Fifteen years after ?Animal Liberation?: Has the animal rights movement achieved philosophical legitimacy?

A physiologist's views on the animal rights/liberation movement.

Many physicians and biomedical researchers still believe that the animal rights/liberation (AR/L) movement does not pose a serious threat to biomedical science in the United States. Indeed, some cell and molecular biologists regard the animal rights/research issue as a tempest in a teapot that will not affect them because they use few or no animals. By using the so-called alternatives to animal...

The Philosophy behind the Movement: Animal Studies versus Animal Rights

Recently, many pro-animal thinkers have expressed critical views on the animal rights movement. In particular, the movement has been criticized for being philosophically uninformed, politically regressive, and practically unpersuasive. This paper investigates these criticisms and seeks to map out the philosophy behind the grassroots animal rights movement, specifically. It concludes that the cr...

The unnatural nature of the animal rights/liberation philosophy.

Justice, Caring, and Animal Liberation

Carol Gilligan bas described justice and caring as two distinct moral frameworks or orientations to ethical concerns. (Gilligan 1982) The justice framework is characterized by abstraction, the application of general rules ofconduct, an emphasis on restraining aggression, and a concern for consistency and the fair resolution of conflicting claims and interests. The caring framework, on the other...

Android Science and the Animal Rights Movement: Are There Analogies?

The day is already here when androids perform tasks and act in ways which seem to be human. However, as of now, no one is prepared to view these man-made creations as anything other than property to be used for our benefit or entertainment. As the systems become more sophisticated, and as engineers try harder to build “conscious” machines, I suggest that a number of moral, ethical, and legal is...