Animal Rights The Abolitionist Approach to Animal Rights

[Pickle Juice]

The Six Principles of the Abolitionist Approach to Animal Rights

1. The abolitionist approach to animal rights maintains that all sentient beings, humans or nonhumans, have one right: the basic right not to be treated as the property of others.
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.
3. Just as we reject racism, sexism, ageism, and heterosexism, 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.
4. 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. We reject any campaign that promotes sexism, racism, heterosexism or other forms of discrimination against humans.
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 dairy product, or the wearing or use of animal products, is inconsistent with the abolitionist perspective.
6. We recognize the principle of nonviolence as the guiding principle of the animal rights movement. Violence is the problem; it is not any part of the solution.

From Animal Rights, the Abolitionist Approach by Gary Francione

 

[mlp]

This is the part that I find problematic: We will not support positions that call for supposedly “improved” regulation of animal exploitation.

I don't see abolition becoming mainstream in the next hundred years or the next thousand years.Many, many billions of animals will be used and/or killed in that period. IMO, reducing the suffering of even one of those animals is a worthwhile endeavor.

 

[Pickle Juice]

Yes I have a problem with that too. I concentrate my own efforts on campaigns I believe in, because I can't find the energy or the motivation otherwise, but I can't refuse to vote on ballots for certain welfarist initiatives. I consider my views abolitionist nevertheless, though I don't participate in abolitionist forums any more, and it wouldn't really bother me if someone wanted to tell me I'm not an abolitionist because I voted to get rid of gestation crates.

As always, with anything, there is the pure philosophy, and how it gets applied. It's usually how people apply philosophy that gets the most debate. I've always been of a mind that the application isn't what defines the philosophy though.

 

[Clueless Git]

The problem with welfarism is that it makes that which is unnaceptable appear to be acceptable to the unwashed masses.

Far more a usefull tool to those with interest in perpetuating injustice/exploitation than it is to those with interest in terminating injustice/exploitation, as it were.

The maths of 'sum total' suffering is a total no-brainer though:

Any finite period (even a million years) of great suffering will always yeild a lower sum total of suffering than an infinite period of lesser suffering will.

That is simply how the math of finite-v-infinite, and therefore the math of abolitionism-v-welfarism, works.

 

[Pickle Juice]

The problem with welfarism is that it makes that which is unnaceptable appear to be acceptable to the unwashed masses.

This is my problem with the welfarist approach, and it is a much bigger problem than the one I have with abolitionism.

It's not really a worry to me, that the total abolition of animal use won't occur in my lifetime. It's the only view that makes enough sense to me to advocate.

 

[mlp]

That's all based on an assumption that AW laws will slow down AR/the rate of movement toward abolition. I don't think that's true, and I don't think it's been true historically, in other contexts.

I would argue that, the more humans see nonhumans as being individuals who should not be made to suffer, the more likely humans will be to see beyond that to the next step. That's essentially what happened historically with respect to slavery and with respect to women's issues. That's essentially been the nature of my own journey vis a vis nonhumans, and I doubt I'm unique in that or any other regard.

IOW, the first step is to see nonhumans as something other than commodities, to see someone as an individual capable of suffering.

Off hand, I can't think of a single major movement that has succeeded on an *all or nothing* approach.

 

[Pickle Juice]

Well I'm not up on the historical details, but my general impression of the movement to emancipate slaves here in the US is that it was not an incremental one, nor was the civil rights movement of the 1960s. Neither was the suffragette movement. All these people basically said we want exactly the same things white men already have, we want them now, and we're not going to settle for less.

And I fear, from even recent things people have posted here, that they see in the comment sections under articles about "humane" or "compassionate" animal farming, that once the conscience is salved with the idea that there is such a thing as kindly exploitation, people will be even happier to continue to breed animals for slaughter.

Just yesterday I was listening to a lecturer who used that popular saying that it is easier to change a man's religion than it is to change his diet. I think of all the violations humans have wrought in their history, none is as vital to them as the use of animals for food. It's going to be hundreds of times more difficult to stop it than it was to get people to enact laws against slavery and against discriminating against people based on race, gender, etc., and the moment you let people believe that there are kind ways to exploit animals that will leave your conscience guilt free they will clamp down on it harder than a limpet in a tide pool. Once animal exploitation is freed of the appearance of the most egregious cruelty people will see no reason to ever stop.

 

[Calliegirl]

It's the all or nothing thing that bothers me.

Right now a lot of places are phasing out gestation crates. To me it's selfish to say no thanks, we don't want your small gesture that alleviates a little of their suffering. We want them to no longer be eaten and until then, they can just stay in those crates for the next 100 years.

I think it is easier to get people to agree by taking small steps. When faced with completely losing something they are used to, they will fight back. Once something is changed and it becomes commonplace, then making another change is a lot easier to push through. And in the meantime, you educate people on why they shouldn't eat meat and make it easier for people to become vegan.

