An American Philosopher: The Career of Tom Regan
Tom Regan, a professor of philosophy at
NC State, is considered the philosophical leader of the animal rights movement
in the United States. This exhibit highlights Regan’s career as a philosopher
and leader in the contemporary animal rights movement. He has written or edited
more than twenty books and numerous articles.
Regan has earned fellowships and grants
for his research and won prestigious awards including the Gandhi Award for Outstanding
Contributions to the Animal Rights Movement in 1986. His theories on environmental
policy and medical ethics are frequently discussed in philosophy and sociology
journals, and his works on euthanasia and animal rights are found in many textbooks
of philosophical ethics. Throughout his career, Regan has explored concepts
of what is truly ethical and right. His philosophical ideas and writings provide
us with a broader perspective on the controversial social and moral issues that
face humanity.
"No
one who sets out to think about violence and pacifism can do the work that needs
to be done and not read Gandhi. And read him I did: hundreds and hundreds, even
thousands of pages of his simple prose. This in itself was remarkable. I have
never been an energetic reader. I envy people (my wife Nancy is one of them)
who are. I wish I could be counted among their number. But I cannot. Especially
during the past dozen years or so, when I have written more and more, I have
been guilty of reading less and less. Except, as I say, in the case of Gandhi.
I read him with enormous energy and dedication. Perhaps it was in part because
of what Gandhi was and not only because of what he said that he exercised such
an uncommon power over me. This simple, fragile, apparently unsophisticated
man, against all the odds and contrary to every sensible expectation, became
a major actor on the world’s political stage, expressing in his own life the
principles of love and justice he would have a free, independent India express
in hers. How extraordinary! Even now I cannot help feeling that Gandhi was as
close to many of the most important moral truths as any mortal is likely to
be. The difference is, he managed to live them." -- Tom Regan, The Bird in
the Cage: A Glimpse of My Life—An Autobiography
Regan’s interest in animal rights and
vegetarianism came from his study of Gandhi. In 1972 he earned a summer stipend
from the National Endowment for the Humanities for research on the life and
thought of Gandhi. In 1986 Regan received the Farm Animal Reform Movement’s
Mahatma Gandhi Award for Outstanding Contributions to the Animal Rights Movement.
Unless noted, materials from this exhibit
are from the Tom Regan Collection, Special Collections Department, NCSU Libraries,
Raleigh, N.C.
Introduction