The Oxford Group[1] or Oxford Vegetarians[2] consisted of a group of intellectuals in England in the late 1960s and early 1970s associated with the University of Oxford, who met and corresponded to discuss the emerging concept of animal rights, or animal liberation.[3]
The Oxford Group initially consisted of postgraduate philosophy students, and included Stanley and Roslind Godlovitch, John Harris, David Wood, and Michael Peters (a sociology postgrad). Its members were active in academic circles in Oxford, and through their influence others became interested in the idea of developing a moral philosophy that included non-humans. A particular inspiration was the writing of Brigid Brophy, the novelist. The idea of editing a collection of essays on animal rights emerged, and Brophy and others agreed to contribute. The first publisher approached (at Ms Brophy's suggestion) was Michael Joseph where an editor suggested that such a book would be more interesting if group members contributed, as well as better known authors. However, they were not interested, so Godlovitch and Harris then approached Victor Goillancz, where they met Giles Gordon. Gollancz were keen to go ahead, and the book was published a few months later as Animals, Men and Morals in 1971.[3]
The period was a fertile one for the development of the concept of animal rights, both at the academic and activist level. Members of the Oxford Group contributed to a series of scholarly works that examined the moral assumptions underpinning the use of non-human animals, and helped to formulate a counter-position.[1] The group engaged in political activism too, writing and handing out leaflets protesting against animal testing and hunting.[4] Two of its members, Richard D. Ryder and Andrew Linzey, organized the Cambridge Conference on Animal Rights at Trinity College, Cambridge in 1977, the first international conference devoted explicitly to animal rights.[3]
Cambridge Conference on Animal Rights
The conference proceedings were published as Animals' Rights: A Symposium (1979). It produced a declaration – an appeal for animal rights and an end to speciesism – signed by 150 attendees:
We do not accept that a difference in species alone (any more than a difference in race) can justify wanton exploitation or oppression in the name of science or sport, or for food, commercial profit or other human gain.
We believe in the evolutionary and moral kinship of all animals and we declare our belief that all sentient creatures have rights to life, liberty, and the quest for happiness.
Tom Regan, the American philosopher and author of The Case for Animal Rights (1983), came into contact with the group when he visited Oxford in 1973.[4]
Richard Ryder, former animal researcher and senior clinical psychologist at the Warneford Hospital, Oxford, author of a 1970 leaflet on speciesism that coined the term, and later of Victims of Science: The Use of Animals in Research (1975) and Animal Revolution: Changing Attitudes Towards Speciesism (1989); former chairman of the RSPCA.[3]
Peter Singer, the Australian philosopher, was a postgraduate student at University College, Oxford (1969–1973); he was not himself a member of the Oxford Group at the time, but came to know them. He is the author of Animal Liberation (1975)[3]
David Wood, philosopher, postgraduate student at New College, Oxford (1968–1971)[4]
Jon Wynne-Tyson, publisher, author of Food For a Future: The Complete Case For Vegetarianism (1979)[4]
Finsen, Susan and Finsen, Lawrence. "Animal rights movement," in Marc Bekoff (ed.). The Encyclopedia of Animal Rights and Animal Welfare. Greenwood, 2009.
Free, Ann Cottrell. "A Tribute to Ruth Harrison", Animal Welfare Institute Quarterly, Fall 2000, Volume 49, Number 4.
Kean, Hilda. Animal Rights: Political and Social Change in Britain since 1800. Reaktion Books, 1998.
Paterson, David and Ryder, Richard D. Animals' Rights: A Symposium. Open Gate Press, 1979.
Ryder, Richard D. Animal Revolution. Basil Blackwell, 1989.
Garner, R., and Okuleye, Y. The Oxford Group and the Emergence of Animal Rights. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, December 2020. (For a full history of the group)
Speciesism is a term used in philosophy regarding the treatment of individuals of different species. The term has several different definitions within the relevant literature. Some sources specifically define speciesism as discrimination or unjustified treatment based on an individual's species membership, while other sources define it as differential treatment without regard to whether the treatment is justified or not. Richard Ryder, who coined the term, defined it as "a prejudice or attitude of bias in favour of the interests of members of one's own species and against those of members of other species." Speciesism results in the belief that humans have the right to use non-human animals, which scholars say is pervasive in the modern society. Studies from 2015 and 2019 suggest that people who support animal exploitation also tend to endorse racist, sexist, and other prejudicial views, which furthers the beliefs in human supremacy and group dominance to justify systems of inequality and oppression.
Richard Mervyn Hare, usually cited as R. M. Hare, was a British moral philosopher who held the post of White's Professor of Moral Philosophy at the University of Oxford from 1966 until 1983. He subsequently taught for a number of years at the University of Florida. His meta-ethical theories were influential during the second half of the twentieth century.
Brigid Antonia Brophy, was a British author, literary critic and polemicist. She was an influential campaigner who agitated for many types of social reform, including homosexual parity, vegetarianism, humanism, and animal rights. Brophy appeared frequently on television and in the newspapers of the 1960s and 1970s, making her prominent both in literary circles and on the wider cultural scene. Her public reputation as an intellectual woman meant she was both revered and feared. Her oeuvre comprises both fiction and non-fiction, displaying the impressive range of Brophy's erudition and interests. All her work is suffused with her stylish crispness and verve.
