The Case for Animal Rights

Regan, Tom. The Case for Animal Rights. 1983. U. of California P, 2004.
Published almost a decade after Peter Singer’s influential Animal Liberation, Tom Regan’s The Case for Animal Rights argues that the preference utilitarianism on which Singer based his argument for the moral value of animals was inadequate in that it could justify the sacrifice of the individual in the name of the greater good. Singer’s book was polemical in its approach, detailing the abuse of animals in medicine, science, and industry. Both Singer and Regan concluded that ethics demands we adopt a vegetarian diet. Regan is more restrained in tone, arguing against the moral status of animals in several major ethical theories, including Kantian deontology, W. show more D. Ross’s prima facie deontology, and the contractarian views of John Rawls. Ultimately, Regan defends a more radical biocentrism than Singer and the others. Animals, Regan says, deserve moral consideration not because of their utility or ability to suffer but because they are “individuals who have inherent value. . . and are always to be treated in ways that show respect for their independent value, not out of kindness or compassion but as a matter of strict justice.” In other words, the categorical imperative seems to apply to animals as much as it would to human children or people otherwise incapable of acting as moral agents. They are all, he says, “moral patients” whose individual welfare should matter to us. 5 stars. show less

Very thought provoking book makes the arguments for the rights of animals based on their being "subject(s) of a life".