Varner, Gary E. "The Prospects for Consensus and Convergence in the Animal Rights Debate,"
Hastings Center Report 24(1): pp. 24-28, January-February 1994.
Media and partisans represent animal rights controversies as clear-cut
stand-offs with little or no common ground between opposing sides. A
less political and more philosophical look at the issue reveals
surprising prospects for consensus (agreement at the level of practice
based on agreement at the level of principle) or at least convergence
(agreement at the level of practice despite disagreement at the level of
principle). Most animal researchers share fundamental philosophical
presumptions with some animal rights advocates, and, at least in
principle, the philosophical principles of more radical animal rightists
could endorse at least some forms of animal experimentation.