Archive for year: 2013

I was recently in one of the two Whole Foods in my area. I passed by the meat counter and I saw the signs about how the animals whose corpses are sold by Whole Foods are so very well treated. I saw people buying “happy” meat.

And I heard a shopper say to an employee that she is so happy that can get meat that is produced “humanely.”

But what should she to think when Peter Singer, the “father of the animal rights movement,” and every corporate animal group–HSUS, PETA, Farm Sanctuary, Mercy for Animals, Compassion Over Killing, Vegan Outreach, etc.–expresses “appreciation and support” for the Whole Foods “happy exploitation” program?

What should she think when Whole Foods receives an award from PETA?

What should she think when Whole Foods CEO John Mackey shows up on the front page of “VegNews”?

That woman clearly cares about animals morally and the “animal movement” has given her a way to do that that allows her to continue to consume animals and feel good about it.

How sad.

*****

If you are not vegan, please go vegan. Veganism is about nonviolence. First and foremost, it’s about nonviolence to other sentient beings. But it’s also about nonviolence to the earth and nonviolence to yourself.

The World is Vegan! If you want it.

Gary L. Francione
Professor, Rutgers University

©2013 Gary L. Francione

Animal welfare reform focuses on the supply side of exploitation. The idea is to provide a supply of more “humanely” produced animal products. The idea also is to make that supply more expensive so that consumers buy fewer animal products.

But the theory and the reality are different. Even those who support welfare reform often still buy conventional, “lower welfare” products (in my view, all animal products are low welfare) and, even if the price of some animal products increases as a result of welfare reforms (as opposed to myriad other factors that affect price), demand does not change much because demand for many animal products is what economists call “inelastic,” or not sensitive to price increases within a particular range.

And even if the price goes up so that demand is affected, consumers will simply buy processed or cheaper animal foods. In other words, there is no reason to think that if the price of beef goes up, consumers buy tofu.

The only effective way to deal with animal exploitation is to focus on the demand side and to educate people about why they should not consume animal products. Period. There are many people out there who care about animals as a moral matter. Rather than telling those people that they can discharge their moral obligations to animals by consuming “happy” animal products, we should be educating them about why the only sensible response to recognizing that animals matter morally is to stop consuming them and to go vegan.

To put it another way: if you think that what Michael Vick did was wrong because we should not impose suffering and death on other sentient beings just because we enjoy doing so, you are committed to not consuming animals, which can only be justified by palate pleasure. Just as pleasure does not work for Vick, it does not work for the rest of us.

*****

If you are not vegan, please go vegan. Veganism is about nonviolence. First and foremost, it’s about nonviolence to other sentient beings. But it’s also about nonviolence to the earth and nonviolence to yourself.

The World is Vegan! If you want it.

Gary L. Francione
Professor, Rutgers University

©2013 Gary L. Francione

As animal advocates, we oppose speciesism because, like racism, sexism, heterosexism, and other forms of discrimination, it uses a morally irrelevant criterion (species) to discount and devalue the interests of sentient beings.

But our opposition to speciesism means that we do have a position on these other forms of discrimination. That is, we cannot oppose speciesism but claim that, as animal advocates, we do not have a position on these other forms of discrimination. We cannot say: “We reject species as a morally objectionable criterion to discount or devalue the interests of nonhumans but we do not have a position on whether race, sex, or sexual orientation/preference are morally objectionable criteria when used to discount or devalue human interests.”

Our opposition to speciesism requires that we oppose all discrimination.

*****

If you are not vegan, please go vegan. Veganism is about nonviolence. First and foremost, it’s about nonviolence to other sentient beings. But it’s also about nonviolence to the earth and nonviolence to yourself.

The World is Vegan!

Gary L. Francione
Professor, Rutgers University

©2013 Gary L. Francione

According to this article:

India has officially recognized dolphins as non-human persons, whose rights to life and liberty must be respected. Dolphin parks that were being built across the country will instead be shut down.

In a statement, the government said research had clearly established cetaceans are highly intelligent and sensitive, and that dolphins “should be seen as ‘non-human persons’ and as such should have their own specific rights.”

The movement to recognize whale and dolphins as individuals with self-awareness and a set of rights gained momentum three years ago in Helsinki, Finland when scientists and ethicists drafted a Declaration of Rights for Cetaceans. “We affirm that all cetaceans as persons have the right to life, liberty and well-being,” they wrote.

Since yesterday, I have received a significant number of requests to comment on this report.

I have two responses.

First, I refer you to an essay, “Our Hypocrisy,” which I wrote for The New Scientist in June 2005:

Our Hypocrisy

Do Great apes, dolphins, parrots, and perhaps even “food” animals have certain cognitive characteristics that entitle them to be accorded greater moral consideration and legal protection?

A considerable literature has so argued in recent times. The central idea behind this enterprise is the notion that we must rethink our relationship with non-humans if we find they are intelligent, self-aware, or have emotions. To the extent that non-humans have minds like ours, runs the argument, they have similar interests, and they are entitled to greater protection because of those interests. This “similar-minds” approach has spawned an industry of cognitive ethologists eager to investigate – ironically often through various sorts of animal experiments – the extent to which they are like us.

