Animal Ethics & Philosophy

Ed Duvin - The Father of the no-kill movement.
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BBC Animal Ethics - The most difficult part of animal rights and welfare for human beings has been summed up by Colin McGinn: ...it is important to see that animals are not defined by their relation to us. Most animals, after all, have lived out their spans in sublime indifference to the habits of those odd chattering bipeds with the removable plumage. Even if we had never existed, they would still be here. We are just as accidental to them as they are to us. Social Research, Vol. 62, 1995.
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Brute Ethics - Brute Ethics is an encyclopedia about animal ethics - understanding animal-human issues through knowledge and reasoning and acting for the good. Animal ethic encompasses animal rights, animal welfare, nature conservation and applied ethics. This site should appeal to you if you have an inquiring mind and especially if you have an interest in animal life.
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The Animals and Society Institute - is a nonprofit, independent research and educational organization that advances the status of animals in public policy, and promotes the study of human-animal relationships. The ASI seeks to advance institutional change for animals by helping to establish the moral and legal rights fundamental to a just, compassionate and peaceful society.
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Oxford Centre for Animal Ethics - We cannot change the world for animals without changing our ideas about them. Philosophers have led the way in helping us to think differently about animals. Academics should now lead the way in furthering ethical attitudes and contributing to informed public debate. Our concern is to establish an unashamedly elite school of academics able to make an effective ethical case for animals. The Centre is opposed to violence and illegality, and will not appoint Fellows or Associates who advocate violence.
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Animal Ethics by Angelia Brown, Graduate Student Ferris State University - Grand Rapids Campus - Active involvement and attention to animal ethics has the potential to have a significant impact on domestic and global conditions within our society and our environment.
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Animal Law - Professor Francione has developed a theory of animal rights that relies only on the sentience of nonhumans and that requires the abolition, and not merely the regulation, of animal exploitation.
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Stop Animal Tests - Ask the experimenters why they experiment on animals, and the answer is: 'Because the animals are like us.' Ask the experimenters why it is morally OK to experiment on animals, and the answer is: 'Because the animals are not like us.' Animal experimentation rests on a logical contradiction.
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The Origin of Speciesism - I am a speciesist. Speciesism is not merely plausible, it is essential for right conduct.
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Peter Singer - Do animals other than humans feel pain? The overwhelming majority of scientists who have addressed themselves to this question agree.
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The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy - Animals exist on the borderline of our moral concepts; the result is that we sometimes find ourselves according them a strong moral status, while at others denying them any kind of moral status at all. What place should animals have in an acceptable moral system?
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Tom Regan - Regan's seminal work, The Case for Animal Rights, is one of the most influential works on the topic of animals and ethics. Regan argues for the claim that animals have rights in just the same way that human beings do.
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Culture and Animals - 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.
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Universal Declaration of Animal Rights - All animals have equal rights to exist within the context of biological equilibrium. This equality of rights does not overshadow the diversity of species and of individuals.

British Union for the Abolition of Vivisection - (BUAV) is a British animal protection group based in London, which campaigns for the complete abolition of all animal experiments. BUAV engages in education, research, lobbying, investigations, including undercover work in laboratories, and legal cases that further the cause of the anti-vivisection movement. It also promotes non-animal alternatives.
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Richard D. Ryder is a British psychologist who, after performing psychology experiments on animals, began to speak out against the practice, and became one of the pioneers of the modern animal liberation movement. Ryder calls his current position on the moral status of non-human animals painism, arguing that all beings who feel pain deserve rights. Painism can be seen as a third way between Peter Singer's utilitarian position and Tom Regan's deontological rights view. It combines the utilitarian view that moral status comes from the ability to feel pain with the rights view prohibition on using others as a means to our ends.
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Andrew Linzey - The name of Andrew Linzey is now so firmly associated with the Christian movement for animal rights that it appears all over the world wherever groups or campaigns are in action.

Dr. Michael W. Fox - Animal rights advocates today challenge the logic and ethics of not according animals equal rights, animals used as companions having infinitely more rights than animals used as commodities. This call for equal rights means that all domesticated and captive wild animals should be kept under conditions appropriate to their natures, conducive to their physical health and mental well being because their basic physiological and psychological needs are provided for.

All Creatures - Don't feel discouraged or feel that you are unable to create change for any reason such as being too young, too old, have too little time, or isolated from the consensus. You might feel that there are special circumstances personally impeding you from opportunities and the ability to effectively make a difference.
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