Reading Animal Liberation in 2025

On Peter Singer's Great Book, Burke, and Tradition

I recently read the 2023 version of Peter Singer’s great book, Animal Liberation. (The 2023 version is called Animal Liberation Now.) It’s exceptionally powerful. Any current reader will have a host of responses.

Here’s one: Singer’s book casts a dark light on Edmund Burke, the conservative thinker who is one of my heroes. The reason is that Burke valorized traditions, which he opposed to reason. Singer makes reason look pretty good, and he makes (some) traditions looks pretty awful. You can read Singer to raise the questions: What are the boundaries of traditionalism? When is Burkeanism least helpful?

1.

One of Burke’s key claims is that the “science of constructing a commonwealth, or reforming it, is, like every other experimental science, not to be taught a priori.” To make this argument, Burke opposes theories and abstractions, developed by individual minds, to traditions, built up by many minds over long periods.

In his most vivid passage, Burke writes:

“We wished at the period of the Revolution, and do now wish, to derive all we possess as an inheritance from our forefathers. . . . The science of government being therefore so practical in itself, and intended for such practical purposes, a matter which requires experience, and even more experience than any person can gain in his whole life, however sagacious and observing he may be, it is with infinite caution than any man ought to venture upon pulling down an edifice which has answered in any tolerable degree, for ages the common purposes of society, or on building it up again, without having models and patterns of approved utility before his eyes.”

It is for this reason that Burke describes the “spirit of innovation” as “the result of a selfish temper and confined views,” and offers the term “prejudice” as one of enthusiastic approval, noting that “instead of casting away all our old prejudices, we cherish them to a very considerable degree.”

(Those who care about animal welfare are open to a spirit of innovation, and do not cherish our old prejudices, which are reflected in the views of Descartes, who thought that nonhuman animals do not have emotions.)

Burke’s sharpest distinction, then, is between established practices and individual reason. He contends that reasonable citizens, aware of their own limitations, will effectively delegate decision-making authority to their own traditions.

“We are afraid to put men to live and trade each on his own private stock of reason,” simply “because we suspect that this stock in each man is small, and that the individuals would do better to avail themselves of the general bank and capital of nations, and of ages. Many of our men of speculation, instead of exploding general prejudices, employ their sagacity to discover the latent wisdom which prevails in them.”

Ok then. An obvious question is why and when we should suppose that “general prejudices” are wise.

2.

Singer’s book is profoundly unBurkean, even anti-Burkean. He is a rationalist. He insists, with Jeremy Bentham (no Burkean, that guy) “that we must consider the interests of all beings with the capacity for suffering or enjoyment.” He says: “If a being suffers, there can be no moral justification for refusing to take that suffering into consideration.” That is a moral claim. It does not build on traditions. It is self-evidently opposed to traditions, for human beings have often refused to take the suffering of animals into consideration.

The core of Singer’s moral argument is actually brisk, and it’s in Chapter 1, which is pretty short. Chapter 2 deals with scientific research, and it’s almost three times as long as Chapter 1. Chapter 3 deals with factory farms, and it’s painful reading, and it’s also long. Chapter 4 urges that it’s easy to live without speciesism.

Chapter 5 explores the history of speciesism, and it’s profoundly anti-Burkean. It holds up old ideas, and longstanding ideas, and makes them look clueless or terrible. Chapter 6 deals with objections to Animal Liberation, in which distinguished philosophers (including Bernard Williams and Shelly Kagan) seem to be pretty desperate to defend the view that human beings count a lot more than nonhuman animals do.

When I say “pretty desperate,” I mean that on these issues, Williams and Kagan are not exactly at their best. (Williams’ argument is particularly (a) ornate and (b) unconvincing.) They do seem to be influenced by, and speaking for, their traditions.

3.

The U.S. Supreme Court is pretty Burkean these days. In deciding on the scope of rights, it sometimes uses a “history and tradition” test. That is true for the scope of substantive rights under the due process clause. The “history and tradition” test also plays a role in determining the scope of the Second Amendment right.

Note that you can be an enthusiastic Burkean without being an originalist. You might think that the due process clause should not be read to fit with its original public meaning — but that its scope will be settled by examining longstanding traditions (even if they developed after the founding).

Why should anyone be a traditionalist? Justices might think (1) that their own judgments are highly unreliable (the Burkean point) and (2) that however imperfect, traditions are bound to be better. This is a kind of humble or half-hearted Burkeanism, based on the thought that crowds are wise (and traditions reflect the thinking of crowds) and also the thought that if a practice has lasted, it is probably good (an echo of Darwinism).

Alternatively, and more exuberantly, judges might think that traditions are highly reliable. That is a full-throated Burkeanism.

If, for example, the American people have long believed that parents are entitled to decide how many children they will have, we have reason to think that parents should be entitled to decide how many children they will have. Outside of constitutional law, consider traditions with respect to marriage, childbirth, and death: Longstanding traditions might have survived for good or excellent reasons.

Many people who pay heed to traditions, or defer to them, are Burkeans. Many people who valorize traditions, as such, are not really Burkeans, but they share his enthusiasm for longstanding practices, and his skepticism about the reasoning of the current hour. They too are skeptical about current, individual thinkers, wielding their own reason.

4.

Nonhuman animals have not participated in the creation of traditions. If pigs have long been raised in certain ways before they are killed and eaten, it is not because they have chosen to be raised in those ways. If horses have been treated in certain ways by people who own horses, it might be, in part, because those ways of treating horses are good for horses. But it might not be.

With respect to nonhuman animals, it is true that longstanding human practices might have survived because they are in some sense good for those animals. (That is a possibility.) But they might have survived only because they are good for human beings.

Burke was a sentimental writer, and a sentimental thinker, and he carries you away. Still, I like him a lot (maybe I have been carried away). In my view, there is something to be said for wisdom-of-crowds traditionalism, and also for survival-is-evidence-of-wisdom traditionalism. (Edna Ullmann-Margalit has done terrific work on this topic, see https://www.jstor.org/stable/40971181.)

It would be very good to be clear on the circumstances in which traditionalism does and does not make sense. We could really use Analytical Burkeanism. (Am I proposing a project on that topic. I am!)

But some things are clear. With respect to animal welfare, traditionalism really does not make sense. Here’s the reason. Nonhuman animals had no role in creating the traditions that are increasingly under scrutiny.