Dear Colleagues:
“There are too many human problems in the world that we have to solve first before we think about animals.”
“Let’s work on world peace first; we can then work on animal rights.”
Anyone who pursues animal advocacy frequently encounters these and similar comments. I am often asked how I respond to such comments.
Dear Colleagues:
As you know, I maintain that for those concerned about animal exploitation, the decision to go vegan is the single most important thing one can do. If you want to do more, then you should engage in creative, nonviolent vegan education.
This week, I became aware of another example of nonviolent vegan education in action. The Vegan Abolitionist site has a nice, one-page, simple, and straightforward description of the meaning, basis, and importance of veganism. It is available in English and several foreign languages.
This joins other similar efforts, including our own Abolitionist Approach pamphlet, now available in English and eleven other languages, the Boston Vegan Association pamphlet, the bilingual (English and French) pamphlet distributed by The Starting Point is Veganism, and, of course, the vegan/abolitionist materials of the Peaceful Prairie Sanctuary.
These are just a few examples of low-cost efforts to educate the public about veganism. There are many people out there who, in their everyday lives, are engaging in creative, nonviolent vegan education. Just talking with your friends and family about veganism is a most important form of activism.
The only way that we will ever end animal exploitation is by shifting the paradigm away from the status of animals as property and toward the status of animals as moral persons. That is not going to be accomplished either by legislative fiat or by violence of any sort. It is going to come from determined individuals who embrace nonviolence, apply it in their own lives, and share it with others.
I know that animal advocates get discouraged at what seems to be a lack of progress. This is true of all advocates for social justice. But always keep in mind the words of anthropologist Margaret Mead:
Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.
And keep working everyday at creative, nonviolent vegan education.
Gary L. Francione
© 2009 Gary L. Francione
“But isn’t eating animals natural?”
This question is probably the one that I have gotten most frequently in the almost thirty years that I have been promoting veganism. Students in our courses; people in public lectures; listeners who call in on a radio show that I am on; the passenger sitting next to me on an airplane who inquires about why I have a vegan meal when everyone else is eating chicken or fish—they all seem to think that what I am advocating as a moral position is not “natural.”
As I have argued elsewhere on this blog, many heinous practices and traditions, including slavery and sexism, have been justified by appeals to arguments that assume that certain people are naturally superior and others are naturally inferior.
Dear Colleagues:
The animal welfare movement led by The Humane Society of the United States is claiming that the swine flu outbreak is the result of factory farming and that the solution is to provide more “humane” treatment for farm animals by supporting HSUS efforts like California’s Proposition 2.
This approach is problematic for several reasons.
First, it has been claimed that the current outbreak began in the Mexican state of Veracruz as the result of a Smithfield Farms plant that processes 800,000 hogs annually and has no sewage treatment facility. The hog wastes are apparently being dumped in local lagoons. Even if the confinement conditions in the plant itself were made more “humane,” that would not solve the sewage problem.
Second, whether the source of the current outbreak involves exposure to pig wastes and although there can be little doubt that the intensive confinement and resulting animal stress of modern factory farming is a factor that contributes generally to the development of things like swine flu, the reality is that pandemics have existed throughout recorded history—well before the advent of factory farming. We have had pandemics ever since we have been domesticating animals for our use and living in close proximity with them. We have had pandemics even when the conditions of animal exploitation were far more “humane” than they are now.
Even if the confinement of modern factory farming were the primary culprit here, the sorts of solutions that HSUS is proposing—measures like Proposition 2—will certainly not solve the problem. Putting aside that Proposition 2 does not even come into effect until 2015, its requirements, which have many loopholes, will do little, if anything, to provide greater protection for animal interests or to reduce animal stress in any significant way.
The swine flu outbreak provides a great opportunity to focus attention on a more relevant question: why, in 2009, are we continuing to eat any animal products? We have no moral justification for doing so. There is no necessity. Indeed, animal agriculture is not only killing nonhumans—it is killing us and destroying our planet.
The issue is not “humane” treatment; the issue is the immorality and irrationality of animal use.
