An Animal-Friendly Life

Vegan education: The new BVA video kiosk

2009-03-12T00:55:00.005-04:00

Due to all the components and construction materials, the Boston Vegan Association's new "OVED" (outdoor video educational display, or "faunette") was neither cheap nor easy to build, but I'm pretty excited to see what kind of effect it has on our weekly tabling in the community. The video isn't quite done yet, but we at least have enough footage to get the idea across for now. Take a look:

FYI, we'd been using a poster (below) while developing and building the OVED. Though that turned out pretty well, it simply doesn't have the impact of an audio/video presentation. I have to thank everyone in and out of the BVA who has contributed ideas, time, footage, and so forth to help the OVED come together.

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Guest post up over at Paw-Talk

2009-03-01T09:23:00.004-05:00

Paw Talk: Love animals? Why aren’t you vegan?

Like Mary, I was invited to write a guest post over at the blog for Paw Talk, a site that is very much developed and promoted from the traditional welfare view. In other words, the animals of concern there are all "pets" and the issues that affect them are those of welfare and the law. The invitation came almost exactly two months ago, and at first I wasn't even sure I'd be able to offer anything. I certainly don't want to reinforce the notion that animals are means to our ends, rather than ends in themselves (the notion of a "pet" or a "companion animal" is rooted in our conception of that animal's relationship to us, rather than that animals' autonomy).

After pondering the matter for a bit, I decided that the only type of post that would make sense for me to provide was the sort of discussion found at the heart of the Boston Vegan Association's "Respecting Animals Means Going Vegan" pamphlet, which addresses people's concern for cats and dogs and extrapolates that to animals beyond those generally considered "pets". I connect to this discussion on a personal level because my own veganism was facilitated by making the connection between animals I had considered family and those I had considered commodities and realizing that my behavior toward animals was inconsistent. Once I had the idea, it took me a couple of months to find time to adapt the pamphlet's base argument into something resembling a blog post, but it was finally published today. Here is a link to the entry if you'd like to check it out. Let me know what you think.

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Free abolitionist vegan pamphlets announced

2009-02-12T23:10:00.007-05:00

I'm pleased to announce that, thanks to the support of a kind and generous donor, the Boston Vegan Association has launched a major new initiative. Effective immediately, the organization will fund the printing and distribution of its full-color abolitionist vegan outreach pamphlet to qualifying advocates throughout North America.

To learn more about the program and how to apply, visit the pamphlet application page.

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Uploaded: Interview on local Boston radio show

2009-01-31T15:17:00.004-05:00

Click here to listen to an archived copy of my radio interview this morning on WZBC's "Expanding Awareness" (right-click to download to your computer and listen to it on your iPod or whatever).

Note: I'm still working at this whole radio interview thing, but overall it went fine, and I have been asked to come back some time, so hopefully I'll get a chance to talk more about foundational stuff and less about people's health concerns.

Feel free to share your thoughts as a comment below.

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Upcoming BVA interview on call-in radio show

2009-01-27T23:56:00.002-05:00

This Saturday, from 10a to 11a, tune in to WZBC 90.3 if you're interested in hearing an interview with me regarding the connection between animal rights and veganism, as well as my organization, the Boston Vegan Association. I will appear in-studio with the host of "Expanding Awareness," Victor Venckus. WZBC is sandwiched between WGBH and WBUR on the FM dial in Boston, MA. If you that station is not broadcast in your area, you can listen in online at wzbc.org.

FYI, the second half of the show is a call-in segment: (617) 552-4686.

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Chocolate pudding, plus bonus food pr0n!

2009-01-19T00:06:00.008-05:00

I get the late-night munchies like anyone else (and I have a notorious sweet tooth), but I don't often have something in the fridge or cupboards that really calls out to me, so I end up prowling the kitchen, unsatisfied. Well, tonight some silken tofu I had bought for just such an occasion finally came in handy.

I found an interesting-looking recipe for chocolate pudding that incorporated peanut butter (on this old page, but you have to scroll down to find it), which sounded about right. I was out of peanut butter, though, so I went for cashew butter instead. Turned out tasty, so I thought I'd share the recipe. After all, it's been ages since I've posted about food, and I figure some of you might appreciate having another easy snack recipe on hand. Let me know what you think!

Silky chocolate pudding

Ingredients

12 oz. silken tofu (I used a 1 lb. package and saved 4 oz to blend into a smoothie in the morning)

1/3 cup + 2 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder

1/3 cup + 2 tablespoons pure maple syrup

2 tsp. pure vanilla extract

2 tbsp. natural cashew butter

Instructions

Dump everything together in a food processor or blender and blend until smooth

Pour into individual serving dishes, if desired (or one big bowl just for you!)

Chill for about a half an hour or so in the fridge, if you can wait that long

Eat!

Oh, and below is the bonus food pr0n, a Chickpea Casserole I made last week from page 96 of Isa Chandra Moskowitz's Vegan With A Vengeance:

Excellent stuff. I swear I can barely cook without directions, but as long as people like Isa keep writing books, I'll keep eating tasty food.

What do you think? Share your comments below.

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Animal Rights 101, part six: New Welfarism

2009-01-16T16:39:00.004-05:00

Introduction

In order to respect the basic moral rights of nonhuman animals, we must abolish their use. Once we’ve done this in our own lives by becoming vegan, we are left with the question of how to abolish the use of animals in society at large. Given that the use of animals will not end overnight, and that we have a duty to help today’s animals, the question can be more specifically framed as, “What sort of advocacy leads incrementally to abolition?”

Much of the modern global animal protection movement’s advocacy work is grounded in the belief that we can bring about abolition--or at least animal “liberation”--by focusing on how nonhuman animals are treated by humans. Broadly speaking, the idea is that advocating welfare reform and educating the public about animal suffering will incrementally reduce that suffering, eventually leading to the abolition of animal use or to greater consideration for the preferences of nonhuman animals. In his work, professor Gary L. Francione calls this ideology new welfarism.[1]

New welfarism

There are at least two major strands of new welfarism recognizable within the modern global animal protection movement.

The first is comprised of people who consider themselves abolitionists. Their objective is to eliminate animal use. The second strand includes those utilitarians who, like Peter Singer, seek as their objective the equal consideration of interests or preferences, not abolition. Because utilitarianism is not inherently opposed to animal use, this position can be difficult to distinguish from traditional welfarism, which holds that it is acceptable to use nonhuman animals as a means to human ends. But unlike most traditional welfarists, Singer-style new welfarists believe that humans and animals are equal and that their preferences must always be weighed equally.

Regardless of their differences, what all new welfarists share in common is that they focus their efforts primarily on improving the welfare of exploited animals—i.e., their treatment—rather than directly challenging the notion of animal use.[2] They believe that that their objective can be achieved through welfare-based reforms and by educating the public about how animals are treated. Below are some key beliefs characteristic of new welfarist ideology. A new welfarist need not hold all these beliefs, nor should this list be seen as exhaustive.

The new welfarist believes that legal and institutional welfare reform campaigns offer animals increased protection and reduce animal suffering today.

The new welfarist believes that, by raising public awareness of the cruelty caused by institutionalized animal exploitation, reform campaigns will prompt people to reduce or even eliminate their use and consumption of animals and products derived from animals. Under this belief, new welfarists support and promote non-vegan vegetarianism as a way to reduce one’s contribution to animal suffering.

The new welfarist believes that reform campaigns will damage the animal-using industries.

In the next installment of AR101, I will examine these beliefs in more detail to determine whether they are well-founded or whether we should look to another incremental approach to abolition.

