Do Animals Have Rights?

by Alison Hills

In this superbly accessible book, Alison Hills carefully examines the arguments for both sides and defends a practical, liveable idea of the ethics of animals, distinguishing ways in which animals are our equals from ways in which they are not.

Genres: Nonfiction, Animals, Philosophy

240 pages, Paperback

First published March 15, 2002

Reviews

[Troy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Hills does an admirable job providing both sides of the animal rights issue, although it is clear she leans more towards the animal activist side. She claims that the book is written from a moderate point of view, which seems to be the case, although the compromises and solutions she offers tend to be in favor of animal rights.

I especially enjoyed her perspective on animal testing, and believe that I got the most out of the chapter dealing with how we use animals for research and product safety testing. I didn't completely agree with her views on pets, as she discredits the claim that we can form meaningful bonds with dogs. She harps on dogs' inability to form friendships, yet glosses over the topic without providing any empirical evidence for her views. Having a great deal of experience with dogs and reading many accounts of dog owners, I believe this is the weakest portion of Hills' book.

Hills provides a great deal of evidence on how little we truly know about animal intelligence. Breakthroughs are fairly recent and progress is slow. Our understanding of the minds of other species is limited, a fact well known by Hills yet seemingly ignored in some of her conclusions. We should not discredit the intelligence of certain species simply because their behaviors do not reflect intelligence as we humans interpret it. As of right now, we can't truly know what animals are thinking, whether or not they have foresight into the future, or whether they develop moral belief systems like humans do. Lets not assume that humans are the only ones with these abilities until we actually have definitive evidence that it is so.

[Sue · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have several problems with this work, and the author missed the point in several areas. It's not an intensive book, nor very academic, and to be fair it does introduce a number of issues pertaining to animal rights. And there is a chapter dealing with pets, which as the author said is a rare thing to see in works dealing with animal rights or the ethics of dealing with animals. It was hard to tell when the author actually believed something or was just stating an argument from someone else. I have a ton of notes that I took responding to holes in the discussion or asking for further refining of statements. I would actually use this book (assuming I can get more copies) if I would teach a class on animals and society, since there are a number of gaps that students could fill in during assignments.