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.
Interpretation
The quote emphasizes the need for a complete abolition of animal exploitation rather than merely improving their conditions.
Tom Regan's quote reflects a profound philosophical stance on animal rights, arguing that true justice for animals does not lie in making their captivity or exploitation more humane, but in completely abolishing practices that involve killing or harming them. It challenges societal norms and urges a fundamental change in how we view our relationship with animals, advocating for an ethical treatment that recognizes their inherent rights.
In practice
This quote can be used in a presentation on animal rights activism.
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.
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.
It is not an act of kindness to treat animals respectfully. It is an act of justice.
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.
Christian living means dying with Christ and rising again. That, as we saw, is part of the meaning of baptism, the starting point of the Christian pilgrimage.
In today's highly interdependent world, individuals and nations can no longer resolve many of their problems by themselves. We need one another. It is our collective and individual responsibility to protect and nurture the global family, to support its weaker members, and to preserve and tend to the environment in which we all live.
Are people the best judges of their own happiness, or outsiders? In defining happiness, should we think of entire lives or of shorter periods such as moments, days, or years? And to what extent are virtue and happiness linked?
No philosophers so thoroughly comprehend us as dogs and horses.
The last change in our point of view gives the whole world a pictorial air.
Ring out the false, ring in the true.
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