Gary L. Francione
© 2009 Gary L. Francione
Dear Colleagues:
According to this article, the source of the current outbreak of swine flu is Carroll Ranches, a hog farm in Mexico that kills 800,000 hogs yearly. Carroll Ranches was opened by Smithfield Farms in 1994, the year that the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) came into effect. The article claims that Carroll Ranches does not have a sewage treatment plant and that the imminent pandemic is the result of “free trade” agreements that allow U.S. corporations to escape domestic environmental laws by relocating operations to countries that do not have environmental regulations or where any regulations that do exist are not enforced.
The article concludes:
The real name of this infirmity is “The NAFTA Flu,” the first of what may well emerge as many new illnesses to emerge internationally as the direct result of “free trade” agreements that allow companies like Smithfield Farms to escape health, safety and environmental laws.
Reactionary commentators are claiming that the cause of the swine flu is illegal immigration. But if the report about Carroll Ranches is correct, the problem is not that Mexicans (legal or otherwise) are infecting innocent Americans, but that an American corporation went into Mexico and created the conditions that facilitated the outbreak.
The pork lobby does not want the current virus to be called “swine flu” because it suggests that eating pork is unsafe.
But the very clear truth is that, in addition to being morally unjustified, animal agriculture is very unsafe.
Gary L. Francione
© 2009 Gary L. Francione
ADDED MAY 4, 2009:
Dear Colleagues:
In a recent interview, Peter Singer makes a number of statements that, in my view, indicate just how sharp the difference is between the new welfarist or protectionist approach and the abolitionist approach.
First, he states:
I’m very pleased to say that there have been a lot of changes, especially in Europe, but also some in the US and other countries. In Europe, all the worst and most abusive forms of factory farming are being modified.
I disagree with Singer’s claim in several respects. It is not accurate to say that there have been a “a lot of changes” and that “all the worst and most abusive forms of factory farming are being modified.” As I pointed out in at least two other essays (1,2) on this site, and in my 2008 book, Animals as Persons: Essays on the Abolition of Animal Exploitation, the supposed welfare improvements in Europe about which Peter is so excited are worse than useless in that they provide little if any increased protection for animal interests and they make humans feel more comfortable about consuming animals, which facilitates continued consumption.
Second, on veganism, he states:
The vegan diet, especially buying organically produced plant foods, does solve more of the ethical problems about eating than any other. But I admit that it is not for everyone, and it will take a long time before it becomes widespread. So I don’t want to give the impression that it is the only thing one can do to eat ethically. Just avoiding factory farmed products is a big step in the right direction, even if you continue to eat a moderate quantity of organically produced, pasture raised, animal products.
Once again (see, e.g., 1,2), Singer repeats the notion that being a “conscientious omnivore” is a “defensible ethical position.” If the so-called “father of the animal rights movement” (supported by almost all of the large new welfarist groups) claims that it is a morally good thing to consume “happy” meat and animal products, that is likely to become the moral baseline. And that is precisely what has happened. Veganism is viewed as “extreme” precisely because of comments like this; “happy” meat is considered the “ethical” choice.
To see the speciesism here, substitute some form of human exploitation. If someone said that a “moderate” amount of “humane” rape was a “big step in the right direction,” we would be outraged. But Singer tells us that eating a “moderate quantity” of “happy” meat and animal products is a morally good thing. It may be good in the same way that beating your slaves 5 times a week is better than beating them 10 times a week, but it ignores the fundamental moral question at stake.
Asked about whether it is possible to be ethical without becoming “fanatics,” he states:
It is absolutely possible! The thing to remember is that the world is imperfect, and we want to make it better, so any changes in the right direction help, and the more we do, the better it is. But this is not a religion, it is not a question of personal purity, so we do not have to worry about our own moral perfection. We just have to do our best to minimize the adverse impact we are having on animals, the environment, and workers. And then, enjoy our food!
Once again, Singer equates the abolitionist approach, which has veganism and nonviolent vegan education as its moral baseline, as “purist” or “fanatical” because abolitionists maintain that we cannot justify any animal use. Does Singer regard as purist an absolutist position on issues such as rape or pedophilia? That is, is the position that we cannot justify any rape or pedophilia, irrespective of the circumstances, purist or fanatical? If not, and if he regards it permissible or even obligatory to take an absolutist position on those issues, is he not merely begging the question about the abolitionist approach as applied to nonhumans and assuming that animal exploitation is less morally problematic than human exploitation?