Next: A Closer Look at New Welfarism

Previous: Utilitarianism

1. See Chapter 2 of Gary L. Francione’s Rain Without Thunder for a more thorough introduction to new welfarism.
2. For an extended discussion of use versus treatment, read Gary L. Francione’s “Introduction / The Abolition of Animal Use versus the Regulation of Animal Treatment” in Animals as Persons.

I hope you're finding this series useful. I've enjoyed the reading comments I've been receiving so far, so please continue to share your thoughts by commenting below.

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Still here...

2009-01-08T14:44:00.004-05:00

Hi there. Apologies for not posting more often. I'm still hard at work, focused on creating rather than merely commenting, so I'm barely able to stay abreast of what's going on in the blogosphere myself, much less what's going on in the news.

I have a draft of the next AR101 waiting for my attention, so that should hopefully be up within a couple of weeks. I hoped to finish it before vacation, but there's a lot I couldn't get done in time for that deadline. Since returning, I have hit the ground running on various other responsibilities, like handling a ton of Boston Vegan Association stuff (including preparing to officially announce some good news regarding our abolitionist vegan outreach pamphlet) and behind-the-scenes work on my documentary project, which has about another week of open "casting" to go, so visit the link and submit your profile today.

Lauren Corman discussed I'm Vegan with me for CIUT's Animal Voices radio show a couple of days ago. That interview should be archived soon.

UPDATE: Here's a page for the show. The interview starts roughly 10 minutes in. Special thanks to Lauren for having me on the show and asking the kinds of contextual and intersectional questions she's known for.

Vegans needed for documentary interviews

2008-11-20T18:40:00.003-05:00

Casting for I'm Vegan has now begun!

I'm Vegan is a series of short documentary profiles that will feature vegans from all walks of life, perhaps including you! The project is is intended to address preconceptions about vegans and veganism, which may increase normalization of and appreciation for veganism. It is also expected that I'm Vegan will be a catalyst for some viewers to go vegan. Completed profiles will be distributed for free over the web so that anyone can share the videos with family, friends, and visitors to their own sites. A full-length documentary is also in the works.

To be considered as a potential profile subject for I'm Vegan, please send me the following before January 15th:

2 recent digital snapshots, one close-up and one full-length.

Your city, state, and zipcode.

Answers to the following questions:

I'm Vegan

Our route will take us all over the U.S., so if you live in a smaller town but are still highway accessible your submission will be considered.

Become a fan of I'm Vegan at Facebook
Become a friend of I'm Vegan at MySpace

I like to hear from you. Comment below or email me.

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Should Animals Have the Same Rights as People?

2008-11-17T13:53:00.006-05:00

I was invited to participate as an "Expert" over at Opposing Views, a site that sets up debates on various topics by asking "Experts" to weigh in with their arguments (OV's About page). I mentioned the site previously in a post on California's Proposition 2.

The topic I was asked to take on was Should Animals Have the Same Rights as People? As of now, Bob Torres and I represent similar viewpoints, while two other viewpoints are set forth by Tibor Machan and Paul J. Fitzgerald, S.J..

I've laid out only three arguments at this point, mainly to pick apart the question and to support my views with very basic posts regarding animal rights (you may recognize some of the content from the AR101 series I'm running here). Please take the time to visit and read them:

What Are Rights?

Sentience is Sufficient for Basic Rights Protection

Making Sense of the Question

You may offer your thumbs-up under each argument as a recommendation if you like, or even offer comments in support of or against. Please let me know if you feel there's something else I ought to be arguing, either here in comments or via email by using the "Contact" link above.

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Help Peaceful Prairie Sanctuary expand

2008-11-14T22:41:00.005-05:00

UPDATE 2 (12/08, 11:14pm): Apparently the competitor's deal fell through, and PPS was able to secure the land after all! More at Animal Person.

UPDATE (11/18, 11:06pm): Apparently Peaceful Prairie was outbid by an unnamed competitor. More at Animal Person.

In case you haven't already seen this elsewhere, Peaceful Prairie Sanctuary is urgently attempting to acquire property to expand the sanctuary by 35 acres. They need a total of $115,000 to purchase the property from Fannie Mae. As of Mary Martin's post they were still seeking $15,000 in donations (JustGive.org) to purchase property that was originally listed at $255,000.

This request is urgent for at least two reasons:

1) There is a very limited window of opportunity for PPS to acquire this property. The closing date is December 17th, and PPS needs to show Fannie Mae that they have the funds to purchase the property. If you donate using the JustGive link above, it should be viewable as soon as the payment processes.

2) The area is zoned for agricultural use, so if they don't acquire the land, it will end up being used instead to exploit animals.

PPS is an abolitionist sanctuary that promotes veganism, and this purchase will allow them to convert a 4,000 sq. ft. home into an Education Center, complete with volunteer and visitor housing.

Credit card donations can also be made through PayPal from the left sidebar on PPS's home page.

I like to hear from you. Comment below or email me.

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Announcing new abolitionist literature

2008-10-30T16:35:00.004-04:00

The Boston Vegan Association:
Respecting animals means going vegan

The BVA's 8-page abolitionist vegan outreach pamphlet is now ready and available for viewing online and sharing. I have also had a "generic" version prepared so that you can include your own information on the back cover instead of the BVA web address and logo (pictured). If you would like to receive copies for distribution, please get in touch.

I like to hear from you. Comment on this post below or email me.

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Animal Rights 101, part five: Utilitarianism

2008-10-09T19:28:00.009-04:00

Utilitarianism

In a nutshell, utilitarianism holds that the consequence of a given action is what determines its moral worth. According to the principle of utility the right action is that which maximizes "utility." Under hedonistic or classical utilitarianism, utility is defined in terms of pain and pleasure. The morally correct action to take in any given situation, then, is the one that leads to the greatest pleasure for the greatest number of individuals affected by that action.

In counting the pleasures and pains of all those affected, each individual must "count for one and none for more than one." Because nonhuman animals can also be affected by an action (i.e., an action can cause them pleasure or pain), their pleasures and pains must also be taken into consideration when deciding whether an action is wrong or right.

Peter Singer

Peter Singer, probably the most well-known modern proponent of utilitarianism, defines utility in terms of preferences rather than pleasure and pain. Preference utilitarianism holds that what is intrinsically valuable in any given scenario is not pleasure, per se, but the satisfaction of preferences (i.e., desires or interests).[1] Of course, these preferences might include avoiding pain and seeking pleasure, but preference utilitarianism might be seen as a more nuanced or graded approach.

In addition to the principle of utility, Singer advocates even more forcefully a principle of equal consideration for other beings' interests. In determining the consequences of our actions, he argues that we must accord equal consideration to equal interests, even going so far as to say that nonhuman animals have a right to this consideration. He describes at length how excluding nonhuman animals from equal consideration (or otherwise disregarding their interests) is speciesist, an arbitary bias in favor of one's own species membership that is analogous to excluding humans from equal consideration on the basis of their race or sex.[2]

Singer later expressed regret at allowing "the concept of a right to intrude into [his] work so unnecessarily." Though he is often called "the father of the animal rights movement," this stance is not all that surprising when you consider that his views do not and cannot lead to a respect-based animal rights view given his adherence to the principle of utility.[3]

Issue: Tension between equal consideration and utility

The principle of utility is problematic for a number of reasons, not the least of which is the tension between considering like interests equally and maximizing utility.

Despite his belief that we ought to determine what will maximize utility on a case-by-case basis, Singer holds that animals' interests must always be given equal consideration. Though this insistence also informs the egalitarianism of rights theory put forth previously, it creates problems here because taking all interests equally into consideration may well fail to maximize utility, at which point we would no longer operating in the realm of utilitarianism.

