Principle Three of the Abolitionist Approach to Animal Rights is that veganism is a moral imperative: Abolitionists agree with welfarists that animal exploitation is not going to disappear “overnight” and that we need to take incremental steps—what welfarists call “baby steps”—to get to the goal of abolition. But abolitionists reject welfare reform campaigns and single-issue […]
Casey Taft, who co-owns Vegan Publishers with his spouse, has written an essay in which he attacks a “well-known advocate” for “silencing fellow advocates.” He is well aware that the essay is being interpreted to refer to me and that is precisely what he intended. I have several responses: First, Taft claims that I “silenced” […]
Mercy for Animals has posted a rather breathtaking essay entitled, This Is Why Vegans Should Stop Being Mean to Vegetarians, in which MFA characterizes as “mean” those who promote veganism as a moral baseline or imperative. Here is a response from Dr. Frances McCormack, who is also one-half of the Grumpy Old Vegans. In order […]
A question we received: If we think that the prison-industrial complex is wrong and we want to abolish it, we would all think it would be okay to work at the same time for single issue campaigns to improve the lives of the prisoners who are presently stuck in the system, right? So why isn’t […]
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 […]
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. […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]