What is animal advocacy?
To advocate for animals is to recognize that their lives matter. One does not necessarily need to protest for animal rights or throw fake blood on surprised coat customers to advocate for animals successfully. Advocating for animals means respecting their desire to exist happily in the world, by reminding ourselves we are indebted to their presence. What it is to be human is to be a member of a web of life, and to respect the beings with whom we share the earth.
Who are the major animal advocates of today?
Peter Singer: An Australian philosopher renowned for his seminal work Animal Liberation, published in 1975.
- In Animal Liberation, Singer breaks through the false divide between humans and animals, arguing that utilitarian ethics can be expanded to include sentient beings.
- Famously established that human intelligence is not an adequate justification to deem animals as inferior beings. He points to the fact that severely mentally disabled humans would display less rationality than a fully functioning ape, and thus the argument for superior intelligence is flawed. - A list of his works can be found at http://www.utilitarian.net/singer/
Gary Francione: Primary a legal scholar, Francione became the first academic to teach animal rights theory in an American law school .
- A pioneer of the animal abolitionist movement, Francione argues that animals deserve one all encompassing and basic right: the right to not be treated as property
- In his work, Animals, Property and the Law (1995) , Francione argues that laws put in place with the purpose to merely improve animal conditions, while forcing them to remain as human property, are immoral.
- Gary has posted information regarding his abolition approach on his website, http://www.abolitionistapproach.com/
- In Animal Liberation, Singer breaks through the false divide between humans and animals, arguing that utilitarian ethics can be expanded to include sentient beings.
- Famously established that human intelligence is not an adequate justification to deem animals as inferior beings. He points to the fact that severely mentally disabled humans would display less rationality than a fully functioning ape, and thus the argument for superior intelligence is flawed. - A list of his works can be found at http://www.utilitarian.net/singer/
Gary Francione: Primary a legal scholar, Francione became the first academic to teach animal rights theory in an American law school .
- A pioneer of the animal abolitionist movement, Francione argues that animals deserve one all encompassing and basic right: the right to not be treated as property
- In his work, Animals, Property and the Law (1995) , Francione argues that laws put in place with the purpose to merely improve animal conditions, while forcing them to remain as human property, are immoral.
- Gary has posted information regarding his abolition approach on his website, http://www.abolitionistapproach.com/
Jane Goodall: A british ethologist, Jane Goodall is most famous for her work with chimpanzees. As a young student, she became obssessed with Africa and shadowed Anthropogolist Louis Leakey to observe animal behavior
- Corrected several misunderstandings about chimpanzees. For example, she found they are omnivorous, not vegetarian. She also soon discovered that these were not creatures living uncoordinated or anti-social lives. Instead, she found that chimpanzees express a complex social hierarchy and are affluent tool-useres
- Her work has led to an entirely new understanding of the great apes, and challenges our assumption that animals are less intelligent or simply brutes. Tool-making, once thought to be an exclusively human characteristic, had now been proven to exist among other species, leading us to challenge our own notions of superiority.
- More information to support her cause can be found on her website: http://www.janegoodall.org/
The video on the left features a speech given by Goodall, arguing that the perceived line between humans and animals is becoming increasingly fuzzier. The video on the right is a clip from her 60 minutes episode.
- Corrected several misunderstandings about chimpanzees. For example, she found they are omnivorous, not vegetarian. She also soon discovered that these were not creatures living uncoordinated or anti-social lives. Instead, she found that chimpanzees express a complex social hierarchy and are affluent tool-useres
- Her work has led to an entirely new understanding of the great apes, and challenges our assumption that animals are less intelligent or simply brutes. Tool-making, once thought to be an exclusively human characteristic, had now been proven to exist among other species, leading us to challenge our own notions of superiority.
- More information to support her cause can be found on her website: http://www.janegoodall.org/
The video on the left features a speech given by Goodall, arguing that the perceived line between humans and animals is becoming increasingly fuzzier. The video on the right is a clip from her 60 minutes episode.
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Tom Regan: An American philosopher who specializes in animal rights theory.
- Known for asserting that animals are "subjects of a life", and thus should be treated with respect in the same way human life is considered to be sacred.
- The video is 1 of a 5-part series, in which Regan gave speeches on Animal rights in the University of Heidelberg. Regan explains how advocacy groups advocate for both animals use for food and companion animals, and the methods of advocacy they use to achieve this.
- Known for asserting that animals are "subjects of a life", and thus should be treated with respect in the same way human life is considered to be sacred.
- The video is 1 of a 5-part series, in which Regan gave speeches on Animal rights in the University of Heidelberg. Regan explains how advocacy groups advocate for both animals use for food and companion animals, and the methods of advocacy they use to achieve this.