Look at veal. There have been improvements in the treatment of calves, yet it's popularity has dropped way down thanks to HFA educating people. Until people are no longer eating veal, some of them at least get a little relief from the horrible treatment they received in the past.

t is with good reason that The New York Times declared our National Veal Boycott the most successful animal rights boycott in the United States. We are pleased to report that, again this year, HFA's signature campaign has driven per capita veal consumption in the U.S. to an all-time low!
When HFA began the National Veal Boycott, veal production was the most rapidly expanding segment of the meat industry. Due to years of unrelenting campaigning by HFA, including television ads, full-page advertisements in major publications such as Time andNewsweek and others, annual veal production has plummeted from a high of 3.4 million calves to the current level of well under 1 million.
HFA also generated headlines for what would become legendary undercover investigations and direct attacks on the veal industry's drug-based methods of operation. In so doing, HFA was successful in curtailing the use of the veal industry's most cherished growth hormone, clenbuterol. And the extensive national publicity about this toxic and illegal drug served to inform millions of Americans about the hazards and cruelty involved in the production of veal...

http://www.hfa.org/vealBoycott.html


I've found one of the biggest things keeping people from becoming vegan is help getting there. There are lots of things on the internet, but when you're hearing some people say it's healthy and others saying you'll get sick, it's hard to know who is telling the truth. I've talked to people who were interested, but were confused. There is too much information on the internet and they didn't know which is correct and where to start. Even worse, I've seen them ask vegans who were promoting becoming vegan for help on places like FB and the answer they got was, search the internet, it's all there if you look. I've sent some of them PMs and offered to help with any questions. We have to make it easier for people who are interested but skittish.

 

[mlp]

The women's movement has been a long, incremental one, from women having absolutely no standing except as property, to it becoming unacceptable to kill your wife or daughter but still acceptable to beat her, to women having some property rights, to getting the vote, to it being O.K. to work outside the home in a wider variety of jobs, to it becoming less acceptable and illegal to beat your wife or to rape her. (The legal concept of maritable rape is a recent one, much more recent than women's suffrage in the U.S.) And it's still an ongoing process.

Civil rights for African Americans and other racial/ethnic minorities has also been an incremental process, especially when you look at the evolution of the attitudes of the in-power majority. Even when you look at slavery as a separately standing institution, the attitudes of the majority developed from a distaste/abhorrence at particularly cruel practices to a recognition that the institution of slavery needed to cease to exist, but for most of that majority, that did not mean that the former slaves were equally human.

The attitudes of the majority (and the majority is especially decisive when it comes to nonhumans, who cannot speak for themselves) don't go from 0 to 60 without passing through 10, 20, 30, etc.

I think we're going to have to agree to disagree on this one.

 

[RabbitLuvr]

Look at veal. There have been improvements in the treatment of calves, yet it's popularity has dropped way down thanks to HFA educating people.

Sadly, after years and years of never seeing veal on restaurant menus, I'm seeing it again. Not high-end places, either, I'm seeing it as mid-priced places.

 

[Clueless Git]

Off hand, I can't think of a single major movement that has succeeded on an *all or nothing* approach.

Not for anything to do with humans, maybe ..

Thing with oppressed humans, though, is that all they really need is enough 'welfarism' to get them into positions where they can speak for themselves.

That's a position that no amount of welfarism is ever going to put animals in.

 

[Clueless Git]

Look at veal.

Ok, let's!

Veal sales soar as trade tackles shopper concerns


Sales of veal have rocketed as the industry improves the supply chain and addresses shoppers' welfare fears.

Value sales rose 55% to £1.9m last year, with volumes up 31% to 162,000 kg [Kantar Worldpanel 52w/e 27 December 2009].

The figures were evidence supermarkets had done a good job in promoting and presenting veal in-store, said the National Beef Association, adding that there had been a shift in shoppers' attitudes towards buying veal.

"They've obviously got over their sensitivities they've bought the product, they've enjoyed the product and gone back to buy it again," said NBA director Kim-Marie Haywood.

Consumer perception of veal was changing, agreed Richard Phelps, MD of Blade Farming, which is setting up more veal rearing units to increase supply. "People now see veal as less of a bad product and more of a positive thing," he said.

http://www.thegrocer.co.uk/fmcg/veal-sales-soar-as-trade-tackles-shopper-concerns/208125.article

For the veal-mongers veal-welfarism has been a raging success.

 

[Calliegirl]

Looks like you need a group like the HFA over there.

