"The less gifted do not exist to serve the interests of the more gifted. The former are not mere things when compared to the latter, to be used as means to the latters ends. From the moral point of view, each of us is equal because each of us is equally a somebody, not a something, the subject-of-a-life, not a life without a subject."
Tom Regan was an American philosopher who specialized in animal rights theory. He was professor emeritus of philosophy at North Carolina State University, where he had taught from 1967 until his retirement in 2001.
"People like me, people who believe in animal rights, feel the same way about eagles and elephants, pigs and porpoises, as most people feel about cats and dogs. Dont get me wrong. Animal Rights Advocates (ARAs) dont want pigs sleeping in our beds or elephants riding in our cars. We dont want to make “pets” of these animals. What we want is something simpler: we just want people to stop doing terrible things to them."
Tom Regan"The task facing ARAs is daunting: we must empty the cages, not make them larger."
Tom Regan"I would never have become an animal rights advocate if I had not first been a human rights advocate, especially for those humans (the very young and the very old, for example) who lack the understanding or power to assert their rights for themselves."
Tom Regan"What I had learned about human rights proved to be directly relevant to my thinking about animal rights. Whether any animals have rights depends on the true answer to one question: Are any animals subjects-of-a-life? This is the question that needs to be asked about animals because this is the question we need to ask about us."
Tom Regan"The principal theoretician of the animal rights movement."
Tom Regan"And they say ARAs are violent. The bitter truth would be laughable if it were not so tragic. The violence done to things by some ARAs (buy which I mean the violent destruction of insensate property) is nothing compared to the violence done to feeling creatures by the major animal user industries. A raindrop compared to an ocean. On a day-to-day basis, by far the greatest amount of violence done in the "civilized" world occurs because of what humans do to other animals. That the violence is legally protected, that in some cases (for example, vivisection) it is socially esteemed, only serves to make matters worse."
Tom Regan