Tom Regan, the Case for Animal Rights, in James Rachels (Ed.), The

210 IMMANUEL KANT 11? CjtwV ” // !l THE CASE FOR ANIMAL RIGHTS 211 we have no direct duties. Animals are not self-conscious and are who use living animals for their experiments, certainly act cruelly, there merely as a means to an end. That end is man. We can ask, although their aim is praiseworthy, and they can justify their cruelty, “Why do animals exist?” But to ask, “Why does man exist?” is a since animals must be regarded as man’s instruments; but any such meaningless question. Our duties towards animals are merely indi cruelty for sport cannot be justified. ;Amaster who turns out his ass' rect duties towards humanity. Animal nature has analogies to or his dog because the animal can no longer earn its keep manifests? human nature, and by doing our duties to animals in respect of a small mindrjbe Greeks’ ideas in this respect were high-minded, manifestations which correspond to manifestations of human na- as can be seen from the fable of the ass and the bell of ingratitude. ! ture, we indirectly do our duty towards humanity. Thus, if a dog has (] ^ Our duties towards animals, then, are indirect duties towards man served his master long and faithfully, his service, on the analogy of ^ kind. £ human service, deserves reward, and when the dog has grown too old to serve, his master ought to keep him until he dies. Such action \ helps to support us imQur duties towards human beings, where they , Suggestions for Further Reading "“are bounden duties/lf then any acts of animals are analogous to \ / human acts and sprthg from the same principles, we have duties |/ See page 225. towards the animals because thus we cultivate the corresponding ^ duties towards human beings. If a man shoots his dog because the ^ animal is no longer capable of service, he does not fail in his duty to the dog, for the dog cannot judge, but his act is inhuman and "V damages in himself that humanity which it is his duty to show to- ^ wards mankind. If he is not to stifle his human feelings, he must v 21 The Case for Animal practise kindness towards animals, for he who is cruel to animals N becomes hard also in his dealings with men. We can judge the hea*J>^ Rights of a man by his treatment of animalsT)Hogarth depicts this in his engravings. He shows how cruelty grows and develops. He shows Tom Regan the child’s cruelty to animals, pinching the tail of a dog or a cat; he then depicts the grown man in his cart running over a child; and Tom Regan, professor of philosophy at North Carolina State lastly, the culmination of cruelty in murder. He thus brings home University, is the leading defender of animal rights among to us in a terrible fashion the rewards of cruelty, and this should be American philosophers. In addition to The Case for Animal an impressive lesson to children. The more we come in contact with Rights (1983), he also wrote Bloomsbury’s Prophet (1986), a animals and observe their behaviour, the more we love them, for we study of the moral philosophy of G. E. Moore. see how great is their care for their young. It is then difficult for us to be cruel in thought even to a wolf Leibnitz used a tiny worm for purposes of observation, and then carefully replaced it with its leaf on the tree so that it should not come to harm through any act of I regard myself as an advocate of animal rights—as a part of the his. He would have been sorry—a natural feeling for a humane animal rights movement. That movement, as I conceive it, is com man—to destroy such a creature for no reason. Tender feelings mitted to a number of goals, including: towards dumb animals develop humane feelings toward mankind. In England butchers and doctors do not sit on a jury because they From Peter Singer, ed. In Defense of Animals (Oxford: Blackwell, 1985). Reprinted by are accustomed to the sight of death and hardened. Vivisectionists, permission of the publisher and the author. 212 TOM REGAN THE CASE FOR ANIMAL RIGHTS 213 The total abolition of the use of animals in science; ‘more humanely’. To right the wrong of our treatment of farm The total dissolution of commercial animal agriculture; animals requires more than making rearing methods ‘more hu The total elimination of commercial and sport hunting mane’; it requires the total dissolution of commercial animal agri and trapping. culture. How we do this, whether we do‘ it or, as in the case of animals There are, I know, people who profess to believe in animal rights in science, whether and how we abolish their use—these are to a but do not avow these goals. Factory farming, they say, is wrong—it large extent political questions. People must change their beliefs violates animals’ rights—but traditional animal agriculture is all before they Change their habits. Enough people, especially those right. Toxicity tests of cosmetics on animals violates their rights, but elected to public office, must believe in change—must want it— important medical research—cancer research, for example—does before we will have laws that protect the rights of animals. This not. The clubbing of baby seals is abhorrent, but not the harvesting process of change is very complicated, very demanding, very ex of adult seals. I used to think I understood this reasoning. Not any hausting, calling for the efforts of many hands in education, public- more. You don’t change unjust institutions by tidying them up. ity, political organization and activity, down to the licking of What’s wrong—fundamentally wrong—with the way animals envelopes and stamps. As a trained and practising philosopher, the are treated isn’t the details that vary from case to case. It’s the whole sort of contribution I can make is limited but, I like to think, impor system. The forlomness of the veal calf is pathetic, heart wrenching; tant. The currency of philosophy is ideas—their meaning and ratio the pulsing pain of the chimp with electrodes planted deep in her nal foundation—not the nuts and bolts of the legislative process, brain is repulsive; the slow, tortuous death of the raccoon caught in say, or the mechanics of community organization. That’s what I the leg-hold trap is agonizing. But what is wrong isn’t the pain, isn’t have been exploring over the past ten years or so in my essays and the suffering, isn’t the deprivation. These compound what’s wrong. talks and, most recently, in my book, The Case for Animal Rights. I Sometimes—often—they make it much, much worse. But they are believe the major conclusions I reach in the book are true because not the fundamental wrong. they are supported by the weight of the best arguments. I believe The fundamental wrong is the system that allows us to view the idea of animal rights has reason, not just emotion, on its side. In the space I have at my disposal here I can only sketch, in animals as our resources, here for us—to be eaten, or surgically the barest outline, some of the main features of the book. Its main manipulated, or exploited for sport or money. Once we accept this themes—and we should not be surprised by this—involve asking view of animals—as our resources—the rest is as predictable as it is and answering deep, foundational moral questions about what mo regrettable. Why worry about their loneliness, their pain, their rality is, how it should be understood and what is the best moral death? Since animals exist for us, to benefit us in one way or an theory, all considered. I hope I can convey something of the shape other, what harms them really doesn’t matter—or matters only if it I think this theory takes. The attempt to do this will be (to use a word starts to bother us, makes us feel a trifle uneasy when we eat our veal a friendly critic once used to describe my work) cerebral, perhaps escalope, for example. So, yes, let us get veal calves out of solitary too cerebral. But this is misleading. My feelings about how animals confinement, give them more space, a little straw, a few compan are sometimes treated run just as deep and just as strong as those ions. But let us keep our veal escalope. of my more volatile compatriots. Philosophers do—to use the jar But a little straw, more space and a few companions won’t gon of the day—have a right side to their brains. If it’s the left side eliminate—won’t even touch—the basic wrong that attaches to our we contribute (or mainly should), that’s because what talents we viewing and treating these animals as our resources. A veal calf have reside there. killed to be eaten after living in close confinement is viewed and How to proceed? We begin by asking how the moral status of treated in this way: but so, too, is another who is raised (as they say) animals has been understood by thinkers who deny that animals 214 TOM REGAN THE CASE FOR ANIMAL RIGHTS 215 have rights. Then we test the mettle of their ideas by seeing how well \ I Here, very crudely, is the root idea: morality consists of a set they stand up under the heat of fair criticism.

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