On a Case for Animal Rights

Abstract

Down through the past decade and more, no philosophical writer has taken a greater interest in the issues of how we ought to act in relation to animals, nor pressed more strongly the case for according them rights, than Tom Regan, in many articles, reviews, and exchanges at scholarly con ferences and in print. Now, in The Case for Animal Rights1 we have a substantial volume in which Regan most fully and systematically presents his case for a strong panoply of rights for animals. The argument is direct and cumulative, leading up to a final chapter in which Regan draws his con clusions: vegetarianism is obligatory, hunting and trapping wrong, and vir tually no use of animals permissible in scientific experimentation. These are radical conclusions; few of us would be unaffected by them, and most of us, indeed, would be in for a terrific alteration in various aspects of our lifestyles. It certainly behooves us, then, to follow his arguments with care. In the present essay, my main concern will be to examine the arguments in this book. But I shall also be concerned to develop an alternative viewpoint, though at lesser length than the subject merits. (An early presentation of that viewpoint2 is criticized by Regan in the volume before us. Replies to these criticisms, in the present essay, will, for lack of space, be mainly by implication rather than direct reference.)

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