Animal Rights Philosophical Encyclopeida

The greatest threat to people is ignorance.
The greatest threat to animals is ignorant people.

 

 http://www.zoosavvy.com/index.html

"What is this encyclopedia about?
This encyclopedia is an introduction to the scope of animal rights. Entries consist of core ideas of moral theories and principles, animal-human problems, ideas and background reading to assimilate quickly and easily. Relevant cross-references are in red. You can read topics in greater detail by looking them up on the Web.

However, do not expect quick and unequivocal answers to problematic questions about animal rights. As Mark Bekoff says:

"For many questions about how animals should be treated by humans there are no 'right' or 'wrong' answers. However, there are better and worse answers."

Animal Passions and Beastly Virtues. 2006:227.

Who should read this encyclopedia?
The Animal Rights Encyclopedia may appeal to anyone interested in combining a practical and philosophical responsibility to that "black, silent existence" and "dark murky experience" that some people claim is animal life:

"In contrast to ourselves, animal behaviour is mechanical, driven by the dictates of nature and immune to the processes of reflective cognition that we take for granted. It is a black, silent existence that is not conscious of its own processes or, at the very most, a dark murky experience that does not compare with our own."

Stuart Derbyshire. In: Animal Experimentation: good or bad? Gilland T et al. 2002:47.

For as Voltaire points out:

"If we believe absurdities, we shall commit atrocities."

Attributed to a speech in 1767."