Animal Lives Matter

Animal Lives Matter provides a comprehensive analysis of the legal, philosophical, and ethical aspects of animal rights. It argues that the subject extends beyond the matter of our obligations towards animals, to include our wider responsibilities for protecting the environment. Drawing on numerous moral, political, legal, religious, and philosophical theories including utilitarianism, deontology, rights theory, social contractarianism, and the capabilities approach, the author meticulously examines the questions of sentience, speciesism, personhood, and human exceptionalism. Lucid, nuanced, and academically rigorous, this important book will be an essential resource for scholars of law, politics, philosophy, ethics, as well as policy makers and the general reader.

Raymond Wacks, Emeritus Professor of Law and Legal Theory, is the author of 15 books, and editor of 10. Several of his works have been translated into more than a dozen languages. His books include Personal Information: Privacy and the Law; Privacy and Media Freedom; Privacy: A Very Short Introduction; Law: A Very Short Introduction; and Justice: A Beginner's Guide. Among his most recent publications are Protecting Personal Information: The Right to Privacy Reconsidered, COVID-19 and Public Policy in the Digital Age, and National Security in the New World Order: Government and the Technology of Information (with Andrea Monti). The sixth edition of his Understanding Jurisprudence: An Introduction to Legal Theory was published in 2021, as was The Rule of Law Under Fire?

1. Introduction 2. Ethical foundations 3. Animal rights 4. Rights resistance 5. Human rights 6. Utilitarianism vs deontology 7. Welfarism 8. Abolitionism 9. Capabilities 10. Contractarianism and contractualism 11. Citizenship 12. The law 13. Conclusion