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Narveson on Egoism And the Rights of Animals

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 October 1976

Tom Regan
Tom Regan*
Affiliation:
North Carolina State University
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Extract

Jan Narveson has rendered a valuable service with his examination of two recent publications on the general topic of the treatment of animals. Not only has he given us the means for securing a better understanding of many of the most important arguments common to these two volumes; what is more, he has advanced a position which fails to receive any attention in either, and a position which, should it happen to be correct, would fatally undermine perhaps the most basic thesis advanced by those who argue for the rights of animals-the thesis, namely, that we have as much reason for believing that many animals have rights as we have for believing that humans do. Narveson's position is that this thesis can be seen to be false, if, as he thinks may be the case, egoism can give us a “coherent and quite theoretically smooth account of our moral intuitions” (p. 178).

Type
Research Article
Information
Canadian Journal of Philosophy , Volume 7 , Issue 1 , March 1977 , pp. 179 - 186
Copyright
Copyright © The Authors 1977

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References

1 Jan Narveson “Animal Rights”, pp. 161–78 of this issue. The two books Narveson, examines are Animal Rights and Human Obligations.Edited by Regan, Tom and Singer, Peter (Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall) 1976Google Scholar; and Animal Liberation.By Singer, Peter (New York: Random House) 1975.Google Scholar Hereafter page references to Narveson's essay are given in parentheses in the body of my paper.

2 See my “The Moral Basis of Vegetarianism” (The Canadian journal of Philosophy) V (1975), pp. 181–214, portions of which are reprinted in Animal Rights and Human Obligations, op. cit., pp. 197–205.

3 On this point see p. 200 of “The Moral Basis of Vegetarianism,” The Canadian journal of Philosophy, op. cit.

4 I want to thank Professor Narveson for kindly sending me a copy of his paper prior to its publication in this journal and my colleague Dale Jamieson for his helpful criticisms of an earlier draft of this essay.