I often hear from people that they feel overwhelmed by the poverty and violence of modern life.

We are certainly living in difficult and challenging times. But that does not mean that we cannot make a difference. We can.

Here are three suggestions to help you to celebrate peace this holiday season:

First, don’t consume. Take the money that you plan to spend on acquiring more junk that you don’t need and give that money to someone or to a family who needs help in these very difficult times. Or use that money to provide vegan food or non-wool blankets to those at a local Occupy site.

Second, if you are not vegan, go vegan and stop eating, wearing, or consuming animal products. There is no justification for it. And spend a portion of each day engaged in creative, non-violent vegan education. Educational efforts can take many different forms.

Third, adopt a homeless animal. There are so many who need you. If you do not have the room or resources for a dog or cat, adopt a hamster, rabbit, or fish. There is a nonhuman refugee out there who will fit with your life. And if you adopt one (or more), you will not only save the life of another, but you will enrich your own life immeasurably.

Gary L. Francione
Professor, Rutgers University

©2011 Gary L. Francione

On Thursday, January 12, 2012, the Rutgers Federalist Society is sponsoring a debate between me and libertarian philosopher Tibor Machan. Machan holds the R. C. Hoiles Chair of Business Ethics and Free Enterprise at the Argyros School of Business & Economics at Chapman University in Orange, California. He is a research fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, and an adjunct scholar at the Cato Institute.

Machan is a prominent opponent of animal rights.

The debate will take place at Rutgers University School of Law in Newark, New Jersey.

I hope to be able to post a video of the debate here.

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

The World is Vegan! If you want it.

Gary L. Francione
Professor, Rutgers University

©2011 Gary L. Francione

The basis of the animal welfare movement, stretching from its inception in the 19th century until the present day, is that animal use is itself acceptable because animals do not have an interest in continuing to live. According to welfarists, nonhuman animals are not self-aware and cognitively sophisticated in the way that humans are. This means that the lives of nonhumans are less valuable than the lives of humans. According to Peter Singer:

While self-awareness, the capacity to think ahead and have hopes and aspirations for the future, the capacity for meaningful relations with others and so on are not relevant to the question of inflicting pain . . . these capacities are relevant to the question of taking life. It is not arbitrary to hold that the life of a self-aware being, capable of abstract thought, of planning for the future, of complex acts of communication, and so on, is more valuable than the life of a being without these capacities.

Welfarists distinguish between killing, which is itself not morally objectionable, and the imposition of “unnecessary” suffering, which is morally objectionable. If we give animals a reasonably pleasant life and a relatively painless death, then our exploitation of animals may be morally acceptable. Again, according to Singer:

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.

It is this sort of thinking that has given impetus to the “happy” meat/animal products movement that is promoted by Singer and virtually all of the large animal organizations in the U.S. and Europe. Using animals is not the problem; the problem is animal suffering. If we decrease suffering through welfare reforms, then we make animal exploitation less morally objectionable. The public can continue to consume animals and feel good about being “compassionate.”

We should not be surprised that more and more people feel comfortable about consuming animal products. After all, they are being assured by the “experts” that suffering is being decreased and they can buy “happy” meat, “free-range” eggs, etc.. These products even come with labels approved of by animal organizations. The animal welfare movement is actually encouraging the “compassionate” consumption of animal products.

Animal welfare reforms do very little to increase the protection given to animal interests because of the economics involved: animals are property. They are things that have no intrinsic or moral value. This means that welfare standards, whether for animals used as foods, in experiments, or for any other purpose, will be low and linked to the level of welfare needed to exploit the animal in an economically efficient way for the particular purpose. Put simply, we generally protect animal interests only to the extent we get an economic benefit from doing so. The concept of “unnecessary” suffering is understood as that level of suffering that will frustrate the particular use. And that can be a great deal of suffering.

But the animal welfare position that that it is the suffering of animals and not their killing per se that raises a moral question begs a very important question: it assumes that because animal minds are different from human minds, animals, unlike humans, do not have the sort of self-awareness that translates into having an interest in continuing to live. The welfare position necessarily assumes that animal life has a lesser moral value than does human life. And welfarists explicitly agree with this, as is clear in my book, The Animal Rights Debate: Abolition or Regulation?

A major focus of my work has been to challenge that welfarist assumption and to argue that the only non-speciesist position to take is that any sentient being–any being who is perceptually aware and has subjective states of awareness–has an interest in continuing to live. Any other view accords an arbitrary preference to human cognition. It is speciesist to maintain that animal life has a a lesser value than human life. This does not necessarily mean that we must treat nonhumans the way we treat humans for all purposes. It does, however, mean that for the purpose of being treated exclusively as a resource for others, all sentient beings are equal and we cannot justify treating any sentient being as a resource.

