What Is Going On at The Vegan Society?

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Dear Colleagues:

As those of you who read this site (see my blog posts: 1, 2) and are familiar with my work as a general matter know, I regard Donald Watson (1910-2005), founder of the Vegan Society in Britain, as a remarkable person and one of the most enlightened minds of the 20th century. I wrote the entry for Watson in the recently published Cultural Encyclopedia of Vegetarianism. This site also has an essay from Eva Batt (1908-1989), who played an important role in the early days and throughout the history of the Vegan Society. Although I do not join organizations and, therefore, I am not a member of the Vegan Society and I do not regularly receive its magazine, The Vegan, I have been interviewed in The Vegan and I wrote an article for the magazine.

It is, then, with surprise and great disappointment that I relate the following.

After receiving several emails from vegans in the U.K. concerned about particular essays in The Vegan by an author who promotes the view that we ought to shift our focus away from veganism and speciesism because that will alienate people, I requested that the Society email me a PDF copy of these essays as the magazine is available only in hardcopy and is not online. The Society graciously replied and emailed the materials to me.

I noticed that in addition to the essays about which members expressed concern, the most recent issue of The Vegan, contained a review by Rob Jackson, the Vegan Society Education Officer, of my new book, co-authored with Professor Garner, The Animal Rights Debate: Abolition or Regulation?. A central focus of the book is my argument that creative, nonviolent vegan education/activism is the most important form of incremental change and that a movement that wants to abolish animal use should focus its efforts exclusively on veganism. Garner argues that vegan education is important but he supports animal welfare reform campaigns that I reject for various reasons, both theoretical and practical. I am also very critical of the “flexitarian” and “happy meat” phenomena; Garner sees these things as representing progress.

Let me be very clear: Mr. Jackson did not say anything negative about the book and I would not care if he did. But his review of the book did not mention veganism once. I am not kidding. Not once.

Frankly, to say that Mr. Jackson missed the point of the book would be an understatement. Although some “reviewers” only read the first few pages of a book they’re “reviewing,” had Jackson read only the introduction to the book, and did not read the book itself, he would have seen even there that a central theme of the debate was about whether a movement that sought to vindicate the rights of animals should really be a vegan movement or whether it should be a welfare reform movement. In the book, I am critical of the large animal organizations for not taking the position that veganism is an unequivocal moral baseline.

But there is not a single hint in The Vegan, the magazine of the Vegan Society, that the book is a debate about whether a coherent theory of animal rights requires veganism and vegan advocacy. I am sorry, but that is downright peculiar.

And then, as I was scrolling through the issue further, I saw something that I found even more bewildering and more disturbing.

On page 3 of The Vegan is an advertisement for the Lancrigg Vegetarian & Organic House Hotel and Green Valley Cafe & Restaurant. Lancrigg is described as a “A Haven of Peace & Inspiration.” There is an attractive picture of the building, which is in the Lake District of England. I went to the Lancrigg restaurant page and saw that patrons of the restaurant could get breakfasts that included poached eggs and homemade Danish pastries made with local organic cheese. I downloaded the sample menu and saw dinner items that included various cheeses, mayonnaise, ice cream, cheese cake, etc.

I scrolled further and saw that at least two more non-vegan places were advertised in the classified section.

I was confused. A while back, I criticized Viva! for promoting Lancrigg (as well as other non-vegan restaurants/inns and for selling non-vegan cookbooks). Although Viva! claims to be a vegan organization, it explicitly promotes vegetarianism and claims that veganism is difficult and daunting, and it promotes welfare reform campaigns. But the Vegan Society?

Read more

Interview on New Book

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Dear Colleagues:

On Wednesday, February 16, I did an hour-long interview on my new book, My most recent book, The Animal Rights Debate: Abolition or Regulation?, co-authored with Professor Robert Garner of the University of Leicester. The interview was on the Progressive Radio Network with host Caryn Hartglass.

[audio:progressive-radio-network-20110216.mp3|titles=Caryn Hartglass of the Progressive Radio Network interviews Professor Francione on his book “The Animal Rights Debate: Abolition or Regulation?”|artists=Progressive Radio Network]

If you are not vegan, go vegan. It’s easy; it’s better for your health and for the planet. But, most important, it’s the morally right thing to do.

The World is Vegan! If you want it.

Gary L. Francione
©2011 Gary L. Francione

Interview in The Believer

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Dear Colleagues:

I was very pleased to have been interviewed by award-winning novelist, Deb Olin Unferth in the The Believer, a widely-circulated magazine that deals with the arts and general culture.

