THE CLAIMS OF A DOG .sx Our environment has many unpleasant features .sx One is dog excrement .sx Piles and pats of it abound , waiting to slip up the inattentive pedestrian .sx But what do we do if we see a squatting dog ?sx We either express haughty contempt , turn away , or blame the owner .sx Would any of us kick or punch the dog ?sx Probably not ; instead we are more likely to shout at the person holding the lead .sx On the one hand we seem to believe that the dog is not entirely responsible for its actions , on the other we feel that it should not be deliberately hurt simply because it is doing what it must .sx We are not certain what we should do about the dog that fouls our front garden , indeed we are not sure we can rightly do anything .sx Our treatment of the animal is difficult .sx Animals present society with ambiguities ; with companionship , food , clothing , fun , but also with demands for compassion , abstinence and kindness .sx They disgust and please us ; we can do with them what we will yet pull back with horror from open cruelty .sx The dog makes claims upon us , although we are not entirely sure what those claims are .sx But they still profoundly influence our treatment of the animal .sx This book is about those claims and how they affect the way individuals relate to , and understand , animals .sx At its broadest , this book is concerned with the relationship between animals and society , but mostly it is about the special claims which are made for animals' rights .sx This explanation of animal rights will discover many surprising incidents in the attitude and beliefs of humans .sx I will emphasise the situation in Britain - perhaps England is better - and only refer to events in other countries if they support any case or illustrate it particularly vividly .sx This is not because Britain is more respectful of animal rights than anywhere else ( just because we see ourselves as a nation of 'animal lovers' , we should be wary of falling into any national chauvinism ) , but simply because Britain is the environment I know best .sx I hope that the story told in this book has some relevance elsewhere .sx In a sentence , I will explore the social processes and relationships which lie behind the many assertions which are made in Britain for the moral relevance of animals , and show how those relationships influence people's lives .sx Concern for animals has a long history .sx To give just one example , when he wrote the great radical Romantic poem Queen Mab in about 1812 , Shelley bewailed the treatment of animals by which " the bull must be degraded into the ox , and the ram into the wether " ( Shelley 1905 :sx 818) .sx Yet he was only interested in the sufferings of animals because they reflected " manhood blighted with unripe disease " ( Shelley 1905 :sx 770) .sx He was not concerned with the relevance of animals so much as with the decay of humanity .sx The idea of animal rights is rather different precisely because it does say something tangible about animals and advocates that individuals should think about how they treat them .sx Animal rights does not seem to be as selfish as Shelley's self - serving pity for a castrated ram .sx The wish to say something morally irreducible , something real , about animals and then establish that statement as a guide for human behaviour is a relatively recent phenomenon .sx In Britain the concern with animals' rights has been an especially widespread and lively social issue since the middle of the 1970s ( although , as we will see , the roots of the idea are to be found in the eighteenth century) .sx The surge of interest can be attributed to the debates stimulated by the book Animal Liberation , written by the Australian philosopher Peter Singer and first published in Britain in 1976 .sx This chapter will give an introductory survey of the three clearest , most influential , and sustained statements of the claims of animals :sx that by Singer and later contributions by Tom Regan and Stephen Clark .sx It might seem curious that the whole complex issue of the relationship between animals and society is so quickly reduced to just three philosophy books :sx surely they cannot say everything that is important ?sx No , they cannot , but between them Singer , Regan , and Clark do cover virtually all the ground which must be mapped in order to understand modern moral attitudes towards animals .sx The argument of Animal Liberation is powerfully simple .sx Singer writes from within the utilitarian tradition of moral philosophy .sx Broadly speaking , utilitarianism holds to the central theme that pleasure is good and pain is bad .sx As John Stuart Mill put it , utilitarianism asserts that " pleasure and freedom from pain , are the only things desirable as ends " ( Mill 1910 :sx 6) .sx It goes beyond individualistic hedonism .sx Certainly , Mill tells us , the individual should follow the path of pleasure and avoid pain ( such a life is morally good ) , but the individual lives in a social world and , consequently , should act to promote global pleasure , or at least defend the preference to avoid pain .sx Utilitarianism asks the individual to aggregate the consequences of his or her actions for the promotion of pleasure and avoidance of pain , and demands that she or he should morally only follow that course which causes more pleasure than it does pain .sx This is a morality which can be imagined as a pair of scales , and the moral act is the one which tips the individual and social balance in favour of pleasure .sx An act is not moral as such ; rather , morality is a product of the consequences which the act has on the balance of pleasure and pain .sx Utilitarianism is inherently social .sx Singer holds to a slightly modified version of Mill's position ; for Singer the moral act is that which takes account of the preference of all sentient creatures not to experience increases in pain or suffering .sx Now , utilitarianism can have important things to say about the social treatment of animals because , if animals are able to experience pleasure and pain , it is logical to assume that they prefer not to undergo any increase of