Product Description

Two-thirds of Americans polled by the Associated Press agree with the following statement: 'An animal's right to live free of suffering should be just as important as a person's right to live free of suffering'. More than 50 percent of Americans believe that it is wrong to kill animals to make fur coats or to hunt them for sport. But these same Americans eat hamburgers, take their children to circuses and rodeos, and use products developed with animal testing. How do we justify our inconsistency? In this easy-to-read introduction, animal rights advocate Gary Francione looks at our conventional moral thinking about animals. Using examples, analogies, and thought-experiments, he reveals the dramatic inconsistency between what we say we believe about animals and how we actually treat them. "Introduction to Animal Rights: Your Child or the Dog?" provides a guidebook to examining our social and personal ethical beliefs. It takes us through concepts of property and equal consideration to arrive at the basic contention of animal rights: that everyone human and non-human has the right not to be treated as a means to an end. Along the way, it illuminates concepts and theories that all of us use but few of us understand the nature of 'rights' and 'interests', for example, and the theories of Locke, Descartes, and Bentham. Filled with fascinating information and cogent arguments, this is a book that you may love or hate, but that will never fail to inform, enlighten, and educate. Gary L. Francione is Professor of Law and Nicholas de B. Katzenbach Scholar of Law and Philosophy at Rutgers University Law School, Newark. He is the author of "Animals, Property, and the Law" and "Rain Without Thunder: The Ideology of the Animal Rights Movement" (both Temple).

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #169601 in Books
• Published on: 2000-11-12
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 280 pages

From Library Journal
Well written, passionately argued, and clearly reasoned, this book still suffers from one major flaw: na?vet?. While no one can argue that there are problems with the way our society views and treats animals, specifically the status of animals as property, Francione expresses the common animal-rights position that every use of animalsAwhether for medical testing, entertainment, or even consumptionAis immoral or inherently wrong. Taking on Descartes, Locke, Jeremy Bentham, and even Peter Singer (known by many for Animal Liberation, long considered a foundation text for the animal-rights movement), Francione argues that animals can only be considered as having moral status or as being thingsAthere is no other choice. While his argument may well have some validity, the status of animals in our society (and beyond) is more like a compromise between the two. Recommended for larger animal-rights collections.AAlicia Graybill, Lincoln City Libs., NE
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist
Francione, law professor and author of two previous books on animal rights, presents a moral introduction to the concept of animal interests. Departing from an ethical situation (you arrive home to find your house burning so fiercely that you can only save your child or your dog), the author expands on the precept that choosing to save the child does not ascribe a lack of value to the dog. Speaking of "our moral schizophrenia" in the fact that we recognize that animals have some interests that humans are morally and legally obligated to respect, but that we still treat them as our property, the author expands on this schizophrenia with a well-thought out, logical discussion of the way animals should be treated--as fellow, sentient occupants of the planet. Francione's well-crafted arguments are supported by extensive notes and by a clear writing style that continually builds upon his previous points. This scholarly work will appeal to thinking animal-rights activists and is recommended for libraries with large collections in the field. Nancy Bent

Review
Francione, probably the leading legal scholar in the field, builds his case . . . [with] cool reasoning and absence of rhetoric. -- Atlantic Monthly, December 2000

Customer Reviews

The Case is Complete
Gary Francione is the pre-eminent scholar on the topic of animal rights. If one was not already convinced of this by his body of work on the subject, this new book surely proves it. In it, Francione has synthesized ideas that he introduced to us years ago, and that he has persisted in writing and thinking about ever since. He presents an idea that is seemingly complex in a neat, comprehensible and embarassingly persuasive argument. Embarassing because the logic is so clear that one is left wondering how it wasn't completely obvious from the start.

An animal has the right not to be treated like a thing. It's that simple, not the right to vote or get a good eduction, but the right not to be considered merely human property, or to be used as means that serve human ends. Francione shows clearly why "animal rights" has nothing to do with treating animals "humanely", whatever that might mean. It is about treating animals honestly, in accordance with what we already say we believe they are entitled to.

Twenty years ago, "animal rights" was a term that most people had never heard of. Today, because of people like Francione, that is no longer the case. However, the fact that the term has entered the mainstream and become the subject of common parlance also means that it is sometimes misunderstood, even by those who claim to be its advocates. After reading Francione's latest book, there can be no mistake about what animal rights is and why it is desperately needed. Francione comes to the subject with intellectual honesty and he is one of a very few who has the courage to take his argument, and all of its component parts, to their logical conclusion.

There can also be no doubt, for all the bloody reasons Francione points out, that the societal recognition of animal rights is inevitable and that it is long past time to begin the implementation.

Amazing!!
Francione's theory of animal rights forces us to make a choice: either we acknowledge that animals are morally equivalent to inanimate objects and we have no moral obligations that we owe them directly, or animals are members of the moral community to whom we have direct moral obligations. This second option does not require that we regard animals as the same as humans or regard animals as having the same rights as humans--it only requires that we regard animal interests as having moral significance. Francione argues that if we take this second approach--an approach that most of us accept already--we are committed to the abolition, and not the regulation, of animal exploitation. Francione's central argument--that the moral significance of animal interests precludes the use of animals as human property--presents a theory of animal rights that is more radical than either Tom Regan's approach in The Case for Animal Rights or Peter Singer's approach in Animal Liberation. Moreover, Francione's theory applies to all sentient nonhumans; he does not create another hierarchy of "special" animals, as is done in The Great Ape Project or other derivative works that accord special moral value to animals who are "like us." Francione's argument is that sentience is the only characteristic that matters for moral significance, and that any sentient being must have one right--the right not to be the property of others--if that being is to have any moral status whatsoever. Francione also makes clear that just as in the case of human slavery, it will not be the legal system that will end the property status of animals; significant social change will have to occur first. For Francione, the interesting question is not whether the cow should be able to sue the farmer for a violation of the cow's rights; the interesting question is why we have the cow there in the first place. The book is clearly written and easy to understand.

It caused me to become vegan (and I am grateful for it)
This is an amazing book. Eloquently written, well-thought out arguments, facts to back up their arguements. If everyone read this book, I don't see how our world would be the same. We would be unable to continue our misuse of animals without, at the vary least, a guilty conscience of knowing what we are doing is wrong. Highly recommend to anyone whether or not you already believe in animal rights.