The Animals Need YOU!

Shifting the paradigm from animals as property to animals as nonhuman persons with inherent value requires a grassroots movement of people who are educated educators–people who understand the arguments in favor of veganism and can discuss them calmly and in plain language with the other people that they interact with in their day-to-day lives. We need people who can explain to others why “happy” exploitation, reducetarianism, and other speciesist approaches are not the solution and, indeed, are part of the problem.

There are all sorts of ways to do creative, nonviolent grassroots advocacy. But, in the end, the most important component of a grassroots movement for animals is the individual–YOU!–communicating with other individuals.

If each of us convinced one other person in the next year to go vegan and that was repeated over a period of years, we’d have a vegan U.S. in about 12 years and a vegan U.K. in about 9 years.

Each of us can be an effective agent of change. It does not cost anything to educate ourselves. Indeed, one of the primary purposes of this website and of our Facebook page is to provide you with free educational resources.

The alternative is supporting the bloated animal charities that do nothing but sell out animal interests and make people feel better about exploiting animals in return for a donation.

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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.

If animals matter morally, veganism is not an option—it is a necessity. Anything that claims to be an animal rights movement must make clear that veganism is a moral imperative.

The World is Vegan! If you want it.

Learn more about veganism at www.HowDoIGoVegan.com.

Gary L. Francione
Board of Governors Distinguished Professor, Rutgers University

Anna Charlton
Adjunct Professor, Rutgers University

©2016 Gary L. Francione and Anna Charlton

A Report from the “Intersectional Justice” Conference

I have written about those who identify themselves as “intersectionalists” but who embrace a very speciesist position. I have also written about a recent conference on “intersectional justice.” The following essay is from Dr. Mark Causey, Lecturer in Philosophy and Liberal Studies at Georgia College and State University. Dr. Causey attended the “intersectional justice” conference. I have never met Dr. Causey and I do not know him other than in connection with his reaching out to tell me about this conference. He wrote the following essay, which I am posting in its entirety exactly as he sent it to me. He made no changes in response to any observations I made.

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I recently attended the Intersectional Justice Conference on Whidbey Island in Washington State. Based on the way the conference billed itself as dealing with the intersections of animal rights, human rights and justice issues, I naively assumed that it would deal with the intersections of animal rights, human rights, and justice issues. I soon learned the danger of making assumptions. The main focus of the conference seemed to be voicing the anger and rage that many of the speakers felt at their being marginalized within the animal rights (or “animal whites”) community. The Abolitionist Approach, which oddly enough doesn’t even consider itself part of the mainstream “animal rights” community in the first place, came in repeatedly for explicit and pointed criticism [well, criticism is not really the correct term because that would imply a substantive engagement with ideas which was not so much on offer here]. As far as I could gather there were at least 3 main complaints about the Abolitionist Approach:

1. Veganism as a moral baseline is too simplistic and assumes (white) privilege
2. Calling it “abolitionist” appropriates the lived history of the African-American experience and seems to assume that since legal slavery has ended that there are no lingering issues of systemic racism
3. Abolitionist veganism focuses too much on nonhumans!

I will attempt to address each of these in turn now.

1. Veganism as a moral baseline is too simplistic and assumes (white) privilege:

Indeed, it would seem from what I gathered that having any sort of universal or at least potentially universalizable moral principle, like veganism as a moral baseline, is a sign of patriarchal, white male privilege that takes its viewpoint as the universal and thus erases the perspectives of differently situated others [the truth of a proposition being determined more by who the speaker is than by what it is they say]. Telling someone to “go vegan” implies that they have money and access to vegan options. It is consumerist. The whole notion of “voting with our forks” implies buying power and privilege to vote. One speaker, I honestly don’t remember which one, was thanked, to much applause, for not asking us to all “go vegan.”

Now I certainly see the point that not everyone has equal access to fresh, wholesome fruits and vegetables [not to mention all the analog vegan products that so many falsely assume necessary for a vegan diet] based on where they live and their socio-economic circumstances. I also know that statistically the majority of those so disadvantaged are people of color. I absolutely agree that this is a fundamental human justice (food justice) issue that must be addressed and that vegans should be at the forefront of such efforts. As we were reminded, and I fully agree, that unlike natural deserts, “food deserts” don’t just happen. They are constructed by systems of discrimination both racial and economic. Now that is an intersectional issue. Enabling disadvantaged peoples to be able to go vegan would save animals’ lives as well as the lives of these humans who also disproportionately suffer from diet related diseases. But as Gary Francione has repeatedly explained, the necessity for some to eat animal products in order to be adequately nourished doesn’t mean that it is just to consume animals, it only means it is justifiable given the circumstances—unjust circumstances we should be working hard to change! It is possible, as Ellen Jaffe Jones has demonstrated, to eat vegan on $4 a day (the amount of the average SNAP allotment). We even learned at the conference about some amazing work being done in inner-city Baltimore to introduce people to vegan diets, so why not ask people to go vegan and then help them do it rather than ridicule the very notion? Eating a vegan diet [and I by no means want to imply that veganism is only about diet] in these circumstances then becomes a powerful means of non-violent social protest against a food system that is admittedly rigged against these communities. Indeed, the conference seemed at times an odd combination of people with solutions and people with complaints with the two never seeming to connect.

As to the notion that having any sort of universal or at least potentially universalizable moral principle, like veganism as a moral baseline, is a sign of patriarchal, white male privilege that takes its viewpoint as the universal and thus erases the perspectives of differently situated others—this is simple moral relativism. Now here’s the thing: I am a philosopher who has actually published on Nietzsche, one of the chief proponents of what he called “perspectivalism” and a darling of the critical theory crowd. Nietzsche was one of the chief practitioners of what Paul Ricoeur called the “hermeneutics of suspicion” which sees power dynamics and hegemony behind all claims to “truth” and even “morality.” But what I see in this criticism of veganism as a moral baseline is a speciesist power play that maintains our human hegemony over nonhuman others. It is a claim that whenever human rights interests conflict with nonhuman animal rights interests, the human interests always win. Nietzsche to one side, the very notion that we shouldn’t have moral absolutes is counterproductive to any justice struggle. The very fact that these speakers are complaining about the very real injustices they have experienced as non-dominant group members demonstrates that they have a universalizable concept of justice—it’s just that they apply it unevenly across the species-divide. I do not doubt for a moment that they care about animal justice nor wish to suggest that they are in any way insincere. Many of them have been vegan longer than I have and have done far more justice work than I have or perhaps ever will do. I am only suggesting that speciesist attitudes have created inconsistencies in their own positions. If animals matter at all morally, that is if they are members of the moral community as we all agree that they are, then our treatment of them is just as much a justice matter as our treatment of each other. We should never be doing things to them that we would consider unjust when done to another human.

2. Calling it “abolitionist” appropriates the lived history of the African-American experience and seems to assume that since legal slavery has ended that there are no lingering issues of systemic racism:

I was told at the conference that the term “abolition” implies that slavery and the racist attitudes that made it possible are simply a thing of the past. Done and dusted. Time to move on to liberate someone else now. Such an attitude ignores the persistence of slavery (albeit not legalized slavery, like that of the Immokalee tomato pickers) and the systemic racism. Despite the Abolitionist Approach’s 5th principle which clearly rejects all forms of human discrimination, including racism, sexism, heterosexism, ageism, ableism, and classism, I was told that it is not enough to just say it. A fair point. I was told that veganism is not like some badge to be earned but something you have to do every day. It is more like a verb than a noun. Amen. So what are we arguing about?

The thing is, and someone please correct me if I am wrong, I have never seen where Gary Francione [who was called out by name in the conference] has ever denied that racism, sexism, heterosexism….. still exist and are still active justice issues. He explicitly states that, “We cannot say that we reject species as a morally objectionable criterion to discount or devalue the interests of nonhumans but that 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.” Comparing human slavery and abolition to animal slavery and abolition, I am told, is to try to compare suffering. African-Americans were “animalized” and denied their proper recognition as full human beings, so to then compare their suffering to animal suffering simply repeats this dehumanization. But the intent here is not to compare suffering. We can’t. The intent is to highlight the systems of domination operative in both cases [here we all can agree on blaming the white males who set up this system and still profit from it]. Indeed, I would argue that speciesism is the original form of domination. That is why every subjugated group in the past, women, people of color, members of nondominant religions, and so on have always been “animalized” in the minds and depictions of the oppressors. Our domination of animals back at the beginning of domestication led to the domination of other humans as well (especially the appropriation of female bodies and reproductive capabilities). All humans still profit in various ways (but not all equally) from our continued domination of the nonhumans. I suspect the real complaint here is related to number 3 below: that abolitionist vegans spend too much time focused on nonhuman animals rather than human ones.

3. Abolitionist veganism focuses too much on nonhumans!

I suspect that much of what is behind this complaint is the notion that until we have solved all the human problems, the animals will just have to wait. Needless to say, that is hardly an intersectional approach. The idea seems to be that human justice simply matters more. That is speciesist. In terms of sheer quantity of suffering [oops, I was told not to use this comparison!]—trillions a year—animal suffering is on a scale that simply defies comprehension. This is not to compare the quality of the suffering, it is just a fact that humans have never been bred , slaughtered, imprisoned, enslaved, etc., on anywhere near the scale that we are currently doing to nonhumans. What I expected to hear at the conference was how attacking our speciesist exploitation of nonhuman animals would be actually striking at the root of all forms of oppression. That is what I thought would be the intersectional message here. Instead, the message seemed to be more a complaint that animal activists weren’t more engaged in the various struggles for human justice. But that seems to reinforce the idea that these are separate struggles rather than truly intersectional ones and that the human issues are more important and pressing than the animal ones. It also ignores the important differences between the abolitionist approach and other “animal rights” groups that explicitly reject the vegan moral baseline.

Mark Causey, M. Div., Ph.D.
Lecturer
Philosophy and Liberal Studies
Georgia College & State University

Why Welfare Reform Campaigns and Single-Issue Campaigns Necessarily Promote Animal Exploitation

The purpose of welfare reform campaigns and single-issue campaigns (SICs) is to build coalitions that include those who believe that animal exploitation per se is morally acceptable and who just object to the target of the particular welfare reform campaign or SIC. Such campaigns must play to the lowest level of the spectrum or they will lose that part of the coalition.

And that is precisely the problem.

A welfare reform campaign that aims to phase out gestation crates for pigs seeks to build a coalition that includes people who eat animal products, including pork, but who agree that the gestation crate is not “humane.” A welfare reform campaign that aims to phase out the traditional battery cage for laying hens seeks to build a coalition that includes people who eat eggs from hens confined in an “enriched” cage or in one big cage known as a “cage-free” barn. An SIC that targets foie gras seeks to build a coalition that will include people who eat meat but who think that foie gras is morally distinguishable from other meat. An SIC that targets meat seeks to build a coalition that will include people who consume dairy and eggs. An SIC that targets fur seeks to build a coalition of people who wear wool, leather, or silk instead of fur.

Because welfare reform campaigns and SICs seek to build coalitions of people, many of whom engage in conduct that is indistinguishable from the target of the particular welfare reform campaign or SIC that they are supporting, these campaigns necessarily promote the animal exploitation that is not the target of that welfare campaign or that SIC. That is, the reform campaign must characterize the reform of the use or the products that are not the target of the SIC (but are morally indistinguishable from it), as more “humane” or “compassionate,” not just as a factual matter (it supposedly causes less suffering), but as a normative or moral matter. In other words, welfare reform campaigns and SICs communicate to the public that the supposedly reformed use or the non-targeted product is what people ought to support.

So a campaign against the gestation crate must promote non-crate pork as a normatively desirable choice—as what people ought to support and consume. If the campaign even suggested that all meat consumption or even all pork consumption was morally wrong, those who object to gestation crates but otherwise think meat or pork consumption is fine would not support or donate to the campaign.

To put this in simple terms: if Mary consumes meat but agrees that the gestation crate is cruel, she is going to donate to a campaign that she understands as saying that consuming animal products other than crated pork is morally better than consuming crated pork and that she is behaving more morally than people who consume crated pork. She is not going to support and donate to a campaign that says that what she is doing is no better morally than what those who consume crated pork are doing. As we can easily see, this situation results in promoting the idea that Mary’s animal exploitation is morally acceptable.

An SIC against foie gras must promote the idea that eating a piece of steak, chicken, or fish, or pâté from the liver of a goose that has not been force fed is what people ought to do. If the campaign even suggested that people should stop eating all animal products or even just all meat, those who think that force feeding geese is wrong but that eating animal products is otherwise fine would not support—or donate to—the campaign. An SIC against fur must promote the idea that people ought to wear wool or leather instead of fur. If the anti-fur campaign even suggested that it was also immoral to wear wool or leather, those who think that it is tragic that seal cubs are clubbed or foxes are caught in leg hold traps but who wear wool and leather would not support or donate to the campaign. A campaign against the gestation crate cannot be understood to be promoting the eating of no pork, no meat, or no animal products, or it would fail to create a coalition because those who eat pork or other animal products would not support it.

