Prof. Dr. Tom Regan gives the lecture "Animal Rights: An Introduction" at the Ruprecht-Karls-Universitat Heidelberg in May 2006.

 

In his power point presentation, "Animal Rights: An Introduction", Tom Regan begins by contrasting the fact that many people make a firm distinction between the animals they live with (cats and dogs, for example) and other animals. He explains how it is that Animal Rights Advocates (ARAs) extend the same sense of compassion and respect that they feel for companion animals, on the one hand, to the other animals who routinely are turned into food, clothing, and the like, on the other. Not all ARAs, he explains, arrive at this destination in the same way. In particular, some need to be convinced; some need a logical argument. In his presentation, Dr. Regan accepts this challenge and invites others to consider the main factual and moral questions whose answers inform the conviction that animals have rights.

During the summer term of 2006, a series of weekly talks and discussions on the field of animal rights/animal protection/animal ethics was held at the Ruprecht-Karls-Universität Heidelberg. This series was organised by the Interdisciplinary Study Group on Animal Rights (Interdisziplinäre Arbeitsgruppe Tierethik, IAT), a group of students of the University of Heidelberg whose aim is to present a wide spectrum of opinions and disciplines and thereby enhance a discussion both inside and outside universities on a topic which has so far largely been ignoredin Germany.

One of the climaxes of the series of lectures was the talk "Animal Rights: An Introduction" by Prof. Dr. Tom Regan which was based on his book "Empty Cages: Facing the Challenge of Animal Rights" (Rowman and Littlefield 2004). He is an emeritus professor of philosophy of the North Carolina State University and is the founder of the animal rights philosophy and as such is still highly influential on the animal rights movement.
In his talk, he started off by discussing cat slaughtering in China which led on to showing that most humans have a clear distinction between pets and livestock. Animal rights advocates on the other hand do not restrict their empathy and their respect only to pets but in contrast extend it to those animals which are commonly used to provide food, clothes and the like. Not all animal rights advocates arrive at this mindset in the same way, though. Regan classified them in three different categories: "DaVincians", "Damascans" and "Muddlers". Whereas DaVincians have - like Leonardo da Vinci - always felt a deep empathy with animals, Damascans had an experience which suddenly changed their approach to animals just as it happened to Saul when he encountered Jesus on the way to Damascus, which led to him becoming Paul. However, according to Regan, the majority of animal rights advocates are Muddlers: They form their opinion on animal rights step by step and gather more and more pieces of information, proofs and reasonings.
With the "Muddlers" as his target audience, Tom Regon went on to lay out his animal rights philosophy.