Where to start

Where to start

If you’re new to this website and don’t know where to begin exploring its contents, here are some suggestions.

Looking for ways to help?

Animals are always in need of people who want to do something for them, so thank you! You can go directly to our Defending Animals section, or, more specifically, to the What you can do do or the Collaborate with Animal Ethics page. From there, you can visit other parts of our website, where we explain how animals can be helped, including our sections about how animals can be helped in nature and how to reject animal exploitation.

Do you want to have a deeper knowledge of animal ethics, or other related issues?

If you’re going to read just one thing, consider this general introduction. If you’re willing to explore the issue a bit more, it may be useful for you to take a look at the general texts in the various sections on this site. More specifically, we recommend reading the following texts for each of the topics:

·⠀In the ethics section, begin on the main page pertaining to speciesism. Then take a look at the pages linked at the bottom of that article to learn more about the arguments against speciesism.

·⠀In the sentience section, you can read about criteria for recognizing sentience, and then look at what beings are conscious.

·⠀We recommend reading the relevance of sentience, which links to others explaining why we should give moral consideration to sentient beings, rather than living beings, ecosystems or species.

·⠀In the wild animal suffering section, we recommend reading about why wild animal suffering matters, the situation of animals in the wild and helping animals in the wild. If you want to have a deeper understanding of this issue, we would recommend that you also read the population dynamics and animal suffering

·⠀In the animal exploitation section you’ll find different introductory texts on the use of animals for food, clothing, experimentation, entertainment, work, decoration or as companions. Also see the page about veganism.

Once you look at these pages, you may have a good idea of where to go from there because of the links you’ll find there. We also share posts regularly on Facebook and Twitter that reference our website content and related topics in contemporary news.

Many pages include a number of references which will allow you to look for more information and data about each of the issues.

Are you an animal advocate interested in having a strong basis for your arguments and outreach work?

Learn the arguments according to all major ethical theories and take a look at our Introduction to wild animal suffering video course and ebook. You can also download our leaflets.

Are you a researcher or an academic?

In addition to reading the education materials on our website, see our bibliographies, literature reviews, and research blueprints. Get in touch to see how we can help you get started in your research or if you want to collaborate.