Animal Rights: Moral Crusade or Social Movement?
Published in Critical Animal Studies: Thinking the Unthinkable edited by John Sorenson (Canadian Scholars’ Press, 2014)
Critical Animal Studies edited by John SorensonIs animal rights the duty of the individual or the responsibility of society? Is the animal rights movement a moral crusade or a social movement with a political agenda? Which will achieve moral and legal rights for animals: A moral crusade or a social movement? These are the fundamental questions I try to answer in this chapter. This discussion informs my call for a new strategy for the animal rights movement. I argue that the animal rights movement must simultaneously be a moral crusade and a social movement that pursues a strategy combining idealistic objectives of abolition with pragmatic goals of embedding the values of animal rights into public policy.