Nathan
Nobis
Philosophy
Department
University
of Rochester, NY 14627
http://mail.rochester.edu/~nobs
should animal rights advocates not work for reforms of
the animal exploitation industries?
Comments on Friend of Animals’ (FoA)
“An Interview with Professor Gary L. Francione on the
State of the U.S. Animal Rights Movement”
When I returned from the “Animal Rights 2002” (http://animalrights2002.org/)
meeting I ran across a recent “Friends of
Animals” interview with Gary Francione where he boldly states:
“There is no
animal rights movement in the United States. There is only an animal welfare
movement that seeks to promote the "humane" exploitation of animals.”
This interview has been repeatedly forwarded
to me, so I expect it is getting some circulation. Since some of Francione’s insights and criticisms, I
think, deserve greater attention, discussion and debate than they get, I
point them out and comment on them below in red, bold print. A basic
statement of his view (or my interpretation of his view) is this:
If your goal is the abolition of
animal exploitation, then you do not want to spend your time advocating for
animals by working for or supporting campaigns that attempt to only improve
their welfare. These campaigns, at
best, improve animal welfare only slightly, but they never, and can’t,
strike at the root of the evil because they do not challenge the root.
This root is the idea that
animals are ours to eat, wear and experiment on—that they are only “property”
or things here to serve our interests.
Anyone who seriously believes that animals have rights should engage in
activism that strikes at the root because, in the long run, only this can be
effective.
I suspect Francione’s main contribution doesn’t
get the (in my view, positive) consideration it deserves because it is often
surrounded by false accusations about PETA and Peter Singer (even Tom Regan
gets a jab in the interview’s introduction!) and the presentation is often extremely
less than optimally clear and concise.
Below I point out some areas where Francione should clarify and defend
his views, and note some mistakes (some blatant and disingenuous, others
not).
My sense is that the disagreements between
Francione and others are not as deep or “philosophical” as I suspect he thinks
they are: for a large part, they are empirical disputes about the efficacy of
campaign tactics. He is often divisive
when there is no disagreement, as I repeatedly note below. His recognizing this would only improve his
relations with and influence on other animal advocates.
I hope this commentary will do something to
advance discussion and debate concerning proper goals and effective tactics for
those who challenge the status quo concerning the treatment of animals.
I don’t have time to write a complete
essay on Francione’s views (nor do I think that would do much good anyway,
although I’d be happy to do that if anyone gave me a reason to do so). Anyone interested first should read his
article here: http://www.friendsofanimals.org/action/summer2002/summer2002garyfrancione.htm. I’ve cut and pasted some relevant passages
and commented on them. It’s all a bit
tedious because, first, his article is somewhat long, and, second, I am very
much a nit-picker, but it should be clear which comments are mine.
I’ll begin with Francione’s concluding advice. Again, the possibly more interesting parts are in red:
Gary Francione: I was recently asked by some animal advocates to write down a set of principles that might be used as shorthand for what I regard as the moral baselines of a real animal rights movement [emphasis mine]. I’m happy to share them with your readers.
1.
The animal rights position maintains that all sentient beings, humans or
nonhuman, have one right: the basic right not to be treated as the property of
others [that is, “the right not to be valued exclusively as means to
human ends.”]
PETA agrees; Regan agrees; I see
no reason to think that Singer would seriously disagree either, since he too is
willing to use the language of ‘rights’.
2.
Our recognition of the one basic right means that we must abolish, and
not merely regulate, institutionalized animal exploitation – because it assumes
that animals are the property of humans.
PETA agrees; Regan agrees; since
rejecting speciesism would seem to entail abolitionism (since abolitionism
would be demanded for comparable human harms), the Singer of Animal
Liberation would agree.
If abolition would maximize
overall good consequences, Singer the consequentialist (to me, Singer does not
seem to be the simple or pure utilitarian that some seem to think he is) would
support abolition: the difference between Singer and Regan / Francione / others
who more explicitly take a more explicitly rights-based perspective is that
Singer is not necessarily committed to abolitionism: Singer is committed
to whatever outcome produces the best consequences overall. This outcome, however, might be the same as
that which Francione envisions. I don’t
know if Singer argues it isn’t.
