brutes. The author of this satirical work (now known to have been
Thomas Taylor, a distinguished Cambridge philosopher) tried to refute Mary
Wollstonecraft's arguments by showing that they could be carried one stage
further. If the argument for equality was sound when applied to women, why
should it not be applied to dogs, cats, and horses? …
When we say that all human beings, whatever their race, creed, or sex, are
equal, what is it that we are asserting? Like it or not, we must face the fact
that humans come in different shapes and sizes; they come with different moral
capacities, different intellectual abilities, different amounts of benevolent
feeling and sensitivity to the needs of others, different abilities to
communicate effectively, and different capacities to experience pleasure and
pain. In short, if the demand for equality were based on the actual equality of
all human beings, we would have to stop demanding equality. …
The existence of individual variations that cut across the lines of race or sex,
however, provides us with no defense at all against a more sophisticated
opponent of equality, one who proposes that, say, the interests of all those
with IQ scores below 100 be given less consideration than the interests of those
with ratings over 100. Perhaps those scoring below the mark would, in this
society, be made the slaves of those scoring higher. Would a hierarchical
society of this sort really be so much better than one based on race or sex? I
think not. But if we tie the moral principle of equality to the factual equality
of the different races or sexes, taken as a whole, our opposition to racism and
sexism does not provide us with any basis for objecting to this kind of
inegalitarianism. …
Fortunately, there is no need to pin the case for equality to one particular
outcome of a scientific investigation. … There is no logically compelling reason
for assuming that a factual difference in ability between two people justifies
any difference in the amount of consideration we give to their needs and
interests. The principle of the equality of human beings is not a description
of an alleged actual equality among humans: It is a prescription of how we
should treat human beings.
Jeremy Bentham, the founder of the reforming utilitarian school of moral
philosophy, incorporated the essential basis of moral equality into his system
of ethics by means of the formula: “Each to count for one and none for more than
one.” In other words, the interests of every being affected by an action are to
be taken into account and given the same weight as the like interests of any
other being. …
It is an implication of this principle of equality that our concern for others
and our readiness to consider their interests ought not to depend on what they
are like or on what abilities they may possess. Precisely what our concern or
consideration requires us to do may vary according to the characteristics of
those affected by what we do: concern for the well-being of children growing up
in America would require that we teach them to read; concern for the well-being
of pigs may require no more than that we leave them with other pigs in a place
where there is adequate food and room to run freely. But the basic element—the
taking into account of the interests of the being, whatever those interests may
be—must, according to the principle of equality, be extended to all beings,
black or white, masculine or feminine, human or nonhuman.
Thomas Jefferson, who was responsible for writing the principle of the equality
of men into the American Declaration of Independence, saw this point. It led him
to oppose slavery even though he was unable to free himself fully from his
slaveholding background. He wrote in a letter to the author of a book that
emphasized the notable intellectual achievements of Negroes in order to refute
the then common view that they have limited intellectual capacities: “Be assured
that no person living wishes more sincerely than I do, to see a complete
refutation of the doubts I myself have entertained and expressed on the grade of
understanding allotted to them by nature, and to find that they are on a par
with ourselves … but whatever be their degree of talent it is no measure of
their rights. Because Sir Isaac Newton was superior to others in understanding,
he was not therefore lord of the property or person of others.”
Similarly, when in the 1850s the call for women's rights was raised in the
United States, a remarkable black feminist named Sojourner Truth made the same
point in more robust terms at a feminist convention: “They talk about this thing
in the head; what do they call it? [“Intellect,” whispered someone nearby.]
That's it. What's that got to do with women's rights or Negroes' rights? If my
cup won't hold but a pint and yours holds a quart, wouldn't you be mean not to
let me have my little half-measure full?”
It is on this basis that the case against racism and the case against sexism
must both ultimately rest; and it is in accordance with this principle that the
attitude that we may call “speciesism,” by analogy with racism, must also be
condemned. Speciesism—the word is not an attractive one, but I can think of no
better term—is a prejudice or attitude of bias in favor of the interests of
members of one's own species and against those of members of other species. It
should be obvious that the fundamental objections to racism and sexism made by
Thomas Jefferson and Sojourner Truth apply equally to speciesism. If possessing
a higher degree of intelligence does not entitle one human to use another for
his or her own ends, how can it entitle humans to exploit nonhumans for the same
purpose?
Many philosophers and other writers have proposed the principle of equal
consideration of interests, in some form or other, as a basic moral principle;
but not many of them have recognized that this principle applies to members of
other species as well as to our own. Jeremy Bentham was one of the few who did
realize this. In a forward-looking passage written at a time when black slaves
had been freed by the French but in the British dominions were still being
treated in the way we now treat animals, Bentham wrote:
“The day may come when the rest of the animal creation may acquire those
rights which never could have been withholden from them but by the hand of
tyranny. The French have already discovered that the blackness of the skin is no
reason why 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 they were otherwise, what
would it avail? The question is not, Can they reason? nor Can they
talk? but, Can they suffer?”
In this passage, Bentham points to the capacity for suffering as the vital
characteristic that gives a being the right to equal consideration. … If a being
suffers, there can be no moral justification for refusing to take that suffering
into consideration. No matter what the nature of the being, the principle of
equality requires that [his or her] suffering be counted equally with the like
suffering—insofar as rough comparisons can be made—of any other being. …
Racists violate the principle of equality by giving greater weight to the
interests of members of their own race when there is a clash between their
interests and the interests of those of another race. Sexists violate the
principle of equality by favoring the interests of their own sex. Similarly,
speciesists allow the interests of their own species to override the greater
interests of members of other species. The pattern is identical in each case.
Most human beings are speciesists. … [O]rdinary human beings—not a few
exceptionally cruel or heartless humans, but the overwhelming majority of
humans—take an active part in, acquiesce in, and allow their taxes to pay for
practices that require the sacrifice of the most important interests of members
of other species in order to promote the most trivial interests of our own
species.…
Even if we were to prevent the infliction of suffering on animals only when it
is quite certain that the interests of humans will not be affected to anything
like the extent that animals are affected, we would be forced to make radical
changes in our treatment of animals that would involve our diet, the farming
methods we use, experimental procedures in many fields of science, our approach
to wildlife and to hunting, trapping and the wearing of furs, and areas of
entertainment like circuses, rodeos, and zoos. As a result, a vast amount of
suffering would be avoided.
Read more:
Animal Liberation
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