Practical Animal Ethics

Is veganism a ‘choice’?

2011-12-28T09:39:00.000-08:00

There are two types of free choices in life:

(a) Choices where you can exercise your basic freedoms with no aspect of being obligated either way (like deciding whether you will eat out, or eat at home this evening).

(b) Choices where we have as much freedom to choose as in (a), but where there is a moral obligation not to opt for one of the choices. Thus we have a freedom to make a choice, but we choose not to as we would regard it as morally abhorrent.

Many regard veganism as a matter of (a). There are no legal obligations on us either way, and the ‘non-vegan option’ is widely available in most areas of life. Hence at best, people relate veganism to be a matter of personal preference - a choice.

As common as this thinking is, it’s an irrational mistake.

Think of any 'choice' that fits into category (b). A common example is the choice of whether to buy human slaves or not. Slavery still exists in many countries around the world. It is especially prevalent in some third world countries – and were one to live in one of these places, one would almost certainly have a choice of whether to buy a person to be an unwilling slave or not (finance permitting). As I hope this extreme example shows, if we had the choice to buy a black child to obey our frivolous wishes, we would opt not to do so out of basic moral decency. (b) is a 'choice' in the loosest sense.

Indeed, it’s impossible to judge that this situation is an example of personal preference, so long as we judge any actions at all as morally problematic (the idea of slavery is that basic as a moral principle). Thus the choice to buy other people to use as slaves holds the implicit moral obligation that we shouldn’t choose to do so, *even if* the choice was as free so as to allow it both in legal jurisdiction and social acceptance (like it was almost anywhere on the planet just a handful of decades ago).

Following reason through

Given that veganism is an ethics based choice, to make an informed judgement about whether it’s an (a) or (b) type decision then we firstly need to forget about this legal and social acceptance for animal use. After all we’ve already seen acceptable activities can be found to extremely morally wrong (like with slavery). Social and legal change are things that should (and always have) followed morality, not the other way around. But once we remove social and legal excuses, what is left that could possibly make veganism an (a) choice?

After all, if an animal is sentient, she is an individual whom experiences her own life. The only moral justification for taking her out of her natural environment (without her informed consent, which cannot be gotten from non-human animals), or for killing her, or for using her as a resource for your enjoyment is if there was some reason for differentiating between humans and other species for these purposes. But what justification could there possibly be?

An interest in continuing to live, in not being tortured, in living your own life. The relevant characteristic to demand these interests is sentience: the ability to experience your own life and to feel what happens to you. Nothing more, nothing less. And animals do have this characteristic, whether we like it or not. Thus to justify a desire to use animals as slaves and resources, and to kill them at the end of their 'use' cannot be differentiated from the desire to do the same to any other sentient individual (like humans) if we are thinking rationally and without prejudice. Given that our most basic of moral principles denounces slavery to some sentient individuals (humans), then we don't really have any 'choice' but to extend this principle to all races or species who are sentient. It's the rational thing to do. And racist or speciesist excuses (as different as they are) don't cut it.

If we listen to current societal attitudes, and current societal law, it will tell us that we currently think it’s okay to differentiate based on prejudice. But then two hundred years ago, it was telling us the same thing – only that time the prejudice was between different races of humans rather than different species of sentient animals. We need to reject this method of judging our actions, as we know it is flawed. Focusing on consistent, rational reasoning is the right way forward.

Legality doesn't dissolve consistent reasoning

Veganism is not an (a) choice. It simply isn’t. It’s not a case of personal preference, unless we cowardly hide behind social acceptance or legal rules – concepts that were never meant to guide the development of morality. Does that mean I will force people to be vegan? No. That holds about as much pragmatic use as burning down slaughterhouses – a method as irrational as the groups behind them, clad as they are in balaclavas and a desperate desire to be rebels.

I believe, (and history is on my side) that people eventually do what’s right. Speciesism will go the same way as racism, sexism, and the same way as homophobia should be headed any day now. Prejudice is irrational and intelligent humans tend toward the rational. The rest follow. But this movement begins with you – law and society will change when individuals form the foundation for it, and that (at a very simple level) involves each of us 'choosing' to be vegan and telling other people about why we are doing it. Far from being a personal preference or opinion, this is a moral obligation. Let's not shirk this obligation. Start 2012 how we mean to go on for the rest of our lives.

TAPS Series - 4: 'Veganism/Abolitionism/Rational Discourse is Elitist'

2011-12-01T04:26:00.000-08:00

Pretty simply, this accusation is thrown around by many 'animal people'.

Elitism, correctly defined, is the belief that a select group of people...are those whose views on a matter are to be taken the most seriously or carry the most weight. Alternatively, it refers to a situation in which power is concentrated in the hands of a limited number of people.

Veganism as elitism

Some non-vegans level this accusation at veganism. They claim that vegans are elitist, as vegans believe that their views about animal use are above everyone else's.

