Animal Rights

I am a firm believer in animal rights. I am not vegetarian but I think that there is a duty to cause animals as less pain and harm as possible even if we are to kill them for food. One has to look at some of the cosmetic and fast food companies to see how much we actually hurt them. So much of it could be reduced by some fairly easy and implementable policies. One of the philosophers who actually agrees with and supports animals rights is Dr. Peter Singer who is De Camp Professor of Bioethics at Princeton University's Center for Human Values. You can read some of his essays and writings here. He accords animals the same moral status as humans which in essence takes away the biggest rationale for treating animals the way we do. He approaches ethical issues from utilitarian, specifically a preference utilitarian perspective. One of his more well known quotes: "Humans and animals are equal in the sense that the fact that a being is human does not mean that we should give the interests of that being preference over the similar interests of other beings. That would be speciesism, and wrong for the same reasons that racism and sexism are wrong. Pain is equally bad, if it is felt by a human being or a mouse. We should treat beings as individuals, rather than as members of a species." Amen!