ANIMAL RIGHTS

This article is about the album Animal Rights. For the rights movement, see Animal rights.

Animal Rights is an album by electronica artist Moby, released on February 11, 1996 (see 1996 in music). The album was critically reviled upon its first release, as it finds Moby attempting to abandon techno music for alternative rock; while most praised his attempt at diversifying outside of his genre, Animal Rights is generally perceived as containing nothing but derivative rhythms and techno hooks poorly disguised as alternative rock riffs (salon.com writer Douglas Wolk, for instance, opines that the album "finds Moby falling on his nose so hard it's a wonder the cartilage hasn't been driven into his brain," and concludes that "maybe somebody should try to convince Moby that guitars are actually made out of dead animals," while Rolling Stone decides that "this time around, he has decided to push an agenda instead of boundaries"). Seeming to expect its critical reception, Moby added the following entreaty to the bottom of the page listing credits: "please listen to animal rights in its entirety at least once."

The album's liner notes contain various pictures, an essay on the course of basic rights over history, an essay outlining Moby's disregard for the Christian Coalition, and a page with various "last minute maxims," such as "cruelty is unacceptable" and "you can't expect people to worry about the world when they can't feed themselves or their children."

The album's single "That's When I Reach For My Revolver" was subject to some controversy. The original version by Mission of Burma read in part "Tonight the sky is empty/But that is nothing new/Its dead eyes look upon us/And they tell me we're nothing but slaves." Moby changed the lyrics, whether intentionally or not; his most noticeable change was in the third line above, replacing it with "Instead they look upon us." The result was that he replaced a statement of agnosticism with a baffling non sequitur, though the change went generally unnoticed. Controversy erupted when both the BBC and MTV asked Moby to change the lyrics to the song's title line "That's When I Reach For My Revolver"--Moby rerecorded the song so it would air. Fans of the original were outraged; Moby defended himself, saying he didn't consider the change in lyrics to be very important. Oddly, one of the album's "last minute maxims" is "freedom of speech is absolute and inviolate."

The album's cover features a picture of Moby at two weeks old, being held by his grandfather.

On the Billboard Heatseekers chart, Animal Rights peaked at #31.

Track listing

All songs by Moby except "That's When I Reach For My Revolver," by Clint Conley of Mission of Burma.

1. "Dead Sun"
2. "Someone to Love"
3. "Heavy Flow"
4. "You"
5. "Now I Let It Go"
6. "Come On Baby"
7. "Soft"
8. "Anima"
9. "Say It's All Mine"
10. "That's When I Reach For My Revolver"
11. "Alone"
12. "Face It"
13. "Old"
14. "Living"
15. "Love Song For My Mom"
16. "A Season In Hell"

Personnel

• Moby - Bass, Guitar, Percussion, Drums, Keyboards, Producer, Engineer, Art Direction, Design, Mixing, Photography
• Alan Moulder - Engineer, Mixing
• Hahn Rowe - Violin
• Alli - Art DirectionAnimal rights is the viewpoint that animals have rights.

  Overview

  Many animal rights supporters hold the view that animals are in every way persons: that they are autonomous, possess the animating spirit, have unique personalities, are aware of self and surroundings, feel pleasure and pain, have complex emotional nature, communicate, possess memory, are capable of learning, etc., and are thus deserving of the same rights as humans -- particularly the right to live in a free and natural state of their own choosing. Animals must then be worthy of our ethical consideration in how we humans interact with them.

  While many advocates of animal rights do support rights for animals in the strict philosophical or legal sense, the term primarily is used for the notion that animals should not be killed for food, imprisoned, experimented upon, or used in entertainment or sports.

  Animal rights in philosophy

  Among the most famous philosophical proponents of animal rights are the philosophers Peter Singer and Tom Regan, who hold views that have much in common, but with different philosophical justifications (see below). Activists Karen Davis of United Poultry Concerns and Ingrid Newkirk of PETA have also eloquently defined fully-fledged political/personal philosophies of animal rights.

  Although Singer is said to be one of the ideological founders of today's animal rights movement, his philosophical approach to an animal's moral status is not based on the concept of rights, but on the principle of equal consideration of interests. His seminal book, Animal Liberation, argues that humans grant moral consideration to other humans not on the basis of intelligence (in the instance of children, or the mentally disabled), on ability to moralize (criminals and the insane), or on any other attribute that is inherently human, but rather on their ability to experience suffering. As animals also experience suffering, he argues, excluding animals from such consideration is a form of discrimination he calls 'speciesism'.

  Tom Regan, on the other side, claims that non-human animals that are so-called "subjects-of-a-life" are bearers of rights like humans, although not necessarily of the same degree. This means that animals in this class have "inherent value" as individuals, and cannot merely be considered as means for an end. This is also called a "direct duty" view on the moral status of non-human animals. According to Regan we should abolish the breeding of animals for food, animal experimentation and commercial hunting.

  These two figures serve to illustrate the main differences within the animal rights movement. While Singer is primarily concerned with improving treatment of animals and accepts that, at least in some hypothetical scenarios, animals could be legitimately used for further (human or non-human) ends, Regan relies on the strict "Kantian" idea that animals are persons and ought never to be sacrificed as mere means. Yet, despite these theoretical discrepancies, both Singer and Regan mostly agree about what to do in practice: for instance, they both concur in that the adoption of a vegan diet and the abolition of nearly all forms of animal experimentation are ethically mandatory. Those who want to antagonize the "rights" and the "welfarist" approaches should remember the words of Noam Chomsky, who, quoting Dewey (in another context), said that

  [it is correct that] mere "attenuation of the shadow will not change the substance", but it can create the basis for undermining the substance. It goes back to the Brazilian rural worker's image [of] expanding the floor of the cage. Eventually you want to dismantle the cage, but expanding the floor of the cage is a step towards that.

  Animal rights in law

  Generally speaking, animals have been denied the same rights as human beings and corporations. However, animals are protected under the law in many jurisdictions. There are criminal laws against cruelty to animals, laws that regulate the keeping of animals in cities and on farms, transit of animals internationally quarrantine and inspection provisions. Generally speaking, these laws are designed to protect animals, or protect human interaction with animals, or regulate the use of animals as food or in food processing. In the common law it is possible to create a trust and have the trust empowered to see to the care of a particular animal after the death of the benefactor of the trust. Some eccentric wealthy individuals without children create such trusts in their will. Such trusts can be upheld by the courts if properly drafted and the testator was of sound mind. There are also many movements to give animals greater rights and protection under domestic and international law.

  See also: Animal rights group, veganism, vegetarianism, anti-vivisection, ahimsa, Animal Liberation Front, imitation meat, in vitro meat, American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals

  Further reading

  • Francione, Gary (1995), Animals, Property and the Law, Philadelphia: Temple University Press.
  • Regan, Tom (1984), The Case for Animal Rights, New York: Routledge.
  • Singer, Peter (1990), Animal Liberation, second edition, New York: Avon Books.

  External links

  Animal rights in philosophy and law

  • The Tom Regan Animal Rights Archive.
  • Peter Singer Links.
  • Animal Law Project.

  Animal rights organizations

  • People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals.
  • United Poultry Concerns.
  • Animal Rights International.
  • Animal Contacts Directory.