3.
Just as we reject racism, sexism, ageism, and homophobia, we reject
speciesism. The species of a sentient being is no more reason to deny the
protection of this basic right than race, sex, age, or sexual orientation is a
reason to deny membership in the human moral community to other humans.
PETA agrees; Regan agrees; Singer
agrees (read chapter 1 of Animal Liberation or his essay “All Animals Are Equal”.
4.
[a] We recognize that we will not abolish overnight the property
status of nonhumans, but we will support only those campaigns and positions
that explicitly promote the abolitionist agenda. We will not support positions that call for supposedly
“improved” regulation of animal exploitation. [b] We reject any campaign that promotes sexism, racism,
homophobia or other forms of discrimination against humans.
Re. [b]: PETA agrees; Regan
agrees; Singer agrees. Francione seems
to think that PETA’s campaigns promote sexism, but I have yet to see any
serious argument for that conclusion and, more importantly, the women who work
in these campaigns don’t accept that conclusion either.
Re. [a]: What it is to “explicitly
promote the abolitionist agenda” is not clear, based on what Francione says in
this interview. It appears that PETA
supports this. However, Francione seems
to claim that if one supports improving regulations, then one rejects the
abolitionist agenda. Below I argue that
there’s nothing in the abolitionist agenda itself that precludes supporting
reform; however, Francione may be right if he is arguing
that the opportunity costs to supporting reform are too great and so working
for reform is not in the animals’ best interests in the long run. Whether he is
arguing for this or not, I’m not totally sure (more below).
5.
We recognize that the most important step that any of us can take toward
abolition is to adopt the vegan lifestyle and to educate others about veganism.
Veganism is the principle of abolition applied to one’s personal life and the
consumption of any meat, fowl, fish, or diary product, or the wearing or use of
animal products, is inconsistent with the abolitionist perspective.
PETA agrees; Regan agrees; Singer
agrees. Get Bruce Friedrich’s (PETA’s Director of Vegan Outreach) CD on promoting
veganism from PETA.
6. We recognize the principle of nonviolence as the guiding principle of the animal rights movement.
PETA agrees; Regan agrees; Singer
agrees.
So far it
seems that PETA and Singer agree with Francione on the “moral baselines
of a real animal rights movement.”
Now back to the beginning:
FoA: What is your view of the current animal rights movement in the United States?
Gary Francione: There is no animal rights movement in the United States. There is only an animal welfare movement that seeks to promote the “humane” exploitation of animals. . . .
Some who promote welfare reform maintain that it is acceptable for humans to use animals if they do so “humanely.”
While some organizations maintain
this, PETA does not, Regan does not, and Singer does not either. But all recognize that, as even Francione
does, that “It is, of course, always better to cause less suffering than more.”
Others seek welfare reforms because they believe reforms will eventually lead to abolition. I argue against these notions for two reasons. First, as a theoretical matter, reform misses the primary moral point. . . . My view is that we should abolish animal slavery and not seek to reform an inherently immoral institution.
Re. abolishing animal slavery,
PETA agrees; Regan agrees; Singer of Animal Liberation would agree
insofar as this inherently immoral institution is founded on speciesistic
prejudice.
Francione has various arguments that reform either can’t lead to abolition or make abolition very unlikely. While I don’t think his arguments are airtight, it would be good if he presented them in a clearer, more concise manner.
The second reason for my rejection of welfarism is that, as a practical matter, it does not work. We have had animal welfare laws in most western countries for well over a hundred years now, and they have done little to reduce animal suffering and they certainly have not resulted in the gradual abolition of any practices.
A long sentence:
IF “reform” does too little for the animals now AND it
does nothing to challenge the notion that animals are only property
(which it doesn’t) AND there are other things that can be done to get more
people to challenge the status of animals as property (and have them become
abolitionists) AND doing these things will have better consequences for the
animals in the long run, THEN the long term costs of campaigning for
reform are far greater than the short-term costs associated with campaigning
for abolition and not doing things (or as many things) that strike at the fundamental
root of the problem, namely the belief that animals are ours to eat,
wear and experiment on.
If this is Francione’s point, then it’s a
call to put resources into, among other efforts, a widespread vegan education
program, instead of putting efforts into reforms (See below about http://veganoutreach.org/).
