This book is an attempt to think through, carefully and
consistently,thequestionofhowweoughttotreatnonhuman
animals. In the process it exposes the prejudices that lie
behindourpresentattitudesandbehavior.Inthechaptersthat
describe
what theseattitudesmeanin practical terms—howanimals
sufferfromthetyrannyofhumanbeings—therearepassages
that will arouse some emotions. These will, I hope, be
emotionsofangerandoutrage,coupledwithadetermination
to dosomethingaboutthepracticesdescribed.Nowherein
this book, however, do I appeal to the reader’s emotions
wheretheycannotbesupported byreason.Whenthereare
unpleasantthingstobedescribeditwouldbedishonesttotry
to describe them in some neutral way that hid their real
unpleasantness. You cannot write objectively about the
experiments of the Nazi concentration camp “doctors” on
thosetheyconsidered“subhuman”withoutstirringemotions;
and the same is true of a description of some of the
experimentsperformedtodayonnonhumansinlaboratoriesin
America,Britain,andelsewhere.Theultimatejustificationfor
oppositiontoboththesekindsofexperiments,though,isnot
emotional.Itisanappealtobasicmoralprincipleswhichwe
all accept, and the application of these principles to the
victimsofbothkindsofexperimentisdemandedbyreason,
not emotion.
The title of this book has a serious point behind it. A
liberationmovementisademandforanendtoprejudiceand
discriminationbasedonanarbitrarycharacteristiclikeraceor
sex.TheclassicinstanceistheBlackLiberationmovement.
Theimmediate appeal ofthis movement, and its initial,if
limited,success,madeitamodelforotheroppressedgroups.
We soon became familiar with Gay Liberation and