Literature Review

I believe that animals have intrinsic value, that is, value in their own right, notderived from the ways they serve human welfare. Indeed, I believe that living thingsin general have intrinsic value, as individual organisms and as systematicallyrelated in ecosystems and the biosphere as a whole. Those who hold at least somenonhuman organisms or systems of organisms to be intrinsically valuable generallyfall into one of three theoretical approaches: animal welfare, animal rights, andenvironmental ethics. These three perspectives differ in their criteria of intrinsicvalue. They therefore draw the lines of moral considerability—that is, the class ofentities that should serve as ends, or that for the sake of which we ought to act—indifferent places.