Author(s): Alison Hills

Current Affairs

Animal Rights is an emotive issue that is never far from the news. But it is often hard to know who to believe: radical animal rights protestors who claim that humans and animals should have equal rights; or scientists who argue that it is always legitimate to use animals for our benefit.

In this superbly accessible book, Alison Hills carefully examines the arguments for both sides and defends a practical, liveable idea of the ethics of animals, distinguishing ways in which animals are our equals from ways in which they are not.

The Animal Rights arguments raise the deepest questions of all. In deciding how we should treat animals, we have to reflect not only on the value of animals, but also on fundamental issues about ourselves: on what it is to be human, and on the value of human life.