Defending Animal Rights

The animal rights debate is a divisive, enduring topic in normative ethical theory. Addressing key issues in this sometimes acrimonious debate, Tom Regan responds thoughtfully to his critics while dismantling the conception that "all and only" human beings are worthy of the moral status that is the basis of rights. Systematically unraveling claims that human beings are rational and therefore entitled to superior moral status, Regan defends the inherent value of all individuals who are "subjects of a life" and decries the speciesism that pretends to separate human from nonhuman animals. Independent of any benefits humans might derive from exploiting them, Regan shows that animals have no less value in themselves than do human beings. -- From publisher's description.