Education

Much of the suffering of animals in the modern world can be traced historically to powerful, albeit barbaric, ideas.

The Book of Genesis recites that Man has dominion over animals, that they are to be sacrificed as offerings, that they are to fear humans, that they are to be eaten.  In short, Genesis expresses the view that animals were put on earth to be used by Man any way he wished.

Greek and Roman ideas about animals were no better, as the Coliseum dramatically illustrated.

Christianity and Thomas Aquinas held Biblical views about the relationship of animals to humans.

Then came philosopher-mathematician Rene Descartes, who held that lacking souls animals thus had no consciousness—so humans could do anything they wanted to them.  Including vivisection, which Descartes performed with gusto.

Indeed, we can see Decartes’s ideas underlying much of the contemporary attitude toward animal exploitation.  For example, when an automobile runs over a dog and the driver blithely says “Oh, sorry, I’ll get you another one,” he is unknowingly expressing Descartes’s philosophy that animals are no more than inanimate objects to be used, abused, and discarded.

There is only one way to overcome the ideas that have infected humans’ thinking about animals for thousands of years: through the development and dissemination of better ideas regarding the nature of animals and their rights.

Public education about animal rights, both theoretical and practical, has long been a primary activity of ISAR, and will continue to be an important part of our activities.

 
Articles

Reports

Programs