Tom Regan

Bio: Tom Regan is an academic researcher from North Carolina State University. The author has contributed to research in topics: Animal rights & Human rights. The author has an hindex of 24, co-authored 70 publications receiving 3642 citations.

The Case for Animal Rights

Abstract: I regard myself as an advocate of animal rights—as part of the animal rights movement. That movement, as I conceive it, is committed to a number of goals, including: the total abolition of the use of animals in science; the total dissolution of commercial animal agriculture; the total elimination of commercial and sport hunting and trapping.

Animal rights and human obligations

Abstract: 1. Animals in the History of Western Thought. 2. The Nature of Humans and Other Animals. 3. Equal Consideration for Other Animals. 4. Animal Rights. 5. Killing and the Value of Life. 6. The Treatment of Farm Animals. 7. The Treatment of Animals in Science. 8. The Treatment of Wildlife. Epilogue.

The Animal Rights Debate

Abstract: Part 1 In Defense of the Use of Animals Chapter 2 The Moral Problem of Animal Use Chapter 3 The Factual Setting of Animal Experimentation Chapter 4 Rights and Interests Chapter 5 If Animals Had Rights Chapter 6 Why Animals Do Not Have Rights Chapter 7 Why Animals Are Mistakenly Believed to Have Rights Chapter 8 The Moral Inequality of Species: Why Speciesism Is Right Chapter 9 Spurious Scientific Arguments against the Use of Animals Chapter 10 What Good Does Animal Experimentation Do? Chapter 11 The Proven Accomplishments of Animal Research Part 12 The Case for Animal Rights Chapter 13 From Indifference to Advocacy Chapter 14 Animal Exploitation Chapter 15 The Nature and Importance of Rights Chapter 16 Indirect Duty Views Chapter 17 Direct Duty Views Chapter 18 Human Rights Chapter 19 Animal Rights Chapter 20 Reply to Tom Regan Chapter 21 Reply to Carl Cohen

Defending animal rights

Abstract: Tom Regan, universally recognized as the intellectual leader of the animal rights movement, presents a historically important, multifaceted discussion of some responses to the question, "Do animals have rights?" More than a contest of wills representing professional and economic interests, the animal rights debate is also a divisive, enduring topic in normative ethical theory. Addressing key issues in this sometimes acrimonious debate, Regan responds thoughtfully to his critics while dismantling the conception that "all and only" human beings are worthy of the moral status that is the basis of rights. In a set of essays that reflects his thinking on animal and human rights over the past decade, Regan sketches the philosophical positions espoused by those who want to abolish animal exploitation, reform it to minimize suffering, or maintain the status quo. He considers the moral grounds for limiting human freedom when it comes to human interactions with nonhuman animals. He puts the issue of animal rights in historical context, drawing parallels between animal rights activism and other social movements, including the antislavery movement in the nineteenth century and the gay-lesbian struggle today. He also outlines the challenges to animal rights posed by deep ecology and ecofeminism to using animals for human purposes and addresses the ethical dilemma of the animal rights advocate whose employer uses animals for research. Systematically unraveling claims that human beings are rational and therefore entitled to superior moral status, Regan defends the inherent value of all individuals who are "subjects of a life" and decries the speciesism that pretends to separate human from nonhuman animals. Independent of any benefits humans might derive from exploiting animals, Regan shows how, on a philosophical level, there is no sustainable defense for separating human and nonhuman animals as beings of absolute, as opposed to instrumental, value.

Ecosystems and human well-being: a framework for assessment

Abstract: This first report of the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment describes the conceptual framework that is being used in the MA. It is not a formal assessment of the literature, but rather a scientifically informed presentation of the choices made by the assessment team in structuring the analysis and framing the issues. The conceptual framework elaborated in this report describes the approach and assumptions that will underlie the analysis conducted in the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment. The framework was developed through interactions among the experts involved in the MA as well as stakeholders who will use its findings. It represents one means of examining the linkages between ecosystems and human well-being that is both scientifically credible and relevant to decision-makers. This framework for analysis and decision-making should be of use to a wide array of individuals and institutions in government, the private sector, and civil society that seek to incorporate considerations of ecosystem services in their assessments, plans, and actions.