I suppose that he is making that assumption, which is not surprising given that he regards nonhumans as having less moral value than humans.
In any event, it is very disappointing that Singer is telling people to go and enjoy their happy meat. But then, despite the notion that “animal people” are one monolithic group, there are very distinct differences between the abolitionist approach and the new welfarist approach. Singer’s interview illustrates just a few.
Gary L. Francione
© 2009 Gary L. Francione
Dear Colleagues:
According to the Wall Street Journal
Agricultural groups, worried that the swine flu outbreak is scaring consumers away from eating pork, are successfully prodding the federal government to refer to the virus by its scientific name: H1N1.
The Agriculture Department, which used the term “swine influenza” as recently as Monday, clung to the anonymous term “H1N1 flu” in a statement Tuesday touting the safeness of U.S. pork.
In a briefing Tuesday, Richard Besser, acting director of the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, acknowledged that the agency’s use of the swine flu label was fueling the misconception that people could catch the new respiratory disease from food. “That’s not helpful to pork producers. That’s not helpful to people who eat pork,” Dr. Besser said. “And so we’re discussing: is there a better way to describe this that would not lead to inappropriate action on peoples’ part?”
This, of course, misses the point. The article continues:
Still, many scientists say the CDC is well within its rights to describe the disease as swine flu even though it seems to have mutated into a unique human virus. Flu viruses tend to be named after the first species in which they are discovered, and H1N1 was discovered in pigs decades ago.
The institution of animal agriculture is responsible for many and perhaps most of the pandemics that we have had. The H1N1 virus had its origin in domesticated pigs. That is why it is called the “swine flu.”
So the bottom line is clear: however you look at it, eating animal products is dangerous for humans.
Gary L. Francione
© 2009 Gary L. Francione
Dear Colleagues:
Well, once again we have a swine flu outbreak that may become a pandemic.
As this article makes clear, pandemics often originate with domesticated nonhumans that we raise to eat.
We kill approximately 53 billion animals every year worldwide (not counting aquatic animals). This amount of suffering and death is staggering; indeed, it is simply unimaginable. Eating animals is not only not necessary for optimal human health, it often directly results in the mass death of humans. Moreover, animal agriculture is on multiple levels (global warming, water pollution, deforestation, topsoil erosion, etc.) an ecological disaster.
Our continued consumption of animal products is not only morally unjustified—it is completely irrational. We claim that humans are morally superior to nonhumans based on our supposed rationality.
Perhaps a bit more humility is warranted.
Go vegan. It’s easy, it’s better for you and for the planet, and, most importantly, it’s the right, nonviolent thing to do.
Gary L. Francione
© 2009 Gary L. Francione
Dear Colleagues:
In what appears to be an attempt to address the criticism that President Obama got when the Department of Homeland Security issued a statement and a report on right-wing extremism, the FBI has just announced that terror can come from the “left” as well: the first domestic terrorist named to the FBI’s list of “Most Wanted” terror suspects is Daniel Andreas San Diego, described as an “animal rights activist,” “left-wing terrorist,” and “vegan.”
The first problem with this narrative is that it connects the animal rights movement with the political left. That is a problem because any such connection is an exaggeration at best. Indeed, many of the prominent animal organizations and personalities, particularly in the United States, have embraced reactionary politics to the extent that they embrace any political position at all. Is there anything more reactionary than PETA’s relentless sexism or its giving awards to people like Pat Buchanan or Arnold Schwarzenegger? One of the most celebrated people in the modern American movement is Matthew Scully, who was a speech writer for George Bush, Dick Cheney, and Sarah Palin and who, in his writing, presents a conservative Christian view that we should show “mercy” to animals but accepts that nonhuman animals are moral inferiors because only humans are created in God’s image. The Humane Society of the United States, claiming that “[t]he animal protection movement should never confine itself to the Left or the Right in American politics,” applauds Rush Limbaugh. In any event, it is simply not accurate to make a blanket generalization that the American animal movement is leftist.