It's a fairly standard accusation to debunk. Ethical vegans are anti-speciesist, and so believe that we have no right to justify our use and abuse of other animals on the basis of a difference in physical and mental characteristics like speciesim. It's not elitist to believe that all things equal, sentient individuals should have the same level of respect. That's equality, not elitism.

What is elitist, as Gary Francione points out, is thinking that our own tastes and desires justify the immense suffering of other individuals. It is elitist to think that because we believe something so frivolous, we should get to decide on behalf of others that they should suffer.

Abolitionism and/or rational discourse as elitism

It is to be expected that some non-vegans will misinterpret veganism as elitism - after all, there is centuries of erroneous thinking to say that animal exploitation is normal and common.

What is more worrying is when vegans throw around accusations about elitism at abolitionism and/or places where animal advocacy is subjected to the critique of rational discourse. These vegans believe that abolitionists think they are right, and that this is elitist as they are ignoring the views of new welfarist vegans.

This is of course no different to the non-vegan who espouses veganism as elitist. Abolitionists do not argue new welfarism is wrong because people don't have the right to be new welfarists (that would be elitist) we argue that new welfarism is wrong because it reinforces the exploitation of non-human animals in society. This argument, much like the original argument for veganism in the first section, is about equality, and subjecting our human views to the rational discourse on behalf of animals. And just like it is elitist for someone to believe their frivolous desires justify animal exploitation, it is also elitist for someone to believe their preference/desire to do all advocacy justifies the negative effect it has on non-human animals.

The 'how can we be sure which advocacy works?/you ban opinions different to yours' factor.

No matter how many times one points out what elitism actually means, and that veganism and abolitionism are the opposite of elitism, many still cling to the statements mentioned in the title as an attack to level, specifically at abolitionism.

The 'how can we be sure' approach makes little sense as a rational matter as it contains selective scepticism. We can't be 100% sure that other animals are sentient, we can't be 100% sure that other people are sentient, yet we listen to rational discourse (drawn from basic facts and basic beliefs) in order to uncover the moral obligation of humans to afford other sentient individuals respect. This philosophical rational discourse is taken as a given for many who disagree with abolitionism, yet they then reject the same level of reason when it is posited at practical ethics because 'they can't be sure'. This is selective scepticism, and it's incoherent. One can prove abolitionism to make sense through rational discourse in the same way one can prove animal rights to make sense through rational discourse. You can't be sceptical of one but not the other. Similarly, using 'how can we be sure' as a pick and choose argument like this is speciesist as it assumes we require more proof when it comes to non-humans than when it comes to humans.

The 'you ban opinions different to yours' accusation, comes when new welfarists (mainly, though it's also present from many classic welfarists) are asked to stick with rational discourse - and as a result are often banned from academic discussion for refusing to do so. Rational discourse is when people make points, and other people approach what has been said - responding to exactly that which point is made, and either providing rational support or criticism of it, before making other relevant points and following that conversation through also. People that don't do this, and instead shout their opinions, over and over, without engaging with the points, criticisms or supports that have been made, or changing their opinion, have no place in discussion on the issue of non-humans. It is speciesist to believe one's views about animals are right regardless of approaching rational discourse about them. Rational discourse is the only guarantee that animal interests are being taken into account.

Unfortunately, people who do have prejudices about other races, sexes or species are freely allowed to traverse society without having to challenge them. This is fine, however it is not elitist to demand discussions about specific race, sex or species to be free from this and open to rational discourse. Indeed, if it isn't, that is elitists - as it is the idea that, once again, our own individual views trump the objective interests of other individuals.

Elitism is often wrongly levelled by those who take part in it. Be aware, and don't get sucked into the insults! Non-human animals do matter, and to give them equal respect we do need to stick to rational discourse. No one's right to throw their opinion around is more important than a non-humans right to have their interests heard. Don't forget this.

'A Haven from Hate' - A Response, Regarding 'Vegan Havens'

2011-11-15T09:53:00.001-08:00

On November 14th, Richard Deboo wrote the following article, entitled 'A Haven from Hate':

http://www.richarddeboo.com/a-haven-from-hate

In the article he defends his forum, Vegan As Fuck, which is a place where vegans can go

"on the understanding that this is an online space deliberately designed and created to be a positive forum for discussion, where everyone agrees to abide by its central principles of caring, consideration and compassion for all (whether human or non-human), respecting everyone’s individuality and world views, with an absence, an absolute absence, of any kind of discriminatory or prejudicial language – whether speciesist, sexist, racist, disablist, homophobic or otherwise, promoting affirmative dialogue that supports everyone in our community."

On the face of it, this is an honourable idea. The world itself should be a place free from prejudice like this. I don't know Richard Deboo, or have any inclinations of what his goals are or his position on abolitionism is (apart from informal hearsay), however I believe he is mistaken in one aspect.