However, this doesn’t show that the abolitionist’s
campaigning for or supporting reforms is somehow internally incoherent or
inconsistent, which I think Francione suggests.
One concern, however, is why both
can’t be done: why can’t some people work on reform and, if they succeed, help
some animals now, while others work on the long-term goal of abolition? Why not think that some (or enough) people who
become familiar with the plight of animals through the educational efforts of reform
campaigns will become abolitionists? Does
Francione think that reforms should not be campaigned for and supported because
it would divert energy from working for abolition? It’s also possible that some reforms could be successful and then
the movement “switch gears” to an abolitionist strategy. However, this might be quite inefficient so
it might be best to shoot for the end goal initially. Unfortunately, these are all empirical/scientific
questions and we probably lack adequate information to make very confident
judgments about such matters.
Peter Singer was recently quoted as saying that the agreement by McDonald's to give battery hens a few more inches of cage space was the most significant development for farm animals since he wrote Animal Liberation. Twenty-five years of welfarist reform and the best we can show is a larger battery cage. Maybe Peter finds that thrilling; I do not.
This is inaccurate: Singer does not find it
“thrilling” that this is the significant development; in fact, he seems to find
it disappointing that this is the most significant development. Francione should know that this is Singer’s
view and not misrepresent him.
FoA: This theory is logical indeed. But what about putting your ideas into practice at the grass roots level?
Gary Francione: Before undertaking any practical effort, there must be a theory that informs the action. A social movement must have a theory if it is to have any action at all. Unfortunately for the present time, the welfarist position of Peter Singer is informing the movement. This position claims that advocates should support any measure that "reduces suffering.”
Something that is not clear about Francione’s view is
this: if he thinks we should not
support any or some (which is it? precision is important!)
measure[s] that reduce suffering, is this because of [a] some deep
philosophical reason, e.g., that this support is somehow inconsistent with believing
animals have rights or [b] because, in the long run, this will be less
effective towards achieving abolition?
Re. [a], I see no philosophical reason for
someone who believes that animals have rights (in the sense Francione, Regan
and others articulate) to not support measures that reduce suffering. To use the slavery example, an abolitionist
could have recognized that, at an early stage of the movement, he lacked public
support for total abolition and so, for the time being, supported measures
designed to “reduce suffering.” And he
could campaign for abolition at the same time.
If he didn’t have any clear sense of if and when abolition would come,
it might be reasonable for him to do both.
One can both accept animal rights and reject the moral and legal
“property” status of animals and support measures that improve animals’
welfare: there is nothing “logically” inconsistent about that. If there’s any “inconsistency”, it’s not a matter
of logic, but a matter of basing one’s policies and actions on false or unreasonable/unjustified
empirical beliefs.
Re. [b], Francione might believe that
animal rightists should not support measures that reduce suffering because they
have better ways to spend their time.
Thus, any time they spend supporting welfarist campaigns takes away from
time and resources that could be spent challenging the property status of
animals. So, the opportunity costs for supporting welfare improvements are too
great.
This theory has had disastrous practical results. Nearly any proposed change, such as giving an extra inch of space to a battery hen, or eating only non-crate veal, can be portrayed as reducing suffering. Singer's theory allows large, multi-million-dollar animal welfare organizations to come up with moderate campaigns and then to demand that we all jump on the bandwagon because this will "reduce suffering."
Under Singer’s theory, it would make sense for animal exploiters to make things as horrible as they can for animals in order to be able to “reduce suffering” and thereby make small concessions to activists.
This final claim is simply ridiculous. Singer’s ethical theory certainly does
not imply that what animal exploiters should do is harm animals even more
so that they can then reduce their suffering.
Again, Francione should know this.
That is precisely what the exploiters are doing, with McDonalds’ so-called “improvements” being a perfect example of the problem. And the “movement” is buying into this because Singer has declared that these insignificant changes will “reduce suffering.”
