Animal Rights: Moral Theory and Practice

by Mark Rowlands

In this 2nd edition the author has substantially revised his book throughout, updating the moral arguments and adding a chapter on animal minds. Importantly, rather than being a polemic on animal rights, this book is also a considered and imaginative evaluation of moral theory as explored through the issue of animal rights.

Genres: Philosophy, Animals

242 pages, Paperback

First published August 5, 2008

About the author

Mark Rowlands was born in Newport, Wales and began his undergraduate degree at Manchester University in engineering before changing to philosophy. He took his doctorate in philosophy from Oxford University and has held various academic positions in philosophy in universities in Britain, Ireland and the US.

His best known work is the book The Philosopher and the Wolf about a decade of his life he spent living and travelling with a wolf. As The Guardian described it in its review, "it is perhaps best described as the autobiography of an idea, or rather a set of related ideas, about the relationship between human and non-human animals." Reviews were very positive, the Financial Times said it was "a remarkable portrait of the bond that can exist between a human being and a beast,". Mark Vernon writing in The Times Literary Supplement "found the lessons on consciousness, animals and knowledge as engaging as the main current of the memoir," and added that it "could become a philosophical cult classic", while John Gray in the Literary Review thought it "a powerfully subversive critique of the unexamined assumptions that shape the way most philosophers - along with most people - think about animals and themselves." However, Alexander Fiske-Harrison for Prospect warned that "if you combine misanthropy and lycophilia, the resulting hybrid, lycanthropy, is indeed interesting, but philosophically quite sterile" and that, although Rowlands "acknowledges at the beginning of the book that he cannot think like a wolf... for such a capable philosopher and readable author not to have made the attempt is indeed an opportunity missed."

As a professional philosopher, Rowlands is known as one of the principal architects of the view known as vehicle externalism or the extended mind, and also for his work on the moral status of animals.

Reviews

[Brandy Cross · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is an interesting read in some respects and significantly less so in others. For example, when reading a book dedicated to animal ethics, I expect positions to be set, reinforced, and backed up with data. Rather, Rowlands is more prone to say, "this is the truth, full stop". He expects full agreement and is not prepared to defend his decision, and that is not really how ethics work. He does this repeatedly, on multiple highly debatable topics. E.g., "there is no ethical difference between the moral rights of a human and non-human animal". This is a strong position and one that I would have liked to see discussed.

Similarly, Rowlands presents "half an argument" throughout the book. His approach to cognition is farcical at best. I would wager that very few people assume IQ to be a reason for treating one being as less or more than that of another. We had Nazis to teach us that was wrong. The flaws in Rowland's cognition argument are quite simply his answer to "but animals eat other animals, why is it wrong for me to do so", (Rowland says, because the animal doesn't consciously choose to, it simply does). So, if you examine cognition not from the aspect of "intelligence" but rather from the aspect of "does this animal have conscious understanding of its wants and its life and how that life is impacted by various factors", you immediately have more questions about the argument. If the animal cannot choose whether or not it wishes to engage in murder, can it consciously understand what it means to be murdered? Can it suffer from being murdered? These are not answered. Note, Rowlands carefully does not touch upon the ever-popular negative utilitarianism in his treatise on ethics (despite it being the pet ethical approach used by many in the field) simply because "increase happiness" becomes "decrease suffering", and anyone with half of a brain could quickly calculate that the simplest way to reduce suffering to an absolute minimum is immediate, painless, death. Part of this is tackled by Regan's Subjects of a Life argument, but little is done to explain or to justify the "fact" that we are supposed to suddenly accept that fish have "beliefs , desires , memory , feelings , self-consciousness, an emotional life, a sense of their own future , an ability to initiate action to pursue their goals, and an existence that is logically independent of being useful to anyone else's". Or that worms do.

I really want to like this book, because it presents a lot of arguments very neatly, Rowlands is a good writer, and Rowland's own theory is a compelling one. Yet, I cannot help but feel that the approach, the lack of data, and the refusal to back claims up with anything at all other than a few very brief references in the back of the book is lazy. I'd buy it again with a rewrite to include the footwork done to reach those conclusions, but I largely suspect those conclusions are moral ones - completed intuitively and not by reviewing data. That's fine, but it's a good idea to reference that. This is my belief.

I also find Rowland's to be incredibly western-centric. I find that the approach to animal ethics is an ambiguous one. There are no clear-cut answers. It is difficult to say that it is horrible for someone to kill an animal to eat meat while they do so for their pet cat - hence making the choice to kill one animal for another anyway, and while the human can rationally step outside of that and acknowledge they don't need it, this also heavily depends on factors like location, economic status, etc. That's ignoring the fact that you're asking someone to take on trauma of going, "it is horrible to kill an animal, yet I must do it to keep this animal I care about alive". Different people will cope with that particular can of worms in different ways, but largely it is an argument that asks someone to numb themselves to something in some respects and to be horrified by it in others and the human mind does not, on average, do well with contradictions.

- Most of the world's agriculture is heavily dependent on animals
- The possession of a few goats and chickens in rural Africa decreases poverty, improves live birth rates, and improves survival rates over the first 5 years of life
- Some of the world's population which relies on animal protein and animal products cannot afford to simply stop. Assuming this is the case is incredibly western-centric and reliant on individuals having good income and a secure source of calories. This is a luxury. If your arguments are only for the economically well-off, perhaps say that and at the front of the book.
- People in less hospitable climes (not just Alaska, come on Rowlands) are heavily dependent on animals for welfare and survival. Think camels, think llamas, think sheep, think fish.

These are extremely complex arguments relying on factors that interplay between ethics, personal moral choices, economic status and access to the ability to purchase replacement foodstuffs, and availability. Rowlands tackles none of this, in his preference for hard, easy, clean claims that he then proceeds to treat as facts. That is a massive detractor from an otherwise excellent book.