ABSTRACT
What is popularly called the animal rights movement is a significant contemporary social movement. A vast amount of literature in intense social activism has been written by utilitarian theorist Peter Singer, rights theorist Tom Regan, and those who are responding to them. Singer's and Regan's arguments share a number of features, and this chapter refers to those collectively as the Singer-Regan approach. It outlines this approach, and draws from recent ecofeminist critiques of ecological ethics, especially of deep ecology, to explain how, similarly, the Singer-Regan approach neglects context and concrete individuals, how it overestimates the scope of principles and discounts our affective responses in moral life. The chapter discusses the use of live animals in biomedical research. It explains why animal rights issues, including the research one, are feminist issues, and explores the connections between some recent ecofeminist work and animal rights issues.
