according to tom regan, what is fundamentally wrong with our current system?

The Case for Creature Rights

by Tom Regan

In PETER Vocalist (ed), In Defence of Animals (New York: Basil Blackwell, 1985, pp. 13-26)

Philosopher Tom Regan

I regard myself every bit an advocate of animal rights — equally a part of the animal rights movement. That movement, as I conceive information technology, is committed to a number of goals, including:

the full abolition of the use of animals in scientific discipline;

the full dissolution of commercial animal agriculture;

the total elimination of commercial and sport hunting and trapping.

There are, I know, people who profess to believe in brute rights but do not avow these goals. Mill farming, they say, is incorrect - information technology violates animals' rights - simply traditional beast agriculture is all correct. Toxicity tests of cosmetics on animals violates their rights, simply important medical research — cancer enquiry, for example — does not. The clubbing of baby seals is abhorrent, but not the harvesting of adult seals. I used to remember I understood this reasoning. Not anymore. You don't change unjust institutions by tidying them up.

What's wrong — fundamentally wrong — with the way animals are treated isn't the details that vary from case to case. It's the whole arrangement. The forlornness of the veal dogie is pathetic, heart wrenching; the pulsing pain of the chimp with electrodes planted deep in her encephalon is repulsive; the slow, tortuous expiry of the racoon caught in the leg-hold trap is agonizing. But what is wrong isn't the hurting, isn't the suffering, isn't the deprivation. These compound what's wrong. Sometimes - oftentimes - they make it much, much worse. Just they are not the fundamental incorrect.

The fundamental incorrect is the arrangement that allows us to view animals as our resources, here for u.s. — to be eaten, or surgically manipulated, or exploited for sport or money. Once we take this view of animals - equally our resources - the residue is every bit anticipated as it is regrettable. Why worry about their loneliness, their pain, their death? Since animals exist for us, to benefit us in i manner or another, what harms them actually doesn't affair — or matters only if it starts to bother us, makes united states of america experience a trifle uneasy when we consume our veal escalope, for example. So, yes, let u.s. get veal calves out of solitary confinement, give them more space, a little straw, a few companions. But permit us keep our veal escalope.

But a little harbinger, more space and a few companions won't eliminate - won't fifty-fifty touch - the basic incorrect that attaches to our viewing and treating these animals every bit our resource. A veal calf killed to exist eaten after living in close confinement is viewed and treated in this style: but so, too, is another who is raised (as they say) 'more than humanely'. To right the incorrect of our treatment of farm animals requires more than making rearing methods 'more humane'; it requires the full dissolution of commercial creature agriculture.

How we exercise this, whether we exercise it or, as in the case of animals in science, whether and how nosotros abolish their employ - these are to a large extent political questions. People must modify their beliefs before they change their habits. Enough people, especially those elected to public role, must believe in alter - must want it - before we will have laws that protect the rights of animals. This process of change is very complicated, very demanding, very exhausting, calling for the efforts of many hands in education, publicity, political organization and activity, down to the licking of envelopes and stamps. As a trained and practicing philosopher, the sort of contribution I tin make is limited merely, I like to think, of import. The currency of philosophy is ideas - their meaning and rational foundation - not the basics and bolts of the legislative process, say, or the mechanics of community organization. That's what I have been exploring over the past ten years or so in my essays and talks and, most recently, in my book, The Example for Animate being Rights. I believe the major conclusions I accomplish in the book are true because they are supported by the weight of the best arguments. I believe the idea of beast rights has reason, non just emotion, on its side.

In the space I have at my disposal here I can only sketch, in the barest outline, some of the main features of the volume. It'south chief themes - and nosotros should not be surprised by this - involve asking and answering deep, foundational moral questions well-nigh what morality is, how it should be understood and what is the all-time moral theory, all considered. I promise I can convey something of the shape I recollect this theory takes. The endeavor to do this will be (to use a discussion a friendly critic once used to describe my work) cognitive, perchance too cerebral. But this is misleading. My feelings about how animals are sometimes treated run merely as deep and but as potent equally those of my more than volatile compatriots. Philosophers practice — to employ the jargon of the 24-hour interval — accept a right side to their brains. If it'southward the left side we contribute (or mainly should), that's considering what talents we have reside there.

