"All the arguments to prove man's superiority cannot shatter this hard fact: in suffering the animals are our equals"
About this Quote
The subtext is a direct indictment of the ways societies launder cruelty through philosophy. "All the arguments" is doing a lot of work: it gestures toward centuries of rationalizations (from Aristotle to Descartes to everyday meat-eater common sense) that treat animals as instruments because humans can write treatises about it. Singer flips the hierarchy by choosing a metric that doesn't flatter the species doing the measuring. Superiority becomes irrelevant, even embarrassing, when the moral question is about what can be harmed, not what can compose symphonies.
Context matters: Singer is a leading voice in modern utilitarian ethics and the animal liberation movement, pushing against speciesism the way earlier reformers pushed against racism or sexism - not by claiming animals are "like us" in every way, but by insisting that likeness isn't the point. The rhetorical move is strategic: if suffering is the moral baseline, then factory farming, animal testing, and casual consumption stop looking like private choices and start looking like systemic violence with excellent PR.
Quote Details
| Topic | Ethics & Morality |
|---|---|
| Source | Peter Singer, Animal Liberation (1975). |
| Cite |
Citation Formats
APA Style (7th ed.)
Singer, Peter. (2026, January 14). All the arguments to prove man's superiority cannot shatter this hard fact: in suffering the animals are our equals. FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/all-the-arguments-to-prove-mans-superiority-76076/
Chicago Style
Singer, Peter. "All the arguments to prove man's superiority cannot shatter this hard fact: in suffering the animals are our equals." FixQuotes. January 14, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/all-the-arguments-to-prove-mans-superiority-76076/.
MLA Style (9th ed.)
"All the arguments to prove man's superiority cannot shatter this hard fact: in suffering the animals are our equals." FixQuotes, 14 Jan. 2026, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/all-the-arguments-to-prove-mans-superiority-76076/. Accessed 12 Feb. 2026.