But these changes will reduce suffering. Francione’s sensible
challenge, might be that, perhaps, these minor (but surely not
insignificant, at least not for the animals whose lives will be slightly less
bad because of them) changes will preclude bigger, better and fundamental
changes down the road. Animal
exploiters might say, “We reformed farming, isn’t that good enough?!” And the general public might rest assured
with the thought that their meat, leather and fur is “humanely” produced (as
Francione suggests below). Perhaps reforms
will lead to greater complacency. Perhaps
they will have worse consequences for animals in the long term. If so and IF THERE’S A BETTER ALTERNATIVE,
then we don’t want to advocate for reforms.
These empirical speculations are difficult to adequately
justify, however.
But if they are true, then Singer would
agree that they shouldn’t be supported: Singer would think that there are
better things we should be doing for animals.
A difficultly, however, is determining
whether or not this is true, that is, whether or not these consequences would
follow from welfarist reform campaigns: Francione argues that they wouldn’t
(in part, because they haven’t—a somewhat odd inference), but there are
other explanations why this is so besides the mere fact that there have been welfare
campaigns (e.g., public not adequately informed about conditions of animals and
need for reforms, too few people involved, etc.). These are all speculative questions about the future empirical
consequences of our actions, and these are hard to answer. But, if Francione is asking these
questions, they are the right questions to ask and more work (from historians, sociologists,
and others who study social change) needs to be done to try to best answer
them.
I suggest that we need a new theory to replace the one that we have. I am not unrealistic. I recognize that even if we adopt an abolitionist theory, abolition will not occur immediately. Change will necessarily be incremental.
It would be nice to hear from Francione what he
thinks this incremental change would look like. Would it include widespread improvements to animal welfare and eventually
lead to there being no institutionalized animal exploitation, or would each
location of institutionalized animal exploitation close down without much in
the way of improvements to animal welfare?
It would be nice to compare Francione’s vision to PETA’s or Farm
Sanctuary’s or Regan’s or Singer’s, etc. to see if and how they are
substantially different.
But it is my view that the explicit goal must be abolition and that abolition must shape incremental change.
As far as I can tell, PETA’s goal is abolition. That’s what Ingrid Newkirk made crystal clear
at AR2002 (By the way, I’d encourage people to order an audio [&/or video?]
tape of her keynote address at AR2002: she is an amazing speaker). As far as I can tell,
Francione’s plausible objection is that if the goal is abolition, we would use
the means that have have good reason to believe will be most effective. Francione has a historical case that reforms
have not been effective at helping animals, challenging their status as only
property, etc. So, Francione’s question
to PETA, Farm Sanctuary, etc. is this:
“Why are you doing these reform campaigns? We have some (perhaps good) reason that this
isn’t going to work since it hasn’t worked before! And why would you expect it to work anyway since it doesn’t
directly challenge the assumption that animals are property!”
Whether they have a convincing reply, I
don’t know. I have some doubts
(although I also have doubts that Francione adequately makes the case for his
view, but I do think he is asking the questions that need to be asked).
On the other hand, I can tell you what really is not realistic, and that is to expect that the industries who use animals to obtain profits will be able to police themselves. As I have often noted, "humane slaughter" laws are difficult to enforce, and the economic realities of the meat-packing business militate against conscientious self-enforcement of such standards. Moreover, such laws arguably increase overall suffering, because they make the general public feel better about eating meat or about any other regulated use of animals. This is the Catch-22 of animal welfare.
This is a good point although it is
(probably) empirically speculative: are there any good reasons to believe that
the “general public” believes that exploited animals are, in fact, treated
“humanely” and it is OK to eat and wear them?
I suspect that most people have no such beliefs since they have no
beliefs about exploited animals at all: that’s what I find among my
students. Perhaps Francione would argue
that they lack these beliefs because there has been too much focus on reform,
etc., and not enough on education. If
so, again, then more organizations should move toward the perspective that Vegan Outreach (and similar organizations)
works from.
I wonder if, unlike many of the major
organizations (like PETA and, especially, HSUS), Francione would support a
fleet of “Tiger” trucks http://www.sharkonline.org/indextiger.mv
focusing on farm issues?
There will always be welfarists who promote longer chains for the slaves and call that incremental change. In Rain Without Thunder, I argued that the most important form of incremental change is educating the public about the need for abolition. We have not yet had that, for the U.S. movement has always been embarrassed about being "radical.” We do not want to alienate the "mainstream.” The problem is that the "mainstream" is polluted and we ought to stay far away from the "mainstream."