If animals have an interest in continuing to live, as I maintain they do simply by virtue of being sentient, and if that interest matters morally, which I argue that it must do, then there is only one plausible conclusion: any use–however “humane”–is unjust.

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

And please remember: Animal welfare reforms do little, if anything, to reduce animal suffering. But, in any event, the important point is that veganism is not just a matter of reducing suffering; it’s a matter of fundamental moral justice. It is what we owe to those who, like us, value their lives and who want to continue to live.

The World is Vegan! If you want it.

Gary L. Francione
Professor, Rutgers University

©2011 Gary L. Francione

I reject animal welfare reform and single-issue campaigns because they are not only inconsistent with the claims of justice that we should be making if we really believe that animal exploitation is wrong, but because these approaches cannot work as a practical matter. Animals are property and it costs money to protect their interests; therefore, the level of protection accorded to animal interests will always be low and animals will, under the best of circumstances, still be treated in ways that would constitute torture if applied to humans.

By endorsing welfare reforms that supposedly make exploitation more “compassionate” or single-issue campaigns that falsely suggest that there is a coherent moral distinction between meat and dairy or between fur and wool or between steak and foie gras, we betray the principle of justice that says that all sentient beings are equal for purposes of not being used exclusively as human resources. And, on a practical level, we do nothing more than make people feel better about animal exploitation.

I maintain that those who believe that animals are members of the moral community should, instead, make clear that veganism, defined as not eating, wearing, or using animals, is the non-negotiable, unequivocal moral baseline and should put their labor and resources into grassroots vegan education that may take a myriad of creative forms but should never involve violence.

Those who are critical of my view argue that my position on the need for creative, nonviolent vegan advocacy requires some sort of faith that such an approach will work.

I find that criticism to be ironic in that it would seem that if any position requires faith, defined as a belief that is maintained in the face of all extant empirical evidence, it is that welfare reform and single-issue campaigns will lead anywhere but to more animal exploitation.

Animal Welfare: Why?

Why does anyone believe that welfare reform will lead to abolition? If we look at the history of animal welfare reform, we see that most reforms are minor, most are not even enforced, and most actually increase production efficiency and provide economic benefits to producers. We have had the animal welfare paradigm for 200 years now and we are exploiting more animals now in more horrific ways than at any time in human history.

Why does anyone believe that promoting “happy” exploitation is going to lead to the abolition of exploitation? Use your common sense. “Happy” exploitation won’t lead anywhere but to a public that feels better about particular forms of animal exploitation. If that were not the case, the animal exploitation industries, in partnership with the large animal welfare corporations, would not be investing all the resources that they are investing in “happy” exploitation campaigns and labels.

Why does anyone believe that by continuing to reinforce and strengthen the paradigm that treats animals as property, we will eventually abolish animal exploitation?

Why does anyone believe that single-issue campaigns will lead to the abolition of exploitation? Just take a look at long standing single-issue campaigns, such as the anti-fur campaign. That campaign has been going for decades and the fur industry is stronger than it has ever been. Why? Because there is no principled basis that can serve to distinguish fur from wool or leather, or to distinguish wearing animals from eating them. As long as people do not understand and accept the general moral principle, they will fail to see the problem of specific uses. And it is no answer to say, as many advocates do, that fur represents a gratuitous use of animals. So does eating animals. We eat animals because they taste good. And palate pleasure is no better a justification than is fashion.

As I have written elsewhere, supporters of welfare reform never address these questions; they just declare that any criticism is “divisive” or that any alternative is “too idealistic.” In other words, they have nothing to say.

Veganism as a Moral Baseline: Why Not?

The appeal of creative, nonviolent vegan advocacy is that it challenges people to apply a moral principle that most people already accept and claim to view as important: that it is morally wrong to inflict suffering and death on animals unless it is necessary, and pleasure, amusement, and convenience cannot suffice to demonstrate necessity. When people are confronted with the argument that criticizing Michael Vick for dog fighting does not make sense if we are eating animals or animal products, or with the similarity between the animals whom they love and those they eat or wear, they may not all become vegan immediately, but we have at least gotten them to start thinking about the general issue of animal use in moral terms. And to the extent that the argument resonates–and it will resonate for many–they will begin to assess matters of animal ethics in a different way.

If, as I maintain, we cannot justify the use, however “humane,” of animals, then we ought to be clear about that. We ought to be clear that we cannot justify eating, wearing, or using animals. Period. If those who are concerned about the issue are not yet willing to give up animal use and go vegan, they can take whatever incremental steps they want. But those incremental steps should never be characterized as normatively desirable if we really believe that animal use is unjust. Just as we would never say that “humane” or “happy” sexism or racism is acceptable, we should never characterize “humane” or “happy” meat or dairy or whatever as morally acceptable.

