How Ought We To Live With Nonhuman Animals? Peter Singer's Answer: Animal Liberation Part I

Abstract

In this paper and the next I discuss Peter Singer's approach to answering the question of how one ought to live with nonhuman animals. In the first paper I situate Singer's work within the larger historical context of moral concern for animals, looking at previous public consensus on the issue, its breakdown and its re-emergence with Singer in the 1970s. In the second paper, I take a closer look at Singer’s highly influential book, Animal Liberation (1975), and argue that as activist literature, his chapter on animal experimentation for example can be seen as morally persuasive in ways other than simply as an example of (the consequences) of speciesism. How I do this is to place Singer's work side by side that of 19th century activist Francis Power Cobbe's, in particular her pamphlet Light in Dark Places (1883), and examine their work against the criticisms from scientists defending the practice of animal experimentation.