It’s not again clear to me that PETA and Singer
disagree here with him here.
Regarding "alienating” people and organizations
that don’t have abolitionism as their core value, I suspect that, at this
stage, many animal rightists think that since there are too few people advocating
for animals—“rightists” or “welfarists”—it would be better not to “lose” those
welfarists since we need all the people we can get. But Francione might be right—to achieve
fundamental long-term success for animals, it might be better from them if “the
movement” split into those who were seriously committed to proposition
that animals have rights and those who aren’t.
Maybe, maybe not.
To those who claim that the abolitionist has no practical campaign to pursue right now, I have long argued that the contrary is true. Consider what would happen if the international animal movement had a sustained and unified campaign promoting a purely vegetarian diet. Imagine what could be done if a significant portion of our resources were channeled into making people aware of why they shouldn't eat animal products at all. At the end of five years, we would certainly not have achieved world veganism, but we'd probably have reduced the consumption of animal products considerably more than we have done with these "eat red veal" campaigns.
Singer very much agrees with this, as evidenced by
his speech at AR2002, as does PETA.
This is Vegan Outreach’s (http://veganoutreach.org/)
core mission and they should be given strong (financial) support in
achieving it. See their Vegan
Advocacy page for their “philosophy” and rational for their strategy at http://veganoutreach.org/advocacy/path.html
I have recently begun developing a local group / team
dedicated to this kind of advocacy, and anyone else could easily do the same:
see my Upstate Vegan Outreach page at http://mail.rochester.edu/~nobs/rvo/ I am trying to learn how to make the best
use of my advocacy time and resources and I hope that something like this will
be more effective.
Everyone interested in these issues should read Donna
Maurer’s recent book Vegetarianism: Movement or Moment? (Temple University Press, 2002). A link to info. About the book is off VO’s
page.
Re. eating “red veal,” PETA certainly does not encourage this. Luckily, I know of no animal organization that does.
And what would we have given up if we were to pursue this route? Peter Singer claims that two inches of cage space is the best thing to happen to farmed animals in 25 years; arguably, making as few as 100 new vegans in five years would "reduce suffering" much more than that.
Unfortunately, this empirical claim might not be true
(and nobody has done the empirical work to show that it is). See Russ Shafer-Landau, Vegetarianism,
Causation and Ethical Theory Public Affairs Quarterly [8] 1994, pp.
85-100. For a concessive (and
long-winded, sorry) response / related paper see my Vegetarianism and Virtue: Does Consequentialism
Demand Too Little? Social Theory and Practice, 2002. If you send me a SASE, I’ll send you an
offprint: what’s online is more of a draft.
When will we begin? I understand, of course, that many people in leadership positions aren't vegan. Therefore they find it difficult to embrace animal rights as a movement in which a vegetable-based diet is an axiom. Veganism, however, is the single most important issue in the movement. Veganism is the abolitionist principle implemented in one's own life. Anyone who maintains that she or he is an "animal rights" advocate but is not vegan cannot be taken seriously.
PETA agrees; Regan agrees; Singer agrees.
FoA: And if they do not work to abolish animal ownership, we inevitably get a doomed welfare platform?
Gary Francione: Exactly right. And animal welfare -- both as a moral theory and as a legal principle -- requires in part that we balance human interests against nonhuman interests to determine whether a particular animal use or treatment is "necessary.” If the human interest outweighs the nonhuman interest, the use or treatment is considered "necessary" and morally or legally justifiable. If the animal interest outweighs the human interest, then the use is considered "unnecessary" and morally and legally unjustifiable.
. . . As a matter of logic, we cannot balance nonhuman' interests against ours, any more than we can balance our interests against those of our cars or wristwatches.
There can be difficulties in balancing interests, but
these are not a “matter of logic.” And,
as many have attempted to show (e.g., Singer, LaFollette and Shanks in Brute
Science), non-human interests always or nearly always come out on top.
Since cars and wristwatches have no interests, this
analogy is poor.
FoA: You are a law professor. What do you say to those who maintain that your views are specific to someone trained by the legal profession?
