Announcement of New Series on Animal Ethics by Columbia University Press
Read Critical Perspectives on Animals
A Short Note on Abolitionist Veganism as a Single Issue Campaign
Dear Colleagues: Anyone who claims that ethical veganism, as it is represented in the abolitionist approach to animal rights, is a single-issue campaign understands neither abolitionist ethical veganism nor single-issue campaigns (SICs). Ethical veganism is the notion that we should not eat, wear, or use animals for human purposes. Ethical veganism reflects the view that […]
Save a Seal; Eat Non-Canadian Seafood
Dear Colleagues: In his Report from the Seal Slaughter: Special Chance to Help, HSUS CEO Wayne Pacelle writes: It’s a day I dread each year: the first blow or bullet landed against a baby seal off Canada’s East Coast. It marks the beginning of the world’s largest, intentional slaughter of marine mammals.” The HSUS solution? […]
Singer Approves (Again) of Animal Exploitation; Drayson on Vivisection in the U.K.
Dear Colleagues: Two items of note came across my desk in the past several days: First, Peter Singer, “father of the animal rights movement,” said in an interview: PROFESSOR PETER SINGER: If we are going to eat animal products then I think there’s a heavy responsibility on us to make sure that the animals didn’t […]
Commentary #16: Responding to Questions: Single-Issue Campaigns and MDA Opposition to the Abolitionist Approach
Dear Colleagues: Several weeks ago, I asked for questions that people would like me to address. I received approximately 80 questions. I plan to do several Commentaries in which I discuss at least some of these questions. A number of the questions that I received concern single-issue campaigns so this Commentary deals primarily with that […]
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Euphoria? For Whom?
Dear Colleagues: In my previous blog post, Partners in Exploitation, I discussed the various labeling schemes endorsed and promoted by HSUS, PETA, and other animal welfare corporations. Well low and behold, yesterday, I went to the local Whole Foods Market, you know, the one to which PETA gave the Best Animal-Friendly Retailer award, and I […]
Partners in Exploitation
Dear Colleagues: Making society feel more comfortable about animal exploitation and encouraging consumption are more often than not an explicit goal of animal welfare campaigns and organizations. For example, many of the large animal advocacy groups in the United States and Britain are involved in promoting labeling schemes under which the flesh or products of […]
Eight Animals
Dear Colleagues: This morning’s AOL News carried a story, PETA’S Euthanasia Rates Have Critics Fuming. The story states that PETA: euthanizes over 90 percent of the dogs and cats relinquished to its headquarters in Norfolk, Va. In 2009, PETA euthanized 2,301 dogs and cats — 97 percent of those brought in — and adopted only […]
Veganism: Just Another Way of Reducing Suffering or a Fundamental Principle of Justice & Nonviolence?
Dear Colleagues: It is important to understand that there are significant differences among those who regard themselves as vegans. One important difference is between those who maintain that veganism is merely a way of reducing suffering, and those who maintain that it is a fundamental commitment to justice, nonviolence, and a recognition of the moral […]
New Book Coming Soon!
Dear Colleagues: My newest book, The Animal Rights Debate: Abolition or Regulation?, will be published by Columbia University Press in November or early December. In the first section, I defend the abolitionist approach. In the second section, Professor Robert Garner of the University of Leicester (U.K.) defends the protectionist approach (what I refer to as […]
Opposing Views: On Violence
Dear Colleagues: Opposing Views posted my essay, On Violence. It generated a lively discussion with well over 200 comments. Read the various threads and make up your own mind. If you are not vegan, go vegan! Animal products are injurious to your health and animal agriculture is an ecological disaster. But most importantly, veganism is […]
On Violence
Dear Colleagues: Unfortunately, there are people who identify themselves as animal advocates who claim that the solution to the problem of animal exploitation is violence. Some of these people have actually engaged in acts of violence against institutional exploiters. Others incite acts of violence by calling on people to use “intimidation” against animal exploiters or […]
Vegetarianism First?
Dear Colleagues: The Vegan, the magazine of the The Vegan Society (U.K.), is about to release its Spring 2010 issue. In that issue, I have an essay, Vegetarianism First?, which discusses the notion that we should promote vegetarianism as a “gateway” to veganism and proposes that this is an error on both a theoretical and […]
Veganism: Morality, Health, and the Environment
Dear Colleagues: At least five times a week, I get some version of the following question: In arguing for veganism, should we stay with just the moral argument and is it somehow “wrong” or “selling out” to rely on the arguments based on human health and the environment? I am going to do a podcast […]
Is Every Campaign a Single-Issue Campaign?
Dear Colleagues: In response to my comments (1,2) about the Johnny Weir matter and to my general comment on single-issue campaigns, some have suggested that if the Johnny Weir matter is a single-issue campaign, then all campaigns, including efforts to promote adoption/rescue, sanctuaries, and even veganism are single issue-campaigns. This suggestion reveals a profound lack […]
And You Wonder Why the Public Thinks That “Animal Rights” People Are Crazy?
Dar Colleagues: From an article, The Rise of Dog Identity Politics, in New York Magazine For Singer, and for Newkirk, bestiality is not, in all circumstances, prohibited. “If it isn’t exploitation and abuse, it may not be wrong,” she has said. Singer, you will recall, argued a few years back that there can be mutually […]
Single-Issue Campaigns in Human & Nonhuman Contexts
Dear Colleagues: Last evening, I received the following email in response to my blog posts about single-issue campaigns: Prof. Francione: If single issue campaigns are not good, then does that mean that we should not support efforts to assist the suffering in Haiti because we’re not assisting the suffering everywhere else? Doesn’t that lead to […]
On Johnny Weir, Single-Issue Campaigns, Treatment, and Abolitionist Veganism
Dear Colleagues: As I stated in my blog essay, I think that the Weir matter was ill advised. Given that all the skaters are wearing leather, wool, etc., the effort was akin to trying to get one person at a steak banquet not to consume one teaspoon of her portion of ice cream. The Open […]
Gandhi: On the 62nd Anniversary of His Death
Dear Collegaues: Sixty-two years ago today, Mahatma Gandhi was murdered. Let us meditate for several minutes today on Gandhi’s fundamental teaching of Ahimsa, or nonviolence. Gandhi said many things worth meditating upon. Two of my favorites are: You must be the change you want to see in the world. The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness […]
A “Victory”? For Whom?
Dear Colleagues: It was reported yesterday that the American figure skater, Johnny Weir, has decided not to add white fox to the left shoulder of his free skate costume after he received “‘hate mail and death threats’ from animal rights activists.” Some animal advocates are calling Weir’s decision a “victory.” I find this puzzling. First, […]