Animal liberation: Terrorism or civil disobedience?

Abstract

Common sense does not doubt that nonhuman animals (especially mammals and avian species) are centres of experience, subjects of a life that can be better or worse for them. They can flourish or languish. Like human individuals, they can be benefited as well as harmed. They are harmed by being caused stress, distress, pain, or suffering and, ultimately, by being killed. Most of us would admit that the treatment they are subjected to in research laboratories, intensive farming operations, circuses, on fur farms, during hunts, etc, raises moral questions, in the sense of requiring moral (as opposed to, say, economic) justification. Unless we think of animals as ‘machines’ and/or profit from their treatment as mere means to our ends, we are inclined to feel that there are certain things it is ‘not right’ to do with respect to other animals. The question is: what should be done about it? How can profound structural change and improvements be brought about in the basic fabric of contemporary society with regard to the treatment of animals, and how are specific changes to be accomplished at a more basic level?