A Petition for PeTA
Like their guiding philosopher Peter Singer, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PeTA) are not an animal rights organisation in the sense that they do not regard rights as a fundamental basis of their moral position on human-nonhuman relations. Like Singer, PeTA use \"rights\" as political shorthand; as a rhetorical label empty of content. In that there are animal advocates who want to take rights seriously and make rights-based claims their foundational claims about human-nonhuman relations, PeTA\'s ambiguous stance on rights damages the aspirations of the former. This is particularly so in cases in which PeTA make misleading claims about rights and animal rights. In particular, when PeTA claim that their philosophical mentor\'s book \"Animal Liberation\" is a rights-based text. PeTA claim that \"Animal Liberation\" provides an in-depth analysis of animal rights philosophy which is not correct. Moreover, they suggest that \"Animal Liberation\" is the only \"animal rights\" book one needs to read, which is grossly misleading. This petition respectfully asks PeTA to correct these errors to aid the theoretical evolution of the animal rights movement. More on the rationale behind this petition can be found here: http://human-nonhuman.blogspot.com/2007/12/petitioning-peta.html
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