I'd wish I could give it more than three stars because I'm obsessed with ethics, metaethics, sentiocentrism, whatchamacallit, but... Geezus.
To start, yes, I'm well aware that this is an introductory book, so he's supposed to give the basics, therefore I shouldn't expect nothing too fancy, still... It's precisely in an introductory book that one must give the basis/foundaments for the thesis one is defending!!!
I mean, his points are overall obvious (even for an introductory book... I would argue that this is for teens), he relies too much in the fact that the reader must agree with sentiocentrism and he seems unwilling to give a fair chance to competing arguments. To be fair, he gives space to other views, he just quickly dismiss them. Now, I'll be honest here, I tend to be VERY lenient towards author/philosophers/scientists who have that "I know better than you" attitude AS LONG AS they make a good case for their views. They might strike me as annoying or arrogant, but, hey, whatever... if they make a good case, then so be it. But, you see... That's the issue here... Nobis doesn't even strike me as arrogant, it's just that this book presents absolutely no moral ontology nor epistemology whatsoever... And if that's the case, then, why should I agree with him?
This book reads as a companion mostly to Peter Singer's magnum opus Animal Liberation (which I have read... and yes, it is a good book, Singer doesn't assume the reader will automatically have the same moral ontology than he does), Mark Rowlands' Animals Like Us (which I haven't read) and to a lesser degree a few other books on sentiocentrism/animal ethics. (I repeat: THIS BOOK IS BASICALLY A COMPANION BOOK, NOT REALLY AN INTRODUCTION.)
The issue here is that... not all of these authors reach the conclussion (i.e. "using animals is wrong") in the same way. Not only that, but some of those views are mutually exclusive; so I'm reluctant to accept as a "possitive/good" (or even "permissible") the fact that he doesn't go deeper in the reasons why X theory holds X view.