The question of nature and extent of our moral obligations to non-human animals has featured prominently in recent moral debate. This book defends the position that a contractarian moral theory can be used to justify the claim that animals possess a substantial and wide-ranging set of moral rights. Critiquing the rival accounts of Peter Singer and Tom Regan, this study shows how an influential form of the social contract idea can be extended to make sense of the concept of animal rights.
Preface - The Case for Animal Rights - Arguing for One's Species - Liberalism and the Expanding Circle - Utilitarianism and Animals: Peter Singer's Case for Animal Liberation - Tom Regan: Animal Rights as Natural Rights - Contractarianism and Animal Rights - Animal Minds - Notes - Index
MARK ROWLANDS is Lecturer in Philosophy at University College, Cork. He received a D.Phil. from Oxford University, and was formerly Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of Alabama. He is author of Supervenience and Materialism (1995).
'...Animal Rights is a humorous, extremely well written and organised text, useful both in undergraduate and graduate courses and as reference material for non-philosophers.' - Marcel Wissenburg, Environmental Politics