The Animals Issue: Moral Theory in Practice

Carruthers arrives at a conclusion which a lot of people will not like, while a lot of others will be satisfied: carefully arguing with precise logic on the basis of Rawls's contractualism, Carruthers concludes that animals cannot have rights. An appreciation of this kind of book depends a lot on the reader's initial standpoint in the matter, but the least one can say is that the book is well written, even if one doesn't share the author's opinion. However, "The animals issue" would have been better and more credible if the author had left out his last chapter, in which he hypothesizes that animals do not have consciousness.