Finally, promoting veganism as a moral baseline is no more a matter of moral “purity” than is promoting justice where humans are concerned. We are told that even if we go vegan, we cannot avoid causing harm to nonhumans. That is true. Living in the world and engaging in any sort of action necessarily has adverse consequences for others, humans and nonhumans alike. We should, of course, endeavor to cause the least amount of harm that we can to all sentient beings. But the fact that we cannot avoid all harm does not mean that we should not at least stop all intentional harm that we inflict on sentient nonhumans just as the fact that we cannot eliminate all violence in the world means that it is morally acceptable for us to murder other humans.

If we are ever to abandon the property paradigm, we need to get people to recognize that animal use, however “humane,” cannot be justified morally. I am confident that creative, nonviolent vegan advocacy is not only consistent with the claim of justice that is entailed, in my view, by the animal rights position, but that it is the best way to achieve the goal of shifting away from the property paradigm and toward the notion of animals as moral persons.

Those grassroots advocates who are engaged in creative, nonviolent vegan education all report that the results are astounding; that people react and react positively.

And I am certain that any belief that welfare reform, single-issue campaigns, “happy” exploitation, etc. will take us anywhere but to a greater level of comfort about animal exploitation requires a particularly blind form of faith.

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

If you are vegan, educate everyone with whom you come in contact in a creative, nonviolent way about veganism. If we really do regard animals as members of the moral community; if we really believe that we cannot justify unnecessary animal suffering and death, then we cannot justify billions of animal death based on palate pleasure.

And please remember: veganism is not just a matter of reducing suffering; it’s a matter of fundamental moral justice. It is what we owe to those who, like us, value their lives and who want to continue to live.

The World is Vegan! If you want it.

Gary L. Francione
©2011 Gary L. Francione

We frequently see news stories reporting that scientists have determined that nonhuman animals have certain cognitive characteristics that we associate with human intelligence. The implication of this is that if nonhuman animals have humanlike intelligence, then they have greater moral value; the “smarter” they are, in human terms, the more morally valuable they are.

This approach is problematic for a number of reasons:

First, there is absolutely no logical relationship between the possession of humanlike intelligence and the morality of using animals as resources. Possession of humanlike intelligence may indicate that certain animals have interests that other animals may not have. Nonhuman great apes, who do possess humanlike intelligence in many respects, may have interests that dogs or fish do not have. But nonhuman great apes, dogs, and fish all have an interest in not being treated as resources simply by virtue of being sentient, or having subjective awareness. All sentient beings have an interest in not suffering and in continuing to live and these interests are necessarily defeated by their being treated as human resources.

We proclaim human intelligence to be morally valuable per se because we are human. If we were birds, we would proclaim the ability to fly as morally valuable per se. If we were fish, we would proclaim the ability to live underwater as morally valuable per se. But apart from our obviously self-interested proclamations, there is nothing morally valuable per se about human intelligence.

Second, to the extent that we claim that humanlike intelligence is morally relevant, then we are necessarily stuck with the idea that humans with greater intelligence are more morally valuable than humans with less intelligence. It is true; we may not treat all humans alike. We pay a brain surgeon more than a janitor because we value the former’s skill more. But even assuming that differential resource allocation is legitimate, would we say that the janitor is worth less than the surgeon for purposes of deciding who should be used as a forced organ donor or as an unwilling participant in a painful experiment? Of course not. For purposes of being used exclusively as a resource for others, both are equal.

And, unless we want to be speciesist, we must conclude that all sentients–human or nonhuman–are equal for purpose of not being treated as resources.

Third, the “smarts” game is one that nonhuman animals can never win. We have known for decades that nonhuman great apes have humanlike intelligence, which should come as no surprise given the genetic similarity between humans and nonhuman great apes. It is not likely that any other nonhuman animals will ever exhibit a greater degree of humanlike intelligence. And yet, we continue to exploit the nonhuman great apes (and many other nonhuman primates) in all sorts of ways.

The “smarts” game is just that–a game. It is yet another reason not to accord animals moral significance today in favor of more silly (and harmful) research to determine whether animals can solve human math puzzles and perform other tasks that have no moral relevance.

We already know everything we need to know to come to the conclusion that we cannot justify eating, wearing, or using animals–that, like us, animals are sentient. They are subjectively aware. They have interests in not suffering and continuing to live.

Nothing more is needed.

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

If you are vegan, educate everyone with whom you come in contact in a creative, nonviolent way about veganism.

The World is Vegan! If you want it.

Gary L. Francione
©2011 Gary L. Francione