I hope that you enjoy the interview, which is here.

If you are not vegan, go vegan. It’s easy; it’s better for your health and for the planet. But, most important, it’s the morally right thing to do. You will never do anything else in your life as easy and satisfying.

The World is Vegan! If you want it.

Gary L. Francione
©2011 Gary L. Francione

Book Event on Saturday, February 5

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Dear Colleagues:

On Saturday, February 5, I will be discussing my new book, The Animal Rights Debate: Abolition or Regulation? at the Grindcore House Cafe in Philadelphia from 6-8 p.m. Grindcore House is a vegan cafe about which everyone raves! I hope to see some of you there.

The World is Vegan! If you want it.

Gary L. Francione
©2011 Gary L. Francione

Two Upcoming Debates/Discussions

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Dear Colleagues:

I have two debates/discussions coming up:

Debate on Vivisection

On March 8, I will debate Dario Ringach, Professor of Neurobiology and Psychology at UCLA. The debate will be at Rutgers University and will be open to all members of the Rutgers community and members of the public if space permits. Professor Ringach and I will debate whether vivisection can be morally justified. He maintains it can be justified; I maintain it cannot be. It is my hope that this debate, which will be moderated by Dean John Farmer, will help people to think more critically about vivisection and to oppose it. Professor Ringach obviously hopes to the contrary. May the best arguments win!

The debate will be held in the evening at Rutgers University School of Law in Newark and I will post further details as soon as I have them.

Debate on Animal Advocacy

I have been informed that Gene Baur of Farm Sanctuary would like to have a public discussion with me about animal advocacy. I am delighted to discuss this topic with Gene and I have offered a live moderated event at Rutgers University or a moderated podcast. I will post further details as soon as they are available.

If you are not vegan, go vegan. It’s easy; it’s better for your health and for the planet. But, most important, it’s the morally right thing to do. You will never do anything else in your life as easy and satisfying.

The World is Vegan! If you want it.

Gary L. Francione
©2011 Gary L. Francione

Commentary #22: A Discussion on Abolition vs. Regulation with Robert Garner

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Dear Colleagues:

My most recent book, The Animal Rights Debate: Abolition or Regulation?, involves a debate between me and Professor Robert Garner of the University of Leicester.

In this Commentary, Professor Garner and I discuss our book. Garner’s position, although a form of what I call “new welfarism,” is different from that of Singer and most others. To start with, Garner is not an act utilitarian, as is Singer. Like Singer (and Regan), Garner does not recognize that animal life has moral value equal to human life but he thinks that an animal’s interest in not suffering should be protected with a “right.” He equivocates about whether this right is a right not to suffer “unacceptably,” in which case his position collapses into a form of welfare (similar to what I have discussed in my 1995 book, Animals, Property, and the Law, as the new welfarist “right to humane treatment”), or whether the right not to suffer is an absolute right, in which case Robert’s position would rule out all animal use because, as I point out in our book, all use involves some form of suffering, distress, etc. As I also discuss in our book, if Garner understands this right in an absolute sense, then there are theoretical problems understanding the derivation of any such right and Garner’s promotion of welfarist reform is both theoretically and practically inconsistent with any such right.

In our discussion here, we focus on the following questions that I prepared:

1. In our book, you state that animals have a right not to suffer “unacceptably.” How do you determine what levels of suffering are “acceptable”?

2. Although you think that factory-farming cannot be morally justified, if animals could be raised in a pleasant way with minimal suffering and killed in a relatively painless way for food, or if animals could be used in experiments with minimal suffering and significant benefits for humans, you could not object, could you?

Let’s take a very clear example: I have a cow who lives in the back garden. I treat her very well. I shoot her (one bullet; instantaneous death) and kill her and eat her. Have I done anything morally wrong?

3. In our book, you state: “I am accepting the view that, all things being equal, nonhuman animal life (of most nonhuman species at least) is of less moral value than human life.” p. 187 Why do you take this position?

4. A central point of disagreement between us is that you believe that regulationist groups, such as the RSPCA, CIWF, PETA, HSUS are seeking and achieving “worthwhile” wins. Do you believe that any of these “wins” does much more than make animal use more economically efficient? If so, can you identify them?

5. Do you believe that these groups are stimulating demand for “higher welfare” products in a way that will adversely affect overall demand? Given that all of these groups are promoting “happy” exploitation labels, can you doubt that whatever the effect will be, these groups believe that these labels will make people feel more comfortable about exploitation?

