Animal rights the interests of the worse off more important than those of the better off. Another approach, virtue ethics, holds that in considering how to act we should consider the character of the actor, and what kind of moral agents we should be. Rosalind Hursthouse has suggested an approach to animal rights based on virtue ethics. Mark Rowlands has proposed a contractarian approach. Nussbaum (2004) writes that utilitarianism, starting with Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill, has contributed more to the recognition of the moral status of animals than any other ethical theory. The utilitarian philosopher most associated with animal rights
The Collected Works of Jeremy Bentham in many points of detail, and which omits Bentham's writings on religion; and also the 3-volume "Jeremy Bentham's Economic Writings" (1952–54) edited by Werner Stark, which has likewise been subject to criticism. The series is being published under the auspices of the Bentham Project at University College London, whose library holds the majority of Bentham's surviving manuscripts. Since 2010 the Project has also run Transcribe Bentham, a project for transcribing Bentham's manuscripts through crowdsourcing, the output of which is intended, once edited, to appear in future "Collected Works" volumes. The Bentham Project is governed by the Bentham Committee, which was