New Welfarism is pervasive

Previously I have written on the subject of new welfarism, trying to expand on Gary L Francione's ideas which state that new welfarism is a counter-productive method of advocating for non-human animals. Much like him, I come to the conclusion that new welfarism is indeed playing a vital role in upholding animal exploitation, and in my last article I pointed this out thoroughly by examining the effect it has, and role it plays in manufacturing consent. Thus I believe it to be speciesist - speciesist in terms of portraying messages of acceptability on 'humane' animal products, or more usually in terms of differentiating one animal use from others in single issue campaigns.

It's important not to judge the issue as simply as this though. As I pointed out, and as others before me have pointed out, the problem is not 'us vs them', the problem is structural. It's institutions and norms being passed on that are doing the damage. Thus to fight animal exploitation, we are essentially fighting to change norms - and not just about animal use, but also among vegans about advocacy also.

Vegan Havens

Norms are carried in a variety of ways. We might learn explicit norms to fit in with society at school, or as other lessons of some type, but most norms are formed in society itself. What Deboo intends to do is provide a safe haven for vegans to live and communicate with their norms, thereby forming a counter-culture to the prejudice world we live, and I have no issue with this.

The issue I do have is around new welfarism. The norms of new welfarism are as pervasive as the norms of animal exploitation itself, and the previously linked article would argue that they do the same damage. So whereas forming a purely vegan forum would help allay the norms of a prejudice society, if one doesn't allow for discussion of the problems of new welfarism, then one helps carry them.

Many have been positive about this idea of vegan havens recently, where people can go and not have to discuss veganism. Yet, unless these havens are abolitionist havens (whereby new welfarism is included in the list of pervasive ideas which is outlawed) then they carry the norms of new welfarism extremely effectively.

Neutrality

The claim in response to this is always neutrality. And it goes something like "But this isn't the place for debate/advocacy". Translated into intention, this means that if we don't provide such places, vegans will grow tired of having to debate their advocacy.

Well yes! That's sort of the point. If people are not able to defend their opinions on advocacy, they owe it to other animals to change them. Providing sanctioned vegan havens where they can go and not be challenged is a kick in the udders for the cow who she'll be ignoring next week, when she's differentiating fur from leather in her advocacy. And yet, it provides her shelter until then, with a bunch of understanding vegans who only care that she is vegan.

One of the main ways the pervasive norms of new welfarism are transferred is through vegan protectionism like this - big groups refusing to mention the problems with SICs, local groups following line and spouting the myths about 'all animal advocacy helps', etc. People are protected from being challenged, and so new welfarism remains the dominant paradigm. Indeed, as Ross Mitchell mentions in his article on online advocacy, before the internet became a resource few were even aware of what abolitionism was.

Almost everywhere vaguely vegan related appears to be a vegan haven, and that's rather the vehicle that keeps the problems strong month after month.

A Racist Haven

As a final point, let's put this haven idea into perspective. Imagine there was a prejudice-free site where people could go, but debate about prejudice itself was outlawed. Ie, Race A could not challenge Race B's racist use of them in their advocacy, for example. Would this really be a good idea? Wouldn't Race A have a right to feel outraged that Race B were being allowed a haven, simply for being against prejudice. Indeed if the anti-racist movement as a whole was riddled with problems like this, wouldn't it be right to suggest that the last thing that was needed was places where 'anti prejudice types' could go to escape such debate and form a community with no debate.

Speciesism is pervasive. New Welfarism is pervasive. Sometimes you need human analogies just to see how pervasive speceisism is in our thoughts.

PS. After writing this piece, I have just been made aware that Vegan As Fuck have a book which will soon be on Amazon, with proceeds "going to animal and vegan charities.". Similarly, another of these havens (the Scottish based VEG - Vegans of Edinburgh and Glasgow) was apparently earlier promoting cash they had raised on behalf of a local New Welfarist charity.

It's further proof that these groups do not just act as havens for new welfarism as a neutral matter, they intentionally act to pass on these norms of new welfarism, and use this 'haven' idea so as to deflect criticism.

Are you a hidden bigot?

2011-11-07T08:41:00.000-08:00

Most advocates admit that the problem with our society's view of other animals is speciesism. This is not the belief that humans are the same as other animals, but rather that any one human is also not the same as other humans - so we should not be generalising or creating prejudice at all. For example, if two people are separated by skin colour, but share a similar desire and ability to vote, both should be able to vote. Thus, if two individuals are separated by a plethora of physical and mental differences, yet share a similar desire and ability to live their own lives...guess what, it's prejudice to deny one or the other a moral right to live that life.

This is the problem with humans using animals, in a nutshell. We don't need to eat animals, wear them, use them, blah, blah, blah. To suggest it is okay because they aren't human, or by pointing out other physical, mental, spiritual or personal differences as a means to justify irrelevant features (such as a right to not be tortured or killed - which have nothing to do with said physical or mental differences) is prejudice. It's pretty simple stuff, even if the majority of society are blissfully unaware.

