Instant Access To 100,000+ Essays!

Animal ethics is concerned with the moral issues concerning animals, whereas environmental ethics concerns itself with the moral issues of the environment. The existence of animal ethics depends on the existence of environmental ethics. Philosophers such as Singer, Regan and Goodpaster have an individualistic approach on the subject of animal rights and moral ethics. They are limited to animal concerns without considering the environment as a whole. They also deal with individual rights as opposed to collective rights. Individualists are concerned with the rights of the individual as opposed to the rights of a majority. Each philosopher has his own individualistic approach to the question of whether or not animals have rights. Singer’s objective is to show that other species of animals other than the human species are worth the basic principle of equality. He concedes that there are important differences between humans and other animals. This is where he demonstrates an aspect of his individualistic approach. He continues, “and these differences must give rise to some differences in the rights that each have”(Singer 27). He then uses the Women’s Liberation movement and their pursuit of equality between the sexes as