I hope that you enjoy the discussion.

If you are not vegan, go vegan. It’s easy; it’s better for your health and for the planet. But, most important, it’s the morally right thing to do.

The World is Vegan! If you want it.

Gary L. Francione
©2011 Gary L. Francione

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A Simple Thought for Martin Luther King Day

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At the center of non-violence stands the principle of love. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Wayne Pacelle and I Agree

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Dear Colleagues:

For many years now, I have been arguing that the large animal protection groups are, for the most part, partners with institutional exploiters and are, in effect, lobbying arms of the food industry. They do not challenge animal use; in fact, they actively support institutionalized animal use, and claim that it’s only the welfare or treatment issues that matter. They promote what are largely insignificant changes, many of which actually improve production efficiency and many of which are never even implemented or have dates of implementation many years in the future. They promote “happy” exploitation labeling programs where “approved” animal products are sold with the purported blessing of the animal advocacy community. I have argued that welfare reforms (if they can even be called “reforms” rather than efficiency-promoting changes) make the public feel good about continuing to exploit nonhuman animals.

My views have drawn a great deal of sharp criticism by advocates of animal welfare.

So it is with great happiness that I report to you that Wayne Pacelle, CEO of the Humane Society of the United States, agrees with me.

Appearing before the Ohio Livestock Standards Board, which gained the support of HSUS after agreeing to abolish gestation crates after 2025 (so much for “helping the animals here now”), Pacelle praised animal agriculture:

“I do believe that agriculture is a deeply noble tradition,” he said. “There are so many great aspects to it, but we also must put animal welfare into the equation.”

Pacelle calls animal agriculture a “noble tradition” with “many great aspects.” We just need to put “animal welfare into the equation.” There you go. The problem is not animal use per se; the problem is treatment, and welfare reform, such as eliminating gestation crates after 2025, is the solution.

He also said that the welfare reforms supported by the Board:

will make Ohio agriculture “more honorable, defensible and pertinent to the consumer.”

Yes, indeed, they will. That’s exactly what I have been saying for more than two decades now and I am glad that Wayne Pacelle agrees with me.

If you are not vegan, go vegan. It’s easy; it’s better for your health and for the planet. But, most important, it’s the morally right thing to do. You will never do anything else in your life as easy and satisfying.

The World is Vegan! If you want it.

Gary L. Francione
©2011 Gary L. Francione

Some Thoughts for the New Year

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Dear Colleagues:

It is the obligation of all who embrace veganism to educate others in creative ways about the fundamental moral truth of not exploiting the vulnerable. We must all become teachers of nonviolence in our homes, social circles, schools, workplaces, and communities. We start teaching by our own example.

Ethical veganism is nonviolence in action; it is dynamic harmlessness. It requires that we reassess and reject the insidious ideologies of domination that we have been raised to accept as “normal.” A world that moves toward ethical veganism will be a world that moves toward greater peace and justice as a general matter.

If we stop treating animals like animals, we will stop treating other humans like animals.

Let us resolve to stand up against all forms of discrimination (racism, sexism, homophobia, classism, speciesism) and just say no.

Let us resolve to make the world a more peaceful place in 2011 and let us each do our part in that effort. I will continue throughout 2011 to do Commentaries focusing on the various forms of positive, creative, nonviolent, grassroots vegan advocacy that are emerging and developing in many countries and in all sorts of communities. We should all learn from these advocates!

If you are not vegan, go vegan. It’s easy; it’s better for your health and for the planet. But, most important, it’s the morally right thing to do. You will never do anything else in your life as easy and satisfying.

The World is Vegan! If you want it.

Gary L. Francione
©2011 Gary L. Francione

The Necessity of Theory

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Many animal advocates seem to think that we don’t need any theory. We just need to act “for the animals”; we can worry about theory later on.

That view is mistaken in at least two respects.

First, if we do not have a theory, how are we to choose what things we should promote? If I want to do something today to help the animals, and I do not have a theory as to the moral status of animals and what things I ought to do, how will I choose what to do?

If I want to spend this afternoon talking with a group of people about animal exploitation, and I do not have a theory, how will I choose what to talk about? How will I choose whether to argue that they ought to consume no animal products or that they ought to consume supposedly “happy” animal products?