All of these regulatory campaigns must engage in the pretense that the targeted activity or product is morally distinguishable from the activities or products that are not the subject of the regulatory campaign and that the latter are morally desirable alternatives. If those who are continuing to participate in animal exploitation are not told that their exploitation makes them “compassionate” people, they will not support the regulatory campaign. People must be made to feel comfortable and they are made to feel comfortable by an insidious pretense that the target of the campaign is immoral and their own conduct is not immoral, or is so much less immoral.

So, in effect, the coalitions for welfare reform and SICs all have one thing in common: they involve a broad spectrum of people who “care” about animals promoting exploitation that is supposedly more “humane,” or promoting animal products or uses that are not the target of the welfare reform campaign or SIC.

A particularly pernicious effect of coalitions is that they render the moral imperative of veganism, which we will explore in greater detail when we come to Principle Three, as meaningless. By bringing together nonvegans and vegans (that is, vegans who support welfare and SICs) in order to form a group of people with a common goal, a coalition creates the false notion among its members and among the public that there is no moral difference between someone who deliberately exploits animals by being nonvegan and someone who does not do so by being vegan. Coalitions portray the act of not eating, wearing, and using animals as irrelevant or negligible to doing justice to animals. This, in effect, prevents veganism from being viewed as a moral requirement.

Is it possible for these campaigns to not promote animal exploitation? No. The only way that these campaigns can build coalitions is by promoting animal exploitation. Could welfarists reformulate these campaigns and promote welfare reform with a campaign that explicitly said, “We are promoting larger cages for laying hens but we oppose all animal exploitation however ‘humane,’ and we regard veganism as a moral imperative yet are seeking larger cages for chickens as an interim measure while we move toward the abolition of all animal exploitation”? Could they promote a single-issue campaign that explicitly said, “We regard all animal ‘foods’ as equally unjust and violative of animal rights, and we regard veganism as a moral baseline but we are targeting foie gras now and, as soon as we prevail, we will move on to other animal foods”? Sure, those are campaigns that could be promoted. But the only people who would support—donate—to such campaigns would be those who embraced animal rights. Such campaigns would have a great deal more moral integrity but they would be completely ineffective from a fundraising point of view. And that is precisely why no animal advocacy group has ever promoted those campaigns.

Gary L. Francione
Anna Charlton

From: Gary L. Francione and Anna Charlton, Animal Rights: The The Abolitionist Approach (2015), 41-43.

When “Intersectional Justice” Means Promoting Meat, Fish, Dairy

The latest organized rejection of veganism as a moral baseline is found in the position of certain people who call themselves “intersectionalists.” In an earlier essay, I discussed how these “intersectionalists” were promoting a brand of moral relativism (at least as far as animals were concerned), and that they were combining this relativism with an appeal to identity politics. The result was what I maintained was a most speciesist vision of animal ethics.

I pointed out how there was an “intersectional justice” conference coming up in March 2016 that was being sponsored by none other than the the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS), which very clearly rejects veganism as a moral baseline and actively promotes “happy exploitation.”

The “sponsor” section of conference announcement no longer lists HSUS. But it does list Vegan Outreach, which explicitly rejects veganism as a moral baseline, and VegFund, which promotes individuals or groups that espouse “happy exploitation” and reducetarianism, as well as other problematic groups.

Most disturbing, however, is that the conference is promoting as a sponsor an entity called The Star Store:

ScreenHunter_1739 Mar. 05 12.03

Click to enlarge.

When you click on “The Star Store,” you are taken to a website that gives you, among other thing, the Weekly Ad of the The Star Store. This week, the ad is as follows:

ScreenHunter_1739 Mar. 05 12.05

If you enlarge the ad, you will see that The Star Store sells, among other things:

tuna
cheddar cheese
waffles
pork loin chops
organic whole chicken
sockeye fillet
ham
swiss cheese
Babybel cheese

They have a clothing store as well. I called. It is not a vegan clothing store.

So “intersectional justice” is consistent with promoting a business that sells the corpses of animals and products made from animals?

Let’s think about this in the context of a group that opposed the abuse of children. Imagine that this group had a conference that was sponsored by someone who made child pornography and the conference promoted this pornographer on the page advertising the conference.

See the problem?

This model of “intersectional justice” is not intersectional at all. A true intersectional approach would treat nonhumans as full members of the moral community. Promoting humanocentric privilege is neither intersectional nor just.

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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.

If animals matter morally, veganism is not an option — it is a necessity. Anything that claims to be an animal rights movement must make clear that veganism is a moral imperative.

Embracing veganism as a moral imperative and advocating for veganism as a moral imperative are, along with caring for nonhuman refugees, the most important acts of activism you can undertake.

The World is Vegan! If you want it.

Learn more about veganism at www.HowDoIGoVegan.com.

Gary L. Francione
Board of Governors Distinguished Professor, Rutgers University

©2016 Gary L. Francione

Imagine If There Were a Real “Animal Rights” Movement

Imagine how different things would be if there were an animal movement that: (1) focused on use and not treatment; (2) that promoted veganism as a moral imperative; and (3) did not promote (and fundraise off) welfare reforms, “happy exploitation,” reducetarianism, single-issue campaigns, etc.

Industries that promoted animal exploitation would respond by trying to keep the public focused on treatment and convincing the public that animal exploitation was really “humane.” Industry would promote the same sorts of “reforms” that animal groups promote—larger cages, more “humane” slaughter, etc.

Individuals who cared about animals but who were not ready or willing to go vegan would reduce their intake of animals and consume supposedly “happier” animal products.

In other words, if we had a movement that sought justice for animals that promoted veganism as a moral imperative, industry would do exactly what it is doing now and individuals who cared but who were unwilling or not ready to go vegan would do exactly what they are doing now.

The difference would be that we would finally have a social movement that no longer partnered with industry and that took a position that is inherently speciesist. The moral message would be clear: “animal rights” means that all sentient beings are equal for the purpose of not being treated exclusively as resources, and that we cannot justify participating directly in animal exploitation irrespective of how (supposedly) “humane” that exploitation is.

The difference would be that we would have a movement that promoted animals as nonhuman persons—beings that mattered morally in their own right—and not just “things” to which we have, at best, duties of “mercy” or “compassion” to exploit in a more “kind” manner.

We would no longer have a movement that is, in essence, a business that sells “happy” slavery. We would have a real movement that rejected *all* slavery.

We would have a movement that made clear that if animals have moral value—and so many people already share that moral intuition–then the only rational response is to go vegan and stop eating, wearing, and using animals.

We would have a movement that finally focused on the fundamental moral issue—animal use—and that stopped promoting and fundraising off the idea that it is better treatment, or substituting other animal products for foie gras or veal, that mattered.

Think about that. And if it appeals to you, then join the worldwide grassroots effort to shift the paradigm from property to personhood.

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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.

If animals matter morally, veganism is not an option—it is a necessity. Anything that claims to be an animal rights movement must make clear that veganism is a moral imperative.

The World is Vegan! If you want it.

Learn more about veganism at www.HowDoIGoVegan.com.

Gary L. Francione
Board of Governors Distinguished Professor, Rutgers University

©2016 Gary L. Francione

Challenging Peter Singer’s Paternity Claim

I

Peter Singer initially gained fame by popularizing utilitarian philosopher Jeremy Bentham’s idea that just as race should not be used to exclude humans from the moral community and justify their enslavement, species should not used to justify treating animals as things. Singer borrowed the term “speciesism” from psychologist Richard Ryder and argued that using species to discount or ignore the interests of nonhuman animals was no different from using race, sex, or sexual orientation to justify discrimination against certain groups of humans. And Singer’s position as “father of the animal rights movement” was thereby secured. Gary Varner refers to Singer as “[t]he veritable Moses of the animal rights movement.” (Varner, Personhood, Ethics, and Animal Cognition, 2012, p. 133).

But is that title merited? And does Singer really reject speciesism or does he just promote a different version of speciesism?

Like Bentham, Singer is a utilitarian. He maintains that what is morally right and wrong is determined by consequences. Because rights require that certain interests be protected irrespective of consequences—a human can’t be used as a non-consenting biomedical subject even if the benefits of such use would be great—utilitarians, including Bentham and Singer, categorically reject the idea of rights. Singer categorically rejects the idea of animal rights. Singer claims that he uses the notion of “animal rights” simply as a rhetorical device; he is very clear that he ultimately shares Bentham’s view that rights are nothing but “nonsense upon stilts.” But to say that Singer’s paternity status as father of the animal rights movement is merely “rhetorical” is somewhat odd when we are talking about a rights movement. After all, the notion of a right is a legal and moral concept that by its very nature is irreducible to mere rhetoric.

A possible reply here is that Singer rejects rights for humans as well as for animals, so at least he’s being consistent. Yes and no. Singer does, indeed, reject moral rights for humans as well. But there’s a catch. Even though he rejects the notion of rights as categorical entitlements, he insists that, generally speaking, human beings are morally superior to nonhuman animals. He regards humans, or at least “normal” humans, as being self-aware and having a sense of self over time and hence an interest in continued existence. These characteristics support a presumption against using those humans exclusively as replaceable resources for the satisfaction of others’ needs and desires.

This presumption is rebuttable, of course, which is to say that it can be overridden if utilitarian considerations warrant it. If, for example, using one human as a non-consenting subject in a biomedical experiment would result in saving the lives of a million people, Singer would, other things being equal, have a difficult time as a utilitarian arguing that we should not use the human in the experiment. (This is precisely the kind of use that advocates of rights seek to preclude.) But otherwise, Singer’s presumption functions very much like a right—it protects the interest of humans in not being used exclusively as resources in all but cases where the balance of consequences is clear and significant.

And here’s where Singer’s claim to reject speciesism becomes problematic.

Singer believes that nonhuman animals do not have an interest in continuing to live in the way that “normal” humans do. According to Singer, “normal humans have an interest in continuing to live that is different from the interests that nonhuman animals have.” (New York Times, The Stone, May 27, 2015). That is because beings with the ability to be self-aware over time and plan for the future have a greater interest in living than beings who don’t. And Singer thinks that even if animals, or some animals, are self-aware in some sense, “they are still not self-aware to anything like the extent that humans normally are” (Singer, Practical Ethics, 3d ed. 2011, p. 122). So there is a qualitative distinction between humans and nonhumans, and this leads Singer to conclude that there is a moral difference between humans and nonhumans. Indeed, Singer sketches a moral hierarchy in which “normal” human beings are categorically superior to nonhuman animals.

Nonhumans, on Singer’s view, have no interest in not being used as replaceable resources. Singer thinks that “a being with the ability to think of itself as existing over time, and therefore to plan its life, and to work for future achievements, has a greater interest in continuing to live than a being who lacks such capacities” (New York Times, The Stone, May 27, 2015). For a human being to lose its life, on Singer’s view, is to suffer the loss of all the future opportunities for satisfaction that it is capable of contemplating. For a nonhuman animal to lose its life, in comparison, is essentially like going to sleep and never waking up—an animal cannot be said to “lose” anything by dying because it has no conceptual or linguistic access to its future.

For Singer, this translates into the view that the lives of nonhuman animals are of lesser moral value than the lives of human animals. Unlike humans, nonhumans can be used as replaceable resources, whereas “normal” humans possess a status that, even though Singer would deny it, is inseparable from the notion of inherent dignity that advocates of rights attribute to human beings. This privileging of humans leads Singer to make comments like: “[M]illions 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, March 8, 2009).

Now, how is this not speciesist?

Singer’s response is that speciesism involves treating the interests of nonhumans in a way that is different from the way that we treat similar human interests. According to Singer, animals do not have an interest in not being used as replaceable resources because they are not self-aware. And even if they are self-aware, their self-awareness is, according to Singer, qualitatively inferior to the self-awareness of normal humans. So to treat nonhumans as replaceable resources does not present a problem of speciesism because there is no similar interest involved—humans have an interest in continued existence, whereas nonhuman animals do not. There simply is no arbitrary privileging of human beings here.

According to Singer, animals are not indifferent to how we use and kill them, but they don’t care that we use and kill them. Because animals are not self-aware, “it’s not easy to explain why the loss to the animal killed is not . . . made good by the creation of a new animal who will lead an equally pleasant life” (Singer, Animal Liberation, rev. 1990, p. 229). Animals are utterly indifferent to their futures because they cannot think conceptually about those futures; all that an animal can care about is its immediate circumstances. Thus, for example, an animal caught in a painful trap will certainly want to get out of the trap and have the pain stop, but s/he cannot have any interest in surviving and living even another day.

II

Why would anyone think that a cow, or a pig, or a chicken, or a fish does not care about whether we use and kill him or her but simply about how s/he is used and killed? When one of our dogs or cats gets ill, do we think that, by dying, s/he loses nothing because s/he did not have an interest in continuing to live in the first place? We would venture a guess that most of us would reject as absurd the idea that animals do not have an interest in continuing to live, and would consider it indisputable that animals are harmed when we kill them—however “humanely.”

So how does Singer justify a contrary conclusion?