This doesn't stop with non-vegans in society though - we see it appear in numerous advocates also. Just today I saw an advocate arguing that it is okay/perhaps even preferable for him to advocate for welfare reform, or against a particularly horrid type of farming by making reference to how if 'he' were a slave, 'he' would be happier with the advocate who improved 'his' conditions.

Not only is this flawed in practice (welfare regulation does not help animals 'now', it takes years for the implementation of any 'improvements', and current animals are dead by then), and as a theoretical matter (you can't get significant improvements in law for animals whilst they are considered property)- it's also flawed as a matter of prejudice.

'He' (the advocate) isn't an animal in this situation. These animals can not comprehend complex social struggle, and they don't/can't have knowledge that things could be better or worse. They care that they are suffering horrendously now, and that it is still going - regardless of whether it was worse for animals like them in the past. They do not sit there philosophising the tactics 'he' might use to free them, nor do they feel intense gratitude for 'his' putting himself in their position.

What they do feel is pain, a short life, and an existence lived as someone else's property - and that's the problem. It's speciesist to pretend otherwise, and it's pretty damn bigoted to pretend that they would want 'his' assessment of what's going on (that we can get bigger cages), rather than their own (that we want out of this hell hole, full stop). And worst of all, they have not agreed to the tactic of making people feel better about their use as our personal property because of new labels like "humane", as 'he' has spotted that everyone "won't go vegan over night".

If respect is due to other animals currently enduring torture as a symptom of speciesism, it's due from vegans and non-vegans equally. The latter is unlikely to gain respect for other animals whilst the former still considers 'his' own tactics to be better for the animals than what they want to be heard.

A Wakeup Call to Scottish Animal Advocates

2011-10-26T09:33:00.000-07:00

Scotland is an awakening country - since I've been involved with vegan advocacy here, the number of vegans that want to partake in direct vegan advocacy has risen sharply. There might be many reasons for that - perhaps it's the widespread, increasingly worrying problems with Single Issue Campaigning (such as those campaigns against fur) which make people more comfortable with normal animal use, not less. Or, perhaps it's the fact that advocates are realising the snowballing movement for veganism is necessary for animal use to be significantly reduced, or that veganism itself (the least we owe other animals) will not become relevant to society while we (the advocates for animals) are telling people it is just one of many things they can 'do for animals' - and that it is an 'extreme' step at that (in the words of PETA - it is 'just a principle').

It is encouraging to see a rise in vegan advocacy, but the opposition to it has been there all along, and is attempting to turn advocates back to the old ways of doing things. In fact they are doing so largely unnoticed. Animal Aid and Viva! continue to push their single issue campaigns across the country, and more local groups (like EVA) are trying to raise their profile and go national by 'uniting' Scottish groups under the banner of animal rights - with which to confuse and push this message that 'all animal advocacy helps'.

Perhaps the intentions are in the right place, perhaps not. Regardless, these are not moves to be ignored. The campaigns these groups push (single issue campaigns) and the ideas they promote ('it all helps') are problematic for non-human animal interests directly - as they oppose vegan education. They teach people that veganism is just one option among many, and that due to it being a much harder option than simply boycotting or 'doing' one issue, it is therefore the preserve of the fanatical and the passionate. They actively play the role of providing people with the 'animal group authority' they need to ignore veganism and keep it marginalised in the shadows, as I explained in my latest article.

In doing this, these groups play as big a part, if not bigger, than the likes of dairy advertisements, meat council funding, and fur advertising campaigns. The problem with these more direct forms of marketing for animal products is not that the intentions behind them are wrong, it's that they cause harm to non-human animals. So we can't very well ignore the actions of these 'new welfarist' animal groups based upon their intentions, seeing as their role in upholding animal use is as problematic as any marketing campaign on behalf of meat or any other animal product.

Wakeup!!

This wake up call is one of common sense. It is not "us vs them", it is "us trying to help them" - 'them' referring to other animals. And if this help comes in the form of only targeting non-vegan activities that harm animals, then we're ignoring the reason we do this in the first place. It's not about 'our' intentions, it's about 'them'.

Yes, it's more comfortable to allow these groups to continue what they are doing unchallenged. Yes, it's nice to know that they at least care to do something. And yes, it's a lovely idea that we could all unite on behalf of other animals. But we can not call ourselves advocates for animals if we don't fight that which opposes and harms their interests. Sure, these groups say they are helping animals (or at least intend to) - but therein lies the danger, and the reason many of us let it go unchallenged for so long. Now this kind of advocacy is playing a major role in the consumption of animal products (both with welfare campaigns which actively encourage it, and SICs which more implicitly do so) and it's become more than a problem for non-humans. You can choose to ignore it, or you can raise the issue wherever you get a chance, with whomever is relevant - and indeed many of us have been doing the latter for years now.

This wakeup call is asking you to choose a side - the majority of advocates for animals, where you probably already are, or the animals themselves. It's time to choose.

The Role of Welfarism and New Welfarism in Manufacturing Consent for Animal Use.

