50 years After Singer’s Animal Liberation: A Reflection

One of the landmark books in the animal rights movement is Peter Singer’s 1975 Animal Liberation. While people fought for the interests of animals long before its publication, the decades after the release of the book saw a major growth in animal advocacy around the world. As 2025 marks the 50th anniversary of the publication of Animal Liberation, the author of this article argues that it’s necessary for animal advocates to reflect on the achievements and failures of the last 50 years of the movement.

The author draws on a variety of evidence for their analysis, including legal victories, dietary changes, cultural shifts, economic and population growth, and new technologies. Although they try to draw on an international perspective, the author notes that their evidence often comes from the animal rights movements in European countries. They draw four major conclusions from their reflection.

First, they argue that state regulation has been ineffective in reducing animal suffering, despite improvements in animal welfare policies. Policy changes are often avoided or not implemented fully. For example, companies dealt with the 1999 E.U. ban on battery cages in egg production by modifying the cages for chickens. In 2019, when advocates demanded a ban of all cages in animal agriculture, the European Commission seemed willing, but hadn’t yet fulfilled a promise to outline concrete steps towards that goal by 2023. When the E.U. banned animal experimentation for cosmetics in 2003, significant exceptions to the ban were created for scientific research. One promising new area is granting legal personhood to animals. While attempts have failed so far in the U.S. and Switzerland, others have succeeded. For example, Pacific indigenous leaders signed a treaty in 2024 to grant whales legal rights and protections.

Second, the author claims that changing consumer choices, especially the growth of veganism, are important changes. The author describes a shift from vegetarianism to veganism, with more advocates pushing for totally cutting out animal products. There has been a significant growth in plant-based option availability at restaurants and grocery stores. In some countries, like the U.K. or Germany, meat consumption is at an all time low. However, only a small number of people reject most or all animal products — and they are the ones driving this change.

Third, they argue that population and economic growth have increased the amount of animal suffering in the world. The population has doubled since 1975, from 4 to 8 billion, while economic growth has allowed more of those 8 billion to buy and sell meat than ever before. For example, China has seen a huge growth in animal agriculture, becoming the world’s biggest meat producer. As other low-income countries like Brazil become richer, the demand for animal products in those countries will increase. It is likely that these countries will adopt Western industrial farming models that will significantly worsen animal suffering — and we have clear evidence that animal slaughter is outpacing population growth.

Finally, they argue that cultured meat technology may reduce animal suffering in the future. Cultured meat, also known as in-vitro or lab meat, uses stem cells and chemical processes to grow meat in a laboratory. Currently, this process is expensive and requires animal products such as fetal bovine serum to grow the cells, but there is some optimism about developing cruelty-free alternatives. If a cheap and ethical way to produce cultured meat can be found, the author speculates this may have a huge impact on reducing animal suffering. As an example of similar change, they point to new methods to identify the sex of chickens before they hatch from eggs, which resulted in France and Germany banning chick culling in 2022. Some countries, like the U.S. and Singapore, have already legalized the sale of cultured meat. However, there has been some pushback against cultured meat. In 2023, Italy banned the sale, production, or importation of cultured meat. In 2024, Florida and Alabama also banned cultured meat.

It’s important for animal advocates to reflect on long-lasting trends and which strategies to pursue in the future. In particular, the author makes the case that welfare reforms have not had a major effect on animal suffering — something that will certainly be controversial among advocates. However, it’s important to note that this article tends to focus on animal advocacy in European countries. For example, when the author discusses animal personhood, the article mentions only the campaigns of the U.S. Nonhuman Rights Project and a vote in the Swiss city of Basel. There are other countries who have had major victories in this area that aren’t mentioned, like the Ecuadorian Constitutional Court’s 2022 landmark ruling that animals are legal persons with fundamental rights. Near the end of the article, they mention the He Whakaputanga Moana treaty by Pacific Indigenous leaders to grant rights to whales and dolphins, but this is mentioned only in passing and the name of the treaty or leaders is not given.

While every example can’t be explored in one article, the author does note that their evidence comes most often from Europe. Although it is useful to examine general trends, it’s also important to recognize that animal advocacy may succeed with tactics in some countries or regions that might not work in others. Overall, this article offers a large-scale view of major developments in the animal advocacy space after the publication of a significant text that informed its trajectory. Advocates may come to their own conclusions based on their specific situations, but awareness of the overall trends is a useful tool to plan the future of animal advocacy.