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Peter Singer

Animal Liberation: The Definitive Classic of the Animal Movement Paperback – Illustrated, February 24, 2009

by Peter Singer (Author)

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Since its original publication in 1975, this groundbreaking work has awakened millions of people to the existence of "speciesism"—our systematic disregard of nonhuman animals—inspiring a worldwide movement to transform our attitudes to animals and eliminate the cruelty we inflict on them.

In Animal Liberation, author Peter Singer exposes the chilling realities of today's "factory farms" and product-testing procedures—destroying the spurious justifications behind them, and offering alternatives to what has become a profound environmental and social as well as moral issue. An important and persuasive appeal to conscience, fairness, decency, and justice, it is essential reading for the supporter and the skeptic alike.

Print length

368 pages
Language

English
Publication date

February 24, 2009
Dimensions

5.31 x 0.83 x 8 inches
ISBN-10

0061711306
ISBN-13

978-0061711305
Lexile measure

1360L
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Editorial Reviews

Review

“Singer’s documentation is unrhetorical and unemotional, his arguments tight and formidable, for he bases his case on neither personal nor religious nor highly abstract philosophical principles, but on moral positions most of us already accept.” -- New York Times Book Review

“A most important book that will change the way many of us look at animals—and, ultimately, at ourselves.” -- Chicago Tribune

"This book is a must . . . not just for every animal lover but forevery civilized reader." -- Cleveland Amory

"A most important and responsible work. Everyone ought to read it, and ponder deeply whether we do not need to change our view of the world and our responsibility toward its creatures." -- Richard Adams, author of Watership Down

“This book can’t help but make you think twice about whether or not animals have rights. It is so lucid and smart and thoroughly researched, without a hint of hysteria. I couldn’t put it down.” -- Rick Moody, author of The Ice Storm

From the Back Cover

Publisher : Harper Perennial Modern Classics; Updated ed. edition (February 24, 2009)
Language : English
Paperback : 368 pages
ISBN-10 : 0061711306
ISBN-13 : 978-0061711305
Lexile measure : 1360L
Item Weight : 10.4 ounces
Dimensions : 5.31 x 0.83 x 8 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #73,217 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #21 in Animal Rights (Books)
- #312 in Philosophy of Ethics & Morality
- #425 in History & Philosophy of Science (Books)

Customer Reviews:
467 ratings

Customer reviews

5 star		87%
4 star		8%
3 star		3%
2 star		1%
1 star		2%

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Top reviews from the United States

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Editpro45

I recommend it to anyone who is weighing that choice

Reviewed in the United States on November 29, 2015

Verified Purchase

This book is just as relevant today as when it was first written, and reading it confirms ands supports my personal decision to become a vegetarian/vegan. I recommend it to anyone who is weighing that choice. However, it should come with a trigger warning. Our cruelty to animals on the farm and in our laboratories is depicted in vivid detail, and what I learned from reading it will stay with me forever.

46 people found this helpful

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Evian G.

This book will re-shape how you understand your relationship with the world you live amongst

Reviewed in the United States on September 30, 2017

Verified Purchase

Peter Singer presents some cold hard facts about morals, ethics and animal mistreatment. This book shines a light on some uncomfortable truths, but is illuminating in re-aligning the discussion around how we treat our co-earthlings. I've suggested this book be read by friends and family to which the reply is "no, I am scared about how it will make me change my life." It is for this exact reason that this book needs to be read.

17 people found this helpful

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J Edens

One of the best cases for vegetarianism

Reviewed in the United States on January 27, 2016

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I read this book nearly 40 years ago and became a vegetarian because of it. Singer, a philosopher, writes clearly and effectively. Today the public knows more about factory farming and experimentation on animals, largely, I think, because of this book's influence. Yet he understands that for some people becoming completely vegetarian may prove too daunting, so he says to do as much as you can. He isn't strident.

24 people found this helpful

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B.T. Goode

Great Book! Wish I would have known about a long time ago!

Reviewed in the United States on June 12, 2019

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I heard that this book was the beginning of the path for many people to take up the Animal Rights movement and become a voice for the voiceless. Now I know why. This book along with the book "Altruism" are now my Animal Rights movement bibles and the reason I am even more passionate about wanting to make a difference for the "voiceless". We have a lot of work to do as humans and really need to face our speciesism. Why do we have the right to chose the fate of animals who have just as much of a right to live as we do? Check out Speciesism the movie too!

4 people found this helpful

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Patthekat

This is The Bible for anyone who loves and respects animals

Reviewed in the United States on August 25, 2018

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This is a MUST read for anyone who loves and respects all living creatures. The down side is that you'll also be ashamed to be a human being when you're done. Peter Singer did a brilliant job of putting this book together. It's The Bible for all Animal Advocacy groups.