The answer is found in the work of Bentham. Singer is Bentham’s modern proponent on many issues, and on this issue Singer stands shoulder to shoulder with Bentham. Before the nineteenth century, animals were excluded from the moral community because they were thought to be our cognitive inferiors on the grounds that, unlike humans, they did not reason, use abstract concepts, or engage in symbolic communication. Bentham argued that we could not use cognitive differences to justify excluding animals from the moral community. The only characteristic that was required for membership in the moral community was the ability to suffer. If an animal can suffer, we cannot, on the basis of species alone, ignore or discount that suffering.

But did that mean that Bentham thought that cognitive characteristics were completely irrelevant? No. On the contrary, Bentham thought that although the supposed cognitive inferiority of animals did not mean that we could use them for whatever purpose we wanted and treat them however we wanted, it did mean that animals were not self-aware. And that meant that we could continue to use and kill animals—at least for food—as long as we accorded appropriate consideration to their interests in not suffering.

Bentham objected to human slavery, but he did not object to the institution of animal property because he did not see humans and nonhumans as similarly situated: the former were self-aware; the latter were not. Singer agrees with Bentham: animals are not self-aware so that, other things being equal, we can use them in ways in which we would not use (at least most) humans.

III

We find this idea that animals are not self-aware and that, other things being equal, we do not harm them when we use and kill them, to be quite peculiar. Not only does this idea not accord with our own experience in relating to nonhuman animals; it is problematic on theoretical grounds. Indeed, we think that it’s downright speciesist.

We certainly agree that nonhuman animals think differently from the way that humans think because human cognition is linked with the capacities for conceptual abstraction and language. Humans are the only animals who use symbolic communication. So it’s probably true that only humans have the autobiographical sense of self that humans have. But so what? The question we are faced with is this: is humanlike self-awareness the only sort of awareness that results in having an interest in continued life sufficient to give rise to at least a rebuttable presumption against killing?

Let’s assume with Singer that most nonhuman animals live in a sort of eternal present. Does that mean that they are not self-aware? Consider a human with  a total amnesia in which the person is unable to recall memories of the past and form new memories and, therefore, lives in an eternal present.  We submit that it would be inaccurate to say that the person is not self-aware. There is certainly awareness of self in the present moment and then the next moment and so on. It is certainly the case that continued existence is in the interest of such a person—she or he prefers, or desires, or wants to get to the next instant of awareness—regardless of the manner in which she or he thinks about self and even if they don’t have an autobiographical sense of self.

The notion that animals are not self-aware is based on nothing more than the unargued assumption that the only way to be self-aware is to have the self-awareness of a normal adult human. That is certainly one way to be self-aware. It’s not the only way. As Donald Griffin, one of the most important cognitive ethologists of the twentieth century, noted in his book Animal Minds, if an animal is conscious of anything, “the animal’s own body and its own actions must fall within the scope of its perceptual consciousness.” In this respect, an animal’s consciousness is comparable to that of a human with transient global amnesia. It is on these grounds that Griffin concludes that “[i]f animals are capable of perceptual awareness, denying them some level of self-awareness would seem to be an arbitrary and unjustified restriction” (Griffin, Animal Minds, 2001, p. 274). The idea that one must be able to think in detached, abstract terms of an “I” who is having these experiences as part of one whole life trajectory is nothing more than a device for depicting human beings as unique and as superior to all other animals.

IV

Moreover, there is something seriously wrong with Singer’s view that we can nevertheless accord equal consideration to the interests of animals. We maintain that we can’t do it except, perhaps, as an abstract matter. And we’re not sure it can be done even then.

Animals are legally classified as property, namely, as things that have no inherent or intrinsic value. They are chattel that are owned by humans. This, combined with the generally accepted view (which Singer promotes) that animals are cognitive inferiors, makes it almost impossible for us to think of animal interests as similar to our own in the first place. And even if we were to think of an animal having an interest that is similar to a human’s, the status of animals as property provides a good reason always to decide in favor of the human interest where there is any sort of conflict between human and nonhuman interests. When we, as owners of animals, balance the interests of animals against our own interests, we will always privilege our own interests and devalue those of animals.

Interestingly, although Bentham was a utilitarian, he opposed human slavery as an institution. Why? The standard explanation is that he thought that slavery would inevitably become the “lot of large numbers” and slaves would invariably be treated badly because such treatment would be justifiable on utilitarian grounds as contributing to the happiness of the majority. But there is another explanation. Bentham recognized that the principle of impartiality, or equal consideration, could not be applied to slaves because the interest of a slave would always count for less than the interest of a slave owner.

Bentham did not recognize this problem in the context of animals. Neither does Singer. Bentham thought that an enlightened utilitarian society could continue to eat and use animals even while according animal interests due consideration: in effect, on Bentham’s view, killing and eating animals did not entail that animals were being “degraded into the class of things.” But the fact is that there is no way to respect the vital interests of animals as long as they are legally classified as things that we are entitled to use. It can’t happen. It’s a simple matter of economics. Animals are property. It costs money to protect their interests. Given the nature of markets, and particularly in light of “free trade” and international markets, we will, for the most part, spend that money only in situations in which we get a direct economic benefit. That is why animal welfare standards mandated by law are and have always been very low and prohibit only gratuitous suffering. For the most part, the owners of animal property are required to change their behavior only when they are arguably acting in economically inefficient ways. So, for example, we require large animals to be stunned before being shackled, hoisted, and butchered not because of any real concern for animals because not doing so increases worker injuries and carcass damage.

Perhaps in recognition of the limitations of animal welfare standards imposed by law, animal advocacy organizations, led by Singer, have in recent years changed their focus from law reform to working with industry to secure voluntary changes to improve animal welfare. In 2005, Singer led an effort involving just about all of the large animal advocacy groups to endorse and promote the efforts of Whole Foods Market to formulate a program of “humane” improvements. But like Bentham, Singer fails to appreciate both the interest that sentient animals have in not being killed in the first place and the reality of economics in light of the property status of nonhuman animals. At the very best, animal welfare efforts can do no more than result in the creation of niche markets for affluent consumers whose consciences can be assuaged by paying a higher amount for animal products that may involve slightly less cruelty than conventional products. This is not consistent with any sort of “animal rights” view.

V

The idea that animal life is of lesser value than  human life is one that permeates the welfare position as it has been developed by utilitarian philosophers, such as Bentham and Singer. But this position also surfaces in the work of rights theorist Tom Regan.

Regan rejects both utilitarian moral theory and the theory of animal welfare. He maintains that we have no moral justification for treating at least adult mammals exclusively as means to the ends of humans, so he does not rely on the lesser moral value of nonhumans to justify animal use as did Bentham and as does Singer. Regan does, however, argue that in a situation in which there is a conflict, such as a situation in which we are in a lifeboat and must choose whether to save a dog or a human, we should choose to save the life of the human over the dog because death is a greater harm for the former than for the latter. According to Regan, “the harm that death is, is a function of the opportunities for satisfaction it forecloses,” and death for an animal, “though a harm, is not comparable to the harm that death would be” for humans. Indeed, Regan would argue that we should sacrifice any number of dogs to save one human. (Regan, The Case for Animal Rights, 1983, p. 324).

Regan’s position is problematic because if death is a qualitatively greater harm to humans than to nonhumans, then there is a nonarbitrary way to distinguish humans from nonhumans. Although Regan rejects using animals exclusively as resources, his argument that moral patients (such as nonhuman animals) have equal inherent value is based on his view that there is no nonarbitrary way to separate moral agents from moral patients. So his position on humans having a qualitatively greater interest in their lives seems to undermine that position. At the very least, to the extent that Regan thinks that situations of true conflict ought always to be resolved in favor of humans based on species, his position invites mischief depending on how “conflict” is interpreted.

We do not agree that we can say that death is a lesser harm to nonhumans any more than we can say that death is a lesser harm to a human with amnesia than to one without it, or that death is a lesser harm to a less intelligent person than it is to a more intelligent one. In situations of genuine conflict, we think that choosing a nonhuman over a human is perfectly acceptable. But we also believe that if we took animal rights seriously, we would stop manufacturing conflicts between human and nonhumans that result from bringing nonhumans into existence to use as human resources.

VI

We conclude by noting that Singer says that we should not use animals in situations in which we would not use similarly situated humans. But it is clear that Singer allows for the use of nonhumans in situations in which we would never consider using any human being, be that human being “normal” or mentally disabled. From what we have said here, it should be clear that there are no legitimate reasons for categorically privileging human beings over nonhuman animals, any more than we would privilege a more intelligent human being over a less intelligent one. Thus New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof is entirely right to acknowledge, as he has done repeatedly in his New York Times op-ed pieces, that he is being a “hypocrite” when he deplores our treatment of food animals but resists the call for veganism.

Singer advocates precisely the kind of speciesism that he purports to decry. Until we find the courage and honesty to acknowledge the unjustifiable violence against animals that Singer’s ideas sanction, we will continue to read articles in the pages of major newspapers with titles, such as “Saving the Cows, Starving the Children” (New York Times, June 26, 2015), whose authors insist, entirely speciously, that conflicts between animal and human interests are irreducible and that the life of a nonhuman animal comes at the cost of a human life.

Gary L. Francione, Board of Governors Distinguished Professor of Law and Katzenbach Scholar of Law and Philosophy, Rutgers University School of Law.

Gary Steiner, Professor of Philosophy, Bucknell University.
© 2016 by Gary L. Francione & Gary Steiner

The Vegan Society Senior Officer of Advocacy and Policy Rejects Veganism as a Moral Baseline

In my essay on “intersectionalist vegans,” I carefully documented explicit and overt speciesiesm on the part of a number of figureheads in the intersectionalist movement. Whatever else anyone wants to say, it is crystal clear that, for example, Breeze Harper, a member of the Board of Black Vegans Rock (BVR), rejects veganism as a moral imperative. Indeed, Harper refers to the idea that we are required morally to be vegan as “vegan fundamentalism”—the very same expression used by all of the large corporate charities to trash veganism as a moral imperative. But it is also crystal clear that BVR, as an organization, rejects the idea that veganism is a moral imperative.

An interesting response to my essay has come from Amanda Baker, Senior Advocacy and Policy Officer of The Vegan Society.

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Amanda posted comments on my essay. For example, she stated:

As a white AFAB person, I see GF taking nine thousand words to say, “I vehemently deny and simultaneously aggressively assert my privileges. I will continue to speak over and try to dominate marginalized folx and their lived experiences to say whatever I want. I cannot accept that there are some things I can never understand

Here is a screenshot of that comment:

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Another comment from Amanda Baker:

To put it yet another way, GF seems to be saying, “I cannot accept that as a white male professor, I live daily with huge benefits from the unequal relay race of history. I cannot accept that I need to sit down and no longer be dominant, so that marginalized folx can act.

Here is a screenshot of that comment:

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Let me say that I have the highest regard for Donald Watson, who co-founded The Vegan Society in 1944. Indeed, I wrote the entry on Watson for the Cultural Encyclopedia of Vegetarianism and, more recently, discussed Watson in a forthcoming Oxford University reference book on animal ethics. But I certainly—and unfortunately—have a very different view of veganism from the people who currently run the Society.

For example, back in 2011, I expressed an objection to their taking paid advertisements for non-vegan restaurants in their magazine. In particular, I objected to The Vegan Society having an advertisement in their magazine that described a non-vegan restaurant as “A Haven of Peace & Inspiration” as I did not think that the animals, who were exploited for all of the dairy products and eggs that were served at that restaurant, would agree. There was more discussion here. The result: I was banned from participating in the online forum of The Vegan Society.

In 2014, I objected to The Vegan Society’s “You Don’t Have to Be Vegan” campaign. I applied to be a member of The Vegan Society so I could participate in a meeting about the “You Don’t Have to Be Vegan” campaign. My application was denied because, according to CEO Jasmijn de Boo, I brought The Vegan Society “into disrepute.”

Also in 2014, I expressed astonishment that Vegan Society “Ambassador” Fiona Oakes claimed that veganism is not “for everyone, I’m saying that it’s not probably for very many people. . .”

In 2014, I wrote about the involvement of The Vegan Society with “sustainable” animal agriculture and their partnering with vivisectors in campaigns.

In sum, I believe that The Vegan Society has lost its way and has little relationship to the progressive moral vision that inspired Donald Watson. The Vegan Society, in my view, does not see veganism as a matter of justice for nonhuman animals.

But Amanda Baker’s comments on my essay on what is called “intersectional veganism,” (I regard it as nothing more than another version of speciesism and essentialism) takes my disagreement with The Vegan Society to a qualitatively different level.

Amanda is taking the position that arguing that veganism is a moral baseline involves white privilege and male privilege. She is saying that it is racist and sexist to disagree with people of color and women who reject veganism as a moral baseline.

That is breathtaking.

Amanda apparently agrees with Breeze Harper, who rejects the idea of objective moral principles altogether (at least as they apply to nonhumans), espousing a form of moral relativism, and maintains that veganism is a matter of the “who you are space.” Indeed, Amanda states:

I’m based in the UK, but I cannot recommend too highly the work of Dr A B Harper including the Sistah Vegan Project.

Here’s a screenshot of that comment:

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Click to enlarge.

As I noted in my essay, in Sistah Vegan, Harper characterizes veganism as a moral imperative as “vegan fundamentalism.”