The second problem is that this narrative unfairly suggests that the animal rights movement is one of violence. Yes, it is true that there are some people who advocate violence but they are very small in number. The overwhelming number of animal advocates I have met over the almost three decades that I have been involved with this issue are sharply critical of violence. They understand that violence is the problem and is not the solution; they understand that violence will—can—only beget more violence.
According to the reports, San Diego, claiming to be part of the “Revolutionary Cells-Liberation Brigade,” bombed two corporations in California that were involved in animal testing. “Revolutionary Cells-Liberation Brigade?” Is this some sort of joke? In any event, whether or not San Diego is guilty as charged is a matter for a court to decide. But those who promote or engage in violence do nothing to change social thinking about the issue; all they do is ensure that no one will take important ethical ideas seriously. They give others an excuse to dismiss these ideas.
In my work and on this blog (1, 2), I have argued that the animal rights position, properly understood, is inconsistent with promoting or engaging in violence.
The third problem is that the narrative goes out of the way to emphasize that San Diego is a vegan. So what? Why is this even relevant? This reminds me of the number of times over the years that someone has argued to me that concern about the moral status of animals should be rejected because Hitler was a vegetarian. Putting aside that Hitler was not a vegetarian, what logical relevance would it have if he were? Stalin ate meat. Does that mean that all meat eaters are morally like Stalin? Of course not.
San Diego may or may not be guilty as charged. But even if he is guilty and even if he is a vegan, is that relevant to the morality of veganism or does it say anything at all about vegans? No, of course not. As far as I am aware, Osama Bin Laden eats meat.
Gary L. Francione
© 2009 Gary L. Francione
Dear Colleagues:
Humans usually seek to justify their oppression and exploitation of nonhumans by pointing to supposed empirical differences. One of the many claimed differences is that nonhumans, unlike humans, are unable to think or act morally. That is, we claim that only those who can recognize and act on moral obligations to others can be members of the moral community and since animals are supposedly incapable of such conduct, we are justified in treating them as things without moral significance.
This argument is problematic for at least two reasons.
First, there is a problem of simple logic. Let us assume that we have two humans–one who is normal and one who is mentally disabled and incapable of recognizing obligations to others. Are these two humans different? Most certainly. Is any difference between them relevant to how we treat them? Yes, of course. If someone is mentally disabled and incapable of recognizing obligations, we may not want to allow them to enter into binding legal contracts. But is the difference relevant to whether we treat such a human as a nonconsenting subject in a biomedical experiment, or as a forced organ donor, or exclusively as a means to our ends in other ways? Most of us would be horrified at the suggestion that we should use mentally disabled humans as experimental subjects or as forced organ donors or as slaves. We recognize the complete irrelevance of this disability to the morality of exploiting these humans as resources for ‘normal’ humans.
Second, there is the problem of empirical fact. Is it the case that only humans are capable of moral reflection and action? There are countless examples of reports of animals from many species who risk their own physical safety in order to help others–conduct that we consider to have high moral value. Dogs go into burning houses to rescue humans; raccoons risk their own safety to help other raccoons who are blind; nonhuman primates imprisoned in zoos act to protect humans who have fallen into the zoo enclosures.
One such example was brought to my attention by the students in the course on human rights/animal rights that Anna and I teach at Rutgers University. A dog in Chile risks her/his life to help another dog who has been hit by a car. I am not saying that the dog sat around and pondered her/his moral obligations before acting in the same way that we would. But so what? The dog acted in an altruistic way. This conduct cannot be explained away as some sort of ‘instinct’ or self-interested behavior. The dog quite clearly and deliberately engaged in conduct that presented a serious risk to her/his life.
And the humans, who are supposedly ‘special’ because, unlike the dog, they are moral beings, did not bother even to stop or slow the speed of their cars.
Gary L. Francione
© 2009 Gary L. Francione
Number of animals killed in the world by the meat, dairy and egg industries, since you opened this webpage. This does not include the billions of fish and other aquatic animals killed annually.
Based on 2007 statistics from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations' Global Livestock Production and Health Atlas.
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