The corollary here is that the principle of utility conflicts with the principle of equal consideration when maximizing utility would require us to ignore the interests of some individuals or otherwise allow them to be harmed if doing so serves the "greater good." In other words, utilitarianism’s emphasis on the consequential benefit of a potential act favors the majority and allows for exploitation of the minority.

As Tom Regan writes, “The modest point being urged here is that, for all its emphasis on equality, utilitarianism would sanction recognizable forms of sexism and racism, if the facts happened to turn out a certain way.”[4]

Issue: Treats interests as tradable

The rights view protects interests even when it would benefit others (or the greater good) to violate or ignore them. "[T]he defining characteristic of a respect-based right is that the interest that it protects cannot be compromised for consequential considerations alone."[5] Utilitarianism, on the other hand, treats interests as tradable. If ignoring the interests of certain individuals maximizes utility overall, then utilitarianism would say that the right thing to do in that situation is to ignore those interests in favor of the interests of the many, effectively treating interests as tradable, not inviolable. Such a view "is consistent with animal exploitation if the consequences justify that exploitation and if the decision to exploit is not based on species discrimination."[6]

Indeed, though Singer advocates vegetarianism, it is not certain how he can prescribe this measure on a utilitarian basis. An appeal on consequentialist grounds would suggest that vegetarianism maximizes utility, but the principle of utility could well come down against vegetarianism if the consequences of everyone becoming vegetarian actually turned out to have less utility than if everyone continued to eat at animal products.

Singer thinks that the negative consequences for the animals involved in factory farming outweigh the benefits, but as Regan points out, "[t]he animal industry is big business," and although "[i]t is uncertain exactly how many people are involved in it, directly or indirectly, . . . the number must easily run into the many tens of thousands." Those involved in animal agriculture "have a stake in the animal industry as rudimentary and important as having a job, feeding a family, or laying aside money for their children's education or their own retirement." . . . The problem is that once the preference satisfaction of everyone involved in factory farming (humans and nonhuman) is deemed relevant and counted equitably, Singer's assumed result appears to be much more controversial than he recognizes.[7]

In light of these complications, the utilitarian impact of becoming vegetarian is not at all clear, particularly on the individual level. Because utilitarians must make the moral calculations on a case-by-case basis, they cannot demonstrate that becoming vegetarian will always maximize utility, which means that utilitarianism can make no standing argument for vegetarianism at all, much less veganism.

More consistent with the utilitarian view is his assertion that it may be morally justifiable to eat animals who "have a pleasant existence in a social group suited to their behavioral needs, and are then killed quickly and without pain."[8]

Issues: Fails to offer normative guidance

The vegetarian question points to a lack of normative guidance (i.e., guidelines for standard, everyday behavior) offered by Singer's views. In Animal Rights Theory and Utilitarianism: Relative Normative Guidance, Gary L. Francione reveals utilitarianism's lack of normative guidance by focusing on three components of moral theory that he identifies as the ideal level, the micro-level, and the macro-level.

The ideal level asks what ideal state a theory aims to achieve. The clarity of a theory's ideal state is important because it helps guide micro- and macro-level components of moral decision-making. The micro-level component of a theory guides our personal behavior. The macro-level component examines whether a theory prescribes how to effect incremental change in order to achieve a theories ideal state of affairs.

Under the rights view, it may be said that the ideal state is the complete abolition of institutionalized animal exploitation, a fairly clear, measurable objective. Knowing that this is our ideal state, it becomes rather plain that our personal obligation on the micro level is to avoid participating in activities that, at the very least, contribute directly to animal exploitation (i.e., we ought to be vegan). On the macro level, a coherent prescription for incremental change guides us to a strategy of spreading rights-based ideology and veganism.

Singer's ideal is much more vague, requiring as it does that offer nonhuman animals equal consideration for their interests while maximizing utility. How do we describe or measure this objective, much less know when we have reached it (assuming it is a place one could even "reach")? This view offers no practical guidance for making decisions, ultimately leading us to make best guesses about what is likely to "reduce" suffering to some indeterminable extent.

The calculations required to follow this rule for micro-level decision-making are stunningly complicated. Among our variables are every individual who might be affected by what we choose to do, the preferences those individuals have, and the varying weights of these preferences. Assuming it was possible to gather all this data, we would then have to make comparisons of these prefrences between individuals and across species, and we would have to determine which satisfied preferences maximize utility, which don't, and so on. As if this wasn't burden enough, we must perform this complex calculus for every considered action, and there's still a chance our estimates could be wrong due to our lack of perfect knowledge, our inability to predict how other involved parties might behave, much less our general inability to predict the future.

On the macro-level of decision-making, the admonition to do whatever we think might best reduce suffering is equally unhelpful. Already ourideal state is vague, so this sort of guidance makes it hard to know where we're headed incrementally as a group. Nor do we always know whether and how much our actions will reduce suffering, which is perhaps what leads certain animal advocates to focus on what some new welfare advocates call the "low-hanging fruit."

This approach to advocacy involves welfare campaigns that are problematic for a number of reasons that I will analyze in my next AR101 installment. Suffice it to say for now that the macro-level component here fails to meaningfully distinguish our incremental actions as a movement from those who exploit animals (none of whom believe we ought to, say, increase suffering). It is hard to see how animals will be liberated if we are merely reinforcing the existing paradigm that it is acceptable to use animals, so long as we minimize their suffering.

Conclusion

Compared to a rights-based approach, which simply tells us that equal consideration means equal protection for those interests that are equal (leading to veganism), utilitarianism is unclear and could possibly even lead to immoral results. In my next installment of AR101, I will examine the new welfare approach of the modern "animal rights movement," which is informed by utilitarian thought. As we shall see, utilitarianism's vague, conflicting, and difficult-to-fulfill prescriptions offer little, or worse, confusing guidance for our advocacy.

Next: New Welfarism

Previous: Property

1. Peter Singer, Practical Ethics, 2nd ed. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), 14.

2. ______, Animal Liberation, Ecco paperback, first edition (New York: Harper Collins, 2002), 6.

3. Much is made of the influence wrought by Animal Liberation on the "animal rights movement," though its author distances himself from rights theory, calling his use of the term a concession to popular moral rhetoric (Peter Singer, "The Parable of the Fox and the Unliberated Animals," Ethics 88, no. 2 {January 1978}, p. 122). Despite this, the utilitarian's groundbreaking 33 year-old book continues to be recommended by a number of prominent advocates, including People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, as the "animal rights 'bible'." PETA's merchandise catalog states, "If you read only one animal rights book, it has to be this one."

I want to be clear on a few things. Animal Liberation does raise some important philosophical questions regarding our treatment of animals. It is not a trivial work, and it obviously influenced a new movement on behalf of animals that, in some form, is still around today. However, its own author has disavowed rights, and Animal Liberation does not promote any sort of rights theory whatsoever. It is not an animal rights book. As such, it does not provide any clear guidance for rights advocacy.

If you want to read an animal rights book, and you can read only one for some reason, then allow me to recommend Gary L. Francione's Introduction to Animal Rights: Your Child or the Dog? Within that book, you'll find a concise and easy-to-understand discussion of animal rights theory, along with a coherent prescription for a rights-based approach to abolishing animal exploitation.

4. Tom Regan, The Case for Animal Rights, 1st ed. (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985), 227-28.

5. Gary L. Francione, "Equal Consideration," in Animals as Persons: Essays on the Abolition of Animal Exploitation (New York: Columbia University Press, 2008), 168.

6. ______, Rain Without Thunder: The Ideology of the Animal Rights Movement (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1996), 49.

