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ANIMALS
& ETHICS
AN OVERVIEW OF THE PHILOSOPHICAL DEBATE

ANGUS TAYLOR

THIRD EDITION
PRAISE FOR THE NEW EDITION
“Angus Taylor’s Animals & Ethics is, quite simply, the finest text on animal ethics
available. There is no other text that covers such a broad range of material with
such expertise and lucidity. Taylor’s readings of the key works and thinkers in
the field are not only reliable but often remarkably insightful. For any professor
interested in teaching animal ethics, as well as any general reader who wishes
to learn more about the central philosophical debates concerning animals, I
recommend Taylor’s book without reservation.”
—— Matthew Calarco, California State University, Fullerton, author of Zoographies:
The Question of the Animal from Heidegger to Derrida

“This book is a critically nuanced and meticulous assessment of the philosophical

underpinnings of our ethical consideration of non-human animals. The third
edition of Angus Taylor’s Animals & Ethics not only provides students and the
general public with a cogent introduction to the controversial issue of animal
liberation but also serves as an invaluable reference work for students with
the impressive inclusion of an extensively updated bibliography comprising data
from hundreds of relevant publications on the moral status of animals.”
—— Jodey Castricano, University of British Columbia, Okanagan

REACTIONS TO THE FIRST EDITION

“An invaluable reference book.”
—— Ian Hacking in The New York Review of Books

“Angus Taylor places the reader at the leading edge of all the major
contemporary controversies over the human use and exploitation of animals. . . .
Everyone who reads this book will be the better for it.”
—— Michael Allen Fox, Queen’s University

Can animals be regarded as part of the moral community? To what extent, if at all,
do they have moral rights? Are we wrong to eat them, hunt them, or use them for
scientific research? Can animal liberation be squared with the environmental
movement? Taylor traces the background of these debates from Aristotle to Darwin
and sets out the views of numerous contemporary philosophers—including Peter
Singer, Tom Regan, Mary Anne Warren, J. Baird Callicott, and Martha Nussbaum—
with ethical theories ranging from utilitarianism to eco-feminism. The new edition
also includes provocative quotations from some of the major writers in the field. As
the final chapter insists, animal ethics is more than just an “academic” question: it
is intimately connected both to our understanding of what it means to be human
and to pressing current issues such as food shortages, environmental degradation,
and climate change.

ANGUS TAYLOR teaches philosophy at the University of Victoria in British Columbia.

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ISBN 978-1-55111-967-2

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Review Copy

ANIMALS
& ETHICS
AN OVERVIEW OF THE PHILOSOPHICAL DEBATE
3RD EDITION

ANGUS TAYLOR
Review Copy
© 2009 Angus Taylor

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Taylor, Angus MacDonald, 1945-
Animals and ethics : an overview of the philosophical debate / Angus Taylor. — 3rd ed.

(Broadview guides to philosophy)

Originally published under title: Magpies, monkeys, and morals.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-55111-976-2

1. Animal rights –– Philosophy. 2. Animal welfare –– Moral and ethical aspects.

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CONTENTS

Acknowledgements 1

Preface 3

Chapter 1 Animals and the Moral Community 7

2 From Aristotle to Darwin 33
3 Do Animals Have Moral Rights? 57
4 Is It Wrong to Eat or Hunt Animals? 91
5 Is It Wrong to Use Animals for Scientific Research? 119

6 Can Liberationists Be Environmentalists? 147

7 To Change the World 175

Bibliography, Including Works Cited 187

Index 226
Review Copy

P R E FAC E

This book is intended for students and members of the general public
who wish to know what philosophers have been saying about the con-
troversial issue of animal liberation. The aim is to do justice to the argu-
ments of philosophers involved in the debate, while presenting those
arguments in a way that makes them accessible to a wide audience.
Philosophers who have written on the matter can be divided broadly
into two camps. On one side are those who believe that a fundamental
reassessment of our traditional view of animals is in order, and that
such a reassessment leads to the conclusion that we should make radical
changes in our treatment of them. On the other side are those who,
while likely to find cruelty to animals abhorrent, nevertheless find the
notion of “liberating” them to be without merit. However, this is not to
say that there are two neatly defined positions, with all those in favour
of liberation employing a common set of principles and arguments, and
all those against liberation employing another common set of princi-
ples and arguments. Indeed, it would be hard to find any two philoso-
phers who agree completely with each other on the moral status of
animals. The complexity of the debate will become apparent in the
course of the following chapters.
In 1632 Galileo published Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World
Systems, in which he set forth the respective arguments for the Ptolemaic,
or earth-centred, view of the universe, and the Copernican, or sun-cen-
tred, view. Galileo’s sympathies, however, were too obviously with the
Copernican view, and the Church in its turn took a very dim view of
Galileo, convicting him of suspected heresy. Animals and Ethics also
concerns a debate about two radically different ways of viewing the world.
However, although I have my own opinions on many of the issues raised
in the following chapters, I hope to present the various arguments
involved in a reasonably impartial manner, even while commenting on