2011-10-24T09:42:00.000-07:00

Introduction

As an introduction, I believe it will be useful to explain a little more about the premises and definitions of what this essay entails.

Manufacturing consent

When we speak of both business and government, Chomskyan theory provides us with ideas as to how society's consent for varying issues is not simply given by the individuals in the society, but 'manufactured' by the institution (and in particular, the media) that requires consent to flourish.¹

Today this is not a theory that is as unintuitive as it may have been upon the release of Chomsky and Herman's seminal 'Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media' back in 1988. We are now aware of advertisers and psychologists being hired by business to market products to us – a process which has many outlets, with the main outcome of these being either to make us aware of a product we might want to consume, but more likely to manufacture a desire within us for something there was previously no desire for.

From a position like this, it is easy to stumble across the realisation that our consent isn't automatically forthcoming for certain issues. Whether it be a new product which advertisers have us desiring due to the effectiveness of their marketing, or the vote we are giving to political parties due to the favourably slanted information which the press provides; consent, at its deepest understood level, is heavily influenced by those who control what we do and do not know, or those in positions which we trust.

Non-human animals in the media

The purpose of this article is to take the ideas put forward by this Chomskyan position, and apply them to non-human animal (hereby referred to as 'animal') interests.

The issue of animals is almost wholly unique. Whereas with human issues, governments and media have reasons and agendas to push, with animals these reasons and agendas are not so clear. There certainly are times when it is profitable to provide information in the media to the detriment of animals (say, when animal interests are standing in the way of direct business profit, or government popularity). However, on the whole these situations are less recognisable, as powerful business/government interests also profit from the alternatives to animal use, hence making it almost nil in terms of bias. Consequently the media seems much more neutral in the way it portrays animals on the whole, and is often seen coming down on the side of animals in cases of 'excessive' cruelty, etc., rather than the institutions who are profiting from such. But I will not delve further into this potential bias (or lack thereof) as it is not the intention of this piece; I simply see it is as an interesting side note.

One of the things that is, however, clear when it comes to animals, is that we give a greater authority to groups which appear to look out for their interests. Whereas in human interest stories, we tend to make up our own minds, and have our own opinions led just by media coverage, with animals this is portrayed slightly differently. A handful of 'patron' groups for animals are quoted and used, variously depending on the issue, and hence given 'authority' over what the animals' interests are. In no particular order, in the UK these groups are normally made up of the RSPCA, Animal Aid, VIVA!, and (less frequently in recent times) other smaller groups with more focused agendas, such as The Coalition to Abolish the Fur Trade.

It is the agendas and decisions of these groups which tend to get pushed, as they are seen as the authorities on what animals must need, morally speaking. Media will mainly pick out that which is more likely to garner attention, or push the angle they wish to use, when interacting with these groups. But, it seems, they are much more likely to (depending on the campaign) side with the animal interest based on what the 'authority' says about it. This, in turn gives the press stories more 'clout' in public opinion, and a higher sense of importance with which to pull in the audience with.

It is important to note that these groups appear to be called on for their 'verdict' on animal based situations more often when the situation is that of business or institutional interests. I.e., we will hear VIVA!'s opinion on 'Halal' slaughter in slaughterhouses², or Animal Aid's opinion on horse deaths in the Grand National³, however we don't always hear them referenced when it is one-on-one violence – for example that of abuse of companion animals. Still, we do occasionally see patron groups referenced on this also, the main patrons being those who are seen to look out for the interests of one-on-one abuse, such as the RSPCA.

Welfarism and new welfarism

Welfarism is a term which refers to the belief that we have the right to use other animals for our gain, but we must respect their 'welfare' and treat them 'nicely' if we do so. New welfarism refers to the belief that we have no right to use animals at all (or at least not in conventional ways), however an approach of 'welfarism' (i.e., welfare campaigns) will provide 'steps' towards the reduction or abolition of our animal use; steps which also allow us to 'help animals now'. Other 'steps' utilised in new welfarism include single issue campaigns, whereby groups campaign for the abolition of one particular animal use or method of treatment.

All big groups promoting animal interests tend to fall into one of these two categories, though the lines between the two are becoming increasingly, and perhaps intentionally, blurred. It is profitable for the 'patron' group to appeal to those who believe in both welfarism and new welfarism (increasing campaign support and donations), and so blurring the boundaries when in the public domain is an option to increase popularity.