Amanda rejects the idea of veganism as any sort of moral baseline. And given that Amanda is the Senior Advocacy and Policy Officer of The Vegan Society, it is no surprise that The Vegan Society rejects veganism as a moral imperative, which it pretty clearly does.

But it is rather shocking that Amanda would take the further step and say that veganism as a moral baseline is a matter of white male privilege. I am sure that many members of The Vegan Society believe that veganism is a moral imperative. I wonder how they will feel to learn that their views are not only not shared by The Vegan Society, but that, according to the Senior Advocacy and Policy Officer of The Vegan Society, their views are racist and sexist.

That position is troubling for several reasons. First, as Amanda acknowledges, she is a white female. So it’s a bit puzzling as to how she can make such a pronouncement in the first place on behalf of people of color. Second, there are many people of color and women whose advocacy is framed by the Abolitionist Approach and who maintain that veganism is a moral imperative. Therefore, it’s a bit unclear as to how veganism as a moral baseline can be a matter of white male privilege.

Perhaps Amanda agrees with other essentialists who, as we have seen above, think that people of color and women who embrace the Abolitionist Approach to guide their advocacy can be dismissed, ignored, or declared to be “tokens.” If she does agree with them, then I am shocked that the Senior Advocacy and Policy Officer of The Vegan Society would regard people of color and women in that way.

If she does not agree with them, then I am not all clear as to what she means by saying that my position that veganism is a moral imperative is a matter of white male privilege.

There’s really no good way to interpret her position.

If she is saying that women and people of color who agree with my position don’t count, that’s obviously problematic. If she is saying that veganism as a moral imperative is not a matter of white male privilege as long as white males aren’t taking that position, then it not only renders the moral obligation incoherent but also involves the most insidious sort of identity politics—moral principles are valid or not valid dependent only on who is espousing the principles and not what it is that they are espousing. And the who is linked to race and sex or gender alone.

Or perhaps Amanda simply does not see veganism as a moral imperative concerning justice for nonhuman animals. From this statement from The Vegan Society website, Amanda seems focused on the environment and climate change:

WHY VEGAN? “Everything I believe in has increasingly aligned with vegan as a solution; but it was the environment and climate change that gave me the reason to fully commit to vegan living.” – Amanda

But even if Amanda does not think that veganism is a moral baseline, you would think that she would at least be mindful that many people, probably including members of The Vegan Society, do regard veganism as a moral imperative, and that she would not think it a good idea to slag them off as racists and sexists.

Or perhaps Amanda was just plain pandering to folks (or “folx”) and was not acting out of any principle. Perhaps Amanda saw this controversy as an opportunity to attack me in an ad hominem way because I have been critical of The Vegan Society.

As I am not sure what why Amanda is taking this position, or what the position of The Vegan Society is concerning such troubling statements made by its Senior Advocacy and Policy Officer, I have written to The Vegan Society to ascertain exactly what is going on. Despite several emails to Jasmijn de Boo, CEO of The Vegan Society, I have received no reply. I was informed by Bob Linden of Go Vegan Radio that Bob invited Jasmijn and Amanda to come onto his show to discuss this matter. As far as I am aware, Bob has not had a reply.

In any event, one of the BVR Board members, Christopher-Sebastian McJetters (who, when I spoke with him, indicated that he preferred to be called “Sebastian”), weighed in on one of Amanda’s comments. In response to Amanda’s claim that my essay was merely a 9,000 word expression of my “privileges,” Sebastian said that he thought that Amanda’s “shortened version is much more succinct.”

Here’s a screenshot:

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Click to enlarge.

A preliminary question of interest is why Amanda, a white, middle-class, highly educated person has a position that should not automatically be dismissed by Sebastian as reflecting her privileges. Let’s put that to one side for the time being.

I was under the impression that Sebastian agreed that veganism was a moral imperative. But if that were the case, he would not have said that my position was merely an expression of my privileges as he would share the position. He would have agreed that BVR and some of his colleagues on the BVR Board did, indeed, take positions that smacked of speciesism, and he would have been concerned about that.

I was, however, apparently mistaken and it appears as though Sebastian, like Harper, Aph Ko, and others involved in BVR, does not believe that veganism is a moral imperative. In that case, how can my position merely be a matter of my “privileges” because there are plenty of people of color who share my position. Sebastian may disagree with all of us, but there is nothing about the anti-speciesist position that veganism is a moral baseline that is a matter of privileges.

And why is it that a position that we cannot morally justify exploiting the most vulnerable victims is a matter of my white or my male privileges?

We ought all to check our privileges but the ultimate question is whether our privileges have resulted in our taking an unjust position. I would suggest that the privileged position in this context is the one that says that humans, by virtue of their privilege as humans, can exploit nonhumans and can reject veganism as a moral imperative. In my view, that is an unjust position.

Sebastian is one of the facilitators of the Intersectional Justice Conference that is being sponsored by the Humane Society of the United States. Why is my criticism of that a matter of my privileges? As I discuss in my essay, HSUS is an organization that disavows wanting people to go vegan, supports animal agriculture, sponsors events at which animals are served as food, and is among the most prominent—if not the most prominent—proponent of “happy exploitation.” Again, it would seem that the “privileged” position is the one that celebrates the support by HSUS.

I respect the right of anyone or any group to promote whatever version of new welfarism they want to promote. I respect that they are free to reject veganism as a moral baseline in favor of Breeze Harper’s “who you are space” brand of moral relativism or any other position that falls short of veganism as a moral baseline. What I will not respect is the cheap threat that if I or others—including people of color and women—criticize others for rejecting veganism as a moral baseline, we will be called “racist” or “sexist” or whatever aspersion those who use defamation choose to cast because they are unable or unwilling to deal with substance.

That strategy is not going to work.

I recognize that The Vegan Society has departed far from the vision of Donald Watson but it is positively breathtaking that Amanda Baker, Senior Advocacy and Policy Officer of the Society, maintains that promoting veganism as a moral imperative is racist and sexist. And it’s very disappointing that board members of Black Vegans Rock agree with her.

Bottom line: If animals matter morally, veganism is the only rational and morally sound position to take. There’s really no good counterargument, which, of course, is why there is the name calling. The idea that it is a matter of white male privilege to maintain that we cannot justify direct participation in the exploitation of nonhuman animals is bizarre beyond belief. But, at least, we all know where we stand.

With respect to animals, we all enjoy the most absolute of privileges. We hold their fate completely in our hands. We need a clear, unified, and consistent voice to effect the complete dismantling—the abolition—of the mechanisms of animal exploitation. And that will only come from what we say and do—no matter who we are.

Here’s a short summary for Amanda Baker and Christopher-Sebastian McJetters because she was complaining that the original essay was 9,000 words long and Sebastian has stated his preference for succinct expositions. And this essay is 2500 words long.

Bear with me, Amanda and Sebastian, it’s just two short points:

First, it is beyond shameful that the Vegan Society, founded by Donald Watson in 1944, employs as Senior Advocacy and Policy Officer someone who maintains that promoting veganism as a moral imperative is “racist” and “sexist.” Poor Donald Watson must be spinning—not turning, spinning—in his grave.

Second, because animals matter morally any use of animals exclusively as resources cannot be morally justified. The moral status of animals as nonhuman persons requires that we go vegan. One is either vegan or one is engaging directly in the exploitation of nonhumans. There is no third choice.

Anyone who disagrees with that—irrespective of their race, sex, gender, ability, class, or any other attribute—is morally in error.

That is 117 words. I hope that’s okay.

Here’s an even shorter one: Nonhumans don’t care about the race, sex, gender, ability, class, etc. of those who exploit them.

That’s 16 words.

**********

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.

If animals matter morally, veganism is not an option — it is a necessity. Anything that claims to be an animal rights movement must make clear that veganism is a moral imperative.

Embracing veganism as a moral imperative and advocating for veganism as a moral imperative are, along with caring for nonhuman refugees, the most important acts of activism for you can undertake.

Groups that promote “happy exploitation” of any sort are part of the problem and not part of the solution.

THE WORLD IS VEGAN! If you want it.

Learn more about veganism at www.HowDoIGoVegan.com.

Gary L. Francione
Board of Governors Distinguished Professor
Katzenbach Scholar of Law and Philosophy
Rutgers University School of Law

©2016 Gary L. Francione

The Meaning of “THE WORLD IS VEGAN! If you want it.”

Many welfarist vegans and intersectional vegans do not seem to understand the ideas behind the idea that “THE WORLD IS VEGAN! If we want it.”

It’s really quite simple. There are three central ideas here.

First, this expression denotes that veganism is a moral choice and that it is one we can make today—right now—if we believe that animals matter morally. Moreover, it is a choice that we must make if we believe that animals matter morally. If we are not vegan, we are participating directly in animal exploitation. There is no way around that.

Welfarist vegans and intersectional vegans are into “journeys” and “reducetarianism,” and emphasize the difficulty of going vegan. They promote the idea of “compassionate” exploitation. They talk about veganism in a relativist way as a matter of the “who you are space.” For them, going vegan is a “sacrifice.” For abolitionist vegans, it is a joy. It is our way of saying “no” to the continued participation in the institutionalized violence against nonhumans.

When, in December 1969, John Lennon and Yoko Ono had a billboard erected at Times Square in New York City that read, “WAR IS OVER! If you want it,” they were expressing simple ideas: The Vietnam War could be over immediately if one man—Richard Nixon—decided to end it. And all war could be over forever if we made a collective decision that war was never an acceptable option and that we valued peace.

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“THE WORLD IS VEGAN! If we want it” similarly reflects that ending animal exploitation is something that we can choose to do both on an individual and a collective level right now. It’s just a matter of wanting to make that choice.

It makes no sense to have words of justice and nonviolence coming out of our mouths as the products of injustice and violence go into our mouths (and we otherwise consume those products).

There are, of course, “desert island” situations involving true compulsion in which a choice not to harm nonhumans is simply not possible. But such situations are very rare and, even in such situations, harming nonhumans is not morally right—it remains morally wrong just as it would be if a situation of compulsion required us to harm another innocent human. Humans have been known to kill and eat other humans in “desert island” situations. The harm may be excusable in light of the compulsion in both cases. It’s still morally wrong but the moral culpability is mitigated because of the compulsion.

In over 30 years of answering questions about choices when one is stranded on a desert island, we have yet to ever meet anyone who was stranded on a desert island. We have met many people who simply don’t want to give up cheese. So shall we deal with the real questions, please?

There may be circumstances short of true compulsion in which people have very great difficulty in getting access to vegan food. Their conduct may be less immoral than the conduct of others, but it is still immoral. Abolitionists should apply themselves to addressing the social and other circumstances that place people in these situations but the moral framework is not to be compromised.

Second, many people already accept that harming nonhuman animals in the absence of compulsion is morally wrong. Indeed, most people believe that harming an animal requires a moral justification and that pleasure, amusement, or convenience cannot constitute a moral justification.

That is why many people—including nonvegans—react so strongly to “animal cruelty” cases such as those involving Michael Vick and Mitt Romney: they already accept that pleasure, amusement, or convenience cannot justify harming animals.

Abolitionist vegans urge people to recognize that what they already believe commits them to stop eating, wearing, or using animals when their only justification is palate pleasure or fashion sense.

Third, if every person who is vegan and who believes that veganism is a moral imperative convinced one other person to go vegan in the coming year, and this pattern repeated itself over a period of years, the world would, indeed, be vegan in a relatively brief period of time. For example, a low estimate of vegans in the United Kingdom is 150,000 and the total population is approximately 65 million. If each one of those 150,000 people convinced one other person to go vegan in the next year, there would be 300,00 vegans next year and if this pattern repeated itself for an additional eight years (600,000, 1.2 million, 2.4 million, 4.8 million, 9.6 million, 19.2 million, 38.4 million, 76.8 million), the United Kingdom would be vegan.

That, of course, is not going to happen but it does show how much more effective vegan education and advocacy can be if we choose to promote it rather than to pursue the welfarist campaigns and single-issue campaigns that promote continued animal exploitation.

In sum, THE WORLD IS VEGAN! If you want it.

**********

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.

If animals matter morally, veganism is not an option — it is a necessity. Anything that claims to be an animal rights movement must make clear that veganism is a moral imperative.

Embracing veganism as a moral imperative and advocating for veganism as a moral imperative are, along with caring for nonhuman refugees, the most important acts of activism you can undertake.

Groups that promote “happy exploitation” of any sort are part of the problem and not part of the solution.

THE WORLD IS VEGAN! If you want it.

Learn more about veganism at www.HowDoIGoVegan.com.

Gary L. Francione
Board of Governors Distinguished Professor
Katzenbach Scholar of Law and Philosophy
Rutgers University School of Law

Anna Charlton
Adjunct Professor, Rutgers University School of Law

©2016 Gary L. Francione and Anna Charlton

Chris Hedges and I Talk About Veganism

Here is a discussion on veganism that I had with writer, journalist, and political theorist/activist Chris Hedges


**********

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.

If animals matter morally, veganism is not an option — it is a necessity. Anything that claims to be an animal rights movement must make clear that veganism is a moral imperative.