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their strengths and weaknesses. In this way I mean to provide the reader
with an understanding of the principal areas of contention in the
debate, and with a good basis for evaluating competing claims about
how we should treat animals.
As John Stuart Mill maintained in On Liberty, his famous defence of
freedom of expression, familiarizing ourselves with other points of view
is vital regardless of how firmly we hold that our beliefs are correct.
Another view just may be correct after all, or at least it may hold part of
the truth. And even if our own view is indeed the right one, it is only by
understanding and evaluating the opinions of those who disagree with
us that we can come to believe what we do on the basis of well-reasoned
arguments, instead of holding our beliefs simply as dogma. For this
purpose, Mill said, we should be exposed to opposing opinions in their
strongest form, preferably in the words of those who believe them and
can put the case for them most forcefully. With Mill’s injunction in
mind, readers of this volume are encouraged to seek out in their origi-
nal form arguments that I summarize, not only those arguments they
find congenial, but those that strike them as unsound or even bizarre.
In Chapter 1 animal liberation is defined and is situated with respect
to the notion of the moral community. Along the way, we look at the
question of whether animals can suffer. A brief overview is given of the
main ethical approaches to the topic. The perspectives and implications
of rights theory, utilitarianism, contractarianism, feminism, and virtue
ethics are outlined and contrasted. Also introduced is an argument that
plays a particularly prominent role in the ethical debate and that is
encountered in subsequent chapters.
Chapter 2 provides a historical introduction to the topic of the moral
status of (non-human) animals. A number of prominent pre-twentieth-
century thinkers are canvassed on the subject of animals, with particu-
lar attention being paid to Descartes’ view that animals are machines
without minds, to Kant’s view that we have no duties to animals because
they are not rational, and to Darwin’s claim that humans are not funda-
mentally different from their non-human kin.
Whether animals should be ascribed moral rights is a controversial
issue even among philosophers who support animal liberation. Chapter 3
addresses this issue, focusing primarily on the work widely acknowledged
to be the most comprehensive and influential pro-rights argument: The

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Case for Animal Rights, by Tom Regan. Regan’s argument is explicated in

some detail, and is examined in terms of the criticisms (explicit or implicit)
made both by supporters and by opponents of animal liberation.
Chapter 4 addresses the issues of eating and of hunting animals.
How much does the suffering of animals matter and can eating them be
justified by minimizing their suffering? Among the arguments consid-
ered are those of Peter Singer, author of Animal Liberation, and of Singer’s
critics. Attention is also directed to what makes killing wrong, to
whether being vegetarian really makes any difference, and to the inter-
section of feminism and vegetarianism. The chapter also looks at the
issue of hunting. Is killing for sport to be condemned out of hand, or
can a case be made for it? What about the traditional subsistence hunt-
ing done by Aboriginal people?
Animals are commonly subjected to suffering and death in scientific
research. Whether such research can be justified is the subject of
Chapter 5. Even philosophers who favour animal liberation often agree
with their anti-liberation opponents that if it comes to a conflict of
basic interests, the basic interests of normal humans should prevail over
those of animals. Should we conclude that scientific research involving
animals is almost always justified, even in cases where it would be
immoral to experiment on humans, or would a consistent application
of moral principles lead us to condemn much of the animal research
undertaken these days? Chapter 5 includes a look at the related topic of
the genetic engineering of animals and considers whether there are
valid objections to this practice.
Though at first glance it might be assumed that animal liberation is
an aspect of environmentalism, a great deal of heated debate has arisen
over the question whether the individualistic orientation of libera-
tionists is compatible with the holistic orientation of environmentalists.
It has been charged that liberationists must be committed to protecting
wild animals from harm, and that any such policy must have ruinous
consequences for the environment. In Chapter 6 the diverse arguments
on both sides of the liberation/environmentalism issue are explored,
together with attempts at reconciliation.
Chapter 7 concludes the book with a brief look at the wider context
of animal-liberation philosophy and activism.
The ways in which animals are used by humans are numerous, and

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the book does not attempt to address every one of them. For example, it
does not deal directly with the use of animals in circuses or in rodeos
and touches only briefly on the issue of zoos and on the role of animals
as companions (pets). Some works on zoos, companion animals, and
circuses are included in the bibliography.
The bibliography is a feature of this book. Although there is no
intention to list everything ever written on the moral status of animals,
the bibliography is extensive, comprising publication data on nearly
seven hundred books and articles. The bibliography forms an integral
aspect of the text. During the course of the book frequent references are
given to works listed in the bibliography, both to cite the source of ideas
discussed and to point readers to pertinent material.
I have kept direct quotations to a minimum in the main body of text.
Works mentioned in the following chapters, as well as relevant source
materials, are cited in the text by author and year of publication –– e.g.,
“Singer 2002”. These citations refer the reader to the bibliography at the
end of the book.
For the sake of convenience I use the word “animal” in its everyday
sense, to refer to non-human animals. However, human beings are also
animals, even if we are animals of a unique kind. The perceived tension
between our animal nature and our uniqueness informs much of the
debate about animal liberation.
The first edition of this book was published in 1999 under the title
Magpies, Monkeys, and Morals. A second edition, titled Animals and
Ethics, appeared in 2003. For this third edition, new material has been
added to the text and some existing material rearranged. Once again,
the bibliography has been significantly enlarged. For the first time the
book includes a number of sidebar quotations, ones that I hope are not
only pithy but also provocative.