Welfarism

The likes of the RSPCA follow a welfarist position, and tend to focus on campaigns which aim at subjective ideas like 'excessive cruelty', and aim to eliminate the 'worst of the worst' treatment of animals. This approach is flawed for a variety of reasons, the crux of which being:

a) Animals are seen as products (and not persons) under the law, and so appeals for their welfare are ineffective. Hence successful campaigns tend to only succeed in making the exploitation of them more efficient. For example, the campaigns often focus on how much cheaper it would be if industry banned a certain cruel practice, etc., so as to garner more participation from industry. As a result, advocacy groups often end up pursuing campaigns based purely on these factors, as a means for greater success. This means no interest of the actual animal is put across, leading to mainly aesthetic changes, which often hold little (if any) pragmatic value for the actual animals.

b) Welfare campaigns are anthropocentric. They focus on 'slight' improvements (mainly due to point a), and they rely on it being better to exploit the animals in this way than it was before. Proponents of free range eggs, for example, often state something like wouldn't you rather have slightly more room if you were being caged⁴. This is not relevant to any animal other than humans, and so is markedly anthropocentric. Animals are not aware that things could be better or worse if they have never experienced such (just as a human couldn't be), and their suffering is 100% real to them in the moment which they are living through – thus welfare campaigns do little, if anything, to improve life for the actual animal at whom it is aimed, they simply make humans feel better as it looks or seems nicer from our human-based view (this is especially relevant as welfare laws take years to be put in place, and in this time the animals imprisoned will not know of the previous conditions – in essence no individual animal will have actually been helped or had their living conditions improved at all).

c) Welfare campaigns explicitly manufacture consent. People are concerned about the horrors suffered by chickens on factory farms, for example. However, these labels (such as 'freedom food') are marketed as creating happier hens, and so they succeed in appeasing the concern of the consumers⁵. Little, or nothing, is improved for the animals, and yet consent is gotten for their exploitation. This is a classic method of manufacturing consent for immoral activity, and would fit directly into a Chomskyan model of propaganda.⁶

In all essence a welfare campaign fails on its inability to mark what would actually improve a non-human life, and a further ignorance of the idea that most, if not all, campaigns that could genuinely improve things for non-humans in our uses of them, is made impossible by their status as property under the law, and in our societal opinions.⁷ Furthermore, these campaigns appease the genuine concern felt by consumers about our use of animals, and so end up manufacturing consent for an immoral action by providing an illegitimate image of 'caring' in their titles. This, in turn, does nothing to satisfy the nature of the concern as identified by consumers, due to its previously mentioned inability to improve anything for the actual animals. We can highlight instances of welfarism through concepts like 'free range', 'organic', 'humane' and, worst of all, 'happy' animal products that are marketed as alternatives to the excessive cruelty offered in 'normal' or 'factory farmed' animal uses.

New welfarism

Most of society is in agreement with the welfarist position, due to the fact that media promotes it, as it is the easiest and therefore most popular method of dealing with guilt at animal exploitation. However many animal advocacy groups are realising it is difficult to look after animal interests whilst subscribing to a welfarist stance (a brief summary of the issues with welfarist tactics was bought up in the previous section).

As a result, a variety are turning to new welfarism, accepting that we have no right to be using other animals, and indeed no way to use them humanely, without violating their basic interests. All of them still, to some degree, utilise welfarism in their tactics, as a 'step' towards a kinder or more aware society.

Using welfarism itself would seem counter productive, due to the reasoning given previously. Welfarism is both doing nothing for animals, and helping to manufacture consent for their exploitation. It is neither a step for the welfare of other animals, nor a step toward further disagreement with their use – in fact in the latter point, it does the opposite of satisfying people's initial concerns. So, the use of welfarism by new welfarist groups is both puzzling and counter productive, given their stance as being for the abolition of animal use. Were they to share the stance of welfarism with groups like the RSPCA, then it would be fair to at least grant them ignorance. But given their insistence that animal use is immoral, we have to begin asking the question of how effective/sincere these groups are. After all, they claim to see the problems of welfarism, by being pro-abolition on the matter, and yet use the welfarism they previously saw problems with as a method of getting to the solution they identify as the right course of action. This is paradoxical both as a hypothetical and as a pragmatic matter.

It is this set of groups (new welfarists) which I will mainly focus on for the purpose of this piece. The likes of Animal Aid, PETA, VIVA!⁸, etc., have influential say in the media, whilst being new welfarist. My aim is simple – I wish to establish that these groups are doing a great deal in manufacturing continued consent for the exploitation of animals.

Vegan Education and Abolitionism

As a start, it is useful to state that all new welfarists seem to be in agreement about one thing – veganism is the ideal, and vegan education is helpful. Veganism involves the abolition of animal use from one's life, and the refusal to eat, wear or use animals, in as far as is reasonably possible. The stated, practical aim of a new welfarist group is that everyone will, or should, choose veganism eventually. They simply see the likes of welfarism and single issue campaigns as steps to get there.

Abolitionism is the other option, if you like. Abolitionist theory (as written about initially by Gary L. Francione⁹) states many of the things already gone over in this essay regarding the counter-productive nature of welfarism, and also provides compelling reason to ditch single issue campaigns. It supplies arguments to show that creative, non-violent vegan education, along with abolitionist based animal rights campaigning, is the way to effect lasting, meaningful change for other animals.

