Tourists' perceptions of non‐human species in zoos: An animal rights perspective

Czy zwierzętom przysługują prawa? Na marginesie książek Toma Regana i Petera Singera

Etyka ◽

10.14394/etyka.614 ◽

1980 ◽

Vol 18 ◽

pp. 147-168

Author(s):

Jan Narveson

Keyword(s):

Animal Rights ◽

General View ◽

Peter Singer ◽

Human Species

The views of Peter Singer, and various authors in the Singer and Regan anthology Animal Rights and Human Obligations, are explored. Their case against „speciesism”, that only members of the human species are eligible for moral considerations, is accepted, but the further inference that a1nimałs have strong rights, especially not to be killed for food, is questioned. Utilitarianism would, for example, seem to have room for the eating of animals, though rather precariously. However, the general view of morality which is argued to make best sense of our inclination to think that eating animals is permissible is a contractarian/egoist one. This makes it obvious that we have no obligations to animals, since we need incur none (and can’t anyway, owing to lack of communication); at the same time it

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A Prognostic View on the Ideological Determinants of Violence in the Radical Ecological Movement

Sustainability ◽

10.3390/su12166536 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 12 (16) ◽

pp. 6536

Author(s):

Elżbieta Posłuszna

Keyword(s):

Animal Rights ◽

Food Poisoning ◽

Environmental Groups ◽

Human Species ◽

Direct Violence ◽

The Future ◽

Extremist Groups ◽

State Of Affairs ◽

Ecological Catastrophe

Ecologically motivated violence that manifests itself in the animal-rights and environmental forms is not a declining phenomenon. The fluctuating increase of the number of ecologically motivated crimes during the last 50 years, the multiplicity of the methods used (arson, food poisoning in supermarkets, destruction of equipment, attacks with the use of incentivized devices) should make us look at eco-extremism as a dynamic and difficult to grasp phenomenon. The paper is of both explanatory and prognostic nature; its goal is to present the genesis and essence of ecological radicalism, as well as to formulate the predictions for the future. In these forecasts, I wish to depart from the frequent, albeit somewhat simplistic, argument that, since the environmental extremist groups have not yet resorted to direct violence (targeting humans), and the animal-rights groups have reached for it very rarely, this state of affairs will continue in the future. This claim does not necessarily have to be true. I argue that some aspects of ideology can induce, in certain circumstances (a growing ecological catastrophe, further departure from the anthropocentric perspective), a change of the potential of radicalism within the environmental and animal-rights movements. In the case of animal-rights groups, the principle of not causing harm to people may be openly rejected, and in the case of environmental groups, the actions aimed at the annihilation of the whole human species may be undertaken.

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