It Is A Mistake To Assume That

We Need To Recognise That What Really Matters Isn't Buying More And More Consumer Goods, But Family, Friends, And Knowing That We Are Doing Something Worthwhile With Our Lives. Helping To Reduce The Appalling Consequences Of World Poverty Should Be Part Of That Reassessment.

Philosophy Ought To Question The Basic Assumptions Of The Age. Thinking Through, Critically And Carefully, What Most Of Us Take For Granted Is, I Believe, The Chief Task Of Philosophy, And The Task That Makes Philosophy A Worthwhile Activity.

As For Cages Themselves, An Ordinary Citizen Who Kept Dogs In Similar Conditions For Their Entire Lives Would Risk Prosecution For Cruelty. A Pig Producer Who Keeps An Animal Of Comparable Intelligence In This Manner, However, Is More Likely To Be Rewarded With A Tax Concession Or, In Some Countries, A Direct Government Subsidy.

There Could Conceivably Be Circumstances In Which An Experiment On An Animal Stands To Reduce Suffering So Much That It Would Be Permissible To Carry It Out Even If It Involved Harm To The Animal... [even If] The Animal Were A Human Being.

Sometimes Animals May Suffer More Because Of Their More Limited Understanding. If, For Instance, We Are Taking Prisoners In Wartime We Can Explain To Them That Although They Must Submit To Capture, Search, And Confinement, They Will Not Otherwise Be Harmed And Will Be Set Free At The Conclusion Of Hostilities. If We Capture Wild Animals, However, We Cannot Explain That We Are Not Threatening Their Lives. A Wild Animal Cannot Distinguish An Attempt To Overpower And Confine From An Attempt To Kill; The One Causes As Much Terror As The Other.