How to proceed? We brainstorm by asking how the moral status of animals has been understood by thinkers who deny that animals accept rights. And then we test the mettle of their ideas by seeing how well they stand up under the heat of fair criticism. If we start our thinking in this way, nosotros soon notice that some people believe that we have no duties directly to animals, that we owe nothing to them, that nosotros can do naught that wrongs them. Rather, we can do wrong acts that involve animals, and so we have duties regarding them, though none to them. Such views may be called indirect duty views. Past mode of illustration: suppose your neighbor kicks your dog. Then your neighbor has washed something wrong. But not to your dog. The incorrect that has been done is a incorrect to y'all. Afterwards all, it is wrong to upset people, and your neighbour's boot your dog upsets you. So yous are the one who is wronged, not your dog. Or again: by boot your canis familiaris your neighbour damages your belongings. And since it is wrong to damage another person's property, your neighbor has done something incorrect - to y'all, of course, non to your dog. Your neighbor no more wrongs your domestic dog than your car would exist wronged if the windshield were smashed. Your neighbor'due south duties involving your domestic dog are indirect duties to you. More generally, all of our duties regarding animals are indirect duties to one another — to humanity.

How could someone endeavor to justify such a view? Someone might say that your dog doesn't feel anything and and then isn't hurt by your neighbour'due south boot, doesn't intendance about the pain since none is felt, is every bit unaware of anything as is your windshield. Someone might say this, merely no rational person volition, since, among other considerations, such a view will commit anyone who holds it to the position that no homo beingness feels pain either - that human beings also don't intendance about what happens to them. A 2d possibility is that though both humans and your dog are hurt when kicked, it is just human pain that matters. But, again, no rational person tin can believe this. Pain is pain wherever information technology occurs. If your neighbour'south causing yous pain is wrong because of the pain that is caused, we cannot rationally ignore or dismiss the moral relevance of the pain that your dog feels.

Philosophers who hold indirect duty views — and many still do — have come to sympathise that they must avoid the two defects just noted: that is, both the view that animals don't feel anything as well as the thought that only homo hurting tin be morally relevant. Amongst such thinkers the sort of view now favoured is one or other form of what is called contractarianism.

Here, very crudely, is the root idea: morality consists of a set of rules that individuals voluntarily agree to bide by, as nosotros do when we sign a contract (hence the name contractarianism). Those who empathise and accept the terms of the contract are covered directly; they have rights created and recognized by, and protected in, the contract. And these contractors can also have protection spelled out for others who, though they lack the ability to empathize morality and so cannot sign the contract themselves, are loved or cherished past those who can. Thus immature children, for example, are unable to sign contracts and lack rights. But they are protected past the contract none the less because of the sentimental interests of others, well-nigh notably their parents. So we accept, and then, duties involving these children, duties regarding them, but no duties to them. Our duties in their case are indirect duties to other human beings, usually their parents.

Equally for animals, since they cannot understand contracts, they obviously cannot sign; and since they cannot sign, they have no rights. Similar children, notwithstanding, some animals are the objects of the sentimental interest of others. You lot, for example, love your dog or true cat. And so those animals that enough people care most (companion animals, whales, infant seals, the American baldheaded eagle), though they lack rights themselves, volition be protected because of the sentimental interests of people. I accept, then, according to contractarianism, no duty straight to your dog or any other animal, non even the duty not to cause them hurting or suffering; my duty not to hurt them is a duty I have to those people who care about what happens to them. Equally for other animals, where no or little sentimental interest is present - in the example of farm animals, for example, or laboratory rats - what duties we have grow weaker and weaker, perhaps to vanishing betoken. The pain and expiry they suffer, though real, are non incorrect if no ane cares nigh them.

