Utilitarianism and Animals: Peter Singer’s Case for Animal Liberation

Abstract

Peter Singer can, with justification, be regarded as the founding father of the contemporary animal liberation movement. The increased public awareness of what exactly transpires in our treatment of non-humans — in factory farming, medical research, product testing, and so on — is, to a significant extent, due to the wide circulation of his work. Consequently, anyone who cares about the welfare of non-human animals must acknowledge an enormous debt to Singer. However, it is important to distinguish the beneficial impact Singer’s work has had on public awareness from the philosophical arguments he uses to defend the moral claims of non-humans. The two are logically independent of each other. And this chapter is concerned purely with the philosophical arguments.