Animal Ethics Quotes

I'm in favor of animal liberation. Why? Because I'm an animal.

The attitude we have towards our personal pets as opposed to the animals that suffer under the factory farm is hypocritical and delusional.

A growing and increasingly influential movement of philosophers, ethicists, law professors and activists are convinced that the great moral struggle of our time will be for the rights of animals.

If God did not intend for us to eat animals, then why did he make them out of meat?

I don't use the word 'pet.' I think it's speciest language. I prefer 'companion animal.' We would no longer allow... pet shops... Eventually companion animals would be phased out.

Children all over the world consort quite naturally with animals. They don't see any dividing line. That is something they have to be taught, just as they have to be taught it is all right to kill and eat them.

By the divine providence [animals] are intended for man's use... Hence it is not wrong for man to make use of them, either by killing or in any other way whatsoever.

Morality, as has often been pointed out, is antecedent to religion-it even exists in a rudimentary form among animals.

The assumption that animals are without rights, and the illusion that our treatment of them has no moral significance, is a positively outrageous example of Western crudity and barbarity. Universal compassion is the only guarantee of morality.

None of that is necessary. It's not as if we're in a situation where it is us or them.There's something peculiar about talking about the moral status of animals, when we are killing and eating them for no reason whatsoever.

Guinea pigs are practically synonymous with experiments. Lab rats have become the workhorses of modern medicine. Genetics owes a huge debt to the humble fruit fly. There's almost no branch of the life sciences, in fact, that hasn't leaned heavily on one animal or another.

If possessing a higher degree of intelligence does not entitle one human to use another for his or her own ends, how can it entitle humans to exploit non-humans?

The more we learn of the true nature of non-human animals, especially those with complex brains and corresponding complex social behavior, the more ethical concerns are raised regarding their use in the service of man - whether this be in entertainment, as "pets," for food, in research laboratories, or any of the other uses to which we subject them.

We should stop bringing more domestic animals into existence.

To be sure, the dog is loyal. But why, on that account, should we take him as an example? He is loyal to man, not to other dogs.

I don't need to kill goats to say things. I CAN talk.

There is no morally coherent difference between fur and other animal clothing, such as leather, wool, etc., just as there is no morally coherent distinction between meat and milk or eggs.

One of the main reasons I'm vegan is because I'm ethically lazy. My friends who eat meat or who eat eggs have to sometimes wrestle with the ethical consequences of their actions. By being vegan, I take the easy way out.

If I hammer my own thumb while doing some DIY, it's not nice, but it's not the end of the world. To care obsessively about similar levels of discomfort in animals seems to be a case of mistaken moral priorities.

When I hear of anyone walking into a lab and walking out with animals, my heart sings.

Cruelty...prefers abstraction. Some have tried to resolved this gap by hunting or butchering an animal themselves, as if those experiences might somehow legitimize the endeavor of eating animals. This is very silly. Murdering someone would surely prove that you are capable of killing, but it woudln't be the most reasonable way to understand why you should or shouldn't do it.

I have never really been fond of animals. I certainly wasn't an 'animal lover' when I became involved in the movement. I just came to be persuaded that animals should be treated as independent sentient beings, not as means to human ends.

Not only are the philosophies of animal rights and animal welfare separated by irreconcilable differences... the enactment of animal welfare measures actually impedes the achievement of animal rights... Welfare reforms, by their very nature, can only serve to retard the pace at which animal rights goals are achieved.

We cannot talk simultaneously about animal rights and the 'humane' slaughter of animals.

But if there were two dogs left in the universe and it were up to us as to whether they were allowed to breed so that we could continue to live with dogs, and even if we could guarantee that all dogs would have homes as loving as the one that we provide, we would not hesitate for a second to bring the whole institution of 'pet' ownership to an end.