When it comes to the moral condition of animals' contractarianism could be a hard view to refute if it were an acceptable theoretical approach to the moral status of human beings. It is not adequate in this latter respect, however, which makes the question of its adequacy in the former case, regarding animals, utterly moot. For consider: morality, according to the (rough) contractarian position before us, consists of rules that people agree to bide past. What people? Well, enough to make a difference - enough, that is, collectively to take the power to enforce the rules that are drawn up in the contract. That is very well and skilful for the signatories just not then skillful for anyone who is not asked to sign. And there is goose egg in contractarianism of the sort we are discussing that guarantees or requires that everyone volition have a chance to participate equally in framing the rules of morality. The result is that this approach to ethics could sanction the nigh blatant forms of social, economic, moral and political injustice, ranging from a repressive caste system to systematic racial or sexual discrimination. Might, according to this theory, does make correct. Let those who are the victims of injustice endure equally they will. It matters not and so long as no one else — no contractor, or too few of them — cares most it. Such a theory takes one's moral breath abroad ... as if, for example, at that place would be nothing incorrect with apartheid in South Africa if few white Due south Africans were upset by information technology. A theory with so little to recommend it at the level of the ethics of our treatment of our fellow humans cannot have anything more to recommend it when information technology comes to the ideals of how we treat our swain animals.

The version of contractarianism just examined is, as I have noted, a crude variety, and in fairness to those of a contractarian persuasion information technology must be noted that much more refined, subtle and ingenious varieties are possible. For example, John Rawls, in his A Theory of Justice, sets along a version of contractarianism that forces contractors to ignore the accidental features of being a human beingness - for case, whether one is white or blackness, male or female, a genius or of small-scale intellect. Simply by ignoring such features, Rawls believes, tin we ensure that the principles of justice that contractors would agree upon are non based on bias or prejudice. Despite the improvement a view such as Rawls's represents over the cruder forms of contractarianism, it remains scarce: it systematically denies that we have direct duties to those human beings who do not have a sense of justice - young children, for instance, and many mentally retarded humans. And yet it seems reasonably certain that, were we to torture a young child or a retarded elder, nosotros would be doing something that wronged him or her, not something that would be wrong if (and only if) other humans with a sense of justice were upset. And since this is true in the case of these humans, we cannot rationally deny the same in the case of animals.

Indirect duty views, then, including the best among them, neglect to command our rational assent. Whatever ethical theory we should accept rationally, therefore, it must at least recognize that we have some duties directly to animals, only every bit nosotros have some duties directly to each other. The next two theories I'll sketch attempt to meet this requirement.

The outset I call the cruelty-kindness view. Only stated, this says that we take a direct duty to exist kind to animals and a directly duty not to be barbarous to them. Despite the familiar, reassuring ring of these ideas, I do non believe that this view offers an acceptable theory. To make this clearer, consider kindness. A kind person acts from a sure kind of motive - compassion or business concern, for case. And that is a virtue. Simply in that location is no guarantee that a kind human activity is a right act. If I am a generous racist, for example, I will be inclined to act kindly towards members of my own race, favoring their interests above those of others. My kindness would be real and, so far as it goes, skilful. But I trust it is as well obvious to crave argument that my kind acts may non be above moral reproach - may, in fact, be positively incorrect considering rooted in injustice. So kindness, notwithstanding its status as a virtue to be encouraged, only will not carry the weight of a theory of right action.

