Animal Liberation: A New Ethics for Our Treatment of Animals

Singer begins the final chapter by analyzing the state of speciesism in the world today. He believes that a child’s initial hesitance to eat meat, though a broad overgeneralization, is born out of the contradictory messages about humans’ relationship with animals. In fairy tales and stories, some animals are seen as friends while predatory wolves are the villains; yet, humans likewise eat cows and other animals. Children struggle with this paradoxical conditioning, and parents often show images of happy and imaginary farms to quell their children’s fears. Singer believes that children can be taught to respect animals, just as a new wave of feminist media in children’s literature empowers girls. A child’s “instinctive rebellion” to eating meat can be fostered by appropriate literature on the matter (208). 

Singer partially blames the media for not calling attention to the topic of animal rights. Without information and education, the public remains ignorant to the truth. Before recent exposés on animal laboratories, most experiments would never have seen the light of day. Singer believes that “[i]gnorance, then, is the speciesist’s first line of defense” (208). If the public and individuals both remain uneducated about the reality of factory farming and animal testing, there can be no change.