6 people found this helpful

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Matt

Heartbreaking and inspiring

Reviewed in the United States on May 20, 2018

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I couldn't stop listening when I picked up the Audible version of this book. What we do to animals is appaling and unnecessary. No wonder Peter Singer has been called the "father of animal rights." His book, first published in the 70s and now updated remains as relevant today as it once was.

3 people found this helpful

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JKW

Animal Liberation - Some Interesting Ideas make it worth adding to your personal library.

Reviewed in the United States on October 18, 2016

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Many times I'll check a book out of the library first, to decide if it's worth buying. I decided this one is. I rarely get time to finish the library book before I've exceeded the allowed renewals. So after a few chapters of this book, I ordered the book (which allows me to underline all the important and interesting concepts). Looking forward to finishing the book.

3 people found this helpful

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qiao'r

A definitive read

Reviewed in the United States on September 17, 2010

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Good: the information/data is detailed and precisely pertinent to the topics, the updated and supplemental information keeps the present-day reader connected to Peter Singer's legacy with the Animal Liberation movement

Bad: the writing is at times difficult to fully comprehend on the first read, Peter Singer definitely authors on a university level that may prove to be intimidating for younger/ less experienced readers

This book is a requisite read for anyone with interest in animal rights/ethics. I began reading this book when I became a vegan. I started reading the 2nd. edition (1990) that a vegan friend gave to me, and decided to finish reading with the most updated/ 4th. edition (2009). This book is a great reference for ethics/philosophy. It also seems like the closest thing to what most of us will have to being a student of Peter Singer.

5 people found this helpful

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Top reviews from other countries

Canis bonus

A worrying review of the institutional animal abuses of the food and research industries; and a summary of the ethical arguments

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on August 2, 2017

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(review of the 1995 edition)

AUDIENCE: For a book written by an academic, it is remarkably accessible and jargon-free. Any person interaction with animals would do well to read this book. Animal professionals must read it as it is a classic in the animal rights literature.

Style and contents

At about 250 densely packed pages, you won’t be done in a couple of days, but it’s no War and Peace either.

The book is divided into 2 chapters examining widespread abuses by the research and intensive farming industries. It also devotes a couple of chapters to the philosophical arguments supporting the equal consideration of animals. Finally, one chapter covers tips and views on vegetarianism.

The gems

The book in itself is a gem. It is THE classic in the animal rights’ literature and is on every animal rights and bioethics course reading list. These were some of the tidbits that I found particularly interesting:

The chapters detailing the abuses of the research industry were shocking and depressing. Knowing what I know of ethics committees in the EU and UK protecting mammals at least (except rats and mice…), I think things have changed a lot there. Not enough, but a lot. Sadly, not much has changed in the intensive farming industry, where regulatory bodies are more committed to pleasing crowds than effective action.
His chapter on animal research gave me pause, particularly the species-specific idiosyncracies that are discovered after the fact again and again. Take the fact that morphine is a neurostimulant for mice (it is a neurodepressant for us)! Countless products have been tested on animals and have been revealed, come human trial times, to have paradoxical effects in humans. The fact that promising animal models have to be taken lightly was not news to me, but the book opened my eyes to the horrifying scale of the problem. A ‘sad tale of futility’, as he calls it.
His reviews of the futile psychology experiments also made for depressing reading: studies on maternal deprivation, stress, learned helplessness/experimentally induced neurosis are classics in our field. Little did I know that so many subsequent – and useless – variations were carried out, putting millions of animals through unspeakable suffering for no reason.
I loved the passages on influential thinkers’ views through the ages. Having taken my last history course on the topic ages ago, it was a welcome refresher on the views of Descartes, Montaigne, Rousseau, Hume, Bentham, Thomas of Aquina, etc.
I was surprised by the list of animal-based products. I had never stopped to consider whether my candles, soap bars and perfume bottles had been were ethically sourced. Like I needed something else to feel guilty about.
As a veggie, I am wary of having to justify my dietary choice all the time, particularly from people who imply you are an irrational softie for caring about killing animals. He has a great way around that. He just says he is boycotting the intensive farming products. Effectively, unless you are getting your animal produce from your cousin or your neighbour, it means you are a veggie.
It was interesting to see that these assumptions were STILL being made by many meat eaters and needed addressing…
That you supposedly need meat to live (patently untrue)
That all veggies oppose the killing of animals to eat (I certainly don’t. I oppose their life of suffering and painful death)
I liked that he called meat ‘flesh’. It is less easy to hide from the horrifying truth when you don’t use an impersonal word.
An interesting passage on plants and pain, and the methods used to gain our knowledge (neurology, evolutionary function and behaviour)

Possible points for optimization

Stupidly, I read the 1995 edition instead of the 2015 one. That’s how long it had been on my ‘to read’ shelf… So I don’t know whether what I point out below has drastically changed in the latest edition.

