It is not larger, cleaner cages that justice demands...but empty cages; not traditional animal agriculture but a complete end to all commerce in the flesh of dead animals; not more humane hunting and trapping, but the total eradication of these barbarous practices.
Interpretation
The quote emphasizes the need for a complete abolition of animal exploitation rather than merely improving their conditions.
Tom Regan's quote reflects a profound philosophical stance on animal rights, arguing that true justice for animals does not lie in making their captivity or exploitation more humane, but in completely abolishing practices that involve killing or harming them. It challenges societal norms and urges a fundamental change in how we view our relationship with animals, advocating for an ethical treatment that recognizes their inherent rights.
In practice
This quote can be used in a presentation on animal rights activism.
The other animals humans eat, use in science, hunt, trap, and exploit in a variety of ways, have a life of their own that is of importance to them apart from their utility to us. They are not only in the world, they are aware of it. What happens to them matters to them. Each has a life that fares better or worse for the one whose life it is.
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 make the same judgment in the case of humans who are similarly deficient.
It is not an act of kindness to treat animals respectfully. It is an act of justice.
I would encourage them never to forget that they were not always vegans. The self-righteousness of the recently converted hurts, it does not help, other animals.
Conscience is the light by which we interpret the will of God in our own lives.
The sinner is not the one who uses a lot of grace... The saint burns grace like a 747 burns fuel on take off.
We have always existed in different forms - carbon, oxygen, water, heat. Maybe Heaven is this brief period when the elements realize they're alive.
This planet has — or rather had — a problem, which was this: most of the people living on it were unhappy for pretty much all of the time.
Does this planet have enough resources so seven or eight billion can have the same level of consumption and waste that today is seen in rich societies? It is this level of hyper-consumption that is harming our planet.
For both parties in a controversy, the most disagreeable way of retaliating is to be vexed and silent; for the aggressor usually regards the silence as a sign of contempt.
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