Gary Francione: . . .For the most part, the law reflects social attitudes and does not form them. This is particularly true when the behavior in question is deeply embedded in the cultural fabric, as our exploitation of animals undoubtedly is. As long as most people think that it’s fine to eat animals, use them in experiments, or use them for entertainment purposes, the law is not likely to be a particularly useful tool to help animals.
PETA agrees; Regan agrees; Singer agrees. Many agree.
There are some lawyers, such as those involved with the Animal Legal Defense Fund, who promote the notion that law will be at the forefront of social change for animals. . . . Our job as lawyers is to keep social activists out of harm's way. In my view, a useful "animal rights" lawyer is a criminal lawyer one day, helping activists who are charged with civil disobedience; an administrative lawyer the next day, helping activists obtain permits for demonstrations; and a constitutional lawyer the next day, helping students who do not want to vivisect as part of their course work, or helping prisoners who want vegan food. But the lawyer always serves and protects the activist. It is the activist who helps to change the paradigm. Without committed clients who reflect a growing social consensus, lawyers are useless.
What would be very helpful would be if
Francione (or somebody) could organize lawyers who are available to help
activists on such cases. I don’t
believe there is an effective network for activists to find an attorney when
they need one: what’s currently in place is inadequate, I’ve found.
FoA: We had better wake up the movement quickly
then. You mentioned Peter Singer and PeTA as not promoting the idea of
abolishing property status.
I don’t see why one should think that they do not
promote the idea of abolishing [legal? moral?] property status. The opposite seems to clearly be the case,
especially with PETA.
But both seem central to the public idea of what animal rights people do. Can they be considered responsible for the advocacy movement's ineffective position?
Gary Francione: Ironically, Singer and PeTA together have eviscerated the animal rights movement in the United States. PeTA president Ingrid Newkirk has informed us that Peter Singer is an intellectual who looks at all nuances of an issue. Newkirk was defending an essay called "Heavy Petting," in which Singer had something nice to say about the idea of having sex with calves -- sex with baby cows. I quote: "They have penises and vaginas, as we do, and the fact that the vagina of a calf can be sexually satisfying to a man shows how similar these organs are." Now, I can appreciate a good nuance now and then, but I draw the line at baby cows.
Francione (and others) should read Singer’s review more
carefully: the quote above is a simple factual claim which, in itself, is
neither something “nice” to say nor an endorsement of bestiality.
And then we've got PeTA bringing Playboy models to Capitol Hill, to attract the attention of legislators. PeTA trivializes activism just as Peter Singer trivializes the theory of animal rights. Combined, these people have managed to turn a serious idea into a peep show.
If Francione thinks that more media attention is
better than less and if he has better ideas on how to get it, I’m sure PETA
would be interested in implementing his strategies.
I think some of these leaders need to take some time off to learn how to respect human personhood before they continue their campaigns. Instead of thinking about intellectual nuances, PeTA ought to pay attention to the rather obvious fact that to link animal rights with Playboy's philosophy sends a profoundly disturbing message. [What is this disturbing message?] If animal rights can make room for pornography, what kind of social movement is that? Some critics have said that the animal rights movement is corroded by the attitudes of people who do not like other human beings. It's time to consider this criticism seriously. [First the criticism would need to be seriously articulated and defended.] Fundamentally there is no difference between the idea of treating other human beings respectfully and treating other animals respectfully. Our campaigns must think in holistic terms.
I’m told that this is a “touchy” issue, but perhaps
Francione has a serious case to offer—not merely dogmatic assertions
like those above—for why various PETA campaigns fail to “respect human
personhood.” The (usually) women who
have been part of these campaigns did not find their personhood not respected,
and it’s not clear why they should think any different. However, if these types of campaigns do
anything to help animals (and PETA reports they do: they supposedly received
many more requests for the Vegetarian Starter Kit after, e.g., they were on
Howard Stern), then they are worth it, unless there are more effective
things that they could be doing.