With this in mind, if one agrees with the problems put forth of the new welfarist way of doing things, one shouldn't then feel useless as to how to effect change. Whilst I will not go over the full ideas of abolitionist theory at the moment, it is important to remember there is another option before we begin – and therefore it should be easier to keep an open mind as to the effectiveness of new welfarism. It is also important to remember that new welfarists mostly do not disagree with vegan education, they simply think they need their methods of welfarism and single issue campaigns as well. It is up to the reader to decide on whether this is the case after reading the subsequent pages, or whether they are not only unnecessary, but harmful in their effect on animals.

Welfare Campaigns – the New Welfarist 'Slant'

The basics

There are huge arguments that weigh against welfare campaigns, and these are grounded in academic fields such as law, economics and of course philosophy. As mentioned earlier, Gary L. Francione was perhaps the first academic to start analysing these in written literature. 1996's 'Rain Without Thunder: The Ideology of the Animal Rights Movement' began to explain why animal advocates were not getting anywhere with such campaigns.

Francione coined the terms 'welfarism' and later 'new welfarism' to describe the different ideological beliefs regarding animals, and subsequently the problematic nature of them both. Welfarism's problem was in its failure to do anything significant to reduce the suffering of animals, and also its anthropocentric refusal to see sentience as a reason for a life not to be taken unnecessarily in the first place (and instead focus on the irrelevant aspect of how this life was treated and then taken). New welfarism's problems stemmed from a similar source, but also included the fact that welfarism was, and still is, a tool of industry in maintaining sales, and one which animal industry uses regularly to make the exploitation of animals more efficient – not less. So seeing welfarism as a step toward abolition is simply ignoring the facts.

The 'slant'

It seems proponents of new welfarism are, to some degree, aware of this. For example, in most welfarist campaigns from Animal Aid, one can find the odd sentence which makes you think they are trying to make people aware of veganism – this is what I refer to as the new welfarist slant.

The slant is the method by which a new welfarist group will introduce a single sentence, or a lone sentiment, which dismisses animal exploitation as a whole, or promotes veganism as a whole, within a campaign against a single use.¹⁰

Industry actually accepts and uses welfarism in its marketing campaigns, and sees this as a tool for higher profits and greater levels of animal use. When this is pointed out, a new welfarist will quickly point to the slant as a defence – a way of saying 'I agree to some extent, but we explicitly tell people veganism is better/all animal use is still wrong'. While this is a nice sounding response, and gives new welfarists somewhat of a shield with which to defend their exploits, it doesn't hold up as a practical matter. Let's look at how these campaigns work, what they aim to do, and how they aim to be successful. Incidentally, all of these things can be tied up under one bracket – the media.

The media does have an over-riding agenda, even when it comes to the slightly less threatening issue of animal use. It wants to beat the competition – sell more papers than its rivals, gain more viewers than other stations, etc. As a result, the media tends to uphold the norms of society, by aiming to be the best at telling people what they want to hear, as this is where profits for the media companies lie.

So when an animal group, such as Animal Aid, comes up with a welfarist campaign to grab media attention, say their campaign to have CCTV installed in all slaughterhouses (so as to monitor workers and eliminate 'excessive' cruelties), they often provide a slant which they think counters the problems of welfarism. In this particular example, the slant on their website was 'Animal Aid believes that whether ‘conventional’, organic, kosher or halal, all slaughter is unnecessary and immoral, and the only way to prevent such suffering is to choose meat-free.'.¹¹

We will ignore for a second that they have said 'meat free' when they also believe other animal products such as dairy or eggs also cause moral problems.¹² If we go back to the previous point, we realise the media wants to push the norms in society, or provide only popular challenges to them, so as to sell to viewers/readers. But publishing entire campaigns on single issues is overly detailed and unpopular. And also anything that involves publishing a challenge to majority held beliefs would be risky unless the published had reason to believe immediate change would be forthcoming so as to support them (and hence provide profit in their endeavours). So the media would happily promote the safe, short welfarist message that we should make the slight, insignificant change of putting CCTV in slaughterhouses. And, indeed, Animal Aid claim success by having breached the media in this way – now many supermarkets have started buying meat only from slaughterhouses with CCTV installed in them.

However, the media will not show the whole campaign. And the slant is exactly what they cut out, as it carries the small bit of the message that is unpopular. So whilst new welfarist groups are using this slant as the argument to counter the problems of new welfarism, they are not succeeding with their own opinions on a practical level. And how could they? Media is not designed in this manner. They will always cut out the bit that won't grab the audience's agreement. The slant is as ideologically flawed as was the new welfarist stance that needed it in the first place. It is obviously better they provide a slant than not providing one, but it doesn't actually deal with the problems it is meant to. If they wanted to avoid these problems with welfarist tactics, their solution would have been to pull the campaign, or provide a slant which was so big a part of the campaign that the media wouldn't have touched it in the first place (as it is too controversial and off-topic to the media-buying audience). What should be clear upon this analysis of this campaign, and this final sentence, is that welfarism, by its very nature, creates problems for animals which it can not solve through its own means – hence why the new welfarist groups do not identify with welfarism in the first place.

