Defending Animal Rights

Citation

Regan, T. (2001). Defending Animal Rights. University of Illinois Press.

Chapter Summary

The book is a short collection of nine essays, about 180 pages with bibliographical references and an index. The publisher's description presents them as reflecting the author's thinking on animal and human rights over the preceding decade. In them Regan sets out the positions held by those who want to abolish the exploitation of animals, to reform it so as to minimise suffering, or to maintain the status quo, and he considers the moral grounds for limiting human freedom in dealings with nonhuman animals. He compares animal rights activism with other social movements, including the nineteenth-century anti-slavery movement and the gay and lesbian struggle, takes up challenges to the rights view from deep ecology and ecofeminism, and addresses the dilemma of an animal rights advocate whose employer uses animals in research.

Chapter 1: Ethical Theory and Animals

The opening essay places the question of animals within ethical theory. The publisher's description of the book begins with the positions of those who would abolish animal exploitation, reform it to minimise suffering, or leave things as they are, and the opening chapter is where the book's argument starts.

Chapters 2–3: Animal Liberation: What's in a Name?; The Case for Animal Rights: A Decade's Passing

Two essays about the vocabulary and the earlier argument of the rights view. The first asks what the label "animal liberation" stands for; the second returns, ten years on, to Regan's 1983 book The Case for Animal Rights.

Chapters 4–6: Mapping Human Rights; Putting People in Their Place; Patterns of Resistance

The middle essays place the rights view in a wider setting. The publisher notes that the book puts animal rights in historical context, comparing animal rights activism with the nineteenth-century anti-slavery movement and the gay and lesbian struggle, and that it takes up challenges from deep ecology and ecofeminism to the use of animals for human purposes.

Chapter 7: Understanding Animal Rights Violence

An essay on violence in connection with the animal rights movement.

Chapters 8–9: Ivory Towers Should Not a Prison Make; Work, Hypocrisy, and Integrity

The last two essays turn to the position of the individual who works in an institution that uses animals. The publisher says the book addresses the ethical dilemma of the advocate whose employer uses animals for research.

Key Concepts

The rights view and its rivals (Chapters 1–3)

• Abolition, reform and the status quo: the three positions on the use of animals that the book distinguishes.
• Animal liberation and animal rights: two labels for the cause, one of them examined in the second essay.
• The case for animal rights: Regan's earlier argument for the rights view, revisited after a decade.

Rights, movements and resistance (Chapters 4–7)

• Human rights and animal rights: the comparison suggested by the fourth chapter's title.
• Social movements: the historical parallel with anti-slavery and with the gay and lesbian struggle.
• Deep ecology and ecofeminism: positions that, in the publisher's account, challenge the rights view.
• Animal rights violence: the subject of the seventh essay.

The advocate's position (Chapters 8–9)

• Complicity and integrity: how someone who holds the rights view should act when working for an institution that uses animals.

Critical Analysis

Strengths

• A compact route into Regan's thinking. The book gathers essays that follow his earlier major work, so a reader can see how he applies the rights view to the objections, comparisons and practical questions that followed its publication.
• A clear three-way framing. Distinguishing abolition, reform and the status quo gives the reader a map that can be applied to other writers on animals.
• Questions of practice as well as theory. The final chapters, on violence, the academy and work, turn the argument to the position of individuals.
• Short. At about 180 pages the book can be read in a few sittings.

Limitations

• An essay collection, not a systematic treatise. The detailed philosophical argument for the rights view is in the earlier The Case for Animal Rights; the third essay of this book looks back on it, so it helps to have read that book first.
• One position, argued from within. The essays defend the author's own view; readers who want utilitarian or other perspectives presented by their own advocates will need other books.
• Legal material is limited. Although the book is listed with the law texts, the catalogue contents show essays on ethics and activism, not chapters on animal protection statutes or cases.

Where It Fits in the Course

The jurisprudence list covers general theory and several specific philosophical topics. Regan's The Case for Animal Rights is the systematic statement of the position, and Defending Animal Rights follows it as a shorter set of essays that responds to critics and extends the argument. Singer and Regan's anthology Animal Rights and Human Obligations gathers historical and contemporary essays on the moral status of animals and the duties humans owe them, which gives the wider background to the debate. Simmonds's Central Issues in Jurisprudence and Wacks's Philosophy of Law: A Very Short Introduction cover the general questions about law, justice and rights, within which the animal rights discussion about the grounds of rights can be placed.

A sensible order is the general introduction first, then The Case for Animal Rights, then this book, with the anthology for the surrounding debate.

How to Use This Book

The book is for students in jurisprudence, moral philosophy or animal law who have read Regan's earlier book or are willing to read it alongside. No technical legal knowledge is needed.

A practical reading plan:

• Start with Chapter 1 for the three positions, then Chapter 3 for the link back to the earlier book.
• Core for a jurisprudence course on rights: Chapters 2 and 4–6, which concern the language of the rights view and its wider setting.
• Optional, for questions of activism and professional ethics: Chapters 7–9.

Read each essay with a specific question in mind, such as what grounds a right or whether reform can ever be enough, and compare Regan's answers with those of other contributors in the anthology.