7. ______, "Animal Rights Theory and Utilitarianism: Relative Normative Guidance."

8. Singer, Animal Liberation, 229-30

I hope you're finding this series useful. I enjoy the reading comments I've been receiving so far, so please continue to share your thoughts by commenting below.

Enjoy AAFL? Use the permalink icon to share this entry with your friends or to link it from your blog, submit to a service using the share button below. To support my writing, please consider making a small donation using the button in the navbar above. Thanks!

Links for 2008-10-28 [del.icio.us]

2008-10-29T00:00:00-07:00

On Human-Nonhuman Relations: News Flash. The 'Difficult Pet Issue’ Resolved.
I intend to address the subject of "pets" after I conclude my AR101 series. In the meantime, Roger Yates has what appears to be a half serious, half cheeky suggestion. I think it kinda works on both counts.

Links for 2008-10-22 [del.icio.us]

2008-10-23T00:00:00-07:00

The Failure of the Single Issue Campaign — Vegan Freak Blog
Bob Torres on PETA's Zappos 'victory'
Free range fiasco
another example of the humane myth

"I'm Vegan" fully funded

2008-09-22T01:05:00.003-04:00

I am very pleased to announce that I'm Vegan is now fully funded! Please click on the "imvegan" label below this post to learn more about the journey so far. Thank you to everyone who helped make this possible!

This is only the beginning, though. As I move forward, I will be blogging more on the project here. I have yet to decide whether and when I will establish a separate site for the project. If you have web skillz, please get in touch and we can talk about it.

One of my next major steps will be to "cast" the vegans I'd like to use in this project, and I will solicit that information here and elsewhere once I am ready.

On a side note, my apologies for how long it is taking to get the Utilitarianism AR101 post together. I wrote around 4000 words on the topic, but I have been very busy with a variety of projects so I have not had time to work this unwieldy subject down into 1200-1600 words. I think I will be able to start editing it this week, and will aim to post something in no more than 7-10 days.

I like to hear from you. Comment below or email me.

Enjoy AAFL? Use the permalink icon to share this entry with your friends or to link it from your blog, submit to a service using the share button below, and consider making a small donation to support this site and my work. Thanks!

Links for 2008-09-02 [del.icio.us]

2008-09-03T00:00:00-07:00

Japanese Firm Discloses 'World's Largest' Plant Factory
The future of the local vegan farming?
In Dealing With Death, Are Animals Just Like Us or Pretty Much Unaware? - NYTimes.com
Discussion ranges from primate to insects.

Proposition 2 and online debates

2008-08-27T14:21:00.004-04:00

California's Proposition 2 has stirred up plenty of controversy, both between the animal exploitation industries and the animal protection industry, and between animal advocates.

Proposition 2, a ballot initiative that will be voted on this November, is intended to eliminate certain confinement practices used by animal agribusiness, albeit with some exemptions. Basically it would require that, for the majority of each day, calves, egg-laying hens, and pregnant pigs be confined only in ways that would allow them to lie down, stand up, fully extend their limbs, and turn around freely. In other words, it doesn't eliminate confinement systems; it merely modifies some of them to be slightly less restrictive (in the case of California, this mainly affects egg production). Exceptions are built in for seven-days prior to a pregnant pig's expected date of delivery, and for 4-H programs, rodeos, fairs, research, veterinary purposes, slaughter, and transportation. Violations of the regulations would be misdemeanors, restricting the potential fine to $1,000 and/or imprisonment up to 180 days.

Recognizing the disagreement between different types of animal advocates over Proposition 2, Doris Lin, the host of About.com's new animal rights topic, is hosting a debate on Proposition 2. Professor Gary L. Francione, author and abolitionist animal rights proponent, represents the con argument, while the the pro argument is offered by animal welfare proponent Paul Shapiro, the Senior Director of the Humane Society of the United States' Factory Farming Campaign. Shapiro calls the ballot measure Making History for Animals, while Francione calls it A Losing Proposition. Of course, it's a strange debate because there's no real back and forth between the two debaters, not to mention the fact that HSUS's mission is modifying animal use, not abolishing it.

While you're off reading online debates, you might be interested in some other topics hosted by Opposing Views. The site asks a lot of controversial questions, not just animal-related issues, and it seems to be fairly well designed and easy to navigate. In addition to calling on "experts" (mostly special interest groups) to debate the subject, Opposing Views invites your comments, involving you directly in the debate. The issue of "pet" ownership finds Francione and HSUS in opposition once again. You can also read their arguments and the arguments of other "experts" on a variety of related topics, including using animals in research, keeping animals in zoos, and "meat"-eating. There's no debate on Proposition 2 over there as of yet, but they do take suggestions for topics, and maybe Opposing Views would provide a better format for that debate than the statements offered at About.com, seeing as how it allows for counterpoint and objections.

Back to Proposition 2, of course the animal exploiting industries are totally opposed. They don't want animal advocates making any inroads on regulating how they use animals. They see the measure potentially leading to other regulatory reforms around the country, so they have more or less united in their opposition to it.

Seems intuitive how an animal-friendly person might vote, right? Well, consider that this measure does not come close to questioning animal use; it merely modifies how animals are used in such a way as to make it seem somewhat less objectionable. Also consider the following:

1. Veal crates and gestation crates (for pigs) have already been phased out or are being phased out by the industries in California as this debate goes on. At this time, there is no indication that doing so is harming the industries or reducing consumption of flesh products from calves and pigs.

2. Proposition 2's regulations apply only to producers in California. It is not a ban on products produced using these methods. Stores seeking less expensive eggs to sell their customers may buy them from out-of-state producers, and egg companies that don't want to follow the new regulations can move their operations out of state.

3. Proposition 2 does not end the confinement and torture of animals from their artificially-induced births to their untimely killings. If successful, sustained, followed, and enforced, Prop 2 will only allow certain animals a bit more space to move and adjust their position while they are being confined, and for only part of the day. Even then, all bets are off during transport and slaughter. It does not address the myriad other harms caused to animals throughout the production process.

4. Egg production systems in Europe have gone cage-free, and the barn systems they are using there have even received a seal of approval from the Royal Society for the Protection of Animals, which leads consumers to believe that the animals' welfare is being given top priority. The video below shows that there are plenty of problems inherent in cage-free systems.

What do you make of all this debate over Prop 2? What do you make of the proposition itself? Share your comments below

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Book Review: Vegan Lunch Box

2008-08-25T16:16:00.003-04:00

You know, it's bad enough that I wasn't raised vegan. But now Jennifer McCann comes along with Vegan Lunch Box to rub it in. Vegan Lunch Box is delicious proof that vegan kids can actually have more exciting (and healthier!) lunches than all the other kids their age, so long as their parents are willing to pick up this book and follow its easy recipes (and maybe pack one of these delightful lunches for themselves while they're at it).

Considering how far veganism and vegan cookbooks have come in just the past decade, moms and dads from a generation ago may be forgiven for foisting Oscar Meyer on us, I suppoooose. Even then I can only let that slide because veganism was practically unheard of by most American parents until relatively recently, and of course this book did not exist back then. However, today's parents have no excuse to send their kids off to school with mediocre lunches (or worse, to eat cafeteria food), so Vegan Lunch Box should be considered a required parenting text.

All 130 enclosed recipes were vetted by McCann's son, James, who rated every meal she packed up for him to take to school in clever, bento-inspired lunch boxes. Only five-star meals made the final cut, so you and your kids are in for the very best of the many recipes McCann concocted to keep James eating healthy and, remarkably, to make him the envy of other kids at school. No scorned, deprived vegan here! It's nice to have a parent that cares so much, isn't it?

