Dear Colleagues:

It is important to understand that there are significant differences among those who regard themselves as vegans.

One important difference is between those who maintain that veganism is merely a way of reducing suffering, and those who maintain that it is a fundamental commitment to justice, nonviolence, and a recognition of the moral personhood of nonhuman animals.

The difference between these two groups is not merely a matter of abstract theory—it has profound practical consequences.

The prevailing position on veganism among new welfarists is that veganism is a way—one way—of reducing suffering. Understand in this manner, veganism is no different than cage-free eggs or meat produced from a slaughterhouse designed by PETA-award winner Temple Grandin. These are, new welfarists claim, all just ways of reducing suffering. If X chooses to reduce suffering by being a vegan, great; if Y chooses to reduce suffering by eating cage-free eggs, great. If X decides to reduce suffering on Monday by eating no animal products and on Tuesday by eating “humanely” produced animal products, that’s fine. To maintain that, as a moral matter, X should be a vegan on Monday and Tuesday and every other day is “absolutist,” “fundamentalist,” or “fanatical.”

People like Peter Singer, and groups like “Vegan” Outreach and PETA maintain this position. For example, Singer maintains that being a “conscientious omnivore” is a “defensible ethical position.” He claims that being a consistent vegan is “fanatical.” Singer labels himself a “flexible vegan” who will be non-vegan when it is convenient. He mentions eating free-range eggs and dairy. He talks about the “luxury” of eating meat and other products from animals who have been well treated, in his view, and killed “humanely.” PETA claims that adherence to veganism as a matter of principle is a matter of “personal purity,” “narcissistic cultural fad,” and “fanatical obsession.” “Vegan” Outreach makes the emphasis on suffering clear and downplays the use of animals in claiming that veganism:

is not an end in itself. It is not a dogma or religion, nor a list of forbidden ingredients or immutable laws—it is only a tool for opposing cruelty and reducing suffering.

A fundamental assumption of the new welfarist position is that killing animals does not per se inflict a harm on them. Animals do not care that we use and kill them; they only care about how we treat them and kill them. As long as they don’t suffer too much, animals are indifferent to our using them. They have no interest in continued existence.

It is this thinking that has led to the “happy” meat/animal products movement, which has been the most serious setback in the struggle for justice for nonhumans in decades. It is this thinking that leads PETA and Singer to maintain that we may have a moral obligation not to be vegan in situations in which others will be annoyed or disconcerted by insistence on veganism.

I reject this view. I believe that it is speciesist to maintain that nonhumans must have minds similar to human minds in order to have an interest in continued existence. Any sentient being has an interest in continued life in that she prefers, wants, or desires to remain alive.

We can no more justify using nonhumans as human resources than we can justify human slavery. Animal use and slavery have at least one important point in common: both institutions treat sentient beings exclusively as resources of others. That cannot be justified with respect to humans; it cannot be justified with respect to nonhumans—however “humanely” we treat them.

The abolitionist approach sees veganism as the application of the principle of abolition to the life of the individual. It is our personal expression that we embrace the moral personhood of all sentient beings and we reject the status of nonhumans as chattel property. Veganism is an essential part of our commitment to nonviolence.

Veganism is not just a way of reducing suffering; it is what justice for nonhumans requires at the very least. It is not the last step in our journey to reject the moral schizophrenia that characterizes the human/nonhuman relationship; it is the first step. If animals have any moral significance, then we cannot eat, wear, or use them. A vegan is not a vegan only on Mondays, or only when it is convenient. A vegan is a vegan all the time. I would no more not be vegan just because my being vegan made someone else uncomfortable than I would remain silent if someone told a racist joke or harassed a woman because to object would make the perpetrator uncomfortable.

It is no more “absolutist” or “fanatical” to be a consistent vegan as it is to be consistent in one’s rejection of rape or pedophilia. Indeed, to characterize consistent veganism as “absolutist” is itself speciesist precisely because we would not so characterize our complete rejection of fundamental forms of human exploitation.

If you are not vegan, go vegan. It really is easy. It is better for our health and reduces the violence that we do to ourselves. It is better for the planet and reduces the harm that we do to the home of sentient beings and to the ecosystems that sustain all life. But, most importantly, it’s the morally right thing to do. We all say we reject violence. Let’s take what we say seriously. Let’s take an important step to reduce violence in the world starting with what we put in our mouths or on our bodies.

And remember, it’s not an impossibility: THE WORLD IS VEGAN! If you want it.

Gary L. Francione
©2010 Gary L. Francione

Dear Colleagues:

My newest book, The Animal Rights Debate: Abolition or Regulation?, will be published by Columbia University Press in May. In the first section, I defend the abolitionist approach. In the second section, Professor Robert Garner of the University of Leicester (U.K.) defends the protectionist approach (what I refer to as “new welfare”). In the third section, Professor Garner and I discuss and debate issues such as the moral status of nonhuman animals and the efficacy of welfare reform.

