Tony Milligan - Animal Ethics: The Basics

ANIMAL ETHICS

THE BASICS

Animal ethics has long been a highly contested area with debates driven by unease about various forms of animal harm, from the use of animals in scientific research to the farming of animals for consumption. Animal Ethics: The Basics is an essential introduction to the key considerations surrounding the ethical treatment of animals. Taking a thematic approach, it outlines the current arguments: from animal agency to the emergence of the political turn. This book explores such questions as:

Can animals think and do they suffer?

What do we mean by speciesism?

Are humans special?

Can animals be political or moral agents?

Is animal rights protest ethical?

Including outlines of the key arguments, suggestions for further reading and a glossary of key terms, this book is an essential read for philosophy students and readers approaching the contested field of animal ethics for the first time.

Tony Milligan is a lecturer in Philosophy at the University of Hertfordshire, UK.

The Basics

ACTING

BELLA MERLIN

AMERICAN PHILOSOPHY

NANCY STANLICK

ANCIENT NEAR EAST

DANIEL C. SNELL

ANTHROPOLOGY

PETER METCALF

ARCHAEOLOGY (SECOND EDITION)

CLIVE GAMBLE

ART HISTORY

GRANT POOKE AND DIANA NEWALL

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

KEVIN WARWICK

THE BIBLE

JOHN BARTON

BIOETHICS

ALASTAIR V. CAMPBELL

BODY STUDIES

NIALL RICHARDSON AND ADAM LOCKS

BUDDHISM

CATHY CANTWELL

CHRISTIANITY

BRUCE CHILTON

THE CITY

KEVIN ARCHER

CONTEMPORARY LITERATURE

Suman Gupta

CRIMINAL LAW

JONATHAN HERRING

CRIMINOLOGY (SECOND EDITION)

SANDRA WALKLATE

DANCE STUDIES

JO BUTTERWORTH

EASTERN PHILOSOPHY

VICTORIA S. HARRISON

ECONOMICS (THIRD EDITION)

TONY CLEAVER

EDUCATION

KAY WOOD

ENERGY

MICHAEL SCHOBERT

EUROPEAN UNION (SECOND EDITION)

ALEX WARLEIGH-LACK

EVOLUTION

SHERRIE LYONS

FILM STUDIES (SECOND EDITION)

AMY VILLAREJO

FINANCE (SECOND EDITION)

ERIK BANKS

FOOD ETHICS

RONALD SANDLER

FREE WILL

MEGHAN GRIFFITH

GENDER

HILARY LIPS

GENOCIDE

PAUL R. BARTROP

GLOBAL MIGRATION

BERNADETTE HANLON AND THOMAS J. VICINO

GREEK HISTORY

ROBIN OSBORNE

HUMAN GENETICS

RICKI LEWIS

HUMAN GEOGRAPHY

ANDREW JONES

INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS

PETER SUTCH AND JUANITA ELIAS

ISLAM (SECOND EDITION)

COLIN TURNER

JOURNALISM STUDIES

MARTIN CONBOY

JUDAISM

JACOB NEUSNER

LANGUAGE (SECOND EDITION)

R. L. TRASK

LAW

GARY SLAPPER AND DAVID KELLY

LITERARY THEORY (THIRD EDITION)

HANS BERTENS

LOGIC

J. C. BEALL

MANAGEMENT

MORGEN WITZEL

MARKETING (SECOND EDITION)

KARL MOORE AND NIKETH PAREEK

MEDIA STUDIES

JULIAN MCDOUGALL

METAPHYSICS

MICHAEL REA

THE OLYMPICS

ANDY MIAH AND BEATRIZ GARCIA

PHILOSOPHY (FIFTH EDITION)

NIGEL WARBURTON

PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY

JOSEPH HOLDEN

POETRY (SECOND EDITION)

JEFFREY WAINWRIGHT

POLITICS (FIFTH EDITION)

NIGEL JACKSON AND STEPHEN D. TANSEY

PUBLIC RELATIONS

RON SMITH

THE QURAN

MASSIMO CAMPANINI

RACE AND ETHNICITY

PETER KIVISTO AND PAUL R. CROLL

RELIGION (SECOND EDITION)

MALORY NYE

RELIGION AND SCIENCE

PHILIP CLAYTON

RESEARCH METHODS

NICHOLAS WALLIMAN

ROMAN CATHOLICISM

MICHAEL WALSH

SEMIOTICS (SECOND EDITION)

DANIEL CHANDLER

SHAKESPEARE (THIRD EDITION)

SEAN MCEVOY

SOCIAL WORK

MARK DOEL

SOCIOLOGY

KEN PLUMMER

SPECIAL EDUCATIONAL NEEDS

JANICE WEARMOUTH

SPORT PSYCHOLOGY

DAVID TOD

STANISLAVSKI

ROSE WHYMAN

SUBCULTURES

ROSS HAENFLER

SUSTAINABILITY

PETER JACQUES

TELEVISION STUDIES

TOBY MILLER

TERRORISM

JAMES LUTZ AND BRENDA LUTZ

THEATRE STUDIES (SECOND EDITION)

ROBERT LEACH

WOMENS STUDIES

BONNIE SMITH

WORLD HISTORY

PETER N. STEARNS

ANIMAL ETHICS

THE BASICS

Tony Milligan

First published 2015

by Routledge

2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN

and by Routledge

711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017

Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business

2015 Tony Milligan

The right of Tony Milligan to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.

Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data

Milligan, Tony.Animal ethics : the basics / Tony Milligan.
pages cm. -- (The basics)
Includes index.
1. Animal rights. 2. Animal welfare--Moral and ethical aspects. I. Title.
HV4708.M548 2015
179.3--dc23
2014046590

ISBN: 978-0-415-73935-1 (hbk)

ISBN: 978-0-415-73936-8 (pbk)

ISBN: 978-1-315-72856-8 (ebk)

To Suzanne, who brings out the animal in me.

CONTENTS

This is a book with a very specific focus. It is concerned primarily with the tradition of animal ethics which has emerged out of the writings of Peter Singer and Tom Regan, a tradition which is sympathetic to the plight of animals and critical of our attitudes towards them. For Singer, this means that some form of animal liberation is required, a counterpart to the liberation of the poor and the oppressed throughout the world. Regan, on the other hand, has come to embrace an imagery of abolition which draws parallels between the predicament of animals and that of slaves in the nineteenth-century US. But, in various respects, the utilitarian defence of animals (presented by Singer) and the rights theory (presented by Regan) have been deemed problematic. They are seen as going too far or not going far enough in the defence of animals. And this is as it should be. The approaches in question were first set out almost exactly forty years ago (slightly earlier in Singers case, slightly later in the case of Regan). This is rather a long time for any ethical theory to stand in the spotlight without receiving a good deal of critical attention. Much of what follows will track the main lines of opposition and the ongoing search for a successor approach.