It is astonishing that 150 years after Darwin, we are still so surprised that other animals may have some of the characteristics thought to be uniquely human. The proposition that humans have mental characteristics wholly absent in non-humans is inconsistent with the theory of evolution. Darwin maintained that there are no uniquely human characteristics, and that there were only quantitative and not qualitative differences between human and non-human minds. He argued that non-humans can think and reason, and possess many of the same emotional attributes as humans.

What is more troubling about the similar-minds approach is its implications for moral theory. Although it appears to be progressive, to indicate that we really are evolving in our moral relationship with other species, the similar-minds approach actually reinforces the very paradigm that has resulted in our excluding non-humans from the moral community. We have historically justified our exploitation of non-humans on the ground that there is a qualitative distinction between humans and other animals: the latter may be sentient, but they are not intelligent, rational, emotional or self-conscious.

Although the similar-minds approach claims that, empirically, we may have been wrong in the past and at least some non-humans may have some of these characteristics, it does not question the underlying assumption that a characteristic other than sentience – the ability to feel pain – is necessary for moral significance.

Arbitrary lines

Any attempt to justify our exploitation of non-humans based on their lack of “human” characteristics begs the moral question by assuming that certain characteristics are special and justify differential treatment. Even if, for instance, humans are the only animals who can recognise themselves in mirrors or can communicate through symbolic language, no human is capable of flying, or breathing under water without assistance. What makes the ability to recognise oneself in a mirror or use symbolic language better in a moral sense than the ability to fly or breathe under water? The answer, of course, is that we say so and it is in our interest to say so.

Aside from self-interest, there is no reason to conclude that characteristics thought to be uniquely human have any value that allows us to use them as a non-arbitrary justification for exploiting non-humans. Moreover, even if all animals other than humans were to lack a particular characteristic beyond sentience, or to possess that characteristic to a lesser degree than humans, such a difference cannot justify human exploitation of non-humans.

Differences between humans and other animals may be relevant for other purposes. No sensible person argues that non-human animals should drive cars, vote or attend universities, but such differences have no bearing on whether we should eat non-humans or use them in experiments. We recognise this conclusion when it comes to humans. Whatever characteristic we identify as uniquely human will be seen to a lesser degree in some humans and not at all in others. Some humans will have the same deficiency that we attribute to non-humans, and although the deficiency may be relevant for some purposes, it is not relevant to whether we exploit such humans.

Consider, for instance, self-consciousness. Any sentient being must have some level of self-awareness. To be sentient means to be the sort of being who recognises that it is that being, and not some other, who is experiencing pain or distress. Even if we arbitrarily define self-consciousness in an exclusively human way as, say, being able to think about thinking, many humans, including those who are severely mentally disabled, lack that type of consciousness.

Again, this “deficiency” may be relevant for some purposes, but it has no bearing on whether we should use such humans in painful biomedical experiments or as forced organ donors. In the end, the only difference between humans and non-humans is species, and species is no more a justification for exploitation than race, sex or sexual orientation.

This is why the similar-minds approach is misguided, and will only create new speciesist hierarchies, in which we move some non-humans, such as the great apes or dolphins, into a preferred group, and continue to treat all others as things lacking morally significant interests.

If, however, we want to think seriously about the human/non-human relationship, we need to focus on one, and only one, characteristic: sentience. What is ironic is that we claim to take the suffering of non-humans seriously. As a matter of social morality, we are virtually unanimous in agreeing that it is morally wrong to inflict “unnecessary” suffering or death on non-humans. For such a prohibition to have any meaning, it must preclude inflicting suffering on non-humans merely for our pleasure, amusement or convenience.

The problem is that although we express disapproval of the unnecessary suffering of non-humans, most of their suffering and death can be justified only by our pleasure, amusement or convenience, and cannot by any stretch be plausibly characterised as “necessary”. We kill billions of animals annually for food. It is not “necessary” in any sense to eat meat or animal products. Indeed, an increasing number of healthcare professionals maintain that these foods may be detrimental to human health. Moreover, environmental scientists have pointed out the tremendous inefficiencies and costs to our planet of animal agriculture. In any event, our justification for the pain, suffering and death inflicted on these farmed non-humans is nothing more than our enjoyment of the taste of their flesh.

And it is certainly not necessary to use non-humans for sport, hunting, entertainment or product testing, and there is considerable evidence that reliance on animal models in experiments or drug testing may even be counterproductive.

In sum, when it comes to non-humans, we exhibit what can best be described as moral schizophrenia. We say one thing about how non-humans should be treated, and do quite another. We are, of course, aware that we lack a satisfactory approach to the matter of our relationship to other animals, and we have for some time now been trying to find one.

