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.
All voting is a sort of gaming, like checkers or backgammon, with a slight moral tinge to it, a playing with right and wrong.
Do you honestly believe God likes you, not just loves you because theologically God has to love you?
I originally set out to try and save the world, but now I'm not sure I like it enough.
There is no scientific proof that only scientific proofs are good proofs; no way to prove by the scientific method that the scientific method is the only valid method.
Those who praise victory relish manslaughter. Those who relish manslaughter cannot reach their goals in the world.
Am I a weed, carried this way, that way, on a tide that comes twice a day without a meaning?
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