I would encourage animals advocates to understand a fundamental principle: radical change -- change at the very roots -- cannot be imposed by large corporations or by the charities who court them. And be careful too of "experts.” When we identify a particular person or group, rather than an idea, as the central focus of the movement, we give a great deal of authority to that person who can then do a great deal of damage to the movement. An example of this phenomenon is Singer himself. Advocates have allowed -- even encouraged and facilitated -- his putting himself forward as the definitive spokesperson for "animal rights.” Anyone who has read Animal Liberation with care knows that Peter Singer does not endorse rights for animals or humans. He has consistently maintained that it is morally acceptable to eat animals and use them in other ways (as long as we take seriously their interest in not suffering). He also regards it as acceptable to kill disabled human infants and to use humans as unconsenting subjects in biomedical research in some circumstances. Recently, Singer condoned some acts of sex between humans and nonhumans. The movement has set Singer up as some type of deity.
There is some historical reason for why Singer is
recognized as the movement’s leader.
The most obvious one is, for one, that Tom Regan never wrote a “popular”
(that is, a book for the general public, not philosophers) book on animal
rights for the layperson: all his books are academic. And what Singer says in Animal Liberation is not inconsistent
with a “stronger” rights-based position such as Francione’s.
I wonder if Francione seriously overestimates the
influence Singer’s writings, beyond Animal Liberation, have on animal
advocates. Empirical work would be needed to defend what Francione’s seems to
suggest, but I seriously doubt that the typical person, say, at AR2002 accepts
the views above that Francione attributes to Singer: this “oh, let’s just make farming
and research and fur ‘humane’ and then everything will be ok!” view. Francione seems to portray most animal
advocates as mindless robots who parrot Singer: I think few are like that. I
also suspect that most people don’t perceive a serious difference between
Singer’s and Regan’s view, and if they don’t perceive a serious difference,
that can’t make a difference to their motivation, goal-setting, etc.
A lot (actually, all) of
this Singer bashing seems pointless and unfounded: does Francione seriously
think that the “movement” would be much better off if Regan had been the one to
write a book like Animal
Liberation?
FoA: Some people would say that your theory of animal rights is an all-or-nothing approach, and that it is unfair not to provide welfare improvements for the animals who are alive and suffering now. Given that it will take a long time before animal rights are acknowledged and established, is there any way we can help animals who are suffering today?
Gary Francione: Become a vegan and spend at least one hour of every day educating your family, friends, neighbors, and anyone else who will listen to you about the moral and environmental arguments in favor of veganism. I can guarantee you that at the end of a year, you will have done more to bring about abolitionist change--and to set the stage for more abolitionist change--than you will have done spending time on getting battery cages made larger or working for more "humane" slaughterhouses.
I think that Francione is probably right. And I suspect that, based on what he said at
AR2002, Singer might very much agree with him!
If you want to participate in legislative campaigns, pursue campaigns that are abolitionist and not reformist. In Rain Without Thunder, I discussed criteria for identifying abolitionist campaigns. But I cannot emphasize enough that the most important step is to go vegan and to support vegan education programs. Welfarist campaigns may make us feel better, but they do nothing to alleviate animal suffering.
Well, they can do something to alleviate
animal suffering. But the point is
that, if there is something else that will, in the long run, alleviate more
suffering by way of toppling the status of animals as property, then that
should be done. Francione, like Singer,
is a good consequentialist: acts get their moral status by their consequences
and we should bring about the best consequences we can.
A final comment: Francione mentions that the movement
is less concerned about vivisection these days. Some argue that it’s because the movement has been too focused on
vivisection and not enough on farming that there has been too little progress for
farm animals. And, while much of what
animals endure in vivisection is horrific, the number of animals used is small,
compared to farming.
In case you didn’t know, the greatest progress on the
vivisection issue, as far as I can tell, seems to be being made by a focused
and clever direct action campaign called Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty (SHAC)
at http://shacusa.net and from a
medical/scientific point of view by Drs. Greek with Americans for Medical
Advancement: http://curedisease.com . If anyone is able to set up a debate on the
human costs and benefits of vivisection at a college, university or medical
professionals’ school, Dr. Greek would be happy to debate any medical professional
or scientist on these matters. It is
difficult to arrange these debates because the vivisectors generally do not
like to attempt to defend their view.
Please email me with any comments, questions or requests. Nathan Nobis, nobs@mail.rochester.edu 7/8/02