 

[Pickle Juice]

The women's movement has been a long, incremental one, from women having absolutely no standing except as property, to it becoming unacceptable to kill your wife or daughter but still acceptable to beat her, to women having some property rights, to getting the vote, to it being O.K. to work outside the home in a wider variety of jobs, to it becoming less acceptable and illegal to beat your wife or to rape her. (The legal concept of maritable rape is a recent one, much more recent than women's suffrage in the U.S.) And it's still an ongoing process.

Civil rights for African Americans and other racial/ethnic minorities has also been an incremental process, especially when you look at the evolution of the attitudes of the in-power majority. Even when you look at slavery as a separately standing institution, the attitudes of the majority developed from a distaste/abhorrence at particularly cruel practices to a recognition that the institution of slavery needed to cease to exist, but for most of that majority, that did not mean that the former slaves were equally human.

The attitudes of the majority (and the majority is especially decisive when it comes to nonhumans, who cannot speak for themselves) don't go from 0 to 60 without passing through 10, 20, 30, etc.

I think we're going to have to agree to disagree on this one.

Perhaps the results were incremental, but not the goal. People who fought for the emancipation of American slaves didn't start out by saying "ok, whitey is never gonna free us, so let's settle for Monday through Friday slavery with evenings and weekends off", Rosa Parks didn't say "well I wouldn't mind sitting in the back of the bus if we could stop having white only public drinking fountains", and the suffragettes didn't say "we know men will never acknowledge that we are their equals, so let's trade the right to vote for the chance to go to secretarial college".

If you settle for 20% of what you want, you'll be lucky to get 10%.

 

[mlp]

It comes down to how you parse what the goal is. Women didn't start off fighting for the right to work whatever jobs they wanted, to be paid equally, etc. - they did it incrementally. As did African Americans. My God, if white people had thought that ultimately interracial marriage would be no big deal, that they would be competing with black people for top jobs, how many do you think would have been willing to take that first step? I don't think enough to get that first step done.

I think that you can preach the abolitionist philosophy loud and proud, far and wide, but I think the animal welfarists will be the ones to get enough people to the point where abolition has a chance.

As I said before, I think we're going to have to agree to disagree. Time will tell, but none of us on this board will be alive to see it.

 

[SummerRain]

The maths of 'sum total' suffering is a total no-brainer though:

Any finite period (even a million years) of great suffering will always yeild a lower sum total of suffering than an infinite period of lesser suffering will.

That is simply how the math of finite-v-infinite, and therefore the math of abolitionism-v-welfarism, works.

The obvious assumption being that humans are going to exist forever (and continue using animals forever).

On the other hand, if a mass extinction of the human race happened in the near future, the suffering prevented by good welfare laws would by far outweigh the suffering prevented by abolitionists.

On a further assumption that neither of those scenarios are going to happen... I think it's fair to say it's difficult to decide if welfarism will extend or shorten the amount of time to abolition. I err on the side of shorten though, because I think the societies need to think that animals feelings/suffering are important before they think that animals deserve rights in areas that don't immediately seem to be cruel. The veal argument is a persuasive example ... but I would have thought that if welfarism prevented abolition, then countries with higher welfare laws for farm animals would have less vegetarianism and veganism, because following the same logic people would assume that the animals were treated well and that there wasn't anything wrong with eating them. Going on the UK this doesn't seem to be true.

But it isn't something I've completely made up my mind on though.

 

[Clueless Git]

Looks like you need a group like the HFA over there.

It looks like they did a devastatingly good job, at first, indeed.

When photographs of formula-fed veal calves tethered in crates where they could not turn around appeared across the country, sales of veal plummeted. They have never recovered. In the 1950s and 1960s Americans ate four pounds of veal a year on average. Today per capital consumption is around half a pound a year.

But welfarism is the best freind of those who want to keep to things going, it would seem ...

It wasn’t until a few years ago that some farmers finally got the message and changed the way their calves were raised ...

“In 2003 people were horrified at the idea I would sell veal,” Mr. White said. “It took several years with customers seeing calves running free with moms to come around to the idea it’s O.K. to eat them, that they have actually had a life. By 2004 they were encouraging me to sell them.”

The changes in the industry have had a measurable impact on sales. D’Agostino, the 20-store supermarket chain in New York, said that its sales of veal have jumped 35 percent since it began carrying “certified humane” veal only.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/18/dining/18veal.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

The full article makes a very interesting read, btw.

 

[RabbitLuvr]

Time will tell, but none of us on this board will be alive to see it.

 

[Clueless Git]

Women didn't start off fighting for the right ...

And animals still haven't started fighting for sweet Fanny Adams and never will do

I think that there is a 'mission critical' difference between those who can speak/fight for themselves (once sufficiently enabled) and those who cannot and never will be able to.

 

[Pickle Juice]

It will always be my belief that once you con people into thinking that the exploitation of animals for food is being done kindly and humanely, not only will the majority never ever stop slaughtering animals for food, many vegetarians will probably start consuming them again.