Vegan Lunch Box offers up full lunch menus, as well as the recipes to make these menus a reality (included in back is a thoughtful allergen-free index). Meals range from those designed to be quick and easy to creative inspiration for special occasions. Along the way, McCann has included lots of little tips and bits of advice on topics such as keeping sandwiches interesting, vegan cheese, and getting kids to eat salads, as well as a collection of full-color vegan lunch photos.

I don't have any kids myself, but I can certainly remember being at that age where I suffered through school lunches and unimaginative packed lunches. If you are raising kids, I highly recommend buying this book and putting it to good use. I'm sure your children will be much happier exploring these options than settling for what is typically available to them--the deprived kids will be the ones eating the same few lunches over and over again--and they will be learning to eat healthier at a younger age, too. It certainly speaks well of veganism to have such fun, tempting lunches out there in front of all the other kids at school. Maybe they'll want to ask their own parents for a vegan lunch box, too. Lunch box advocacy, anyone?

Even if you don't have or don't plan on having children of your own, you now have a perfect gift to give to people who do, vegan or not. Frankly, I'm looking forward to trying some of these recipes for myself. I think they'll be fun for picnics, lunch breaks on a weekend hike, or even for those occasions when I'm traveling long distances without a healthy vegan meal to be had anywhere along the way (I'm glaring at you, airports of America).

Do you have kids? Are they vegan? What do you feed them? Have you made any recipes from Vegan Lunch Box? If so, how'd it go? Comment below or email me.

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Vegan brunch

2008-08-10T22:18:00.003-04:00

I had brunch at a new Boston area restaurant today, Vej Naturals, and very much enjoyed my Southern Platter...

(Pan-fried seitan cutlet served with Home-style Gravy, scrambled tofu, grits, and greens)

...and the bites of French Toast my friend (the photographer, Laureen) was kind enough to share with me:

(Sliced bread dipped in a sweet cashew milk, grilled then topped with fresh fruit and whipped "cream")

Just a brief reminder how, ahem, "deprived" vegans are.

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Super-quick-FYI-update

2008-08-09T01:43:00.006-04:00

Hi, all. I have been pretty busy prepping for the conference, which I leave for on Wednesday. As mentioned previously, I'm on four panels--in addition to hosting a plenary session, a luncheon, a public speaking workshop, and a "rap session--so I have had some prep to do (I'm sure I'll be doing it right down to the wire). Plus, I've been very tied up with a few deadlines and a new project for my organization, the Boston Vegan Association, and those deadlines are not looking so realistic right now.

On top of all this, it's looking more and more like "I'm Vegan" will go forward this fall (only $2,575 more to go!), so my schedule is getting pretty scrambled (don't get me started on spraining my wrist, auditions that eat up half my day, being a reasonably available spouse, and participating in BVA events).

All of this is not to ask for your pity (believe it or not, I enjoy being this busy most of the time), but to explain why I've been pretty quiet here lately. I did take a little time today to quickly sketch out an outline and some notes for my next AR101 installment, Utilitarianism, but I doubt that I'll get the piece finished and posted before the conference.

I may post here while at the conference, but that seems unrealistic, too. If anything, I might tweet from there now and again, as I finally try to get the hang of micro-blogging. That link takes you to my personal Twitter page, FYI. I may set up an AAFL Twitter account at some point, if I get hooked on it. It would be nice to embed a micro-blog in the sidebar for those times when the big posts are few and far between.

So, stay tuned! Thanks for hanging in (especially through all the parentheticals).

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Links for 2008-07-31 [del.icio.us]

2008-08-01T00:00:00-07:00

Why Should Apes Have Rights? (Why Shouldn't They?)
Testing Delicious blogging. If this goes through at AAFL, I will probably delete it after verification, but may start using the feature to keep up with the occasional story I've skipped posting about due to time constraints. Ahhh, technology.

Letter published in the Washington Post

2008-07-26T13:37:00.001-04:00

I wrote a letter to the Washington Post in response to Wednesday's article, A Dish That Gets a Fuzzy Reception. That letter, which they called Those Rabbits: Friend or Food?, was published today, FYI.

From the article:

Chef Stefano Frigerio braces himself when he puts rabbit on the menu at Mio. It's only a matter of time before someone complains.

Animal Rights 101, part four: Property Status

2008-07-26T01:49:00.005-04:00

Property status

Humans have long dominated animals, including wild (or "free-living") animals, treating them as if they were our property since well before our laws formally defined them as such. Over time, our sense of entitlement to use animals as things for our benefit became firmly embedded in our culture. Indeed, it was animals' de facto property status that led to them being legally classified as property to begin with.

This deeply entrenched property status is the key obstacle to securing legal rights for nonhuman animals because, as long as humans perceive nonhumans to be property, we will be unable to abolish their legal property status. As mentioned in my previous post, property cannot possess legal rights, only persons can.

Persons are the humans, corporations, and other institutions endowed with rights by law, including the right to own and use property as a means to some recognized end. For instance, a person's bicycle is a means for her to travel from one place to another. That bicycle belongs to her, and she may use or not use it as she sees fit. Because the bicycle is an inanimate object, it is not sentient, and therefore it has no interests for her to take into consideration.

Unlike bicycles and all other inanimate objects, sentient animals do have interests that merit consideration, and this presents us with our problem: Because they are legally classified as property that humans may use as a means to any recognized end, just like inanimate objects such as bicycles, they are prevented from possessing any legal rights that would protect their interests.

Legal welfarism

In lieu of legal rights, numerous welfare laws and anticruelty statutes have been enacted over the past 200 years or so, with the intent of protecting at least one very important animal interest that humans have recognized as significant enough to be given our consideration: that of not being made to suffer. To avoid causing animals "unnecessary" suffering in the course of our using them as means to our ends, welfare laws seek to ensure that persons treat animals "humanely." "Necessity" is evaluated by balancing human interests against the interests of animals in a given scenario.

Gary L. Francione identifies the futility of this balancing act in Animals, Property, and the Law:

...although the law prohibits the infliction of "unnecessary" pain and suffering on animals and requires that they be treated "humanely," these terms are interpreted in light of the legal status of animals as property, the importance of property in our culture, and the general tendency of legal doctrine to protect and to maximize the value of property. (p. 4)

In other words, as long as animals are regarded as the property of humans, their interests will never count for as much as legally protected human interests, and so the scale will be rigged in favor of humans before the balancing has even begun. Despite the existence of myriad animal welfare laws and cruelty statutes intended to protect animals from suffering, then, animals' interests remain more or less unprotected. Without legal rights, even an animal's most significant interests cannot be protected from being traded away in favor of any trivial human interest so long as that human interest is in some recognized end (see Legal welfarism illustrated, below, for an example).

Francione calls this entire framework "legal welfarism." Unlike rights theory, which regards every animal as an end, legal welfarism regards nonhuman animals solely as a means to some end ("food animals," "lab animals," "game animals," "fur animals," "companion animals," "animal actors," etc.). Presuming from the outset that animals are property for us to use, legal welfarism asks only that we determine whether or not an animal is being treated "humanely" in the course of being exploited--and provides them with only that level of protection that facilitates humans using them as a means to their recognized ends, e.g., advancing scientific knowledge, producing food, and so on. As Francione suggests, "The only activities that remain to be prohibited by such statutes are those where no socially recognized benefit can be traced to the animal killing or suffering." (p. 129)

Legal welfarism illustrated

To illustrate legal welfarism in effect, let's examine a couple of hypothetical scenarios involving the use of a cow. Bear in mind throughout that the cow has an interest in not being used as property precisely to avoid being the victim in either of these hypothical scenarios in the first place.