I hope that this book will help you to think through the issues involved and that it will assist you in your advocacy efforts.

If you are not vegan, go vegan! Animal products are injurious to your health and animal agriculture is an ecological disaster. But most importantly, veganism is the morally right thing to do. It represents your daily celebration of nonviolence.

Gary L. Francione
©2010 Gary L. Francione

Dear Colleagues:

Opposing Views posted my essay, On Violence. It generated a lively discussion with well over 200 comments. Read the various threads and make up your own mind.

If you are not vegan, go vegan! Animal products are injurious to your health and animal agriculture is an ecological disaster. But most importantly, veganism is the morally right thing to do. It represents your daily celebration of nonviolence.

Gary L. Francione
©2010 Gary L. Francione

Dear Colleagues:

Unfortunately, there are people who identify themselves as animal advocates who claim that the solution to the problem of animal exploitation is violence.

Some of these people have actually engaged in acts of violence against institutional exploiters. Others incite acts of violence by calling on people to use “intimidation” against animal exploiters or to make animal exploiters “fearful” of retaliatory violence.

Putting aside the moral/spiritual aspects of violence, those who promote violence are deeply confused about the basic economics of animal exploitation. Institutional users engage in animal exploitation because the public demands it. Institutional users are, for the most part, indifferent to whether they are selling beef or bananas. They will put their capital wherever they’ll get the best return.

Most people regard animal use as “normal” in the same sense that breathing and drinking water are considered as “normal.” They demand animal products. If you destroy ten slaughterhouses today, as long as demand remains, ten more slaughterhouses will be built or ten existing ones will expand production (and probably make production more economically efficient). If you shut down a supplier of animals used for vivisection, and the public continues to support vivisection, which it clearly does, then another supplier will emerge. So as a purely practical matter, violence is a strategy that cannot work.

As long as animal use is regarded as normal and as not raising a fundamental moral question, nothing will ever change. But we are not going to get people to think about animal use through intimidation, fear, and acts of violence. Education, if it is to be effective, can never be violent; it can never seek to intimidate or make people fearful. It must open their hearts and their minds. The non-violent strategy is anything but passive; it involves our working actively, constantly, and creatively to shift a fundamental paradigm—the notion that animals are things, resources, property; that they are exclusively means to human ends.

And it is clear that our efforts to educate are working. There is a dialogue emerging about the use of animals that goes beyond questions of “humane” treatment. There is a constant stream of stories about how people are becoming increasingly aware of the moral schizophrenia that characterizes the human/non-human relationship.

Those who advocate violence are not only confused about basic economic issues, but they are hindering this progress because they provide an easy target that gives people an excuse to dismiss the issue of animal exploitation. In this respect, the pro-violence people are similar to those who promote sexism.

Would Martin Luther King have campaigned for civil rights, claiming “I’d rather go naked than sit in the back of the bus”?

Of course not.

Would King or Gandhi have urged us to “intimidate” others and to make others “fearful” that they were going to become victims of violence?

Of course not.

Sometimes, when I see some of the things that the pro-violence people say or do (or when I see a video with a woman stripping “for the animals”), I shake my head and wonder what people could do that could be worse in terms of getting the public to take this issue seriously. Indeed, it seems that these people are trying to sabotage meaningful change.

For further discussion of these issues, listen to the Commentary I did on this subject, or read A Comment on Violence, More on Violence and Animal Rights, and On Violence and Vivisection, all of which are on this site.

I also discuss the issue of violence in my forthcoming book, which I co-authored with Dr. Robert Garner, The Animal Rights Debate: Abolition or Regulation?, which will be published by Columbia University Press in May 2010.

THE WORLD IS VEGAN! If you want it.

Gary L. Francione
©2010 Gary L. Francione

Dear Colleagues:

The Vegan, the magazine of the The Vegan Society (U.K.), is about to release its Spring 2010 issue. In that issue, I have an essay, Vegetarianism First?, which discusses the notion that we should promote vegetarianism as a “gateway” to veganism and proposes that this is an error on both a theoretical and practical level. I have addressed that issue in other blogs essays on this site (see 1, 2, 3, 4) as well as in my books and articles.

The Vegan Society will be providing me with a higher resolution PDF that I will make available as soon as I can. I hope that this will be useful to you in your advocacy efforts as you engage in creative, nonviolent vegan education.

Also, ROROTOKO is a respected site that selects certain books and interviews authors. My book, Animals as Persons: Essays on the Abolition of Animal Exploitation, published in 2008 by Columbia University Press, was chosen as the cover interview of the February 1, 2010 issue of ROROTOKO.

THE WORLD IS VEGAN! If you want it.

Gary L. Francione
©2010 Gary L. Francione