Fifty years after the publication of Animal Liberation (1975), a text that revolutionized our relationship with non-human sentient beings, this book reconstructs Peter Singer’s animal ethics from its theoretical presuppositions to its practical consequences, seeking to provide an overall assessment. While highlighting some limitations in the Australian philosopher’s consequentialist approach, the volume emphasizes the broad merits of Singer’s reflection, which, with his penetrating arguments, has paved the way for a irreversible inclusion of non-human animals in the community of moral patients and for a consideration of their interests that extends a principle of equality beyond the narrow confines of the human species, marking a point of no return. Moreover, within the panorama of contemporary animal ethics, Singer’s position appears balanced. Because if he rejects as inadequate those overly moderate models that attribute consideration only to the suffering of animals and not to their lives, he also rejects extreme, overly radical versions that do not allow for distinctions in the harm caused by death, failing to consider the weight of mental complexity in attributing value to sentient life.

Francesco Allegri is Professor of Ethics and Relationships at Pegaso University in Naples. He has been unanimously awarded the National Scientific Qualification for Full Professor in Moral Philosophy. He has authored over sixty publications in both Italian and English, including seven monographs. He serves as Editor-in-Chief of the scientific journal Relations. Beyond Anthropocentrism and of the book series Irene (Interdisciplinary Researches on Ethics and Natural Environment).

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Introduction

1.

Singer and the moral consideration of non-human animals: from theoretical premises to practical applications

 1.1. Preference utilitarianism and its extension to non-human animals (p. 11) – 1.2. The evidence of speciesism: factory farming and the use of animals in testing (p. 13) – 1.3. The value of life and the harm of death (p. 16) – 1.4. Non-human persons, mere sentient beings and the problem of their killing (p. 24) – 1.5. The practical answers of the consequentialist model (p. 28)

2.
Animal defenders criticizing Singer: three models

2.1. Premise (p. 35) – 2.2. Criticisms from the deontological model of animal ethics: Tom Regan (p. 35) – 2.2.1. Introduction (p. 35) –2.2.2. The limits of Singer’s utilitarian approach (p. 36) – 2.2.3. The shortcomings of utilitarian animal ethics (p. 38) – 2.3. Criticisms from moderate defenders of animals (p. 41) – 2.4. Criticisms from radical defenders of animals (p. 43)

3.
A final balance

3.1. An evaluation of Singer’s theoretical model (p. 47) – 3.2. The boundaries and structure of the moral community (p. 50) – 3.3. The importance of the value of life and mental complexity (p. 53) – 3.4. How far does sentience extend? (p. 63) – 3.5. Main practical conclusions (p.  69) – 3.5.1. About food ethics (p. 69) – 3.5.1.1. The last resources of conscientious omnivores and the possible replies (p. 73) – 3.5.2. On animal experimentation: the search of a point of equilibrium (p. 80) –3.5.2.1. The relevance of Beauchamp and DeGrazia’s principles (p. 85) – 3.6. Closing reflections (p. 89)

References

Index