Now, to determine whether or not an activity would be prohibited by an anticruelty statute, we must break the question of "necessary" suffering into two parts (See Figure 1, below). Part 1 asks whether the end is recognized, i.e., whether or not using the cow provides some recognized human benefit. If the end is, say, "satisfying a teenager's sadistic interests," the answer for Scenario 1 is "No." The law does not recognize the end of satisfying one's sadistic intersts as providing some human benefit--quite the contrary. Regardless of the teenager's exact plans for the cow, any suffering he causes the cow in the end of satisfying his sadistic interests will be considered "unnecessary," and is thus prohibited.

Case closed. On to Scenario 2.

If the end in question is "using a cow for the purpose of food, clothing (or some other recognized end)," then the answer to Part 1 under the legal welfarism paradigm would be "Yes." While the cow has the exact same interest in not suffering as in Scenario 1, the law recognizes that producing food and clothing provides a human benefit, and so it is determined that this activity or end is "necessary." The cow's interest is effectively trumped, and so we move on to Part 2.

Part 2 asks whether the means the cow's owner employs to the end of using a cow to produce food or clothing is consistent with that end. If the cow's owner lets her starve due to neglect, then the owner will have caused "unnecessary" suffering. Neglect is therefore prohibited. Starving one's cow is not consistent with the end of using that cow to produce food or clothing. It's a pointless "waste."

On the other hand, if a cow experiences suffering in the course of being used as a means to the end of producing food and clothing for human benefit, that suffering is considered "necessary" so long as the suffering is the result of a standard industry practice. Of course, the law also recognizes as "necessary" the death of the cow as a means to achieving the recognized end of feeding and clothing humans, despite the cow's demonstrable interest in staying alive.

The law will rule as "unnecessary" only that suffering which does not conflict with the animal owner's ability to exploit an animal efficiently. Generally, however, the law will defer to property owners when determining whether or not a certain activity is necessary.

It's generally assumed under the legal welfarism paradigm that a property owner wouldn't intentionally devalue his property by causing that property "unnecessary" suffering. Therefore, whatever suffering the owner does incur must be "necessary" to increase the value of the property or maximize the benefits of that use for humans.

What about "wild" animals?

Though many nonhuman animals are born free in nature, as non-persons they still do not have a legal right not to be property. Though they may not technically be property, they are still regarded as if they are property (e.g., as mere things, or potential property), and our laws allow humans to "convert" certain wild animals into their personal property through the act of hunting and capturing or killing those animals.

All animals' interests may be traded away in favor of human interests as long as they are not protected by legal rights. And, even though some animals aren't technically personal property, their property status always tips the scale in favor of human interests, as if they were in fact property.

Conclusion

As long as animals are regarded as property, the balancing of animal and human interests is futile. The only way to balance the scales--to honestly give the like interests of humans and nonhumans equal consideration--is to give animals legal rights that protect their interests, too. Then we'll be on a level playing field. But if we ever want to see this happen, we must first abolish their property status--starting with the very perception that it is acceptable to use animals as if they were property.

Next post: Utilitarianism

Previous post: Animal Rights

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Status update: "I'm Vegan"

2008-07-10T16:00:00.008-04:00

I wanted to update everyone on the fundraising progress for I'm Vegan, the video project I first announced back in April. My total funding goal for the project is $25,000, $3,000 of which I received at the beginning of the year as a private donation. I set up a campaign to raise the remaining $22,000 at The Point, and proceeded to raise nearly $4,000 from 30 people in 2 months. Pledges ranged from $10 to $1,000. Thanks to everyone who has committed funds so far!

Special thanks have to go out now to an anonymous donor that mailed in a $9,000 check, which was basically intended to halve the amount of money still needed to reach the total funding goal. That is a huge push and a wonderful vote of confidence! It also means I only need $9,125 more in pledges at The Point in order to start production on I'm Vegan. The $9,000 takes the campaign at The Point from 18% complete to 58%, so my next milestone is 60%. I only need $325 to get to that number, so please pledge today if you can.

For those that missed the original post and don't feel like clicking through the above link, I'm Vegan is a series of short documentary profiles that aim for long-term impact as an online series normalizing veganism, and thus it is an ongoing form of advocacy. It's personal, intimate and busts stereotypes. What's more, the project is relatively low-budget and is being funded through a non-profit, which means the donations are tax deductible.

The great thing is, unlike traditional fundraisers, The Point works in such a way that no one parts with their hard-earned cash until enough people pledge funds to reach the campaign goal of $22,000 (once complete funding is received, it will be donated to the non-profit that is sponsoring the project with needed equipment and other expenses).

For more details on the project, or to donate now, please visit its campaign page at The Point. Thanks in advance for your support. Share this post (or the campaign page) far and wide!

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Animal Rights 101, part three: Animal Rights

2008-07-09T00:32:00.004-04:00

Introduction

As with the term "rights," there is a great deal of confusion about the term "animal rights." Much of this confusion has been caused not just by the media and the industries that exploit nonhuman animals, but also by activists and animal advocacy groups using the term to loosely describe any actions purported to improve the conditions of animals used by humans. In other words, rather than promoting the moral or legal rights of animals, some so-called "animal rights activists" focus on regulating animal welfare--how animals are treated.

Further confusing the issue, some animal rights activists seek legal rights for only a select category of sentient nonhuman animals (such as great apes), based on characteristics such as higher-order cognitive abilities. The rights theory I put forth here--laid out in far greater detail in Gary L. Francione's highly recommended Introduction to Animal Rights: Your Child or the Dog?--holds that any sentient being has at least one basic moral right simply by virtue of that being's sentience: The right not be treated merely as a means to another's end.

Sentience

To be sentient is to be conscious or self-aware, capable of perception or feeling. Sentient humans and nonhumans feel sensations of pain, pleasure and so on. When a being is sentient, s/he will naturally have interests. For instance, the capacity for sentient beings to feel pain provides them with a clear interest in not feeling pain.

In recognition of this particular interest, we generally consider it unacceptable to inflict pain on another sentient being unless there is an extraordinarily good reason. Take the example of a boy who harms a nonhuman simply to satisfy his morbid curiosity. He straps an ordinary dog down on a table and cuts her open to have a look inside. As he does this, the dog yelps, howls, and struggles, but the boy keeps cutting, ignoring her cries.

I think it's safe to assume we all find the boy's behavior objectionable. Various reasons may be offered for this, from our concern that the boy has psychological problems--and that these problems could lead to him harm other humans some day--to our concern that the dog might belong to another human who has an emotional attachment to her. But these are not the fundamental reasons for our objection. We are upset by the example because we recognize that the boy is causing the dog unnecessary pain.

If the dog was not sentient, then she wouldn't have an interest in not being caused pain (because non-sentient beings are unable to sense pain), and so there would be no harm done. But, of course, we know that the dog is sentient, and we know that the boy's actions cause her much pain.

Now, if we were to agree that the pain was for some justifiable reason necessary, we might be distressed by what is being done to the dog, but we would not object to it as a moral matter. For instance, if the boy was attacked by the dog and killed her to protect himself from a similar fate, we might be saddened by her death, but we would say that it was justified in this particular situation. However, it cannot be reasonably held that the boy needs to harm the dog merely to satisfy his curiosity.

This example illustrates how, as long as a being is sentient, we recognize--as a moral matter--that the being has an interest in not being harmed, which cannot be ignored or overridden unless it is truly necessary to do so. This belief is based on no other characteristic than the being's ability to feel that pain. No other characteristics beyond sentience are necessary to merit moral consideration.

