"This book defends the novel position that certain ideas deriving from the social contract tradition in philosophy - the tradition which sees moral rights as deriving from implicit agreements between individuals - can be used to justify the claim that our obligations to them are far more substantial than we commonly think. Critiquing the rival accounts of writers such as Peter Singer and Tom Regan, this groundbreaking book shows how an influential form of the social contact idea can be used to make sense of and justify the concept of animal rights."--BOOK JACKET.