AVMA Guidelines for the Euthanasia of Animals: 2013 Edition

Abstract: 1. Clarification: The 2013 Guidelines make a distinction between euthanasia, humane killing, and slaughter, and state that neither slaughter nor humane killing is covered in the document P.68, S6.1.1. Not included among the definitions of these terms are ending the lives of healthy animals or scientific collection of animals. For clarification, whatever the term used, classification of the method, or reason given for killing animals: euthanasia, humane killing, slaughter, harvest, depopulation, scientific collection, or research-related, the Council on Accreditation’s foremost concern, in all situations, is with humane technique. The goal of humane technique is to minimize pain, distress, and the negative effect to the animal. The technique employed should result in rapid loss of consciousness followed by cardiac or respiratory arrest and, ultimately, a loss of brain function. Although complete absence of pain and distress is preferred, it is understood that it cannot always be achieved P7.13.2.

From an animal's point of view: Motivation, fitness, and animal welfare.

Abstract: To study animal welfare empirically we need an objective basis for deciding when an animal is suffering. Suffering includes a wide range ofunpleasant emotional states such as fear, boredom, pain, and hunger. Suffering has evolved as a mechanism for avoiding sources ofdanger and threats to fitness. Captive animals often suffer in situations in which they are prevented from doing something that they are highly motivated to do. The “price” an animal is prepared to pay to attain or to escape a situation is an index ofhow the animal “feels” about that situation. Withholding conditions or commodities for which an animal shows “inelastic demand” (i.e., for which it continues to work despite increasing costs) is very likely to cause suffering. In designing environments for animals in zoos, farms, and laboratories, priority should be given to features for which animals show inelastic demand. The care ofanimals can thereby be based on an objective, animal-centered assessment of their needs.

“Animism” Revisited: Personhood, Environment, and Relational Epistemology

Abstract: “Animism” is projected in the literature as simple religion and a failed epistemology, to a large extent because it has hitherto been viewed from modernist perspectives. In this paper previous theories, from classical to recent, are critiqued. An ethnographic example of a hunter‐gatherer people is given to explore how animistic ideas operate within the context of social practices, with attention to local constructions of a relational personhood and to its relationship with ecological perceptions of the environment. A reformulation of their animism as a relational epistemology is offered.

Current issues in fish welfare

Abstract: Human beings may affect the welfare of fish through fisheries, aquaculture and a number of other activities. There is no agreement on just how to we igh the concern for welfare of fish against the hum an interests involved, but ethical frameworks exist th at suggest how this might be approached. Different definitions of animal welfare focus on an animal's condition, on its subjective experience o f that condition and/or on whether it can lead a natu ral life. These provide different, legitimate, pers pectives, but the approach taken in this paper is to focus on welfare as the absence of suffering. An unresolved and controversial issue in discussion s about animal welfare is whether non-human animals exposed to adverse experiences such as physical injury or confinement experience what humans would call suffering. The neocortex, which in huma ns is an important part of the neural mechanism tha t generates the subjective experience of suffering, i s lacking in fish and non-mammalian animals, and it has been argued that its absence in fish indicates that fish cannot suffer. However, a strong alternative view is that complex animals with sophisticated behaviour, such as fish, probably have the capacity for suffer ing, though this may be different in degree and kind fro m the human experience of this state. Recent empirical studies support this view and show that painful stimuli are, at least, strongly avers ive to fish. Consequently, injury or experience of othe r harmful conditions is a cause for concern in term s of welfare of individual fish. There is also growing e vidence that fish can experience fear-like states a nd that they avoid situations in which they have experience d adverse conditions.