Animal Liberation or Animal Rights?

In replying to my review of The Case for Animal Rights in The New York Review of Books, Tom Regan notes that whereas I use the term ‘the animal liberation movement’ to refer to the many people and organizations around the world advocating a complete change in the moral status of animals, he prefers the label ‘animal rights movement’. There is, he says, ‘more than a verbal difference here’. ¹ For immediate practical purposes the difference may not matter very much—Regan and I are plainly at one in our attempts to eliminate the atrocities now inflicted on animals in factory farms, laboratories and in the wild. I am even prepared to speak of ‘animal rights’—just as I am prepared to speak of ‘human rights’—as a shorthand reference to the way in which the needs and desires of animals give rise to moral obligations on our part. But the philosophical difference between those who, like Regan, ground their case for animals on claims about rights, and those who, like me, do not, is fundamental. In the long run it may also have practical implications. This essay explains why I do not, philosophically, accept the animal rights approach.