Animal Liberation: The Definitive Classic of the Animal Movement

This is one of the first accounts of what was to become one of the most contoversial movements in the world. Peter Singer, a moral philosopher, argues about the ethics of eating meat, biomedical experiments on animals, cattle farming, the meat industry, and other related topics. Written with his characteristic lucidity and clarity, this is no jittery, woolly, 'fascist animal rights lobby' book, but an intellectually rigorous, philosophically grounded tract on what it means to be human and what duties we owe other species who share the world with us. Clear-eyed, substantiated with impeccably-researched data and facts, and radiant with a moral energy that has all but left academic philosophical writing, it gives much-needed credibility to a burning, and often much abused and misrepresented, issue. Read him.

Though this book may have been dubbed "The Animal Rights Bible" - it is interesting to note that nowhere in Singer's argument does he make a case for "rights" for animals. Singer's system of ethics is comprised of a form of utilitarianism that takes into account the interests of nonhuman animals. Thus, Singer's book is not an argument for "rights" for animals - Instead it is work intended to make a case for expanding our circle of compassion by considering the immense amount of unecessary suffering inflicted upon the nonhuman animal world by human institutions. In order to understand Singer's perspective, the reader must be willing to open their mind to the idea that our society is capable of change, and that we indeed can strive to live in peace with the nonhuman creatures with whom we share the Earth. Thus, an open-minded reader may be able to share in a vision of a more peaceful world in which we view other animals as creatures who are worthy of experiencing their own life - rather than as simple automatons that exist to be exploited as objects for human consumption.

Peter Singer is possibly the most famous living philosopher in the world, and this book is an excellent reason to find out why. His arguments start from premises that almost everyone accepts, and they carefully and logically proceed to conclusions which are definately outside the mainstream of typical opinion (to put it mildly). This book is at once accessible and controversial, and evokes strong opinions -- you either love it or hate it, with very few people in the middle.The good: The book is comprehensive, attempting to answer both the "why" and the "how" of animal liberation. It provides a decent, although not thorough, overview of most of the shocking treatment of animals raised for human consumption and at times might be very difficult to read. Singer's arguments are not mere emotive appeals and are top-notch.The bad: Although understandable in a book that is aimed at a popular audience, Singer doesn't really go into the foundations of his ethics at all -- there's no answer to "why be ethical?" addressed in the book; instead it assumes that the reader already agrees that one should be ethical and procedes from there. The footnotes are decent but could be more comprehensive, and at times Singer gets a little wordy, which detracts from the impact of his arguments. However, these detractions are minor compared with the overall quality of the book.The ugly: Most people who read and disagree with Animal Liberation fall into one of two traps. First, they assume that Singer is arguing for animal rights, and trot out a bunch of arguments about moral agency and so forth. However, Singer specifically does not argue for rights, and his ethical system in general is not based on them (he's a utilitarian). (For a look at a rights-based animal welfare defense, please check out some books or articles by Tom Regan.) The second mistaken criticism people tend to make is essentially "Singer's conclusions are very different from mainstream thought! They're obviously ridiculous!" -- i.e., they don't address the quality of the arguments themselves.This is not to say that there aren't any good rebuttals to Singer's positions, merely that these ain't them.In conclusion, this book is required reading for anyone interested in the way humans treat and think about other species, or anyone interested in the genesis of the modern animal-welfare movement. Highly recommended!

This is a remarkable book that is certain to change your life--if you can read it with an open mind. As one of this century's premiere philosophers, Peter Singer challenges us on every level. This book's focus is our attitudes towards animals, which he claims is often 'speciesist'. His philosophical defense of this claim is masterful. His discussion of the facts--the way that our society treats animals behind our backs--is compelling and ire-inspiring. After setting a moralistic fire in our hearts, he offers suggestions on how to excise this cumbersome paradigm from our daily lives. Read it and look deep within your soul . . . you may not like what you see, but fear not: we've all got ample opportunities for change.

Want to upset all the pre-conceptions of your life, and look at the world around you in a radically new way? Then read Peter Singer's book Animal Liberation. Written by an Australian philosophy professor in the 1970s, and revised in the early 1990s, Animal Liberation is the founding book of the modern animal rights movement. As such, Animal Liberation be one of the most influential books of the 20th century. When Singer's book first appeared, animal rights was on the fringe of the fringe. Animal rights advocates, to the extent that they could get any attention from the press at all, were treated as a bunch of nuts. CBS Evening News compared British animal rights advocates to Monty Python charachters. But today, especially among young people, animal rights is a major part of political and social activism. So even if you think you're inflexibly opposed to animals having rights, Singer's book will help you understand the millions of people who disagree with you. Folks who believe that animals have no rights will often assert that because animals are animals, they should have no rights. As Singer points out, the argument is simply a tautology. To say that animals should have no rights because they are animals is no more logical than to say that women should not have rights because they are women, or that Blacks should have no rights because they are Blacks. To say that status as a woman must, in itself, imply that women have no rights is sexism; to say the same about Blacks is racism. And, Singer demonstrates, to say the same about animals is "specisim." Interestingly, when reformers in the late 18th century began arguing that Blacks should not be enslaved merely because of of their race, pro-slavery advocates had an immediate reply: Arguments which questioned the subordination of Blacks could also be used to question the subordination of women, and the subordination of animals. The defenders of slavery had a point, notes Singer. Once you knock out one kind of subordination, it's harder to defend the subordination that remains. So if simplistic speciesism is an insufficient basis for denying animals rights, what logical justification is there for current treatment of animals? It is true, of course, that animals can't do lots of things that humans can, such as write, build complex tools, or describe a religious belief system. But if you compare a profoundly retarded child with one of the higher primates, the primate may have much more advanced skills in the traits that we consider human (such as use of language or tools) than does the profoundly retarded child. If we acknowledge that the retarded child has rights, then what philosophically plausible claim can be made that the primate does not? The best test for rights, argues Singer, is a test first articulated by the 19th century philosopher Jeremy Bentham: "Can it suffer?" If you saw someone using an electric cattle prod to torture an adult human, you would say that the person's rights were b