Animal Rights Ethics

Animal Rights Ethics

The moral status of non-human animals is one of the most challenging and rapidly evolving areas of applied ethics. Do animals have rights? Is it morally permissible to kill and eat animals, to experiment on them, or to confine them in factory farms? This lesson examines the major philosophical and theological positions on the moral status of animals, from the utilitarian arguments of Peter Singer to the rights-based approach of Tom Regan, the concept of speciesism, and the religious perspectives that have shaped — and are reshaping — our treatment of animals.

Peter Singer and Utilitarianism

Peter Singer (b. 1946), in his groundbreaking work Animal Liberation (1975), argued that the capacity to suffer — not species membership, intelligence, or linguistic ability — is the morally relevant criterion for moral consideration. If a being can suffer, its suffering counts, and it must be given equal consideration in our moral deliberations.