Animals Matter: The Case for a Kinder World

In Animals Matter, Cass Sunstein offers a pathbreaking new argument for why we must change our practices to reduce the unjustified suffering of animals. This surprisingly personal book offers a simple proposition: The interests of animals count, and we should work to promote their well-being, just as we should work to promote the well-being of humans. Drawing on psychology, behavioral economics, and his White House experiences, Sunstein reveals why people are likely, in time, to increase their support for the legal protection of animals and why, ultimately, we should adopt a Bill of Rights for animals that affirms their right to live free from cruelty and deprivation.

Applying his research on “social cascades,” Sunstein compares the animal rights movement to previous causes such as civil rights that exploded in size once they passed a threshold moment. But this change won’t happen on its own. Sunstein demonstrates that we need to overcome deliberate ignorance about the mistreatment of animals, to make their suffering conspicuous and visible, and to create animal welfare cascades. Our governments need to recognize benefits and harms to animals in their policymaking. We need to give political and legal representation to animals who are being mistreated, and we need to use “nudges” to increase their well-being.

Animal rights are not radical or utopian; they are rooted in widespread moral judgments. Sunstein shows how we can eventually create a world in which most people will come to embrace rights for animals.