Welcome to animals and ethics, the website of animal rights activist and author Norm Phelps. It includes articles, book reviews, a page describing my books, links to just a few of my favorite websites, and animal poetry by my wife Patti Rogers. I created this site to promote the following principles:
Animals, from the most complex to the very simple, are sentient beings whose suffering and death are as urgent to them as our suffering and death are to us. Therefore, we have a profound moral obligation to show the same level of compassion for their suffering and concern for their wellbeing that we show for our own.
Our relationship to animals is evil, based as it is on the massive and systematic imprisonment, enslavement, and murder of innocent sentient beings. This can be made right only by the complete, permanent, and universal liberation of animals from human oppression.
While morality requires us to be radical in our goals, it also demands that we be pragmatic in the means we pursue to achieve those goals. Practices that are as deeply ingrained in our society and in our individual psyches will not disappear simply because we keep chanting the mantra of liberation. History shows that radical social movements succeed when their advocates maintain the purity of their vision while moving toward it slowly, gradually, one step at a time.
I hope you enjoy animals and ethics and find it helpful in our common struggle to liberate the most helpless and oppressed of those who live at the mercy of our all too merciless society.