University of California Press
2nd updated edition with a new preface, 2004
426 pages, paperback
Language: English

Tom Regan's book is more philosophically oriented than Peter Singer's worldwide bestseller. This demands a liitle more occupation with the topic, but this is something that everyone seriously interested in the philosophy of animal rights should be prepared to do.

Contents (blurb)
Building the case for animal rights on scholarship, originality, and uncompromising rigor, Tom Regan, the intellectual leader of the animal rights movement, offers a disciplined moral theory while at the same time articulating and defending practical proposals many will find radical. regan refutes the still current view that the animals we eat, hunt, and experiment on are, in the words of the seventeenth-century philosopher rene descartes, »thoughtless brutes.« they are, rather, sophisticated mental creatures who have beliefs and desires, memories and expectations; who feel pleasure and pain, experience emotions. like us, animals are individuals who have a value independent of their usefulness to others. and like us these animals have a basic moral right to be treated in ways that show respect for their independent value.

What others say about the book
»unquestionably the best work yet to appear in its field, surpassing even Peter Singer's famous Animal Liberation in originality, thoroughness and rigor.«
(choice)

»the case for animal rights is beyond question the most important philosophical contribution to animal rights and is a major work in moral philosophy.«
(henry cohen, animal law review)

»the most powerful and plausible consideration of the issues and defense of animal rights yet produced (or likely to be).«
(richard wasserstrom)

»by far the best work on the subject, and will continue to be the definitive work for years to come. ... destined to become a 'modern classic' in the field of ethics, along side rawls's a theory of justice and nozick's anarchy, state, and utopia.«
(alastair s. gunn)

»a monumental book animal rights is a thought whose thinker has come.«
(brian klug, agenda)

»a lucid, closely reasoned and dispassionate book presenting the case for animal rights.«
(robert nozick, new york times book review)

»the guru of animal rights.«
(esquire)

About the author
Tom Regan was born Thomas Howard Regan on November 28, 1938 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He graduated from Thiel College in 1960 with a degree in philosophy, and went on to receive both master's (1962) and Ph.D. (1966) degrees from the University of Virginia. Regan's first professional appointment was as instructor, and then Assistant Professor of Philosophy, at Sweet Briar College (1965 - 1967). In 1967, he accepted the position of Assistant Professor of Philosophy at North Carolina State University. He was promoted to Associate Professor of Philosophy in 1972, and finally to Professor of Philosophy in 1978. Regan served as Head, Philosophy & Religion, NCSU, from 1996 - 1999. During his more than thirty years on the faculty, he received numerous awards for excellence in teaching; published scores of professional papers as well as more than twenty books; been awarded major international awards for film writing and direction; and presented hundreds of lectures throughout the United States and abroad. He was named the recipient of the William quarles Holladay medal, the highest honor NC State University can bestow on one of its faculty. Regan's contributions to professional organizations and scholarship are significant. He is a member of numerous professional societies, and has held a variety of offices in them, including the north carolina philosophical society; the american society for value inquiry; the society for the study of ethics and animals; ethics and values in science and technology; and the american philosophical association's committee on medical ethics. He has served on the editorial boards of a number of journals, including, Ethics, the Australian Journal of Professional and Applied Ethics, and Ethics and the Environment. Among his books, two (The Case For Animal Rights and Bloomsbury's Prophet: G. E. Moore and the development of his moral philosophy) were nominated for the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award.

The Case For Animal Rights was immediately recognized as a »modern classic« when it first appeared in 1983. It has been translated into several languages, including Swedish, Dutch, Italian and German. Others of Tom Regan's books that touch on the topic of animal rights are All That Dwell Therein: Essays On Animal Rights and Environmental Ethics (1982) and Animal Sacrifices: Religious Perspectives On The Use Of Animals In Science (1986). For its part, Bloomsbury's Prophet has helped re-energize and re-direct Moorean scholarship in particular and the study of early twentieth century British philosophy in general. in addition to Bloomsbury's Prophet, Tom Regan's other major contributions to moorean scholarship are moore: the early essays (1987) and G. E. Moore: The Elements Of Ethics (1991). he is co-founder and past president of the Moore Society.

Tom Regan's major film awards include the Silver Medal for »We Are All Noah« (International Film Festival of New York, 1986) and the Gold Medal for »Voices I Have Heard« (Houston International Film Festival, 1988). A past recipient of a national endowment for the Humanities Fellowship, and a past Fellow of the National Humanities Center, Regan's recently published work includes Defending Animal Rights and (with Carl Cohen) the Animal Rights Debate. Tom Regan is married to the former Nancy Tirk, with whom he co-founded the Culture & Animals Foundation. (See also: The Tom Regan Animal Rights Archive)