Cruelty fares no better. People or their acts are cruel if they display either a lack of sympathy for or, worse, the presence of enjoyment in another'southward suffering. Cruelty in all its guises is a bad thing, a tragic human declining. Merely just as a person's being motivated by kindness does not guarantee that he or she does what is correct, so the absence of cruelty does non ensure that he or she avoids doing what is wrong. Many people who perform abortions, for example, are not barbarous, sadistic people. Simply that fact solitary does not settle the terribly difficult question of the morality of abortion. The example is no different when we examine the ethics of our treatment of animals. So, yep, permit us be for kindness and against cruelty. Only let us not suppose that being for the i and against the other answers questions about moral right and wrong.

Some people think that the theory nosotros are looking for is utilitarianism. A utilitarian accepts 2 moral principles. The first is that of equality: everyone'southward interests count, and similar interests must exist counted as having like weight or importance. White or black, American or Iranian, homo or creature - everyone's pain or frustration matter, and matter just as much equally the equivalent hurting or frustration of anyone else. The 2nd principle a utilitarian accepts is that of utility: practice the act that will bring about the best residuum between satisfaction and frustration for everyone affected by the outcome.

As a utilitarian, then, here is how I am to arroyo the task of deciding what I morally ought to do: I must ask who will be affected if I choose to do 1 thing rather than another, how much each individual volition exist affected, and where the best results are most probable to lie - which pick, in other words, is most probable to bring about the all-time results, the best remainder between satisfaction and frustration. That option, whatever it may be, is the ane I ought to choose. That is where my moral duty lies.

The great appeal of utilitarianism rests with its uncompromising egalitarianism: everyone'southward interests count and count every bit much as the like interests of everyone else. The kind of odious discrimination that some forms of contractarianism tin justify - discrimination based on race or sex, for instance - seems disallowed in principle by utilitarianism, every bit is speciesism, systematic discrimination based on species membership.

The equality we observe in utilitarianism, however, is not the sort an abet of animal or human being rights should accept in heed. Utilitarianism has no room for the equal moral rights of different individuals because it has no room for their equal inherent value or worth. What has value for the commonsensical is the satisfaction of an individual's interests, not the individual whose interests they are. A universe in which you satisfy your desire for h2o, nutrient and warmth is, other things beingness equal, better than a universe in which these desires are frustrated. And the same is true in the instance of an animate being with similar desires. Just neither you nor the animal have any value in your ain correct. Simply your feelings do.

Here is an analogy to aid make the philosophical bespeak clearer: a cup contains dissimilar liquids, sometimes sugariness, sometimes biting, sometimes a mix of the 2. What has value are the liquids: the sweeter the better, the bitterer the worse. The cup, the container, has no value. Information technology is what goes into information technology, not what they go into, that has value. For the utilitarian you and I are like the cup; we have no value as individuals and thus no equal value. What has value is what goes into u.s., what we serve as receptacles for; our feelings of satisfaction have positive value, our feelings of frustration negative value.

Serious problems ascend for utilitarianism when we remind ourselves that information technology enjoins us to bring about the all-time consequences. What does this mean? It doesn't mean the best consequences for me alone, or for my family or friends, or any other person taken individually. No, what nosotros must do is, roughly, every bit follows: we must add up (somehow!) the split up satisfactions and frustrations of anybody likely to be affected by our choice, the satisfactions in one column, the frustrations in the other. We must total each column for each of the options before us. That is what it means to say the theory is aggregative. And then we must choose that pick which is well-nigh likely to bring about the best rest of totaled satisfactions over totaled frustrations. Any act would atomic number 82 to this upshot is the one we ought morally to perform — it is where our moral duty lies. And that act quite clearly might not be the same one that would bring almost the best results for me personally, or for my family or friends, or for a lab animal. The best aggregated consequences for everyone concerned are not necessarily the best for each individual.