If we took seriously the principle that it was wrong to inflict unnecessary suffering on non-humans, we would stop altogether bringing domestic animals into existence for human use, and our recognition of the moral status of animals would not depend on whether a parrot can understand mathematics or a dog recognise herself in a mirror. We would take seriously what Jeremy Bentham said over 200 years ago: “The question is not, can they reason, nor can they talk, but can they suffer?”

I discuss these ideas at greater length in my essay, “Taking Sentience Seriously,” which was published originally in 2006 and is reprinted as Chapter 3 in my book, Animals as Persons: Essays on the Abolition of Animal Exploitation.

Second, I would emphasize that although Bentham correctly identified sentience as the only characteristic required for moral significance, he made a significant error. He believed that animals do not care that we used them, but only about how we treat and kill them. According to Bentham, animals live in the present and are not aware of what they lose when we take their lives. If we kill and eat them, “we are the better for it, and they are never the worse. They have none of those long-protracted anticipations of future misery which we have.”

Echoes of Bentham’s views persist in the thinking of certain animal advocates, such as Peter Singer, who states:

You could say it’s wrong to kill a being whenever a being is sentient or conscious. Then you would have to say it’s just as wrong to kill a chicken or mouse as it is to kill you or me. I can’t accept that idea. It may be just as wrong, but millions of chickens are killed every day. I can’t think of that as a tragedy on the same scale as millions of humans being killed. What is different about humans? Humans are forward-looking beings, and they have hopes and desires for the future. That seems a plausible answer to the question of why it’s so tragic when humans die. (Indystar.com, March 8, 2009)

[T]o avoid inflicting suffering on animals—not to mention the environmental costs of intensive animal production—we need to cut down drastically on the animal products we consume. But does that mean a vegan world? That’s one solution, but not necessarily the only one. If it is the infliction of suffering that we are concerned about, rather than killing, then I can also imagine a world in which people mostly eat plant foods, but occasionally treat themselves to the luxury of free range eggs, or possibly even meat from animals who live good lives under conditions natural for their species, and are then humanely killed on the farm. (The Vegan, Autumn 2006.)

In a recent essay, “On Killing Animals,” which was published in The Point, I argued that it is Bentham’s thinking that leads even those who claim to subscribe to an “animal rights” position to think that killing healthy dogs and cats can be regarded as morally acceptable.

This view–that an interest in continued life is contingent on humanlike self-awareness–is precisely the sort of thinking that has led to the position that, although all sentient animals have interests in not suffering that count morally, only certain animals have an interest in not being used at all or killed for human purposes.

I think that the “similar minds” approach, which serves as the foundation of the “happy” exploitation movement, which is presently dominating the animal movement, is very much misguided and should be rejected in favor of the position that sentience is sufficient to ground an obligation not to treat a being exclusively as a means to an end, however “humane” our treatment may be.

*****

If you are not vegan, please go vegan. Veganism is about nonviolence. First and foremost, it’s about nonviolence to other sentient beings. But it’s also about nonviolence to the earth and nonviolence to yourself.

The World is Vegan!

Gary L. Francione
Professor, Rutgers University

©2013 Gary L. Francione

I think that the “Ag Gag” laws are not a good idea for a number of reasons related generally to the suppression and chilling of speech. But to listen to the large animal groups, one would think that the “Ag Gag” laws are a death knell for the animal movement. That’s just wrong.

We don’t need more footage from factory farms. There is already more than enough. For the most part, the objection to these laws concerns the fact that large animal groups need a steady stream of “exposés” so that they can continue to promote the idea that there are “responsible” farms and “irresponsible” farms, “abusive” treatment” and “non-abusive” treatment. The animal groups get footage of some farm employees doing something hideous; they have a big campaign; the factory farm does a mea culpa or gets a wrist slapping; the animal groups declare “victory” and proclaim that the “abusive” behavior has been stopped. Even if the farm or abattoir is sanctioned heavily, or closes, the demand is picked up by another facility. The public is reassured that the animal groups are ensuring that animals are being treated “humanely” and keeps demanding animal products.

It’s a win-win. The animal groups get praise and, more important, donations; the public is reassured and feels better about consuming animal products.

Only the animals, who continue to be tortured in the most “humane” situations, lose.

We need to get people thinking differently about animal ethics. We need to focus people away from the issue of treatment–and away from the idea that there is “abusive” treatment and “non-abusive” treatment–and toward the idea that we cannot morally justify use. Period. We need to get people to see that the moral idea that they and just about everyone else already accept–that animal suffering and death must be “necessary” and that pleasure, amusement, or convenience cannot suffice as “necessary”–leads to the conclusion that we cannot justify using animals and that our recognition that animals have moral status means that we cannot eat flesh, dairy, or eggs, even if they have a “happy” exploitation label that is praised or endorsed by one or more of the large animal groups.

I plan to write at greater length about this in the future.

*****

If you are not vegan, please go vegan. Veganism is about nonviolence. First and foremost, it’s about nonviolence to other sentient beings. But it’s also about nonviolence to the earth and nonviolence to yourself.

The World is Vegan!

Gary L. Francione
Professor, Rutgers University

©2013 Gary L. Francione