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Elizabeth Stuart, Queen of Bohemia
 Title page of the 1894 first American edition | |
| Author | Henry S. Salt |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| Subject | Animal rights |
| Publisher | George Bell & Sons |
Publication date | 1892 |
| Publication place | United Kingdom |
| Media type | |
| Pages | 162 |
| OCLC | 14024795 |
Animals' Rights: Considered in Relation to Social Progress is an 1892 book by the English social reformer Henry S. Salt. He argues that animals, as sentient beings, deserve moral and legal rights based on justice, and critiques various forms of animal exploitation as incompatible with ethical social progress. It is widely considered to be the first explicit treatment of the concept of animal rights.[1]
Background
Henry S. Salt was known for his work on prison reform, education, economic justice, and animal welfare. A committed vegetarian, socialist, pacifist, and anti-vivisectionist, he founded the Humanitarian League in 1891. Often described as a pioneering figure in the animal rights movement, Salt was later credited by Mahatma Gandhi as an influence on his vegetarianism. A prolific writer, Salt published 40 books, beginning with A Plea for Vegetarianism and Other Essays in 1886.[2]
Salt wrote Animals' Rights: Considered in Relation to Social Progress to establish a clear and consistent foundation for the principle of animals' rights, to demonstrate its connection to broader humanitarian reforms, and to challenge prevailing justifications for practices that cause unnecessary suffering to sentient beings.[3]
Summary
Salt argues that animals, as sentient beings, are entitled to certain fundamental rights—notably, the right to live a natural life free from unnecessary suffering—on the basis of justice rather than human sentiment or utility.
The book critiques prevailing religious and Cartesian doctrines that denied animal consciousness and moral worth. It explores a wide range of human practices that infringe upon animals' rights, including vivisection, slaughterhouses, hunting, the fur trade, and the keeping of caged birds and animals in menageries. Salt contends that these practices are morally indefensible and inconsistent with the ethical principles of an advancing civilisation.
Salt dedicates chapters to the rights of domesticated animals and wild animals, criticises meat-eating as ethically incompatible with humanitarian ideals, and draws parallels between the animal question and earlier movements for slavery abolition and women's rights. The book concludes with a call for legal reforms, education, and a broader humanitarian movement that includes nonhuman animals as part of the moral community.
Reception
James H. Hyslop reviewed the book contemporaneously for the International Journal of Ethics, strongly praising the book's intentions "its spirit shows the finest feelings a moral being can possess" but also arguing that it failed to present a theoretical justification for the equal rights it presumes between humans and animals: "No fundamental position, philosophical or theological, is taken as ground for such rights, and hence we have only an exposure of certain logical weaknesses in the defence of existing practices towards animal life."[4]
Hyslop also argues that Salt conflates disparate ethical questions:[4]
the book confuses three distinct problems which ought to be kept distinct from one another. (1) The abstract question of animal rights of any kind; (2) The question of their treatment as sensible beings, whether we accord them the same rights as man or not; and (3) The question of vegetarianism. The last question virtually assumes that they have equal rights with man. On the other hand, some can defend animal rights of a certain kind without including a prohibition of animal food. Then, independently of all questions of rights, others may insist on human conduct towards animals upon the grounds of man's duty to moral law in general.
In 1895, The William and Mary Quarterly said of the work: "Mr. Salt is undoubtedly ahead of his age by many years."[5]
Publication history
The first American edition published in 1894, included an essay "On Vivisection in America" by Albert Leffingwell.[6]
A reprint of the first edition of the book was published in 1980, with a preface by the Australian philosopher Peter Singer, who is well known for his work on the ethics of treatment towards animals (specifically in the book Animal Liberation). The 1980 reissue prompted a review from Stephen Clark who praised Salt's book with some provisos. He states that Salt's attempt to blame the treatment of non-human animals on the theological doctrine of man having "dominion" over the natural world was mistaken.[7]
References
- ^ Taylor, Angus. Animals and Ethics. Broadview Press, 2003, p. 61.
- ^ Salt, H. S. (2025-06-09). "A Plea for Vegetarianism and Other Essays". In Miller, Ian (ed.). Food in Nineteenth-Century British History. Vol. Three: Mealtimes (1 ed.). London: Routledge. doi:10.4324/9781003594567. ISBN 978-1-003-59456-7.
- ^ Salt, Henry S. (1894). "Prefatory Note". Animals' Rights: Considered in Relation to Social Progress. New York: Macmillan & Co.
- ^ a b Hyslop, James H. (July 1895). "Animals' Rights: Considered in Relation to Social Progress by Henry S. Salt". International Journal of Ethics. 5 (4): 532–533. doi:10.1086/205375. JSTOR 2375563.
- ^ "Animals' Rights, Considered in Relation to Social Progress, etc by Henry S. Salt". The William and Mary Quarterly. 3 (3). January 1895. JSTOR 1914789.
- ^ "Animals' Rights, Considered in Relation to Social Progress". Henry S. Salt Society. Retrieved 2019-10-05.
- ^ Stephen Clark (January 1983). "Animals' Rights, Considered in Relation to Social Progress by Henry S. Salt". The Philosophical Quarterly. 33 (130): 98–100. doi:10.2307/2219213. hdl:2027/coo1.ark:/13960/t9m33db2f. JSTOR 2219213.
External links
- Animals' Rights: Considered in Relation to Social Progress at Project Gutenberg
- Animals' Rights: Considered in Relation to Social Progress at the Animal Rights Library
- Animals' Rights: Considered in Relation to Social Progress at the Internet Archive
Animals' Rights public domain audiobook at LibriVox