That utilitarianism is an aggregative theory — different individuals' satisfactions or frustrations are added, or summed, or totaled - is the central objection to this theory. My Aunt Bea is former, inactive, a cranky, sour person, though non physically sick. She prefers to keep living. She is also rather rich. I could brand a fortune if I could go my easily on her money, money she intends to give me in any result, afterwards she dies, but which she refuses to give me at present. In order to avert a huge revenue enhancement seize with teeth, I programme to donate a handsome sum of my profits to a local children's infirmary. Many, many children volition benefit from my generosity, and much joy will be brought to their parents, relatives and friends. If I don't get the money rather presently, all these ambitions volition come to naught. The once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to brand a real killing will be gone. Why, and then, not kill my Aunt Bea? Oh, of form I might go caught. But I'm no fool and, besides, her dr. tin be counted on to co-operate (he has an middle for the same investment and I happen to know a skilful bargain about his shady past). The deed can be done . . . professionally, shall we say. In that location is very little chance of getting defenseless. And every bit for my conscience existence guilt-ridden, I am a resourceful sort of fellow and volition accept more than sufficient comfort - as I prevarication on the beach at Acapulco - in contemplating the joy and health I have brought to so many others. Suppose Aunt Bea is killed and the rest of the story comes out as told. Would I have done anything wrong? Anything immoral? I would have idea that I had. Not co-ordinate to utilitarianism. Since what I have done has brought nearly the best balance between totaled satisfaction and frustration for all those affected by the outcome, my action is non wrong. Indeed, in killing Aunt Bea the md and I did what duty required.

This same kind of argument can be repeated in all sorts of cases, illustrating, time after time, how the utilitarian's position leads to results that impartial people find morally draconian. It is incorrect to kill my Aunt Bea in the name of bringing nigh the best results for others. A good terminate does not justify an evil means. Whatsoever adequate moral theory will have to explain why this is so. Utilitarianism fails in this respect and then cannot be the theory we seek.

What to do? Where to begin anew? The place to begin, I recollect, is with the utilitarian'due south view of the value of the individual — or, rather, lack of value. In its identify, suppose nosotros consider that you lot and I, for example, do have value equally individuals — what we'll call inherent value. To say we have such value is to say that we are something more than, something dissimilar from, mere receptacles. Moreover, to ensure that we do not pave the way for such injustices as slavery or sexual discrimination, we must believe that all who take inherent value have information technology as, regardless of their sexual practice, race, religion, birth place and so on. Similarly to exist discarded as irrelevant are one's talents or skills, intelligence and wealth, personality or pathology, whether one is loved and admired or despised and loathed. The genius and the retarded child, the prince and the pauper, the brain surgeon and the fruit vendor, Female parent Teresa and the well-nigh unscrupulous used-machine salesman — all have inherent value, all possess it every bit, and all accept an equal correct to be treated with respect, to be treated in ways that do non reduce them to the condition of things, as if they existed equally resource for others. My value every bit an individual is contained of my usefulness to you. Yours is not dependent on your usefulness to me. For either of the states to care for the other in ways that fail to evidence respect for the other'due south contained value is to human action immorally, to violate the individual's rights.

Some of the rational virtues of this view - what I call the rights view - should be evident. Unlike (crude) contractarianism, for example, the rights view in principle denies the moral tolerability of any and all forms of racial, sexual or social bigotry; and unlike utilitarianism, this view in principle denies that we can justify good results by using evil means that violate an private's rights -denies, for example, that it could be moral to kill my Aunt Bea to harvest beneficial consequences for others. That would be to sanction the disrespectful treatment of the individual in the name of the social skilful, something the rights view will not — categorically will non —always allow.

The rights view, I believe, is rationally the well-nigh satisfactory moral theory. It surpasses all other theories in the degree to which it illuminates and explains the foundation of our duties to 1 another - the domain of homo morality. On this score it has the best reasons, the best arguments, on its side. Of form, if it were possible to testify that only human beings are included within its scope, then a person like myself, who believes in creature rights, would be obliged to expect elsewhere.

