Arguments
The central argument of the book is an expansion of the utilitarian idea that 'the greatest good' is the only measure of good or ethical behaviour. Singer argues that there is no reason not to apply this to other animals.
Although Singer rejects rights as a moral ideal independent from his utilitarianism based on interests, he accepts rights as derived from utilitarian principles, particularly the principle of minimising suffering. Singer allows that animal rights are not the same as human rights, writing in Animal Liberation that "there are obviously important differences between human and other animals, and these differences must give rise to some differences in the rights that each have."
In Animal Liberation, Singer argues against what he calls speciesism: discrimination on the grounds that a being belongs to a certain species. He holds the interests of all beings capable of suffering to be worthy of equal consideration, and that giving lesser consideration to beings based on their species is no more justified than discrimination based on skin color. He argues that animals should have rights based on their ability to feel pain more than their intelligence. In particular, he argues that while animals show lower intelligence than the average human, many severely intellectually challenged humans show equally diminished, if not lower, mental capacity, and that some animals have displayed signs of intelligence (for example, primates learning elements of American sign language and other symbolic languages) sometimes on par with that of human children, and that therefore intelligence does not provide a basis for providing nonhuman animals any less consideration than such intellectually challenged humans. Singer does not specifically contend that we ought not use animals for food insofar as they are raised and killed in a way that actively avoids the inflicting of pain, but as such farms are uncommon, he concludes that the most practical solution is to adopt a vegetarian or vegan diet. Singer also condemns vivisection except where the benefit (in terms of improved medical treatment, etc.) outweighs the harm done to the animals used.
Read more about this topic: Animal Liberation (book)
Famous quotes containing the word arguments:
“The second [of Zeno’s arguments about motion] is the one called “Achilles.” This is to the effect that the slowest as it runs will never be caught by the quickest. For the pursuer must first reach the point from which the pursued departed, so that the slower must always be some distance in front.”
—Zeno Of Elea (c. 490–430 B.C.)
“Argument is conclusive ... but ... it does not remove doubt, so that the mind may rest in the sure knowledge of the truth, unless it finds it by the method of experiment.... For if any man who never saw fire proved by satisfactory arguments that fire burns ... his hearer’s mind would never be satisfied, nor would he avoid the fire until he put his hand in it ... that he might learn by experiment what argument taught.”
—Roger Bacon (c. 1214–1294)
“There is no assurance of the great fact in question [namely, immortality]. All the arguments are mere probabilities, analogies, fancies, whims. We believe, or disbelieve, or are in doubt according to our own make-up—to accidents, to education, to environment. For myself, I do not reach either faith or belief ... that I—the conscious person talking to you—will meet you in the world beyond—you being yourself a conscious person—the same person now reading what I say.”
—Rutherford Birchard Hayes (1822–1893)