The World is Vegan! If you want it.

Learn more about veganism at www.HowDoIGoVegan.com.

Gary L. Francione
Board of Governors Distinguished Professor, Rutgers University

©2016 Gary L. Francione

Essentialism, Intersectionality, and Veganism as a Moral Baseline: Black Vegans Rock and the Humane Society of the United States

I. The Problem of Essentialism

Racism and sexism represent moral evil. Racism and sexism involve a societal acceptance of essentialism, or the idea that biology or some other personal characteristic alone determines moral value. A good definition of essentialism appears here:

Essentialism is the idea that there exists some detectible and objective core quality of particular groups of people that is inherent, eternal, and unalterable; groupings can be categorized according to these qualities of essence, which are based on such problematic criteria as gender, race, ethnicity, national origin, sexual orientation, and class.

Racism says that white people have greater moral worth than people of color because white people are white. Sexism says that men have greater moral worth than women just because they are men. Because this essentialism is the dominant paradigm, those in the favored groups acquire institutional power to adversely affect the lives of those in the disfavored groups.

All forms of discrimination involve essentialism. Heterosexism says that those who identify as heterosexuals are morally more worthy than others just because they are heterosexual. Ableism says that those who are conventionally-abled have greater value than those who are not, based simply on ability alone. In all cases of discrimination, some characteristic is said to describe a person’s “essence” and it is this essence—and not what they say or do—that determines their moral worth.

Speciesism involves essentialism. Speciesism is the belief that it is essence—in this case species—that alone determines moral value. Humans are morally valuable because they are human.

There is no doubt that the welfarist/new welfarist movement, which consists of the large corporate charities, has historically been sexist and racist (as well as discriminatory in other ways). Corporate charities are businesses and, in a patriarchal, racist, and otherwise unjust world, injustice sells.

Indeed, because injustice sells and because speciesism is the most pervasive injustice in the world—it is a prejudice shared by humans irrespective of race, sex, gender, sexual orientation/preference, ability, class, etc.—speciesism sells very well. And the welfarists/new welfarists have cashed in on it handsomely as they promote various forms of “happy exploitation,” that make people feel more comfortable about continuing to exploit animals as long as they donate to animal charities.

I have consistently opposed the speciesism—as well as the racism, sexism, and other forms of human discrimination—that I have encountered not only in the larger society, but in the welfarist/new welfarist movement, for the 30 years I have been involved in doing animal ethics and law. For many years, I have maintained that the “animal movement” is underinclusive. For example, in 1993, I wrote, with my co-authors Anna Charlton and Sue Coe, an essay which noted that:

The animal rights movement is seen as the quintessential bourgeois movement, comprised of white, middle-class people who are often apolitical, or, even worse, conservative, and who place animal interests above human interests, often to the detriment of underprivileged people.

We discussed the coalition between advocates for women’s suffrage and working class people that formed in the 19th century. We argued that animal advocates had to reach out to all oppressed groups to build a coalition for justice that would include all—including nonhuman animals.

The Abolitionist Approach to Animal Rights, which is simply what I now call the theory that I’ve been developing for three decades (given that “animal rights” alone is now a meaningless phrase), requires an explicit and emphatic rejection of positions that promote oppression and violence—whether against humans or nonhumans.

The Abolitionist Approach promotes veganism as a moral imperative. Veganism is not a matter of opinion, lifestyle, or particular circumstances. It is a moral obligation that binds us—all of us—just as do moral obligations that involve the fundamental rights of humans. To treat the fundamental rights of nonhumans in a different way from the way in which we treat the fundamental rights of humans is speciesism. The Abolitionist Approach maintains that if you are not vegan, you are participating directly in animal exploitation and that you cannot justify doing that.

The Abolitionist Approach is clear that to be an abolitionist vegan requires an explicit and emphatic rejection of positions that promote oppression and violence—whether against humans or nonhumans. Along with almost all strands of feminism, anti-racism, and other social movements, the Abolitionist Approach rejects essentialism—all forms of the idea that moral value is determined by personal characteristics such as race, sex, gender, ability, etc.

The Abolitionist Approach to Animal Rights is an idea. It is not an organization. There is no “donate” button. There are no requests for crowd funding so that people can be professional “activists.” There are no employees. There are no t-shirts, buttons, or bumper stickers. We recognize that the moment we look to make a living from advocacy, our advocacy falls prey to perverse incentives that pressure us to compromise our message in order to increase donations.

Instead, we have a growing grassroots movement of people all over the world—a diverse group in all respects—who volunteer their time in order to educate others and whose daily lives are an example of the peace they want to see in the world.

What unites us as a community is a belief that all sentient beings have the right not to be used as property; a belief in veganism as the moral baseline of the animal rights movement; a rejection of the idea of “humane” or “happy” exploitation, and a complete rejection of all discrimination and violence. There are Six Principles of the Abolitionist Approach to Animal Rights:

Principle Three states: Abolitionists maintain that veganism is a moral baseline and that creative, nonviolent vegan education must be the cornerstone of rational animal rights advocacy.

Principle Five states: “Abolitionists reject all forms of human discrimination, including racism, sexism, heterosexism, ageism, ableism, and classism—just as they reject speciesism.”

Principle Six states: “Abolitionists recognize the principle of nonviolence as a core principle of the animal rights movement.”

We ought—all of us—who enjoy race and sex privileges to be constantly mindful of those privileges. Those of us who are in the middle class (and that includes many of those who identify as “intersectional vegans”) ought to be concerned about the privilege that we get from being a member of the middle class. We ought—all of us—to strive to ensure that we do not promote or defend morally wrong positions because those positions reinforce privilege.

If a particular position is immoral, the race, sex, or gender identity of the speaker does not make it better. If a particular position is a good and moral position, then it does not lose its moral force because of the race, sex, or gender identity of the speaker. To maintain otherwise would be to embrace essentialism.

II. “Intersectionality” or Essentialism?

There are some animal advocates who claim that the “mainstream vegan community” has failed to incorporate concerns about human rights, and has been racist and sexist. As I have discussed above, I agree strongly with this observation although I would not describe the welfarist/new welfarist movement as involving a “vegan community” at all. Indeed, one of the problems with the “mainstream” animal movement is that it has not promoted veganism as any sort of moral principle. Further, many mainstream animal groups embrace nonvegans as members, volunteers, and donors while actively denouncing veganism as extreme and unnecessary.

In any event, these animal advocates are promoting what they claim is a progressive alternative to what they label as the “mainstream” movement, by which they mean the traditional welfarist/new welfarist charities and the Abolitionist Approach. Indeed, a number of these advocates have claimed that the Abolitionist Approach does not go far enough. These advocates identify themselves as “intersectional vegans.” As part of their claim to leadership and authority as animal advocates, they claim that intersectional veganism provides justice for nonhumans and eliminates the racism, sexism, and other discrimination that has characterized the “mainstream” movement.

Unfortunately, many of those who base their claims to leadership or authority as “intersectional vegans” are pursuing an approach to animal ethics that is every bit as reactionary as, and largely indistinguishable from, the welfarist/new welfarist position.

As I will now show, these so-called “intersectional vegans” embrace speciesism in that, like the welfarists/new welfarists, they reject veganism as a moral baseline.

Instead of being unequivocal in support of the rights of all, they equivocate and negotiate on the rights and well-being of everybody, replacing a firm commitment to social justice with “journeys” and “spaces,” in which violence and oppression are excused rather than excoriated.

And instead of eliminating the essentialism of discrimination, they substitute a new essentialism that says that the rightness or wrongness of a position is dependent on who the speaker is and not what the speaker says.

Most figurehead advocates who claim to be intersectional in their approach to veganism and animal rights present nothing more than a variant of the traditional welfarist/new welfarist position with a new cast of characters.

Abolitionist vegans agree completely with pro-intersectionality, which is the idea that we need to recognize that certain humans are subject to multiple forms of discrimination. For example, a woman of color is discriminated against both as a woman and as a person of color. To focus on the racial discrimination she suffers alone is to neglect the sexism that she also suffers.

Abolitionists reject all discrimination and they apply it in the context of animal advocacy in several ways.

First, as part of their rejection of all discrimination, they necessarily reject discrimination that involves multiple sources. For example, in 2010 People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) had a fundraising ad that I criticized in which a woman of color stripped “for the animals.” This ad involved both racism and sexism (and the sexism itself involved not only the objectification of the woman but the idea that only certain sorts of female bodies are sexually attractive).

Second, Abolitionists seek to apply this intersectional analysis in the context of nonhuman animals. For example, I have long emphasized that although all animals are exploited, female animals have their reproductive processes and their relationship with their babies commodified. I am not suggesting that this involves the intersection of speciesism and sexism as that latter term is normally understood. But I am suggesting that the treatment of female animals is informed by a deep misogyny that pervades society and results in female animals being subjected to exploitation that reflects that misogyny. This is why, when I encounter a feminist who is a vegetarian but not a vegan, I focus immediately on how dairy and eggs trigger concerns that any feminist should share.

In criticizing “intersectional vegans,” I am not criticizing intersectionality as a concept. I reiterate: the Abolitionist Approach is pro-intersection (the use of the prefix attempts to avoid appropriating a theory that was devised by Kimberlé W. Crenshaw to discuss the oppression specific to women of color). I am criticizing a group of bloggers who claim to apply the concept to animal ethics and who end up misusing it to justify speciesism, moral relativism, and other forms of essentialism. The diverse and growing grassroots movement that is informed by the Abolitionist Approach is pro-intersectional. It rejects essentialism in all respects. It rejects speciesism. It rejects all human discrimination. As we will see, the non-Abolitionist “intersectional vegan” movement fails in both these respects.

Given that, as I will show, the “intersectional vegans” discussed in this essay are not intersectional at all precisely because they embrace the essentialism—including speciesism—the rejection of which is core to intersectionality analysis, I shall not refer to them as “intersectional vegans.” Rather, I shall use a term that incorporates the positions that they articulate and refer to them as “essentialist vegans.”

III. Essentialist Veganism: The Rejection of Veganism as a Moral Baseline

If we reject speciesism, we are committed to veganism as a matter of moral principle. We can no more justify killing a sentient nonhuman incidental to our institutionalized exploitation of nonhumans than can we justify killing a human.

But some prominent “intersectionalist vegans” or, as I refer to them, essentialist vegans, don’t see it that way.

For example, Amie Breeze Harper, who edited a collection of essays called Sistah Vegan, which is considered a defining text of intersectional veganism, tells us that her book is not about “preaching veganism or vegan fundamentalism.”

Here is a screenshot from the Introduction to Sistah Vegan:

ScreenHunter_1563 Jan. 10 17.01

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“Vegan fundamentalism” is the buzz expression used by those who reject veganism as a moral baseline to describe the position that is at the core of the Abolitionist Approach. To say that one rejects “vegan fundamentalism” is to say that one rejects the idea of veganism as a moral baseline.

And that is exactly what Harper does. I watched this lecture by Harper and she says very clearly, among other things:

1. “I don’t think any diet is the right diet.”
2. No diet is “universal.” “Your diet and what you need as food changes with the ‘who you are space.’”
3. As an example of the “who you are space,” Harper says that she stopped being vegan when she got pregnant because she “just couldn’t do it” and “ate a few eggs per month.”
4. Being vegan is “difficult” in certain places (and so veganism can’t be a “universal” obligation).

Putting aside that veganism is more than just a diet, this is nothing more than the “veganism is a sort of an okay default but it is subject to convenience, individual idiosyncrasy, personal journey, etc.” position. Such a position explicitly rejects veganism as a universal or generally applicable moral baseline and makes veganism a matter of the particular situation—the “who you are space.”

Is veganism a matter of the “who you are space”? If animals matter morally, it is most certainly not, any more than observing the fundamental rights of humans is a matter of the “who you are space.” Is the morality of rape or child molestation a matter of the “who you are space”? Of course not.

Maintaining that veganism is a moral imperative is not a matter of “preaching veganism or vegan fundamentalism.” It is a matter of fundamental justice.

Are food deserts and places where grain is fed to animals for export rather than to humans a problem? Absolutely. But does that mean that veganism is not a moral imperative such that we have an obligation to increase availability? Of course not. Are there problems in migrant detention centers if the choice is to starve or consume animal products? Of course. There may be situations in which the violation of fundamental rights may be excusable. But such violations are never justifiable. They never serve to modify or weaken the moral baseline. There have been cases when people adrift at sea have killed and consumed other humans. No one has ever said that is morally justifiable although, on occasion, punishment has been mitigated. But such mitigation never translates into a modification of the moral principle that taking the life of another human, with the possible exception of self-defense or defense of others (under very limited circumstances) is always morally wrong.

I made these observations about Harper as part of a reply to another essentialist vegan, Ruby Hamad (whom I will discuss further in the next section), who had mentioned Harper, and Harper commented on my reply to Hamad. She did not address any of my concerns about the substance of her position. But she certainly affirmed that she does not see veganism as a moral baseline.