Equal Consideration

The principle of equal consideration holds that, as a basic moral matter, we ought to treat like cases alike. Viewed in terms of interests, the principle requires that the like interests of various beings must be given equal consideration. As described above, nonhumans and humans are alike in at least one important, morally relevant respect: they are sentient and, as such, they have interests that must be considered. Extending the principle of equal consideration to all sentient beings requires that we give nonhumans' interests equal weight to humans' interests. Where our interests are the same, we must weigh them equally.

So how does this work?

Let's examine a simple case involving humans. Morally, we disapprove of killing other humans without justification (e.g., self defense). This is because we recognize that human beings have an interest in not being killed. We take this interest very seriously, protecting it with a legal right. A person's interest in not being killed does not derive from skin color, sex, or cognitive abilities. When we give equal weight to the interests of white and black people, people of any sex or intelligence level, we recognize that they all have an equal interest in continued existence, and we accept that we might protect this interest equally.

Species is not the basis for an interest in continued existence, either. Humans do not have an interest in continued existence because they are human, but because they are sentient. As previously discussed, all sentient beings have interests, including a fundamental interest in staying alive.¹ According to the principle of equal consideration, to whatever extent we respect a human's interest in not being killed, then we must also respect a nonhuman's interest in not being killed. If we accept that a human's interest in continued existence cannot be outweighed by another human's interest in pleasure, then we must accept that a nonhuman's interest in continued existence cannot by outweighed by a human's interest in pleasure.

There is simply no non-arbitrary difference between humans and other animals that justifies treating their like interests differently.² Remember, we accord equal consideration where our interests are alike. Because there is no characteristic possessed by sentient nonhumans that justifies giving their like interests less consideration than our own, they ought to be protected equally. This brings us to animal rights.

Animal Rights

Recall from my previous AR101 post that rights protect one's interests against those who would disregard those interests. All sentient beings have interests, both human and nonhuman, and so they all belong in the moral community of rightholders. When we say that nonhuman animals have moral rights, we are basically acknowledging that some of their interests are like ours and that these interests must be given equal consideration to our own. So, if we have a moral right not be killed (even if it might benefit someone to kill us), then our understanding of the principle of equal consideration leads us to the conclusion that nonhuman animals have that moral right as well, as they have the exact same underlying interest.

As discussed previously, we expect that, at some point, legally defined rights will reflect the moral rights that we already accept. Moral and legal rights for animals, then, derive from the notion of equal consideration for their basic interests. Saying that animals have rights is the same as saying that animals are rightholders. It doesn't necessarily say which rights animals have morally, and which they should be granted legally. Moral rights would, of course, become better understood as we begin to give the interests of nonhuman animals equal consideration. The expectation is that legal rights would follow along the same lines.

While we may not agree on all the specific moral rights possessed by sentient nonhuman animals, but there must be at least one fundamental moral right they hold if any other rights are to make sense: The right not be treated as a thing, as merely the means to another's end. This must also be granted as a legal right if any other legal animal rights are going to mean anything. Nonhuman beings simply have no legal rights as long as they are regarded as property, i.e., a means to the ends of a person. Remember, property cannot have rights, only persons can.

In my next post, part four of AR101, I will discuss in more detail how property status relates to animal rights, along with its implications.

Next post: Property Status

Previous post: Rights

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1. Remember, if one is not sentient, one simply has no interests to speak of.
2. There are certainly some interests sentient beings do not have in common. For instance, nonhumans do not have a demonstrable interest in voting, bearing arms, and so on, and therefore we are not obligated to consider those interests. After all, you cannot give consideration to an interest if it does not exist.

William Saletan: The new hierarchy of GAP

2008-07-07T12:35:00.001-04:00

Though this widely-reported news is nearly two weeks old now, I haven't yet written about the Spanish parliamentary resolution to grant great apes the right to life and freedom. This is due in part to my posting schedule, but mainly I wanted to see how this all shook out. Then last week I heard about a piece by William Saletan at Slate that I wanted to read, which I finally remembered to do this morning when it reappeared at Philly.com (via my news alerts) as an opinion piece.

Time to get to this one, I suppose.

The good news: It seems very likely that Spain will be the first national legislature to grant any animals the legal right to life and freedom.

The Great Ape Project, co-founded by philosopher Peter Singer, has been pursuing this goal for about 14 years now. Singer rejects the validity of moral rights (he's an act--and presumably occasionally a rule--utilitarian) but he believes that certain animals should have legal rights in order to protect them from harm. At the GAP website, a news release states that, "Under most government structures, legal rights are the only way to insure that non-human great apes are free from torture, unnecessary death and capture."

Of course, Spain is not about to turn loose the 315 great apes kept in its zoos, though evidently the law's specifications would require dramatically improving conditions at 70 percent of them. Keeping apes for use in entertainment will be forbidden, backed by Spain's penal code. As of now, there don't appear to be any great apes being used for vivisection in Spain, but there are no laws to prevent that from happening, so the government will update the legal code to outlaw "harmful" experiments on apes in Spain. I haven't been able to turn up the text of this resolution with a quick skim of Google results, but I think that last bit about "harmful" experiments is a some cause for concern. It seems to leave open the option to use great apes for non-invasive/non-"harmful" experiments (behavioral research?). So, with one caveat already noted, this is the good angle on the news.

The bad news: This leaves the vast majority of nonhuman animals completely in the lurch, still waiting at square one. Do we protect humans from torture, death, and restriction of liberty based on cognitive capacity? No, we legally protect all sentient humans with rights. Of course, this protection is generally exclusive to our own species, an arbitrary distinction when it comes to determining which beings merit legal protection for their moral rights. We don't legally give some humans preferential protection from torture, death, and the restriction of liberty on the basis of race or sex, but for some reason we think it makes sense to discriminate against nonhumans simply because they are not human, even though they have the same interests we do in not being tortured, confined, or killed. GAP and others discriminate based on cognitive characteristics.

So, supposedly species membership would no longer be the key criterion for inclusion in the moral community, but GAP's stance and Spain's resolution still advance a hierarchy based on criteria unique to certain species, and which go well beyond the criteria necessary for moral consideration, i.e., sentience. As Saletan notably remarks, "the arguments GAP has deployed in Spain don't advance the idea of equality among animals. They destroy it." GAP and others claim that this is the point of a spear that has broken the species barrier, making it easier for other species to eventually be included within the sphere of legal rights protection. But how can far can this go if we base such rights on how similar animals' cognitive capacities are to humans?

Modern conceptions of rights are generally egalitarian. We have extended fundamental legal rights to all humans, regardless of race, sex, or cognitive capacity. Notions of egalitarianism play directly into animal rights theory, which looks at the reasons for excluding nonhumans from legal rights protection and finds that there are some arbitrary distinctions that lead to grave inconsistencies.

When Tom Regan pioneered actual animal rights theory in The Case for Animal Rights, he focused on equality based on the inherent value of animals who are "subjects-of-a-life," or that they have value in themselves unrelated to how they might be valued by others. If all animals have inherent value (humans and nonhumans alike), then they all have it equally, according to Regan, and they have the moral right not to be treated merely as a means to the end of others.

However, he did stop short of a totally egalitarian approach, requiring animals to meet certain cognitive criteria in order to reasonably be considered a rightholder. His subject-of-a-life requirement is not all that dissimilar from Singer's notion that some animals value their lives more than others. Regan also believes that death is a greater harm for humans than for nonhumans. Both philosophers appear to accept that the more like humans nonhumans are, at least in terms of cognition, the more likely that the nonhumans in question are to qualify for protection for his or her interests. GAP perpetuates discrimination, according to Saletan:

GAP's mission statement says great apes are entitled to rights based on their "morally significant characteristics." It says they enjoy a rich emotional and cultural existence in which they experience emotions such as fear, anxiety and happiness. They share the intellectual capacity to create and use tools, learn and teach other languages. They remember their past and plan for their future. It is in recognition of these and other morally significant qualities that the Great Ape Project was founded.