suffering , and they should therefore be included in the calculations which must be made to deduce the moral consequences of any act .sx For utilitarians , the experience of pleasure and pain cannot be ignored simply on the grounds that the experiencing subject is an animal .sx Utilitarians like Singer assert that the preference for pleasure rather than increased pain demands equal consideration whether the experiencing subject is the Queen of England or a laboratory rabbit .sx Peter Singer calls this the principle of equality and , obviously , it is a prescription for equal ethical consideration , and not a description of equality .sx The principle refers to the equal consideration of interests and preferences ( Singer 1976 :sx 5) .sx All beings that can suffer pain have an equal interest in avoiding it .sx Singer has no doubt that this is the essence of morality :sx If a being suffers there can be no moral justification for refusing to take that suffering into consideration .sx No matter what the nature of the being , the principle of equality requires that its suffering be counted equally with the like suffering - in so far as rough comparisons can be made - of any other being .sx If a being is not capable of suffering , or of experiencing enjoyment or happiness , there is nothing to be taken into account .sx So the limit of sentience ( using the term as a convenient if not strictly accurate shorthand for the capacity to suffer and/or experience enjoyment ) is the only defensible boundary of concern for the interests of others .sx To mark this boundary by some other characteristic like intelligence or rationality would be to mark it in an arbitrary manner .sx Why not choose some other characteristic , like skin color ?sx ( Singer 1976 :sx 9 ) .sx The only morally relevant characteristic is the ability to suffer and the preference not to , and so according to Singer the moral terrain is a plateau of morally equal preferences in which features such as skin colour , sex or species are as morally important as the differences between green and brown eyes .sx Indeed , to subordinate the question of sentience to some secondary feature is utterly reprehensible , and just as overriding sentience on the basis of skin colour is morally condemned as racism , or on the basis of sex as sexism , any qualification of the principle of the equal consideration of interests on the grounds of species should , Singer asserts , be rejected as speciesism .sx The word was first used by Richard Ryder in a critique of the use of live animals in medical experiments ( Ryder 1975 ) and Peter Singer defines the speciesist as a person who " allows the interests of his own species to override the greater interests of members of other species " ( Singer 1976 :sx 9) .sx Animal Liberation asserts that the truth of animals is their ability to suffer on a morally equal basis to ourselves , and they have a preference in the avoidance of suffering as we likewise do .sx To argue the contrary is to give voice to speciesism .sx Singer intended his book to be read and adopted as a persuasive repudiation of the acts of speciesism :sx the point is not so much that animals have a right to be treated well , rather it is that if we are to be good utilitarians , we should not act in any way that violates their preference not to suffer .sx This is important .sx Singer does not believe that animals have rights .sx No , he is more concerned with the morality ( or otherwise ) of the acts of society and individuals .sx This is why the book is called Animal Liberation ; Singer argues for moral , utilitarian acts , not a respect for intrinsic rights .sx He wants the acts which will liberate animals from speciesism .sx Indeed , in subsequent essays , Singer has often taken pains to distance himself from any talk of rights :sx " when I talk of rights , I do it .sx .. as a concession to popular rhetoric ( Animal Liberation was not written primarily for philosophers ) " ( Singer 1980a :sx 327) .sx Singer is more concerned with acts , a position which has caused him to fall between two stools .sx Popularly he has been taken up as a prime advocate of animal rights ( it must be said that Animal Liberation is not as explicit as it might have been on why it rejects talk of rights :sx Singer was quite prepared to play the rights card when it leant the case greater strength) .sx Meanwhile , rights theorists have expressed grave doubts over the applicability of utilitarian calculations to the relationship between society and animals .sx This is especially true of Tom Regan .sx Regan tears out the heart of Singer's thesis .sx Singer asks that account be taken of the consequences of an act for the preference of sentient beings not to suffer , before that act is performed .sx It should only be carried out if , on aggregate , it does not increase the sum of pain amongst morally relevant creatures .sx For Regan , such an approach not only betrays a " significant conservative bias " because it considerably reinforces existing social attitudes by making them the yardstick against which all else is measured ( Regan 1984 :sx 138 ) , but , more importantly , the utilitarian emphasis on aggregates can provide no foundation for the claims of an individual over the group .sx Singer does not talk about rights ; he gives the individual no priority outside of the global equality of the preference or interest not to suffer .sx Tom Regan believes that this position is quite unsatisfactory .sx He is right to say that according to the utilitarian approach to morality :sx we must choose that option which is most likely to bring about the best balance of totalled satisfactions over totalled frustrations .sx Whatever act could lead to this outcome is the one we ought morally to perform - it is where our moral duty lies .sx And that act clearly might not be the same one that would bring about the best results for me personally , or for my family or friends , or for a lab animal .sx The best aggregated consequences for everyone concerned are not necessarily the best for each individual .sx ( Regan 1985 :sx 20 ) .sx Think of Raskolnikov in Crime and Punishment .sx