For example, she claimed that when I pointed out that she ate eggs during pregnancy I was illustrating the use of a pregnant body as a “site of ‘moral baseline.’” But all bodies are “site[s] of moral baseline” as far as veganism is concerned. That’s the point. What we put in and on our bodies involves a matter of justice—as least as far as the Abolitionist Approach is concerned. That is what is meant when we talk about moral baselines or imperatives.

Harper expressed interest in how “individuals can be so confident that their ‘way’ is the moral baseline (whether vegan or not).” I am glad to share with her the basis of my confidence. I have provided arguments for why, if animals matter morally, veganism must be the moral baseline or the very minimum that we owe animals if we are to respect their moral personhood. Harper does not accept those arguments. In fact, she claims to reject the concept of baselines altogether, advising against being “fundamentalist” and claiming that her “personal ‘moral baseline’” is on a continuum. But moral baselines in this context are not a matter of personal preferences or views; they are universalizable moral rules that respect and protect the moral personhood of nonhuman animals. And if animals are moral persons, veganism is not a matter of a “personal” choice—it is a moral imperative that obligates or binds us all.

In other words, Harper repeated her claim that the morality of veganism is a matter of the “who you are space” in slightly different but equally morally unsatisfying terms.

Harper obviously does not see issues of fundamental human interests in this way. She couldn’t. No one could. She could not say that the morality of rape, or murder, or child molestation was a matter of one’s “personal” position involving a “continuum” and concerning which we should not have “fundamentalist” moral principles that were generally applicable and that obligate us to not exploit humans in particular ways at all.

But where animals are concerned, there’s no problem with taking the position that it’s all a matter of some variant of the “who you are space.”

Harper’s position here is reminiscent of some ecofeminist writers, such as Carol Adams, who claimed that universalizable moral principles were patriarchal and, thereby, objectionable. But no ecofeminist (or anyone else) would reject the universalizable moral principle that no woman should be subjected to sexual contact without her consent. It’s only when we talk about animals that we have a problem with drawing clear lines that rule out all exploitation where nonhumans are involved.

Another example of so-called “intersectionalist vegans” not promoting veganism as a moral baseline is found in the position of Black Vegans Rock (“BVR”), a group that includes Harper and others. BVR, a new group, will feature the efforts and enterprises of Black vegans.

In their Mission Statement, BVR states:

We aim to bring the Black vegan community together by focusing on our diversity, rather than our differences.

While we might all be vegan for different reasons, and while we might each be at different phases in our activist/vegan journey, we aim to highlight just how powerful we can be when we unify and celebrate our brilliance.

Here’s a screenshot of that:

ScreenHunter_1609 Jan. 15 11.00

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People can have vegan diets for all sorts of reasons but can still participate in animal exploitation depending on where they are in their “journey.” The expression “vegan journey” is, of course, right up there with “vegan fundamentalism” as the expression we see most often used by the corporate animal charities to trash the idea of veganism as a moral baseline. Where one is on one’s “vegan journey” depends on, in Harper’s words, the “who you are space.” Is someone who eats a vegan diet for health reasons but who takes off Saturday night to, in Peter Singer’s words, “allow themselves the luxury of not being vegan that evening” a “vegan” as far as BVR is concerned? What if that is what that person’s “who you are space” is?

In any event, it is clear that this Mission Statement is clear right up front: BVR does not promote veganism as a moral imperative.

In the FAQ section, they state that they are willing to discuss featuring vegetarians if the organization requesting to be featured “caters to both vegetarians and vegans, or deals with Black vegans in any way.”

Here is a screenshot of that:

ScreenHunter_1564 Jan. 10 17.33

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Vegetarianism is not a coherent moral position. One cannot distinguish morally between meat and other animal products, such as dairy, eggs, etc. To feature an organization that promotes vegetarianism is explicitly to promote animal exploitation. Would we think it appropriate to promote an organization that ostensibly opposes violence against children but “caters to both those who reject violence against children and those who don’t”? No, of course not.

BVR founder Aph Ko has another website on which she has an essay, “#BlackVegansRock: 100 Black Vegans to Check Out.” Many of the Black “vegans” on this list appear to be vegan only in a dietary sense and only for health. These entries also discuss that people went from vegetarian to vegan, or discuss how long they were vegetarian before going vegan, as though that has some relevance to veganism.

I note that one of the Black vegans that we are advised to check out is Robin Quivers. Ko states that “Robin Quivers is known for being the side-kick to Howard Stern on his radio program. What many people don’t know about her is that she has been vegan since 2007 because of several health ailments.” As far as I am concerned, Howard Stern’s program is one of the most reactionary in modern media and Quivers is an apologist for the misogyny and racism on that show.

ScreenHunter_1577 Jan. 13 10.53

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I am surprised that Ko apparently fails to see the problem here. The fact that she has added a disclaimer to the list that she “personally” does not think that the people on her list are necessarily “political activist[s], her inclusion of people like Quivers makes it difficult to understand her claim that veganism is a social justice issue. And it difficult to understand claims by essentialist vegans that Ko and BVR are providing a more progressive alternative to the Abolitionist Approach.

Syl Ko, another member of the Board of BVR, expresses the moral relativism of essentialist vegans and their rejection of veganism as a moral baseline when she says that people of color or other marginalized groups do not want white vegans to “dictate to us what we should care about and why and how.” Sound familiar? That’s exactly what welfarists/new welfarists say: vegans can’t take the position that veganism is a moral imperative because we can’t dictate to people. But if animal exploitation is morally wrong, then it’s not a matter of anyone dictating to anyone else. It is a matter of promoting a sound moral principle that the moral personhood of nonhuman animals requires veganism as a minimum.

Pax Ahimsa Gethen, also a BVR Board member, is a prominent activist in a group called DxE, which explicitly rejects veganism as a moral baseline and whose leader maintains that vegan advocacy is “harmful to the animal rights movement.” DxE seeks alliances with the large welfarist/new welfarist corporate charities. (Note added 1/13/2016: Gethen claims to no longer be active with DxE. But as Gethen makes clear here, this has to do with allegations of misconduct within DxE and other matters, and has nothing to do with any objection they (Gethen’s preferred pronoun) have to DxE’s status as a new welfarist organization that rejects the idea of veganism as a moral baseline. Indeed, in their explanation, Gethen reaffirms that they became involved with DxE when DxE leader Wayne Hsiung was disinvited from speaking at the 2015 World Vegan Summit. Summit organizer Bob Linden disinvited Hsiung after becoming aware of Hsiung’s statements critical of vegan advocacy and his comments endorsing the the large new welfarist corporate charities and seeking to work with them. Gethen objected to the disinvitation. Gethen has posted other objections to my position critical of those who support or promote welfarist corporate charities that promote “happy exploitation,” such as the groups that expressed “appreciation and support” for the Whole Foods “happy exploitation” program.)

Essentialist vegans have a position on veganism that is no different from the welfarist/new welfarist position.

Both reject veganism as a moral baseline.

Both reject the idea that veganism is something we are required to do in order to recognize and respect the moral status of nonhuman animals.

Both label veganism as a moral baseline as “vegan fundamentalism.”

Both talk about veganism as a matter of “journeys.” Essentialist vegans stand shoulder-to-shoulder with welfarists/new welfarists.

And that is precisely why one of the sponsors of the upcoming Intersectional Justice Conference that will feature BVR founder Aph Ko, Syl Ko, and other members of the BVR Board, and other essentialist vegans is none other than The Humane Society of the United States.

Here is a screenshot from the Intersectional Justice Conference page:

ScreenHunter_1565 Jan. 10 18.38

Click to enlarge.

[NOTE: Please see Addendum below: HSUS is now gone!]

As I explain and document here, HSUS promotes “happy exploitation,” sponsors events at which meat and other animal foods are served, employs a pig farmer as Political Director of the HSUS Legislative Fund, and has a President and CEO, Wayne Pacelle, who is on the Board of the Global Animal Partnership, the organization that formulates standards for the “5-Step Animal Welfare Ratings” program used by Whole Foods, which grades the level of animal suffering that the consumer wishes to purchase.

The Conference is also being supported by the Northwest Animal Rights Network, which promotes welfare reform and which links to HSUS, Farm Sanctuary, the Farm Animal Rights Movement, and just about every welfarist/new welfarist corporate charity out there, as well as to a person who continually and explicitly advocates violence against persons.

BVR founder Aph Ko complains that “veganism as a social justice movement has been corporatized by white people.”

ScreenHunter_1570 Jan. 11 19.59
Click to enlarge.

But she speaks at a conference funded by HSUS, which is about as white and about as corporate as it gets—and about as pro-animal-exploitation as it gets. If these essentialist vegans were really opposed to animal exploitation and promoted veganism as a moral baseline, would they accept funding from and publicly acknowledge HSUS and others who promote “happy” exploitation” and welfare reform?

Think about this question in a human context. Would those absolutely opposed to racism accept funding from and promote organizations that advocated racism? Would those opposed to child molestation accept the sponsorship of an organization that promoted sexual relations with children? Would those absolutely opposed to all violence against women accept sponsorship from an organization that promoted violence against women?

No, of course not.

But these essentialist vegans see no problem with doing exactly that in the nonhuman context.

I note that one of the white males speaking at the Intersectional Justice Conference, Will Tuttle, is one of the people who rebuked me for speaking out against the very clear anti-Semitism of the Kapparos campaign. Oh, how very selective is this supposed “intersectional justice”!

In any event, where animals are concerned, essentialist vegans don’t have any baselines or moral imperatives. As Harper says, it’s all a matter of the “who you are space.” To maintain that it’s a matter of moral principles that rule out the moral justification of any animal exploitation is, as Harper calls it, “vegan fundamentalism.” HSUS and all the other welfarist/new welfarist groups are fine with that; that is exactly their position.

And I don’t care whether it’s Breeze Harper or Wayne Pacelle, President and CEO of HSUS, who rejects veganism as a moral baseline or refers to it as “fundamentalism.” That position is wrong irrespective of who says it.

Whatever else we can say, the specific brand of “intersectional justice” discussed above does not mean justice for nonhuman animals.

IV. Essentialist veganism: Only Some Humans Count

Essentialist vegans not only embrace essentialism in the form of speciesism in that they accord less moral value to animals than they do to humans solely on the grounds of species. They embrace it where humans are involved and accord greater moral value to certain humans based on characteristics that are morally irrelevant.

According to these essentialist vegans, only some humans can speak about issues of social justice and the question of who can speak is determined not by what they say but by who they are. As we will see, these essentialist vegans claim that the only legitimate speakers are women, people of color, or those from other marginalized groups who agree with their position, whereas women, people of color, or those from other minorities who disagree with their essentialist position are themselves “tokens” and not legitimate speakers.

For example, Australian journalist and essentialist vegan Ruby Hamad recently wrote an essay in which she excoriated the “mainstream vegan community” as not seeing the connections between human oppression and animal exploitation. I am with her there and have been saying just that since 1990.

Hamad then identified several men who are supposedly vegan but who promote misogyny and violence. One of these men is someone whom I have criticized for years for making misogynistic and otherwise violent statements, including bigoted statements about Palestinians. The other man she referenced was someone whom I had never heard of before the incident about which she was writing. But I was with Hamad 100% to that point.

I was, however, very surprised that Hamad then stated:

I am disenchanted that a movement that is comprised mostly of women nonetheless elevates white men to most leadership positions. Men such as Professor Gary Francione who thinks it is his place to lecture women on whether or not they can call themselves feminists.

And how was I “lectu[ing] women? It was this statement:

If you are a feminist and are not a vegan, you are ignoring the exploitation of female nonhumans and the commodification of their reproductive processes, as well as the destruction of their relationship with their babies.

So we won’t look at what I am saying. We won’t discuss my position that someone who is a feminist but is not a vegan is arbitrarily ignoring the commodification of female nonhumans. We won’t discuss whether intersectionality analysis militates in favor recognizing the particular ways in which misogyny as a general matter informs the use of female animals. We can just dismiss my position because I am a white male.

But how is that any different from the essentialism to which the essentialist vegans object because it has resulted in their not having a voice in the “mainstream vegan movement”? The essentialists rightly complain that the “mainstream” animal movement has excluded their voices because of who they are and not what they say. How does this represent any advance on that position? How does this vision of “intersectional justice” do anything apart from substitute one group of oppressive voices for another?

And, once again, we see that this essentialism results in a vision of “intersectional justice” that throws animals under the bus.

Hamad is unhappy that many women use the Abolitionist Approach to inform their advocacy. So what’s the alternative? Hamad tells us that Breeze Harper is an alternative. But, as we saw above, Harper very clearly and explicitly rejects veganism as a moral baseline and I very clearly and explicitly promote veganism as a moral imperative. I could understand if Hamad argued that both positions need to be examined. But to dismiss my position because I am a white male is essentialism that leads to rejecting the position that is more protective of animals because of the race and sex of the speaker.

And this results in promoting justice for animals how?

Hamad suggests ecofeminist Carol Adams as another alternative. I would suggest (as have others) that Adams’ work over the years has not been a model of clarity in terms of providing actual normative guidance as to what our moral obligations to animals are. For example, as I have written about in the past, Adams has rejected the idea of moral rights and universalizable moral rules in favor of a nebulous “ethic of care” and this has led her to promote positions that accommodate animal exploitation. I note that although Adams promotes veganism more than she used to, she also describes vegetarianism—and not just veganism—as a normatively desirable position.

