In an effort to apply feminist theory to the task of finding a proper or revised ethic for the treatment of nonhuman animals, Beyond Animal Rights is a collection of seven essays that express the thoughts of scholars, writers, and activists, both men and women. Positioned at various perspectives of the animal issue, ranging from the ecological to the legal, the essays explore the essential question of whether the "rights-based" theory is an adequate basis for a nonhuman animal defense ethic.
     Philosophy professor Brian Luke, in "Justice, Caring, and Animal  Liberation," contends that "justice-based arguments for animal liberation  fail," and maintains that animal liberation requires an ethical rather than a rational or rights-centered approach. Although he recognizes that the social and institutionalized forces of animal exploitation covertly-and successfully-campaign against any collective perception of the true nature of nonhuman animals, still he dismisses the theory of justice as "unsound and irrelevant." Luke places his hopes for success in an increasing awareness of the nonhuman-human bond.

Psychologist Kenneth Shapiro discusses the attitude of caring, perhaps in contrast to the human rights activist, as the unifying force demonstrated by most nonhuman animal activists. "The Caring Sleuth" presents a methodical detailing of that attitude, which permits the activists not only the ability  to "deobjectify" those animals used for, among other nefarious purposes, human food consumption, vanity, or corrupt "science", despite all enforced social conditioning to the contrary, but also allows them the capacity to seek out suffering.

Shapiro aptly observes that such sleuthing is all-pervasive in that it becomes a force that inescapably invades the entirety of an individual's daily life. Citing Paola Cavalieri's assessment in "Reflections", he agrees that "It means to walk in the streets and see butcher shops, pharmacies, furrier(s), perfumeries, or to sit in restaurants not far from people eating animal flesh."  Shapiro suggests that the attitude of caring, a twenty-four hour a day commitment, remains the foundation of the "animal rights" movement.

Professor Josephine Donovan's "Attention to Suffering" presents the argument that a sympathy-based ethic is both useful and practical.  Challenging a rational rights-based ethic, far from being a mere emotional and/or irrational response, she suggests that "sympathy is a complex intellectual as well as emotional exercise." In her assertion that "the motivation for response (to exploitation) remains the primary experience of sympathy," she claims that a viable ethic in the pursuit of liberating nonhuman animals is sympathy for that exploitation and caring about their circumstances and well-being. 

Arguing the perceived merits of a care-based, as opposed to a rights-based, or, more properly, a rational approach, the thread that unites this collection, is a thorny issue. It is, at best, naive, and perhaps even unwise uniformly to disregard the rational argument in pursuing the liberation of nonhuman animals from human tyranny, in the hope that humans can learn to "care for animals". History has shown that any dependence on the intrinsic goodness of human nature for the institution of change inevitably will return disappointing results. As J.B. Sukonick notes in his book, Animals: Why They Must Not Be Brutalized, nonhuman animals do possess inalienable rights, chief among which is their inherent right to self-determination.  Still, Beyond Animal Rights is a stimulating read as it challenges the reader to examine the issue and identify the most effective strategies in the fight for nonhuman animal liberation.                                  --Rhona Zaid, PhD

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