Summary
Written in 1975, this book is considered one of the fundamental texts that started the animal rights movement, which is only gaining in momentum. Singer popularized the term speciesism, which plays a central role in his argument. He likens speciesism to all the other nasty “isms” sexism, racism etc. His main points to support this are that humans are animals as well, and there is no significant difference innate in humans that sets us apart from the natural world. An often-used metric of difference between animals and humans is intelligence. To this he would reply that there are plenty of babies, and mentally handicapped patients that show less signs of intelligence than some animals, yet no one would find it morally justifiable to eat them or conduct cruel tests on them. He challenges anyone to justify speciesism, and if not, then they must deal with the consequences. From there he does an overview of testing conducted on animals and factory farming, the two most egregious forms of mass animal cruelty. From there he feels the only justifiable choice is to remove meat from your meals. He provides arguments in support of this as well as providing practical information for those interested in making the switch from a meat-based diet. He ends the book with a brief discussion on western man’s relationship with animals. He breaks up the history into Jewish, Greek, Christian, and Enlightenment eras with his major claim being that any justification of speciesism is either metaphysical or untenable. He quotes Bentham “the question is not, Can they reason? nor, Can they talk? but, Can they suffer?”
Thoughts
A fantastic and compelling read. The sections describing animal testing were difficult to listen to. I was not aware of how wasteful and unnecessary so many of the tests were. As well as how unnecessarily cruel. He also makes a convincing case that the subjects of the tests are hardly necessary and at other times completely irrelevant. To pick one example there were tests done on chimpanzees, where they were trained to keep a platform level by using a throttle. They were then radiated with various types of poison to see how it impacted their performance. The goal of these tests was to see how a pilot would be able to fly a plane after suffering radiation. This of course seems completely unnecessary, as on one hand we know that the pilots flying would be impaired and two, the Airforce is unlikely to alter its doctrine based on the performance of a few chimps. But that didn’t stop the scientists from training chimps for weeks via electrical shock, with the culmination of death with extreme pain. The sections on factory farming were also not a fun read, but the terrain was a little more familiar. No space, no quality of life, unnecessary suffering. I found Singer’s main arguments around speciesism to be unconvincing, but the power of this book is that he provides so many varied reasons against and examples of unnecessary cruelty that one of them is bound to resonate.
People/Peter Singer