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.
Tom ReganRead
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.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Animals possess their own lives and consciousness beyond their usefulness to humans.
Tom Regan emphasizes the intrinsic value of animal lives, arguing that they experience awareness and have their own interests that matter independently of human needs. He asserts that each animal leads a life that is significant to them, and their well-being should be considered in ethical discussions about how humans interact with them.
Themes
Animal RightsConsciousnessEthicsAwarenessValue
In practice
Example use cases
In a speech about animal rights, you could use this quote to highlight the moral obligations humans have toward animals.
More from Tom Regan
All quotes →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.
Tom ReganRead
It is not an act of kindness to treat animals respectfully. It is an act of justice.
Tom ReganRead
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.
Tom ReganRead
Similar quotes
History is a string full of knots, the best you can do is admire it, and maybe tie it up a bit more. History is a hammock for swinging and a game for playing.
Jeanette WintersonRead
Ego brings unnatural desires in you; it drives you crazy. Life is simple, but to be simple one has to be purposeless. Any goal, and you can`t be simple. Any goal and you can`t be herenow. Any goal and the desire will rock you. Any goal, and you are on the way, again moving - you cannot enjoy this moment, the grace of this moment, the benediction of herenow.
RajneeshRead
Ownership is not a vice, not something to be ashamed of, but rather a commitment, and an instrument by which the general good can be served.
Vaclav HavelRead
When the United States fought in Vietnam, it was organized modern technology versus organized human beings, and the human beings won.
Howard ZinnRead
The foundations of our society and our government rest so much on the teachings of the Bible that it would be difficult to support them if faith in these teachings would cease to be practically universal in our country.
Calvin CoolidgeRead
Even the enlightened person remains what he is, and is never more than his own limited ego before the One who dwells within him, whose form has no knowable boundaries, who encompasses him on all sides, fathomless as the abysms of the earth and vast as the sky
Carl JungRead