Live Free or Die: On their Own Terms: Bringing Animal-Rights Philosophy Down to Earth By Lee Hall

Authors

Joel Marks, University of New Haven, Yale University

First Page

243

Abstract

This book review examines Lee Hall’s new book, which presents an innovative animal rights theory: wild animals, due to their autonomous nature, are endowed with rights, but domesticated animals lack rights because they are not autonomous. With that theory in mind, Hall outlines ideas about how humans are obligated to treat both wild and domestic animals. Hall first argues that the rights of wild animals require that humans let them alone. Yet, despite the fact that domestic animals lack rights under Hall’s theory, Hall argues that humans are required to care for them because it is humans who brought them into existence. While the reviewer believes that Hall’s theory is indeed innovative and appealing, he ultimately concludes that it cannot explain why domestic animals completely lack rights and that the implications of the theory for how they are to be treated are unsatisfactory.

Recommended Citation

Joel Marks, Live Free or Die: On their Own Terms: Bringing Animal-Rights Philosophy Down to Earth By Lee Hall, 17 Animal L. Rev. 243 (2010).
Available at: https://lawcommons.lclark.edu/alr/vol17/iss1/9