The answer is very clear: we cannot make any intelligent or informed choice if we don’t have any theory that guides our choice. Before I talk with people; before I decide what activism to pursue, I have to be clear as to whether the correct moral position is that we ought to consume “cage-free” eggs, or whether it is that we should eat no eggs; I have to be clear as to whether the correct moral position is to eat chicken that has been gassed rather than electrocuted, or whether it is to eat no chicken.

It is interesting that most of those who claim that we don’t need a theory to act “for the animals” right now do have a theory: they embrace the theory that the issue is not that we use animals but how we use animals; that it is acceptable to use animals as long as we treat them in a “humane” manner. So these people claim that we should not bother ourselves with the abstractions of theory; we should just go out and promote “cage-free” eggs or gassed chicken or whatever.

But their position is informed by a theory.

And that brings me to my second point.

Sometimes, some ideas are so much a part of our culture that we are not even aware of the extent to which they shape our reality. One such idea is that men are, as a group, more valuable than women and that women are valued more for their appearance as providers of sexual services than for their abilities. That idea is so much a part of our culture that many of us are not even aware of it; we see as “normal” the way that women are represented culturally and we do not see that representation as reinforcing patriarchy.

Another such idea is that animals do not care about whether we use them but only about how we treat them. That is an idea that we can trace back historically and it is the very foundation of the animal welfare position that dominates our thinking about the human-nonhuman relationship just as patriarchy dominates our views about the value of women.

In the 19th century, progressive social reformers, such as Jeremy Bentham, argued that we should include animals in the moral community because, even though they were different from humans in various ways, they could, like humans, suffer and that was sufficient to ground our moral obligations to animals. According to Bentham, although a full-grown horse or dog is more rational and more able to communicate than a human infant, “the question is not, Can they reason? nor, Can they talk? but, Can they suffer?” But this did not mean that we could not use and kill animals for human purposes as long as we treated them well. 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.” If, as Bentham apparently maintained, animals do not as a factual matter have an interest in continuing to live, and death is not a harm for them, then our killing of animals would not per se raise a moral problem as long as we treated and killed animals “humanely.”

And that is exactly how most of us think about the matter of animal use. Bentham’s view is explicitly promoted by Peter Singer and even rights theorist Tom Regan maintains that death is a greater harm for humans than for nonhumans because the latter have fewer opportunities for satisfaction than do the former.

I would suggest that this view-that our use of animals, if “humane,” is morally acceptable-is, in one form or another, accepted by just about everyone. That is, even those people who have never heard of Jeremy Bentham or Peter Singer buy into this theoretical view that is so pervasive that no one even recognizes how much it shapes our view of the human-animal relationship.

And, like the pervasive sexism of our culture, it is wrong.

The theoretical view that animals do not have an interest in their lives and do not care about whether we use and kill them as long as we do so “humanely” is based on the notion that to have an interest in continuing to live requires a sense of self-awareness that we associate with normal humans.

And as I discuss in my most recent book, The Animal Rights Debate: Abolition or Regulation? and in Introduction to Animal Rights: Your Child or the Dog?, and on this website, that is a speciesist position in that it arbitrarily privileges humanlike self-awareness.

This theoretical view about the lesser value of animal life is the 800-pound theoretical gorilla in the room. Whether we like theory or not, we need to come to grips with this idea before we undertake animal advocacy. If we agree with Bentham and Singer and with the dominant theory of animal welfare, then we promote welfare reform; we promote “cage-free” eggs; we promote consuming chickens who have been gassed rather than electrocuted; we support “happy” meat/dairy labels; we promote “flexitarianism” and view veganism simply as a way of reducing suffering. If we don’t support that theoretical view, and if, instead, we regard all sentient beings as having equal moral value for the purposes of not being used as a resource, then we promote veganism as a non-negotiable moral baseline.

And we cannot claim to accept equality but support reform for the reason that people are going to continue to consume animals anyway. Putting aside that if we really believe in equality, promoting welfare reform is similar to promoting “humane” slavery or pedophilia, animal welfare does not work as a practical matter. Animals are commodities; they are property. It costs money to protect their interests and the most “humane” treatment schemes will never rise above the level that would be characterized as torture were humans involved.

Try as you will, you cannot avoid theory. You can only choose a theory of equality or choose to accept the dominant theory of welfare, which assumes that animal life is of lesser moral value.

But choose you must and your activism will necessarily be informed by the choice that you make.

If you are not vegan, go vegan. It’s easy; it’s better for your health and for the planet. But, most important, it’s the morally right thing to do.

The World is Vegan! If you want it.

Gary L. Francione
©2010 Gary L. Francione