“All Animals are Equal” by Peter Singer

In “All Animals are Equal*” Peter Singer argues that by eating animals and performing experiments on them we are violating their basic principles of equality and the equality of consideration. In the article Singer goes on to say how animals should have the same rights as humans because by not doing so we are practicing speciesism, and most humans do. When we practice speciesism we are more interested in the members of our own species over those of other species. Singer supports his claims by using the example of racism and sexism and how they violate equality principles because one races or genders interest is favored over that of another’s. We all know that racism and sexism is morally wrong, but he claims that if we replace the issue with that of the animal rights issue it should be just as wrong in our eyes.

He claims that the equality issue is that of a moral issue and cites Introduction to the principles of Morals and Legislation where Jeremy Bentham goes on to state that equality rights should extend farther then to just humans because of basic moral principles. They should also extend to animals because they can suffer and suffering is a characteristic that gives a being the right to equal consideration. In order to stop speciesism and the suffering of animals he wants us to stop eating meat and instead incorporate our diet with one that replaces animal flesh with “soy beans, or soy bean products derived from soy beans, and other high-protein vegetable products.”, and eliminating biases in using animals for experimentation over that of our own species.