Ethics Into Action: Henry Spira and the Animal Rights Movement

Henry Spira is a lifelong activist and founder of the modern animal rights movement. Inspired by the thinking of Peter Singer in the early 1970s, Henry turned Singer's ethical lessons into action, launching campaigns against organisations whose practices caused unnecessary suffering to animas. He has taken on some of the most powerful companies in America, including Revlon, Avon, Perdue, and McDonald's with extraordinary success. His respectful, though forceful, dialogue with these opponents convinces them that they can change their procedures without losing face or profit. This inspiring story of Henry's life and his campaigns proposes that his remarkable successful method of action can be adopted by activists of all kinds.

Table of Contents:
Part 1 Preface Part 2 Acknowledgments Chapter 3 1 The Buildup Chapter 4 2 Animal Liberation Chapter 5 3 The Dream of Beauty and the Nightmare of the Rabbit Chapter 6 4 Conflict and Progress Chapter 7 5 The Forgotten Animal Issue Chapter 8 6 Pushing the Peanut Forward Part 9 Notes Part 10 Index Part 11 About the Author

About the Author :
Peter Singer is DeCamp Professor of Bioethics at Princeton University and the author of many books, including Animal Liberation: A New Ethics of Our Treatment of Animals (Random House), and Practical Ethics (Cambridge University Press). Henry Spira lives in New York City.

Review :
Henry Spira has been a teacher, a guide, an inspiration to his generation and the one that is about to take over. One life's calling, one life's passion, one life's work of conscience and art. Here is the story of someone who dances to his own drummer, leading the revolution forward. Henry Spira is a shining example of how to be an effective, pragmatic, and humane animal activist. In this volume, world-renowned philosopher Peter Singer, who was the inspiration for Spira's start in animal activism, has produced a marvelously lucid and insightful biography of his life and activist philosophy. You cannot have an accurate understanding of what the animal rights movement has achieved these last three decades without reading what the movement's most revered philosopher relates in Ethics into Action about the movement's most tactically brilliant activist. . . . To have insight into the still-spinning web of Henry's life is to understand how compassion sensibly lived can drive humane accomplishments. The name Henry Spira is synonymous with activism that makes a difference . . . and that carries with it the broad perspective that is needed. When the animal rights movement finally achieves the respect it deserves . . . Spira will be to animal liberation as King was to civil rights—and Singer, a giant himself in our field, tells his story as no one else could have. Henry Spira is not a Catholic, but if he were his patron saint would surely be St. Francis of Assisi—he who loved all God's creatures. All his life Henry has fought for the helpless, but most of all for the most helpless of the helpless. Here is his story in Peter Singer's Ethics into Action, a powerful scholarly and often painful narrative, a book bristling with facts and documentation. If you are Catholic you'll put Henry Spira's picture right up there with St. Francis, and, in honor of Peter Singer, you might pass on that next sirloin steak. Without being preachy or polemical, this brilliant consciousness-raising life story makes a strong case that it's time to phase out the needless suffering of animals. Singer has produced a clear, engaging and useful account of Spira's productive career. Singer's well-written and fascinating book is essential for animal welfare and animal rights collections. inspirational to those who are working for any kind of social change, because they demonstrate that it is possible . . . Singer has written an admirable biography of an individual whose life can provide lessons to us all: a man who cut through the nonsense and had a profound effect on many who knew him. But above all else, Ethics into Action demonstrates how important certain unique individuals are to political movements. Peter Singer has done well to introduce Henry Spira to a wider public. Singer's story of his friend [Henry Spira] is engrossing, and will inspire moderate activists the world over. This unique book explores the way philosophical arguments on behalf of non-human animals shaped one man's life and the way that man's life subsequently shaped the strategies and activism of an entire social movement. An inspiring introduction to the world of animal rights, environmental ethics, social activism, and personal choice. The book flows in a lively fashion and should prove both interesting and informative to readers at all levels. Social movement scholars will enjoy reading Ethics into Action as a case study of an early animal rights activist. More importantly, this book provides an alternative view to the single-minded focus of the animal rights movement by displaying an activist whose pragmatic approach connected themes from myriad social movements. Above all, the book is a primer fro social activists who are interested how to achieve change. For those dissatisfied with simply yelling at the public, Singer has written a book that can help activists envision how activists can take on seemingly impossible opponents and win.