But attempts to limit its scope to humans just can be shown to be rationally lacking. Animals, it is truthful, lack many of the abilities humans possess. They can't read, do college mathematics, build a bookcase or make baba ghanoush. Neither can many human beings, however, and even so we don't (and shouldn't) say that they (these humans) therefore accept less inherent value, less of a right to be treated with respect, than do others. It is the similarities between those human beings who most clearly, most non-controversially have such value (the people reading this, for instance), not our differences, that thing almost. And the really crucial, the bones similarity is simply this: we are each of u.s. the experiencing subject of a life, a conscious creature having an individual welfare that has importance to usa whatsoever our usefulness to others. Nosotros want and prefer things, believe and feel things, recall and expect things. And all these dimensions of our life, including our pleasance and pain, our enjoyment and suffering, our satisfaction and frustration, our connected existence or our untimely decease - all make a deviation to the quality of our life as lived, as experienced, past us equally individuals. Every bit the aforementioned is true of those animals that business concern us (the ones that are eaten and trapped, for example), they besides must be viewed equally the experiencing subjects of a life, with inherent value of their own.

Some there are who resist the idea that animals take inherent value. 'But humans take such value,' they profess. How might this narrow view be defended? Shall we say that but humans take the requisite intelligence, or autonomy, or reason? But in that location are many, many humans who fail to encounter these standards and however are reasonably viewed as having value above and across their usefulness to others. Shall we merits that merely humans vest to the right species, the species Homo sapiens? But this is blatant speciesism. Will information technology be said, so, that all - and only - humans have immortal souls? So our opponents have their work cutting out for them. I am myself not ill-disposed to the proffer that there are immortal souls. Personally, I profoundly hope I take one. But I would not want to rest my position on a controversial ethical issue on the even more controversial question about who or what has an immortal soul. That is to dig one's hole deeper, not to climb out. Rationally, it is better to resolve moral issues without making more controversial assumptions than are needed. The question of who has inherent value is such a question, one that is resolved more rationally without the introduction of the idea of immortal souls than by its apply.

Well, perhaps some volition say that animals have some inherent value, merely less than we accept. Once once more, however, attempts to defend this view can be shown to lack rational justification. What could be the basis of our having more inherent value than animals? Their lack of reason, or autonomy, or intellect? Only if we are willing to brand the same judgment in the case of humans who are similarly deficient. But it is not truthful that such humans — the retarded child, for example, or the mentally deranged - take less inherent value than you or I. Neither, then, can we rationally sustain the view that animals like them in beingness the experiencing subjects of a life have less inherent value. All who accept inherent value have it equally, whether they exist homo animals or not.

Inherent value, and so, belongs equally to those who are the experiencing subjects of a life, whether information technology belongs to others - to rocks and rivers, trees and glaciers, for example — we do non know and may never know. But neither do we demand to know, if we are to brand the case for animal rights. We do not need to know, for instance, how many people are eligible to vote in the side by side presidential election before we can know whether I am. Similarly, nosotros do not need to know how many individuals have inherent value before we tin can know that some do. When it comes to the case for animate being rights, then, what we need to know is whether the animals that, in our culture, are routinely eaten, hunted and used in our laboratories, for example, are similar us in being subjects of a life. And we do know this. We do know that many - literally, billions and billions - of these animals are the subjects of a life in the sense explained then have inherent value if we do. And since, in order to arrive at the all-time theory of our duties to one another, we must recognize our equal inherent value equally individuals, reason - not sentiment, not emotion - reason compels us to recognize the equal inherent value of these animals and, with this, their equal right to exist treated with respect.

That, very roughly, is the shape and feel of the case for animal rights. Most of the details of the supporting argument are missing. They are to be constitute in the volume to which I alluded earlier. Here, the details go begging, and I must, in endmost, limit myself to four final points.

The commencement is how the theory that underlies the instance for animal rights shows that the creature rights movement is a part of, not antagonistic to, the human rights movement. The theory that rationally grounds the rights of animals also grounds the rights of humans. Thus those involved in the animate being rights motion are partners in the struggle to secure respect for human rights - the rights of women, for case, or minorities, or workers. The animal rights movement is cut from the same moral material as these.

