Why Veganism Matters: The Moral Value of Animals

Gary L. Francione

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Most people care about animals, but only a tiny fraction are vegan. The rest often think of veganism as an extreme position. They certainly do not believe that they have a moral obligation to become vegan.

Gary L. Francione—the leading and most provocative scholar of animal rights theory and law—demonstrates that veganism is a moral imperative and a matter of justice. He shows that there is a contradiction in thinking that animals matter morally if one is also not vegan, and he explains why this belief should logically lead all who hold it to veganism. Francione dismantles the conventional wisdom that it is acceptable to use and kill animals as long as we do so “humanely.” He argues that if animals matter morally, they must have the right not to be used as property. That means that we cannot eat them, wear them, use them, or otherwise treat them as resources or commodities.

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Advocate for Animals!: An Abolitionist Vegan Handbook

Gary L. Francione and Anna Charlton

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Since the beginning of time, there have been—in total—about 110 billion humans who have lived and died. We kill more nonhuman animals than that every single year. Think about that for a second. Our exploitation of nonhumans represents violence on a scale that is unparalleled. The largest number of animals we kill is for food—about 60 billion land animals and at least one trillion sea animals killed annually. And there are many billions more killed every year for various other reasons, including biomedical research, entertainment, and sport.

One thing is crystal clear and undisputable: this horrible and pervasive animal exploitation is not going to end anytime soon.

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Animal Rights: The Abolitionist Approach

Gary L. Francione and Anna Charlton

Animal Rights: The Abolitionist Approach

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This book is about a revolution—a revolution of the heart.

The exploitation of animals is pervasive, entrenched, and horrific. In this book, the authors reject the idea that animal use is morally acceptable if we treat animals “humanely.” They reject the campaigns for “compassionate” exploitation promoted by virtually all large animal protection organizations. These campaigns, the authors argue, reinforce the notion that we can consume our way out of injustice and trade one form of exploitation for another. They are morally wrong and they are, as a practical matter, ineffective.

The central argument of this book is that we need a paradigm shift. We must see nonhuman animals as nonhuman persons.

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Eat Like You Care:  An Examination of the Morality of Eating Animals

Gary L. Francione and Anna Charlton
Exempla Press, 2013

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Spanish Edition

This book puts the issue of eating animals squarely on the table.

We all claim to care about animals and to regard them as having at least some moral value. We all claim to agree that it’s wrong to inflict “unnecessary” suffering and death on animals and–whatever disagreement we may have about when animal use is necessary—we all agree that the suffering and death of animals cannot be justified by human pleasure, amusement, or convenience. We condemn Michael Vick for dog fighting precisely because we feel strongly that any pleasure that Vick got from this activity could not possibly justify what he did.

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The Animal Rights Debate: Abolition or Regulation?

Gary L. Francione and Robert Garner
Columbia University Press, 2010

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Gary L. Francione is a law professor and leading philosopher of animal rights theory. Robert Garner is a political theorist specializing in the philosophy and politics of animal protection. Francione maintains that we have no moral justification for using nonhumans and argues that because animals are property—or economic commodities—laws or industry practices requiring “humane” treatment will, as a general matter, fail to provide any meaningful level of protection. Garner favors a version of animal rights that focuses on eliminating animal suffering and adopts a protectionist approach, maintaining that although the traditional animal-welfare ethic is philosophically flawed, it can contribute strategically to the achievement of animal-rights ends.

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Animals as Persons: Essays on the Abolition of Animal Exploitation

Gary L. Francione
Columbia University Press, 2008

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A prominent and respected philosopher of animal rights law and ethical theory, Gary L. Francione is known for his criticism of animal welfare laws and regulations, his abolitionist theory of animal rights, and his promotion of veganism and nonviolence as the baseline principles of the abolitionist movement. In this collection, Francione advances the most radical theory of animal rights argued to date. Unlike Peter Singer, Francione maintains that we cannot morally justify using animals under any circumstances, and unlike Tom Regan, Francione’s theory applies to all sentient beings, and not only to those who have more sophisticated cognitive abilities.

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Introduction to Animal Rights: Your Child or the Dog?

Gary L. Francione
Temple University Press, 2000

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Two-thirds of Americans polled by the Associated Press agree with the following statement: An animal’s right to live free of suffering should be just as important as a person’s right to live free of suffering. More than 50 percent of Americans believe that it is wrong to kill animals to make fur coats or to hunt them for sport. But these same Americans eat hamburgers, take their children to circuses and rodeos, and use products developed with animal testing. How do we justify our inconsistency?

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Rain Without Thunder: The Ideology of the Animal Rights Movement

Gary L. Francione
Temple University Press, 1996

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Are “animal welfare” supporters indistinguishable from the animal exploiters they oppose? Do reformist measures reaffirm the underlying principles that make animal exploitation possible in the first place? In this provocative book, Gary L. Francione argues that the modern animal rights movement has become indistinguishable from a century-old concern with the welfare of animals that in no way prevents them from being exploited.

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Animals, Property, and the Law

Gary L. Francione
Temple University Press, 1995

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“Pain is pain, irrespective of the race, sex, or species of the victim,” states William Kunstler in his foreword. This moral concern for the suffering of animals and their legal status is the basis for Gary L. Francione’s profound book, which asks, Why has the law failed to protect animals from exploitation?

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Vivisection and Dissection in the Classroom: A Guide to Conscientious Objection

Gary L. Francione and Anna E. Charlton
American Anti-Vivisection Society, 1992

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Federal and state law provide important protections to students who have a conscientious objection to harming animals in an educational context. This book is an important tool, with over 130 pages of practical and theoretical assistance on the issue of students rights at every education level.

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