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Richard D. Ryder (born 1940) is a British psychologist who, after performing psychology experiments on animals, began to speak out against the practice, and became one of the pioneers of the modern animal liberation movement. He was Mellon Professor at Tulane University, New Orleans, and is the author of Painism: A Modern Morality (2003) and Putting Morality Back into Politics (2006).
A former chairman of the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals council, and a past president of Britain's Liberal Democrat Animal Protection Group, he is parliamentary consultant to the Political Animal Lobby as of April 2004.
Arguably Ryder's most famous work is Victims of Science (1975) detailing the long history of the use of animals in medical and other research. Ryder was a contributor to the influential Animals, Men and Morals: An Inquiry into the Maltreatment of Non-humans (1972) edited by Roslind and Stanley Godlovitch and John Harris. It was in a review of this book for the New York Review of Books that Peter Singer put forward the basic arguments, based on utilitarianism, that in 1975 became Animal Liberation, the book often referred to as the "bible" of the animal rights movement.
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Speciesism and painism
Ryder coined the term speciesism in 1970 while lying in the bath,[1] and first used it in a privately-printed leaflet published in Oxford that same year.
He calls his current position on the moral status of non-human animals painism, a term he coined in 1985, arguing that all beings who feel pain deserve rights. Painism can be seen as a third way between Peter Singer's utilitarian position and Tom Regan's deontological rights view. It combines the utilitarian view that moral status comes from the ability to feel pain with the rights view prohibition on using others as a means to our ends.citation needed
He has criticized Regan’s criterion for inherent worth, arguing that all beings who feel pain have inherent value. He has also criticized the utilitarian idea that exploitation of others can be justified if there is an overall gain in pleasure, arguing that: "One of the problems with the utilitarian view is that, for example, the sufferings of a gang-rape victim can be justified if the rape gives a greater sum total of pleasure to the rapists."[1]
References
- Animal Rights Library, selection of writings by Ryder on animal rights.
- Dr Richard D. Ryder - Official Site, Ryder's Background, Bibliography and Contact details.
- ^ a b Ryder, Richard (6 August 2005). "All beings that feel pain deserve human rights", The Guardian. Retrieved on 2007-05-04.
External links
Wikipedia content modification information:
- This page was last modified on 7 September 2008, at 15:51.
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