As I mentioned above, consuming animal products other than meat involves animal exploitation that is qualitatively no different from the exploitation inherent in eating meat. Being a vegetarian is no more morally justifiable a position than is being an omnivore. Those who regard animals as having moral value simply cannot maintain that vegetarianism is anything but a manifestation of direct participation in the exploitation of the vulnerable.

Again, Hamad is not suggesting that we should examine Adams’ acceptance of vegetarianism and my rejection of it and discuss the differences. She is not suggesting that we examine Adams’ views on the nature of ethics and my views in order to determine which view best provides justice for animals. She is claiming that we can dispense with my view altogether and embrace Adams’ because she is a woman and I am a man.

There appear to be some differences between Adams’ position and Harper’s position. Hamad does not tell us how to resolve any differences from the standpoint of justice for animals between them for purposes of guiding our own moral position and for informing our advocacy. Perhaps we are to assign more essentialism points to Harper because she is both a woman and person of color. Adams is a white woman. The resolution can’t be based on principle because Hamad has made clear that principle is irrelevant—only identity is relevant.

But the essentialist vegan position as represented by Hamad is even more troubling. Hamad talks about how a predominantly female movement “elevates” a white male like me to a position of leadership. I am not sure what she means. I don’t “lead” anything. I am an academic. For many years, I was a practicing lawyer in addition to being an academic and I represented animal advocates on a pro bono basis. But I don’t have any organization. I don’t have any employees. Unlike some of the essentialist vegans, I do not seek or accept donations or ask for crowd funding. No one has “elevated” me to any position of “leadership.”

There are many women and people of color who think that the Abolitionist Approach to Animal Rights represents a sound position and who promote it in their own advocacy. They embrace its radical egalitarianism. Hamad is “disenchanted” by that? And why is that? Do the voices of women and people of color who support the Abolitionist Approach not count? Are they not allowed to choose to have their advocacy framed by ideas that I have developed?

The answer is no. For Hamad, and for other essentialist vegans, the only voices of women and people of color who matter are the ones who, like Hamad, dismiss what I am saying because I am a white male and without any regard for the content of what I am saying. If they do not choose to have their advocacy guided by whatever it is that Harper or Adams proposes, then they simply do not count. They are dismissed as mindless automatons who, by virtue of a considered judgment that they believe the Abolitionist Approach is the most sensible theory to inform their advocacy, have “disenchanted” essentialist vegans.

Hamad, to whom I replied here, is not alone among essentialist vegans in taking the position that only some women and some people of color matter. Other essentialist vegans have similarly dismissed women who identify as feminists and who embrace the Abolitionist Approach, and have characterized as “tokens” people of color who use the Abolitionist Approach to guide their advocacy.

Black Vegans Rock Board member Pax Ahimsa Gethen characterized the diverse grassroots community that makes up the Abolitionist Approach as a “white boys club.” Gethen said this in the context of defending two other essentialist vegans who were engaged in overt, explicit, and documented bigotry. Here is a poster that appeared on several pages of essentialist vegans:

ScreenHunter_1575 Jan. 13 08.29

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I quite agree that everyone ought to be mindful of the privileges they enjoy, including the privilege of class. What I do not agree with is the idea, espoused by all too many essentialist vegans, that only some people of color get to weigh in on issues of racism; only some women get to weigh in on issues of sexism. And those who get to weigh in are not determined by the substance of what they express but only by whether they agree with the essentialism that allows for characterizations of the Abolitionist Approach as a “white boys [sic] club” simply because I am the person who developed the theory over the past 30 years and I am a white male. Those women and people of color who are involved in the Abolitionist Approach community are simply “tokens” to be treated with contempt and rendered invisible in the same way that essentialist vegans rightly claim has happened to women and people of color in the “mainstream” welfarist/new welfarist movement. There is no respect shown for the fact that those women and people of color have rationally chosen to use the Abolitionist Approach to frame their advocacy. It is very disappointing—and says a great deal—that BVR has someone who espouses such views on its Board.

All too often, any disagreement with essentialist vegans results in a charge of racism, sexism, or some other sort of accusation. This is particularly disconcerting when those accused of promoting racism, sexism, or other objectionable positions are people of color, women, or other members of vulnerable minorities who simply won’t embrace the essentialism of the essentialist vegans.

A gay-identified transsexual male who had lived as a female for more than thirty years and who embraces the Abolitionist Approach took issue with various statements on the page of an essentialist vegan. Rather than discuss the substance of what he was saying, he was dismissed for “mansplaining” and expressing his “straight, white, male privilege.” When he protested the dismissal and prejudicial behavior he experienced, and explained his sexual and gender identity, he received a half-hearted apology but then the entire post was deleted.

I fully expect that some essentialist vegans will say that I am claiming reverse discrimination on the part of essentialist vegans. Any such claim would clearly be false but some essentialist vegans have no problem with deliberately misrepresenting my position. In any event, I do not believe that people of color can be racist in a white racist society. I do not believe that women can be sexist in a patriarchal society.

As I stated at the very beginning of this essay, racism and sexism are about institutional allocations of power based on race or sex. Racism and sexism involve institutional power to adversely affect others. The problem is that in a racist and sexist society, people of color and women are largely without institutional power. So Black people cannot be racist in this society; women cannot be sexist in this society. They cannot engage in reverse discrimination because they have no institutional power to discriminate.

But people of color and women can hold unfair and unjust prejudices. They can be bigoted. And dismissing the views of people based solely on their race or sex or gender, or claiming that the only women or people of color or trans persons whose views matter are those who are willing to support the idea that anything a white male says is wrong irrespective of substance is nothing but prejudice and bigotry. It is disappointing that, apart from endorsing speciesism, so many of the essentialist vegans, engage in outright bigotry.

Linking value with personal characteristics alone, without a reference to class or the content of individual character has resulted in an identity politics that has led us to some obviously wrong conclusions. It leads us to believe that reactionary figures such as Barack Obama, Condoleezza Rice, Clarence Thomas, Ted Cruz, and Margaret Thatcher have a greater insight into oppression as a system and how to fight it—as well as a greater commitment to fighting it—than do activists such as Noam Chomsky or Chris Hedges.

This does not mean that Obama, Rice, Thomas, Cruz, and Thatcher have not experienced violence because of who they are. Nor does it mean that their individual experiences of that violence are not relevant. It simply means that justice—how we think about it, our commitment to acting upon it, and our plan to secure it—cannot be resolved down into recognizing the authority of speakers based on a “biological, therefore experiential, therefore moral” checklist.

Although identity politics arose from good intentions, essentialists have become every bit as reactionary as those they criticize in that they do not reject the fixed, limiting identities, such as “white, straight woman” or “black, gay man” constructed by the dominant oppressive system and reflecting existing social structures of power, but simply invert them to create new hierarchies and new forms of objectification and otherization based on superficial physical characteristics. So that now, for example, a person who is a “straight, white male” becomes the “other,” the “enemy,” totally defined by that category, regardless of whether he supports racism, sexism or heterosexism. Even if he strongly opposes racism, sexism and heterosexism in his values and the way he lives, he is guilty merely by virtue of being a heterosexual, white male and anything he says can be dismissed or construed as “racist” and “sexist.”

This essentialist position is not liberating anyone.

It is a trap and a dead end—a variant on the oppressive system which they claim to reject. In the same way, in the sphere of animal ethics, essentialist vegans do nothing more than produce a variant of the welfarist/new welfarist position that not only excludes nonhumans from full membership in the moral community but evaluates the positions of others based not on their substance but on their identity.

If we want justice, we must have: (1) ways to synthesize individual experiences into broader theories of justice and how we should respond to injustice, as feminists such as bell hooks attempt to do, as well as (2) a commitment to acting on those theories in an effort to end violence and oppression. This is why the Abolitionist Approach requires veganism. Theory and experience are means, not ends. Theory, experience, and good intentions without action are not enough. We must be committed to doing the right things to foster justice in practice.

Essentialist vegans talk about the privilege that comes from race, sex, gender, etc., but they largely ignore the privilege of class. Many of the essentialist vegans are solidly middle class people. Many have a great deal of higher education. But they embrace a politics of identity divorced from any concept of substantive economic fairness and the inherent unfairness and inequality that results from a grotesquely unfair distribution of resources. Linking value with personal characteristics alone and without a reference to class leads us to believe that a middle-class person of color with a PhD has more to say about oppression than a poor person—Black or white.

Interestingly, essentialist vegans have no problem with white people who embrace their essentialism and will join with them in promoting identity politics. There is simply no principled position that articulates a theory of justice for nonhumans or humans. In the end, it appears as though essentialist veganism is about nothing more than a group of people seeking to create career, entrepreneurial, and other opportunities for themselves. It has nothing to do with justice for animals, or with assuring that all women and people of color—as opposed to only those who embrace essentialism and its resulting identity politics—participate in a social justice movement for animals.

Essentialist vegans throw animals under the bus and simply rearrange the seating in the bus. Women and people of color who don’t buy into the identity politics of essentialism sit in the back with all the white males. The essentialist vegans drive the bus and sit in the front as they travel to their conferences funded by HSUS and at which Howard Stern and Robin Quivers will provide after-dinner entertainment.

The Abolitionist Approach maintains that nonhumans get to sit in the bus with humans. Justice for nonhumans is not a matter of some sort of relativist “who you are space” nonsense. It is a matter of moral principles that make all animal exploitation unjustifiable. And there is no hierarchy of seating in the Abolitionist bus. We have a radically egalitarian seating policy and it’s all a matter of what is in your heart and not any irrelevant physical characteristic.

V. Essentialist Veganism and the Slavery/Rape Analogies

Ever since the early 1990s, I have been arguing that the regulation of animal exploitation is not only immoral (if it is morally wrong to exploit animals, it is wrong to promote the supposedly “humane” exploitation of animals), but is, as a practical matter, doomed to failure because the property status of animals means that animal interests can never prevail over the interests of human owners. I have argued that the regulation of animal exploitation fails for the same reason that the regulation of slavery failed.

Some essentialist vegans seem to think that discourse of this sort presents a problem of “appropriation” because only Black people can properly talk about slavery. Again, we see essentialism raise its ugly head. We can’t look at what is being said, we can only look at who is saying it. White people can’t talk about slavery. Only Black people can.

But the position that Black people have some sort of proprietary interest in discourse about slavery ignores that the race-based slavery that existed in the United States (or the West generally) in the 1600s-1800s was not the only slavery that has ever existed. Chattel slavery existed before that time and it exists now. And most of that chattel slavery has not been along lines of race but along lines of tribe and religion.

Moreover, even in the case of race-based slavery in the United States, I make it clear that it is the legal, political, and social mechanisms of slavery that are analogous to the use of animals as chattel property. It is that discussion that reveals the requirements of abolition rather than welfare reform. The analogy is most sharply focused on the mechanisms of oppression—not just the resulting suffering. That focuses on the analogy with animal rights rather than animal welfare. The essentialist vegans think the slavery analogy is all about the suffering of the slaves. That is incorrect.

I have always been critical of welfarist/new welfarist groups that juxtapose images of lynched Black people with pictures or other depictions of animals hanging in slaughterhouses in the same way that I object to comparing animal exploitation to the Holocaust. Comparing evils in this way does nothing to advance understanding and has a great potential for misunderstanding and offense. But the fact—and it is a fact—remains that there are important parallels between the regulation of chattel slavery and the regulation of animal exploitation.

African-Americans have experienced-based expertise in the legacy of slavery, but we must all understand the mechanisms and supporting principles of slavery—human and nonhuman—if we are going to rid the world of this evil.

The regulation of animal exploitation fails for the exact same reasons that the regulation of chattel slavery failed. If a sentient being is chattel property, the interests of that being will always count for less than the interests of the owners of that property. In substantially all of the conflict situations, the property must lose and the owner must prevail or else there is no institution of property in beings of that sort (whether human or nonhuman). In both chattel slavery and animal exploitation, beings are treated as having only an extrinsic or external value; they have no inherent or intrinsic value. They are merely things. Chattel slavery (race- based and non-race-based) and animals as property are completely analogous in legal and economic ways.

If there is any dis-analogy as a conceptual matter, it is not between chattel slavery and animal exploitation. There, the analogical fit is perfect and inescapable. Many welfarists/new welfarists compare the regulation of animal exploitation, which they promote, to the struggle for civil rights in the United States. The latter involved—and continues to involve because equality is a very long ways away—the issue of how to treat persons fairly. Animals are still chattel property. They do not have moral personhood. We cannot talk about how to treat things in a “fair” way.

When I talk about “abolition,” I am not using that term to refer to the experience of slaves. I am talking about the mechanism that has been used in the past and must be used now to dismantle any institution of property that establishes and perpetuates the status of sentient beings used exclusively as resources for others.

In any event, to say that such an analysis “appropriates” discourse that is properly that of Black people alone is, I am afraid, transparently absurd. I am not using the slavery analogy to denigrate the experience of slaves. I am using it because the analogy helps us to understand the legal, jurisprudential, and economic reasons why the regulation of sentient beings who are considered as property cannot work.