Morally significant qualities. Morally significant characteristics. These are appeals to discrimination, not universal equality. Most animals don't have a rich cultural life. They can't make tools. They don't teach languages.

Animal activists often take approaches like GAP to be tactical means to the end of extending rights to all animals some day (as points of spears and such), but this kind of thinking misses the mark. We don't need to extend the hierarchy, we need to erase that hierarchy entirely. I'll let Saletan's conclusion, eloquent as it is, serve as my own:

George Orwell wrote the cruel finale to this tale 63 years ago in Animal Farm: "All animals are equal. But some animals are more equal than others." That wasn't how the egalitarian uprising in the book was supposed to turn out. It wasn't how the animal rights movement was supposed to turn out, either.

FYI, I will publish my next AR101 post this week. In it, I discuss the concept of animal rights in more detail.

Vegan Education Made Easy: An Abolitionist Pamphlet

2008-07-01T15:33:00.003-04:00

Gary L. Francione just posted a self-produced vegan education pamphlet at his blog, The Abolitionist Approach. It's a double-sided document, so it will be easy to reproduce and distribute. A lot of people have been clamoring for a resource like this, and now you finally have it, from the very person behind the abolitionist approach. If that's not good enough for you, I don't know what is! Get out there and spread the message far and wide.

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Book Review: Animals as Persons

2008-06-26T23:49:00.006-04:00

Animals as Persons: Essays on on the Abolition of Animal Exploitation was released May 23rd, but it has taken me a while to finish reading Gary L. Francione's latest book because I'm perpetually swamped lately. However, working it into my ridiculous schedule was relatively easy, in part because the book is comprised of individual, self-contained essays that allowed me to conveniently break my reading up into manageable sessions as time permitted. You might find this helpful as well. While the essays range in length, none of them are terribly long (particularly after the first two), and together they all provide an excellent and highly readable introduction to Professor Francione's abolitionist theory of animal rights. If you are one of those people who have put off reading his earlier books due to time constraints or for any other reason, this might be an ideal place to start.

I recommend not skipping over the introduction, particularly if you've never read Francione before. In it, he gets right to the pivotal assertion that the animal advocacy movement is, in effect, two very different movements: one that seeks to abolish animal exploitation by eradicating the property status of animals, and the other a movement that seeks the regulation of animal-using industries while failing to effectively challenge the property status of animals.

He expands on the core concepts of abolitionism in the first chapter, "Animals as Persons." That essay is itself a relatively brief but thorough presentation of Francione's theory as developed more fully in Introduction to Animal Rights: Your Child or the Dog? (ITAR) While it is not a substitute for reading that book, "Animals as Persons" is a very clear essay that will quickly have you up to speed on the basic concepts.

The next chapter is an essay called "Reflections on Animals, Property, and the Law and Rain Without Thunder." In it, Francione responds to various critics who have argued that the property status of animals does not necessarily prevent advocates from improving animal welfare, and that animal welfare regulation is an effective way of moving incrementally toward recognition that animals have more than the value that we assign to them.

You don't necessarily need to have read the two books to appreciate "Reflections," though I'm sure I got more out of it because I had. I found the essay particularly interesting because Francione deconstructs real-world legislation such as Florida's gestation crate ban and California's foie gras ban. While he frequently deconstructs current events on his blog, as he did with the announcement that KFC Canada would adopt a controlled-atmosphere killing policy, these case studies offer new readers relevant and useful applications of his abolitionist theory.

In his third essay, "Taking Sentience Seriously," Francione focuses on flaws in the "similar-minds" theory, a critical analysis all the more relevant in light of news that Spain's parliament plans to extend legal rights to life and freedom for great apes. Based as it is on cognitive abilities rather than sentience, this pending legislation is a case in point for Francione, so you'll definitely want to read chapter 3 if you don't know why this seemingly good news is a bad precedent for animal rights.

Returning to his critics, chapter four's essay, "Equal Consideration," focuses specifically on Cass Sunstein's review of ITAR, in which he claims that Francione fails to justify why animal advocates should not focus on regulating human treatment of animals rather than abolishing animal use. This gives Francione an excellent opportunity to point out some fatal flaws in Sunstein's thinking, along with that of Jeremy Bentham and Peter Singer, who seem to believe that some sentient beings have no interest in continuing to live, despite the logical implication that their very sentience gives these animals an interest in continued existence.

Francione's fifth essay examines the justifications for vivisection, which he also covers in IATR (along with descriptions of numerous specific experiments). Here, too, he observes that even if there is some plausible empirical claim for necessity, this form of animal use cannot be morally justified. "The Use of Nonhuman Animals" is one of the clearest, most concise critiques of vivisection I have read, from both the empirical and moral points of view. While the empirical section should be sufficient in and of itself to clear up any confusion as to whether vivisection is as valuable as is usually claimed, Francione footnotes our way to additional resources, and of course he follows this up with a moral critique that is impossible to refute without engaging in hypocrisy.

His next essay, "Ecofeminism and Animal Rights," is actually a 1996 review of Beyond Animal Rights: A Feminist Caring Ethic for the Treatment of Animals, in which he examines arguments made against animal rights and for an "ethic of care." Like Cass Sunstein's review of IATR, essays in Beyond Animal Rights suggest that we do not need to end the institutionalized exploitation of nonhuman animals in order to include them within the moral community, and even go as far as to actually legitimize that exploitation, ironically perpetuating speciesist hierarchy at the same time that they condemn the rights view as hierarchical. Francione swiftly and effectively counters these views.

Finally, Francione turns his attention to perhaps the world's best-known animal rights author and philosopher, Tom Regan, who in his seminal The Case for Animal Rights makes a sustained, comprehensive, and complex philosophical argument for animal rights. In the course of his argument, which can be seen as a case for which criteria are valid for inclusion in the moral community, he presents the "lifeboat case" as an example of a conflict between rightholders. The lifeboat case is a hypothetical scenario Regan resolves in part by claiming that death is a greater harm to humans than it is to nonhumans such as dogs. Francione critiques this view with "Comparable Harm and Equal Inherent Value," a 1995 essay updated with a 2008 postscript to respond to the new preface Regan wrote in 2004 for the second edition of The Case for Animal Rights, in which he responded to critics of his lifeboat example.

One of the few drawbacks of gathering together all these different essays is that, even though the case studies and responses to specific criticisms may prompt you to understand Francione's abolitionist theory more clearly, you frequently end up reading the same thing you've read elsewhere in his work, including other essays in this book, and sometimes nearly even verbatim. However, it is that very deja vu experience that reminds you how so many supposedly different debates always come back to the fundamentals, which we would do well to learn... and that may just be the reason Francione keeps repeating them.

In recapping his abolitionist animal rights theory and defending it with such precision, clarity, and authority, Gary Francione successfully reasserts the view that nonhuman animals will not be meaningfully protected from unnecessary harm so long as they are considered human property, and that welfare reforms or variations on the theme are incapable of leading to their emancipation. Animals as Persons is a must-read for anyone claiming to support or to even simply be interested in animal rights. Right now you can purchase it and all Columbia University Press animal studies titles at a steep 50% off until August 1st.

While you await your copy, you can read the publisher's interview with Francione and listen to his most recent interview (part 1) on Vegan Freak Radio (part 2).

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