2d, having set out the broad outlines of the rights view, I tin can now say why its implications for farming and scientific discipline, among other fields, are both clear and uncompromising. In the case of the use of animals in scientific discipline, the rights view is categorically abolitionist. Lab animals are not our tasters; we are non their kings. Considering these animals are treated routinely, systematically as if their value were reducible to their usefulness to others, they are routinely, systematically treated with a lack of respect, and thus are their rights routinely, systematically violated. This is but as true when they are used in little, duplicative, unnecessary or unwise research as it is when they are used in studies that hold out real promise of human benefits. Nosotros can't justify harming or killing a human (my Aunt Bea, for example) simply for these sorts of reason. Neither tin we practice and so even in the case of so lowly a creature as a laboratory rat. It is not just refinement or reduction that is chosen for, not merely larger, cleaner cages, not merely more generous employ of anesthetic or the elimination of multiple surgery, not just tidying upward the system. Information technology is complete replacement. The best we can do when it comes to using animals in science is - non to use them. That is where our duty lies, according to the rights view.

As for commercial animal agriculture, the rights view takes a similar abolitionist position. The fundamental moral wrong hither is not that animals are kept in stressful shut confinement or in isolation, or that their pain and suffering, their needs and preferences are ignored or discounted. All these are incorrect, of grade, but they are non the key wrong. They are symptoms and furnishings of the deeper, systematic wrong that allows these animals to be viewed and treated as defective independent value, as resources for us - as, indeed, a renewable resources. Giving farm animals more space, more natural environments, more companions does not right the fundamental wrong, any more than giving lab animals more than anesthesia or bigger, cleaner cages would correct the key incorrect in their case. Zippo less than the total dissolution of commercial animal agriculture volition do this, merely equally, for similar reasons I won't develop at length here, morality requires nothing less than the full elimination of hunting and trapping for commercial and sporting ends. The rights view's implications, then, equally I accept said, are articulate and uncompromising.

My concluding two points are about philosophy, my profession. Information technology is, well-nigh obviously, no substitute for political activity. The words I have written here and in other places by themselves don't modify a thing. It is what we practise with the thoughts that the words express — our acts, our deeds - that changes things. All that philosophy tin can do, and all I have attempted, is to offer a vision of what our deeds should aim at. And the why. But not the how.

Finally, I am reminded of my thoughtful critic, the one I mentioned earlier, who chastised me for being as well cognitive. Well, cerebral I have been: indirect duty views, utilitarianism, contractarianism - inappreciably the stuff deep passions are made of. I am too reminded, however, of the image another friend once set before me — the image of the ballerina as expressive of disciplined passion. Long hours of sweat and toil, of loneliness and practice, of doubt and fatigue: those are the bailiwick of her craft. Just the passion is there too, the violent bulldoze to excel, to speak through her body, to do it right, to pierce our minds. That is the image of philosophy I would leave with you, not 'too cerebral' merely disciplined passion. Of the field of study enough has been seen. Every bit for the passion: at that place are times, and these not exceptional, when tears come to my eyes when I come across, or read, or hear of the wretched plight of animals in the hands of humans. Their pain, their suffering, their loneliness, their innocence, their expiry. Acrimony. Rage. Pity. Sorrow. Disgust. The whole creation groans under the weight of the evil we humans visit upon these mute, powerless creatures. It is our hearts, not simply our heads, that telephone call for an end to it all, that need of us that we overcome, for them, the habits and forces behind their systematic oppression. All great movements, it is written, become through three stages: ridicule, word, adoption. It is the realization of this third phase, adoption, that requires both our passion and our subject, our hearts and our heads. The fate of animals is in our hands. God grant nosotros are equal to the task.

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Source: https://famous-trials.com/animalrights/2599-philosopher-tom-regan-on-animal-rights

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