The final section, Animal Equality, develops a nonspeciesist framework with rights for all animals. This philosophy accords all sentient beings equal consideration and respect. Liberated from property status, nonhuman animals receive all applicable rights as persons under the law. Nonhuman rights to life and liberty restrain humans from breeding, confining, exploiting, or intentionally and needlessly killing other animals. Joining these basic rights is a nonhuman right to property, understood as including nonhumans' bodily secretions (e.g., milk, eggs, and honey), what nonhumans build (e.g., nests and dens), and their natural habitats ("undeveloped" areas communally owned by their nonhuman residents). Without the right to property, other animals have no legal protection from humans who assert property rights to expand industrial civilization, displacing nonhumans from their territory and destroying their means of survival. Nonspeciesist advocacy, such as promoting veganism and animal rights, erodes speciesism and advances nonhuman emancipation.

Written clearly and concisely, this book lights the path to justice for all sentient beings. Advocates for nonhuman animals will greatly benefit from this rational, motivating, and compellingly argued book.

In two consecutive chapters, “Mapping Human Rights” and “Putting People in Their Place,” Regan explains how animal rights theory has its foundations in human rights thought, and the importance of distinctions between positive and negative, and moral and legal, rights.

Animal advocates will find Regan’s chapter, “Patterns of Resistance,” useful in terms of putting their own efforts into historical context. Regan suggests that a good understanding of the history of moral issues is important, especially in terms of seeing how Christianity and science has shaped the moral landscape in relation to issues like slavery, women’s rights, and homosexuality. From this starting point, Regan outlines how these same social forces have influenced how we have thought about human relations with other animals. Regan states that the granting of equal moral consideration to nonhuman animals means

"we would be obliged to reconstruct our conception of who we and they are… No longer could we suppose that we may use them simply for our benefit, either because ‘that’s why God made them’ or because ‘human superiority can be demonstrated by objective science.’ No longer could we suppose that they exist so that we might eat them, or wear their hides or skins, or use them as tools in education, product testing, research, and so on. On the contrary, we would be obliged to put an end to these and many other exploitive practices. (2001: 136.)"

Vegan Ireland recommends Defending Animal Rights as a perfect introduction to Tom Regan’s work. While many people have noted that his The Case for Animal Rights is a difficult philosophical text, Defending is accessible with its stand-alone chapters and updates themes Regan first explored in The Case as well as breaking new ground.

In the AR movement, we also urgently need to mesh that understanding with our advocacy. Since humans are the dominant force on earth, we do need to speak out – but not for animals so much as against that very domination of them. Can we relinquish our control over wild habitats and free-living beings? Can we simply allow nature to make the rules for animals, instead of continually foisting our dominion over them? That will require a good deal of stepping back for many of us, and a little more stepping forward for others. After all, we are the ones doing the most speaking on behalf of animals.

Advocates may also forget that the earth is a finite space. Groups that lobby for industrial animals to be kept in larger spaces or on pasture, will often simultaneously protest the hunting and removal of wild animals from wild spaces. But these two causes are actually in direct conflict with each other, on a finite landmass, with an ever-growing human and domestic animal population.

To add to the confusion, words like “welfare” and “welfarism” are increasingly being misused in AR dialog. With so many ideas and groups working in advocacy, we shouldn’t be too surprised when confusion about our goals and methods arise.

In On Their Own Terms: Bringing Animal Rights Philosophy Down to Earth, Lee Hall cuts through the jargon, and is once again presenting whole solutions to underlying problems. This time not only in animal advocacy, but for a world that desperately needs to heal from our unrestrained exploitation of it.

And while we may expect to be guilted, grossed out, or otherwise have our senses assaulted reading an AR book, those are conspicuously missing. In their place, we have a practical and yes – down to earth – discussion about respecting the right of animals to live without interference from humans. Included is a detailed analysis of current thinking from Peter Singer, Tom Regan, and Gary Francione, and new insights which, within the context of a finite world that doesn’t revolve around us, chart the most direct course for reaching AR goals.

This is a book not to be missed by anyone who is curious about what Animal Rights is really all about, as well as those who are already involved in advocacy.