Even those essentialist vegans who take a more moderate position and acknowledge that it might be acceptable for white people to talk about slavery assume that discussions about slavery primarily “center whiteness” and represent expressions of “white fragility.” The problem is that in a racist society, any topic can be used to do that. In any event, that is certainly not how chattel slavery is or ever has been used in the Abolitionist paradigm over the past 25 years. Chattel slavery and the exploitation of nonhuman animals share important features that make their regulation impossible as a practical matter and require their abolition (and claims making in favor of rights recognition and abolition) as a moral matter.

I should point out here in connection with my previous remark about class being as important—perhaps more important—than any other factor, that the Western slave trade was made possible by a pervasive indigenous African slave trade that had Black people enslaving other Black people and then selling those slaves to white Western Europeans and making a great deal of money doing so.

Other essentialist vegans declare that men cannot discuss rape in the context of talking about animal exploitation. That is, they cannot draw an analogy between the violation of fundamental rights that occurs in the context of rape and the violation of fundamental rights that occurs when we kill and eat animals.

As in the case of slavery, when I use rape as an analogical concept, I am not using it to denigrate the experience of rape victims. I am using the analogy because I believe it fits and it can help us to understand the deep structure of animal exploitation.

In my view, the use of words and concepts in contexts like this is a matter of analogy. Our experiences shape how we understand things but, in the end, the only relevant question is whether the analogy fits. Having been on dairy farms and seen the way that cows are impregnated and the way that they have to be secured because they don’t like what’s happening, I believe that it is analogous to rape as do many women I know who have actually seen what goes on in dairy farms, including women who have been rape victims. It is a sexual battery; the cows do not consent.

Rape is a violation of a fundamental human right. It is different from non-fundamental rights violations. It is analogous to the violations of fundamental rights that constitute domesticated animal use. The analogy holds. If someone is offended by the analogy and objects to its use, we need to know why the analogy does not hold and in many years of doing this work, I have yet to hear anything other than some version of “human women matter more morally.”

I was recently at an academic conference at which animal ethics were discussed but only as a part of the event. I argued that talking about “happy” exploitation was analogous to talking about “happy” rape or “happy” child molestation. A woman who identified herself as a feminist objected to my analogy. I asked her why. All she could say was that she did not think that exploiting animals was as “serious” as rape. I am not sure what she meant by that and she had no reply when I asked her what she meant. There is no non-speciesist response to that question.

And if we cannot talk about matters even as relevant analogies if we have not experienced them, then none of us can talk about the exploitation of nonhuman animals.

VI. Conclusion

Any difference between the essentialist vegan position as it is promoted by the people discussed in this essay and the welfarist/new welfarist model is superficial.

The result is the same.

We end up substituting one group—the “leaders” of the large corporate charities who reject veganism as a moral baseline—for another group of “leaders”—the essentialist vegans. Both groups reject veganism as a moral baseline.

When you criticize the speciesism and other essentialism of the welfarist/new welfarists, you are called “purist,” “fundamentalist,” and “divisive.”

When you criticize the speciesism or other essentialism of the essentialist vegans, you are accused of “preaching veganism or vegan fundamentalism.” But you are also called “racist,” “sexist,” or some other name. If you are a woman, person of color, or person from another marginalized group who criticizes essentialist vegans, you are ignored, or dismissed as a “token,” or also labeled as a “racist” or “sexist.” Any attempt to engage essentialist vegans on a substantive basis or, heaven forbid, to respond to the baseless attacks, is dismissed as an expression of “white fragility,” “mansplaining,” “gaslighting,” or “harassment.”

I certainly admit that the essentialist vegans have a broader range of insults than do the welfarists/new welfarists. But as far as promoting speciesism and other forms of essentialism are concerned, the essentialist vegans stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the welfarists/new welfarists.

And that is precisely why HSUS and other welfarists/new welfarists are sponsoring essentialist vegan events.

Those of us whose advocacy on behalf of nonhuman animals and the relationship between human rights and nonhuman rights is informed and framed by the Abolitionist Approach to Animal Rights will continue to criticize and reject speciesism and other form of essentialism irrespective of who calls us names or what names they call us.

I respectfully suggest that if we want to achieve justice for humans and non-humans alike, we forego identity politics and instead focus on what is being said and not who is saying it. We ought always to be aware of the privileges we have—including the privilege of class—and be on guard to ensure that our privileges do not result in our taking or defending positions that are unjust.

But, in the end, the justice of the position we advocate must be the central concern of anyone who believes in a morality of principles.

And, on the “what” of promoting justice—for humans or nonhumans—essentialist vegans have nothing new to offer and have just introduced a new cast of characters to promote the same old reactionary, speciesist, and otherwise essentialist nonsense that the Abolitionist Approach rejects.

The essentialist vegans are not the first—and they certainly won’t be the last—to try to sell some non-abolitionist, non-veganism-as-a-moral-baseline message in a new bottle. But those who agree that veganism is a moral imperative and see all forms of otherization involving nonhumans and humans as morally unjustifiable will see those efforts for exactly what they are.

In closing, I want to thank my most excellent group of Facebook moderators, who, although many are “tokens,” gave me excellent feedback on an earlier draft of this essay. Marianna C. Gonzalez, Vincent Guihan, and Linda McKenzie read and commented on the later draft as well, as did Frances McCormack and my partner since the beginning of it all, Anna Charlton.

**********

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.

If animals matter morally, veganism is not an option — it is a necessity. Anything that claims to be an animal rights movement must make clear that veganism is a moral imperative.

Embracing veganism as a moral imperative and advocating for veganism as a moral imperative are, along with caring for nonhuman refugees, the most important acts of activism that you can undertake.

The World is Vegan! If you want it.

Learn more about veganism at www.HowDoIGoVegan.com.

Gary L. Francione
Board of Governors Distinguished Professor, Rutgers University

©2016 Gary L. Francione

ADDENDUM, January 16, 2016

Note: This Addendum, which concerned a response to the essay above by Amanda Baker, Senior Advocacy and Policy Officer Unfortunately, to the effect that my argument that veganism is a moral baseline involves white privilege and male privilege, and agreement with this position by Black Vegans Rock Board Member, Christopher-Sebastian McJetters, has been published as a separate blog post and can be read here.

ADDENDUM, January 18, 2016

Black Vegans Rock founder Aph Ko not only rejects veganism as a moral baseline. She mocks the concept.

The background: Another essentialist vegan (a cisgendered white female whose views, like those of white female Amanda Baker, count, unlike those of the cisgendered white females whose advocacy is framed by the Abolitionist Approach) wrote an essay in which she argues that food deserts—urban areas in which fresh food is not readily available or affordable—are similar to the “desert island” scenario I have presented as involving a situation in which killing and eating an animal may be excusable.

The idea here is that in the “desert island” situation, one is compelled to kill and eat another being (nonhuman or human) or die. In such a situation, I have argued that it may be excusable but not justifiable to kill and eat the nonhuman (or human). That is, it is still morally wrong and not justifiable to kill another sentient being (in the absence of a legitimate claim of self-defense), but the wrongness of the act is mitigated or partially excused by the presence of the compulsion.

This analysis simply does not apply to food deserts and, in any event, it does not mean that, in food deserts, veganism is not a moral imperative. Food deserts are horribly unjust and they involve people consuming a great deal of unhealthy food. But even in a food desert, people can get vegan food, such as rice and beans, or canned vegetables, and usually more cheaply than they can get the animal foods that are available to them. Whatever else one can say about the injustice of food deserts, one cannot analogize them to a desert island situation where one will starve to death if one does not kill and eat another (nonhuman or human).

And, again, even if that compulsion were present in the food desert situation, it would not make eating animal products (or killing and eating other humans, or killing other humans to get their food, etc.) morally justifiable. At best, it would make it morally wrong but partially excusable based on the circumstances.

But veganism would still be a moral imperative just as would be the observance of the fundamental rights of humans.

In any event, this essay was posted on Facebook and someone named Louie Brie posted a comment:

“But veganism is the moral ba-”
“Shut up, Gary.”

Here’s a screenshot of that comment:

ScreenHunter_1646 Jan. 18 13.50

Click to enlarge.

It was liked by three people, one of whom was Aph Ko. Here’s a screenshot of her “like”:

ScreenHunter_1649 Jan. 18 17.52

Click to enlarge.

Aph also added a separate comment:

This should be a book title. lol.

Aph Ko, founder of Black Vegans Rock, not only rejects veganism as a moral baseline. She mocks it.

Gary L. Francione

Addendum, January 21, 2016

I see that HSUS is now gone. I am providing a “before my essay” screenshot and an “after my essay” screenshot.

Before I wrote my essay:

ScreenHunter_1659 Jan. 21 11.17

Click to enlarge.

After I wrote my essay:

ScreenHunter_1660 Jan. 21 11.17

Click to enlarge.

I do not know if that means that they’re still getting support from HSUS but they are understandably embarrassed to acknowledge that publicly, or if they have decided that having HSUS sponsor the event merely highlights their rejection of veganism as a moral baseline and their otherwise speciesist views. It’s certainly difficult to posture as “radical” when you’re involved with HSUS.

They still have the Northwest Animal Rights Alliance (NARN) as a sponsor. NARN is an explicitly new welfarist group that promotes the following welfarist charities on its “Related Websites” page:

ScreenHunter_1665 Jan. 21 17.31

Click to enlarge.

NARN also promotes a proponent of violence.

Frankly, the lack of intellectual integrity of these proponents of “intersectional justice” is matched only by the immorality of their explicitly speciesist position.

Gary L. Francione

Addendum, February 2, 2016

Christopher-Sebastian McJetters, Board Member of Black Vegans Rock, who supported the statement of Amanda Baker, Senior Advocacy and Policy Officer of The Vegan Society, that veganism as a moral baseline is racist and sexist, has written an essay. Sebastian states that promoting veganism as a moral baseline is racist, classist, and ableist. Unlike Amanda Baker, Sebastian has provided an argument for his position.

And it’s transparently speciesist.

Sebastian argues that people who live in poverty find it difficult to be vegan so maintaining that veganism is a moral baseline is classist and ableist, and since many poor people are people of color, it is racist. (He does not address the accusation that veganism as a moral imperative is sexist so that still remains a complete mystery.)

In order to see how Sebastian’s position is transparently speciesist, imagine making his argument in contexts involving humans and human interests.

When a poor person (whether or not a person of color) harms a human innocent, do we say that it is classist, ableist, or racist to say that what the person did is morally wrong?

Of course not.

We may (and I hope would) understand why people who suffer the injustice of poverty might act in certain ways. We may (and I hope would) want to eliminate the economic inequality that causes poverty. We may (and I hope would) want to take the circumstances into account when we punish in such circumstances although the legal system generally does not.

But we would all agree that any violence against innocents is morally wrong. The rule that we cannot justify inflicting harm on innocents is a baseline irrespective of who you are or your circumstances.

However, where the innocents are nonhumans, it’s racist, classist, and ableist to insist on moral baselines.

That’s transparently speciesist.

Even in situations of true compulsion—the “desert island” or “lifeboat” situation—, harming an innocent is always morally wrong. We may excuse it in part because of the compulsion but it is always wrong.

Making reference to Breeze Harper’s position that veganism is a matter of the “who you are space,” Sebastian says:

Frank and open admission of your who you are space doesn’t negate your veganism.

It most certainly does if, like Harper, you say that having veganism as a moral baseline is a matter of “vegan fundamentalism.”

That’s transparently speciesist.

Sebastian says that the question of whether veganism is a moral baseline:

puts veganism into a very small box when it is so much more.

Veganism is a tool to mitigate our privilege in a human-centered society. Veganism is a context to decolonize black and brown bodies. Veganism is a radical socio-political statement that rejects violence. Veganism is a gift we give to our children who deserve clean water and fresh air. Specifically, veganism is living action!

If veganism is not a moral baseline, then all of those aspirations are meaningless. If veganism is not a moral baseline, then what sense does it make to say that “veganism is living action!”? Sebastian is saying, in essence, that veganism is not the moral baseline, social justice is, and human social justice concerns can trump animal interests.

That’s transparently speciesist.

Sebastian ends his essay:

The bottom line is that until we promote meaningful and significant justice that crosses between communities, veganism is just another single-issue campaign.

You could say the same thing about campaigns against domestic violence, rape, or pedophilia. That is, you could say that they are all single-issue campaigns because we have not achieved the justice of which he speaks. But Sebastian would never say that about those human-focused campaigns.

Indeed, I am sure Sebastian would say that all campaigns that affect human rights are part of the effort to “promote meaningful and significant justice that crosses between communities.” I would certainly agree with that.

The difference is that I would include veganism as part of that effort as well and I would say that it is every bit as essential as any other effort to promote justice. Sebastian wouldn’t agree. He thinks that for me to maintain that principle is classist, abelist, and racist.

That’s transparently speciesist.

We humans have a lot of work to do to radically reform all aspects of our society. That is not the animals’ problem, and we are not justified in violating their fundamental rights while we work out our problems.

Gary L. Francione