Foreword TO M REGAN Revolutions have been a favourite topic o f political theorists. And not just political revolutions. Intellectual revolutions - revolution s of ideas - have com m anded equal tim e. Indeed, the ideas of political theorists often have laid the foun dation s o f real-w orld revolutions. O n e need only mention R ou sseau and M arx to confirm the point. W ithout bread, the human body perishes. But w ithout ideas, the hum an spirit w ithers. It is not for bread alone that political theorists have laboured. It is odd, then, that m ost con tem p orary political theorists have been con spicuous by their absence in the revolutionary tim es in w hich we find ourselves. F o r there is a revolution o f ideas afoot, one w hich, whether well- or ill-conceived, and w hether successful or not, already is having effects that are trickling dow n to the realm o f political action. T ak in g their cue from ph ilosoph ers o f science, som e partisan s refer to the change as the em ergence o f a ‘ new paradigm ', a concept w hich, at this poin t in time, m ay be m ore aspirational than descriptive. The plain fact is that there is no single ‘ new paradigm ’ that has taken hold. Rather, there is a variety o f contenders each at w ar with the others, each vying for w idespread acceptance, each having to face the hard fact that theirs is but one voice am on g m any - and that a voice w hich m ore often than not speaks to (and is heard by) ‘the con verted’ . D eep ecology. Fem inism . A nim al rights. T h ese are am ong the voices in the insistent choir o f dissent, and the m essage o f one is seldom the sam e as that o f the others. U su ally , that is. But n ot alw ays. D isson ant though their dem ands o f­ ten are, one main them e is the sam e: traditional moral an thropocen trism is dead. T h is is the faith shared b y deep ecologists, fem inists, p ropon en ts o f animal rights, and other critics o f the intellectual status quo. Their com m on task is to bury P rotago ras once and for all. H u m an s are not the m easure o f all things. A nd w hile it is true that the death o f the ‘ old p aradigm ’ by itself does not give birth to a new one, ideas m ay be like forests. Som etim es the stands o f old trees m ust be destroyed by fire before the new grow th can flourish. In the present case it is P rotagoras and his descendants that find them selves in the furnace. O n e part of this conflagration is being fuelled by those thinkers and political activists w ho con stitute the animal rights m ovem ent. A m on g our contem poraries it w as m oral ph ilosoph ers w ho struck the first

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m atch. Anim als, Men an d M orals, published in 1972, m arks the beginning, follow ed by Peter Sin ger’s 1975 landm ark b o o k A n im al L iberation , and then, in 1977, by Stephen C la rk ’s The M o ral Status o f A nim als. Since then there has been a steady stream of w ork by m oral ph ilosoph ers, som e opp osed to, but m ost in favour of, enfranchising non-hum an anim als in the moral com m unity. Andrew R ow an, D ean o f Special P rogram s at T u fts U n iversity ’s School o f V eterinary M edicine in the U S A , and him self a notable critic of traditional m oral anthropocentrism , does not overstate the case when he observes that w ithin the past 20 years con tem porary moral ph ilosoph ers have w ritten m ore on the topic o f hum an responsibility to other anim als than their p re­ decessors had w ritten in the previous tw o thousand years. Th is m onum ental change in m oral scholarship has occasioned a no less m onum ental change in the teaching o f m oral ph ilosoph y. W hereas on ly 20 years ago there w as not a single student discussin g animal rights in moral ph ilo so p h y ’s classroo m s, today there are up w ard s of 100,000 students a year w ho encounter this idea - just in A m erica. A lthough the num ber predictably w ould be sm aller, com parable changes likely have taken place throughout the E nglish -speaking w orld and, ju d gin g from the evidence at hand, are well under w ay throughout E u rop e. T h eologian s, too, have added their voice, and none m ore forcefully or influentially than Andrew L inzey, one o f this volum e’s editors. If his m ost recent b ook , Christianity an d the R ights o f A nim als (1988), is generally recognized as the m ost thorough attem pt to ground the rights o f nonhum an animals in C hristian doctrine, his earlier book A n im al Rights: A Christian Assessment (1976) retains its historical significance. F or it w as that earlier b o o k that heralded the beginning, in earnest, o f the grow in g theological assault on traditional moral an thropoccntrism . And it is the fruits o f these labours that we are now beginning to see in religion’s classroo m s, where norm ative questions ab out our responsibilities to other anim als increasingly are being asked and debated. C on tem p orary political theorists, by contrast, have had com ­ paratively little to say on the issue of animal rights. The revolution o f ideas, it seem s, has caught them napping. Even am ong those influential theorists w ho have broached the topic, the view s we find are fam iliar descendants o f the moral anthropocentrism currently under siege from other quarters. In R obert N o z ic k ’s libertarian theory, for exam ple, nonhum an anim als have no moral rights. A nd the same is true o f John R aw ls’ very different contractarian theory. W hy this exclusion from full m em bership in the moral com m unity should continue to charac-

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Political Theory a n d A n im al R ights

terize the m ost w idely d iscu ssed alternatives in con tem p orary political theory, w hile m any secular and religious m oral theorists are united in their opp osition to w hat they regard as this prejudicial tradition (w hich they refer to as ‘ speciesism ’), is a question that perhaps only future generations o f scholars can be in a position to answ er. If this turns out to be true - if a later generation o f political theorists explains this apparent an om aly - then the m ore enlightened vantage point from which this insight is com m anded will be in no sm all m easure due to this im portan t, tim ely an thology. F o r it is in these pages that, for the first tim e, the m ost influential political theorists in the W estern tradition speak to one o f the issu es that inform s part o f the con tem porary revolution o f ideas - the issue o f animal rights. But not to this issue only. T h e selections com piled here touch on much else besides - in particular, the m ore general issue o f the place of hum ans in nature. In this w ay all the thinkers represented here speak to the larger issue o f m oral anthropocentrism . In this w ay, therefore, those con tem porary political theorists w ho u se this b o o k , w hether in their research or in their classroo m s, will becom e involved in the debate about the ad equacy o f this tradition and play the vital role they should in deciding w hether, and, if so, how , the revolt against this tradition succeeds. O r fails.