Arthur Schopenhauer Quote

The Classic Animal Rights Quote

"The assumption that animals are without rights and the illusion that our treatment of them has no moral significance is a positively outrageous example of Western crudity and barbarity." ― Arthur Schopenhauer, 'The Basis Of Morality'.

What is Animal Rights?

Animal rights is the philosophy according to which many or all sentient animals have moral worth that is independent of their utility for humans, and that their most basic interests— such as in avoiding suffering—should be afforded the same consideration as similar interests of human beings.

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Who is Arthur Schopenhauer?

Arthur Schopenhauer (22 February 1788 – 21 September 1860) was a German philosopher. He is best known for his 1818 work The World as Will and Representation (expanded in 1844), which characterizes the phenomenal world as the product of a blind noumenal will.

Building on the transcendental idealism of Immanuel Kant (1724- 1804), Schopenhauer developed an atheistic metaphysical and ethical system that rejected the contemporaneous ideas of German idealism. He was among the first thinkers in Western philosophy to share and affirm significant tenets of Indian philosophy, such as asceticism, denial of the self, and the notion of the world-as-appearance.

Arthur Schopenhauer's View on Animal Rights

Arthur Schopenhauer, who had been strongly influenced by the Buddhist tradition in his philosophy of the Will, would argue thereafter that animals do have rights that should be respected, as they are beings driven by craving and subject to The Will. Schopenhauer says that due to The Will contained in animals, they should be treated kindly, as there is not only an ethical component involved but even a person's character is altered by how he treats non-human animals.

According to Schopenhauer: "Since compassion for animals is so intimately associated with goodness of character, it may be confidently asserted that whoever is cruel to animals cannot be a good man." and finally, that "Universal compassion is the only guarantee of morality", echoing Buddhist views on animal ethics. However, Schopenhauer did not openly advocate for vegetarianism. Arthur Schopenhauer has often been referred to as "The First European Buddhist" due to how similar his beliefs were to Buddhist philosophy.