I found the chapter on vegetarianism out of place. It fell into prosaic topics like how easy it is for friends to accommodate for your change of diet and that really vegetarian recipes are more diverse, if anything, than ones based on meat. I am a veggie myself so this argument doesn’t come from some defense mechanism or anything. The chapter was simply not intellectually interesting – nor logically or factually rigorous.
The logic (and realities) underlying his equal consideration arguments was occasionally weak, and it was a little repetitive. This is disappointing considering he is a professional ethicist. Take these examples:
Comparing speciesm to racism doesn’t hold water not just in degree, but also in kind.
Dodgy logic (p. 92) arguing that relying less on experimentally induced disease (on animals) would have somehow changed the focus of medicine towards prevention and healthy living. Yes, it would have, as a necessity. Surely he is not arguing that we should forego researching treatments and ONLY focus on prevention? For every disease?
On p. 229, his logic becomes outright tortuous. This is the predictable product of hard utilitarianism.
He says that the only defense of speciesm (namely to privilege members of our own group), is unjustifiable. It only is if you are a hard-line utilitarian. Take the classic thought experiment where you know your brother is evading his taxes on a grand scale, and you are asked whether you would report him. Of course the circle of empathy rings deeper the closer the person is to our inner circle: immediate family, friends, community, country, species. Whilst I tend to abhore nationalism, I can still see the evolutionary function of this selective empathy along lines of closeness to oneself.
A couple of statements are factually incorrect.
On p. 222, for example, he claims that no other animal, aside from man, prolongs the suffering of their prey. I can think of two counter-examples in less than a second: cats and killer whales.
I was surprised that he did not mention cognitive dissonance. Sure (most of) his arguments supporting vegetarianism are sound (better ecologically, medically and ethically). But the problem isn’t the weight of the arguments, it’s cognitive dissonance. Meat eaters are so committed to the idea that any argument opposing their worldview will just entrench them further.
Whilst I also (still) eat eggs and drink dairy product, I am aware of my hypocrisy. He, on the other hand, conveniently breezed over the horror that is the egg and leather industries when discussing the impracticality of veganism and not wearing leather.
He does not condemn the free-range egg industry explicitly enough, nearly trivializing its abuses (male chicks are still crushed alive by the millions).

The verdict:
The book is a classic and must be read by every professional working with animals, and even by laymen.

Sometimes his arguments smacked of post hoc rationalisations and got tangled up by his hard line utilitarianism, but the central point is valid: we should view speciesm critically (he would like us to condemn it altogether, which I find neither feasible nor desirable). We should grant animals equal consideration of interests.

10 people found this helpful

Jamie

Profound and influential book that I originally passed on due ...

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on December 22, 2015

Verified Purchase

Profound and influential book that I originally passed on due to £9.99 price but later bought anyway after seeing it mentioned positively in various other books and articles. This book could change the way you think about animals. In my case, it finally answers a question that I have been musing on for some years: we laugh at our grandparents for their sexism and racism; what are we doing that our grandchildren will laugh at us for? The answer is speciesism and animal rights. The book focuses on a logical and moral argument, but without shoving it down your throat.

Minor quibbles:

---I would have preferred to see the unedited text of the original edition with comments in brackets or at the end of each section about what has changed since then rather than a completely updated work.

---The chapters, especially 2 and 3 are very long and could have been broken up, e.g. with spaces or stars or lines simply, to give a place to break them up.

16 people found this helpful

Josh H

A true classic

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on November 11, 2020

Verified Purchase

The book on animal liberation. I went veggie 15 years ago when I first read this book for philosophy a level and it reads just as well today. That's not to say its for those interested in animal rights, rather for those who are intertested in the rationale behind animal liberation. If you want a well reasoned ethical proposal, read this book!

2 people found this helpful

Jonathan Barrington Smith

Inappropriate language used in the text

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on September 12, 2020

Verified Purchase

I finished the first chapter, which was interesting but quite hard going. Something that strikes me immediately is the inappropriate language, especially as Mr Singer is an academic. 'Retard' and not 'learning disabilities?' I know this book was written in 1975, but revised in 1995. I grew up in the late 60s and to mid 70s, and even then 'retard' was considered highly offensive. I shall update further when I've finished the book.

3 people found this helpful

Amazon Kunde

The most important book ever written in the history of the animal welfare movement

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on November 6, 2018

Verified Purchase

In 'Animal Liberation' Peter Singer makes a strong moral case against speciesism, "a prejudice or attitude of bias in favor of the interests of members of one's own species and against those of members of other species". He draws a convincing analogy between the discrimination of non-human animals through speciesism, and the discrimination of women through sexism, or the discrimination of people based on their ethnicity through racism. Everyone makes choices on an everyday basis that affect the life and welfare of non-human animals in the most fundamental ways, and thus everyone should engage with the ethical arguments revolving around our treatment of them. Reading Animal Liberation is a great place to start!

2 people found this helpful

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