Animal Liberation: A New Ethics for Our Treatment of Animals is a 1975 book by Australian philosopher Peter Singer. It is widely considered within the animal liberation movement to be the founding philosophical statement of its ideas. Singer himself rejected the use of the theoretical framework of rights when it comes to human and nonhuman animals. Following Jeremy Bentham, Singer argued that the interests of animals should be considered because of their ability to experience suffering and that the idea of rights was not necessary in order to consider them. He popularized the term "speciesism" in the book, which had been coined by Richard D. Ryder to describe the exploitative treatment of animals.
Richard Hood Jack Dudley Ryder is an English writer, psychologist, and animal rights advocate.
The animal rights (AR) movement, sometimes called the animal liberation, animal personhood, or animal advocacy movement, is a social movement that seeks an end to the rigid moral and legal distinction drawn between human and non-human animals, an end to the status of animals as property, and an end to their use in the research, food, clothing, and entertainment industries.
Stephen Richard Lyster Clark is an English philosopher and professor emeritus of philosophy at the University of Liverpool. Clark specialises in the philosophy of religion and animal rights, writing from a philosophical position that might broadly be described as Christian Platonist. He is the author of twenty books, including The Moral Status of Animals (1977), The Nature of the Beast (1982), Animals and Their Moral Standing (1997), G.K. Chesterton (2006), Philosophical Futures (2011), and Ancient Mediterranean Philosophy (2012), as well as 77 scholarly articles, and chapters in another 109 books. He is a former editor-in-chief of the Journal of Applied Philosophy (1990–2001).
David Wood was Centennial Professor of Philosophy, and Joe B. Wyatt Distinguished University Professor, at Vanderbilt University.
Women have played a central role in animal advocacy since the 19th century. The animal advocacy movement – embracing animal rights, animal welfare, and anti-vivisectionism – has been disproportionately initiated and led by women, particularly in the United Kingdom. Women are more likely to support animal rights than men. A 1996 study of adolescents by Linda Pifer suggested that factors that may partially explain this discrepancy include attitudes towards feminism and science, scientific literacy, and the presence of a greater emphasis on "nurturance or compassion" amongst women. Although vegetarianism does not necessarily imply animal advocacy, a 1992 market research study conducted by the Yankelovich research organization concluded that "of the 12.4 million people [in the US] who call themselves vegetarian, 68% are female, while only 32% are male".
Contemporary debates about animal welfare and animal rights can be traced back to ancient history. Records from as early as the 6th century before the common era (BCE) include discussions of animal ethics in Jain and Greek texts. The relations between humans and nonnhumans are also discussed in the books of Exodus and Genesis, Jewish writings from the 6th or 5th century BCE.
The concept of moral rights for animals is believed to date as far back as Ancient India, particularly early Jainist and Hindu history. What follows is mainly the history of animal rights in the Western world. There is a rich history of animal protection in the ancient texts, lives, and stories of Eastern, African, and Indigenous peoples.
Lawrence Finsen is a professor of philosophy at University of Redlands in California, specializing in animal ethics. With his wife Susan Finsen, he is the author of The Animal Rights Movement in America: From Compassion to Respect (1994).
Beauty Without Cruelty (BWC) is an animal issues charity in South Africa, established in 1975. Its initial focus was animal testing, fur and ivory. It has subsequently expanded to include educating and offering kind options in all areas of animal exploitation. Beauty Without Cruelty is an animal rights organisation with a primary objective to educate and inform the public about the exploitation, abuse and suffering of all animals and to offer humane, non-animal alternatives, to replace cruel and harmful lifestyle choices. They receive no government or lottery funding and rely entirely on the generosity of supporters to continue work for animals. Beauty Without Cruelty means living without cruelty.
The Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (RSPCA) Reform Group was founded in 1970 by members of the British RSPCA who were frustrated by the organization's inability, as they saw it, to deal effectively with the issues raised by factory farming, animal testing, and hunting. The group was particularly concerned that pro-hunting members were attempting to prevent the society from expressing opposition to bloodsports; several of them had said they would lobby to have the RSPCA's charitable status removed if it campaigned against hunting.
Animals, Men and Morals: An Inquiry into the Maltreatment of Non-humans (1971) is a collection of essays on animal rights, edited by Oxford philosophers Stanley and Roslind Godlovitch, both from Canada, and John Harris from the UK. The editors were members of the Oxford Group, a group of postgraduate philosophy students and others based at the University of Oxford from 1968, who began raising the idea of animal rights in seminars and campaigning locally against factory farming and otter hunting.
Raymond G. Frey was a professor of philosophy at Bowling Green State University, specializing in moral, political and legal philosophy, and author or editor of a number of books. He was a noted critic of animal rights.
Susan Finsen is an American philosopher, currently professor emeritus of philosophy and former chair of the department at California State University, San Bernardino. She specializes in moral philosophy, with a particular interest in animal rights, as well as philosophy of science and philosophy of biology. She is the co-author, with her husband Lawrence Finsen, of The Animal Rights Movement in America: From Compassion to Respect (1994), and is the director of Californians for the Ethical Treatment of Animals.
Sentiocentrism, sentio-centrism, or sentientism is an ethical view that places sentient individuals at the center of moral concern. Both humans and other sentient individuals have rights and/or interests that must be considered.
Tatjana Višak, often credited as Tatjana Visak, is a German philosopher specialising in ethics and political philosophy who is currently based in the Department of Philosophy and Business Ethics at the University of Mannheim. She is the author of the monographs Killing Happy Animals and Capacity for Welfare Across Species, and the editor, with the political theorist Robert Garner, of The Ethics of Killing Animals.
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