With what we know about the media, and what we know about welfarism, if a campaign is successful it is natural to make the assumption that it is counter-productive. Media will seek out patrons to agree with society consensus, which currently is welfarist thought. Providing a slant to try and counter this is futile, at best, so long as you are providing an issue which is easily separable from the slant in the first place. A campaign that aims to accomplish a single welfare law, or a single welfare action (like campaigning people to put CCTV in slaughterhouses) is obviously separable from the few lines within the campaign that urge people to consider veganism (or, rather, vegetarianism, in Animal Aid's case, which has further problems as discussed later). This is not a concealed point; it is obvious that the media are not pushing the slant, just as it is obvious that the Animal Aid resources which applaud and promote this campaign do not involve the slant as a necessary component, but rather an extra measure. This point does not only urge us to vacate such campaigns, it also urges us to ask the true intentions of groups like Animal Aid – as the slant is being used either because the group doesn't understand the problem properly in the first place, or because they wish to have a defence when people ask them why they engage in counter-productive welfarist measures. Given the genuine marketing and media expertise involved in these groups nowadays, one should be wary to state that these groups are unaware of the effect they are causing.

Single Issue Campaigns

The difference

Single Issue Campaigns (SICs) are supported by the vast majority of those who disagree with welfarist tactics, and yet do little to avoid the same problems – which is another puzzling phenomena. Whilst one might fight an SIC to push welfarist tactics (as in the Animal Aid example given earlier, whereby they fought a campaign to have CCTV installed in slaughterhouses), advocates defend them on grounds that they can also be 'abolitionist'.

By this they mean that one can form an SIC to oppose one animal use entirely, i.e., most popularly, the fur industry¹³. This is different to a normal welfarist campaign, as it seeks to abolish one use, rather than just make it kinder, or more humane. As a result, many believe these campaigns are a different prospect, and are genuinely useful in their endeavours. Indeed, some might claim they are not new welfarist at all.

The new welfarist connection

One has to examine the role SICs play in manufacturing consent in order to see why they are still inherently new welfarist in nature. Let's return to the media.

Like with welfarism, the media is the biggest tool in the success of SICs. What we have already established is that the media makes an easy task out of neutralising overtly 'abolitionist' or 'vegan' messages in favour of covering the mass-appealing parts of campaigns, if they find a way to do so. Yet welfare campaigns are not the only popular form of animal rights advocacy with the media, and it is not uncommon to see campaigns against fur, or against whaling, or perhaps even against foie gras, grabbing significant column inches. The reason for this being that these animal uses are viewed as 'extremes' by society, and thus the campaigns are popular due to the insignificant changes they ask people to make in their own lives (even in the case where they ask for boycotts, it tends to be small, insignificant ones, like of fur or foie gras which people do not often buy anyway).

The campaigns against 'extreme' uses are supported for many of the same reasons that welfarist tactics are, and have many of the same effects. Firstly, people do feel guilty when they see animal exploitation, and SICs focus on providing appeasement short of veganism just like a welfarist campaign does. Fur, whaling and foie gras, for example, are classic cases that almost everyone supports. And yet, most people were not supporting these industries in the first place. More generally, this is how SICs work though – they provide a bunch of 'extreme' uses for people to be against, so as people don't genuinely have to do anything, and yet still feel better about it – much like when people are able to buy 'free range' occasionally, and then feel better about it as they are 'doing something'. The media also loves them, as they provide popular articles with which people can feel like they are 'being against' something without actually doing much if anything at all, whilst the advocacy groups love them for bringing in revenue at an alarming rate from people who, similarly, don't want to do anything but throw money or anger at an issue to appease their moral feeling.

How much do these campaigns actually do to help animals though? Animal advocacy groups jump to the example of the anti-fur campaign, as soon as one mentions the uselessness of SICs. They make reference to the point that fur production was banned in the UK¹⁴, and as a result the campaign was successful, and animals were helped. They fail to reference all of the facts though. Fur was never particularly popular in the first place – it didn't have the sales that more popular skins like leather did, and hence it was easy for people to reject it as it involved little or no action on their part. The campaign itself shifted production abroad (with the government providing financial support to help the fur companies move, due to there being no sound objections to the practice on legal grounds¹⁵), but didn't hugely weaken the demand for fur¹⁶. One might note that the advocates got what they wanted (i.e., a ban on some UK fur farms – Rabbits can still be bred for fur), and rejoice and reference this accordingly. However, animals have seen no benefit because the number used has not significantly dropped (and as the earlier reference shows, this is now continuously growing). They are still demanded, and they are still used.

Lack of understanding

The fur issue leads us perfectly to the second big problem of SICs. In recent years, it has been widely documented that fur is returning to new highs in terms of sales.¹⁷ The reason for this can be linked directly back to a structural problem within SICs.

SICs are different to vegan education in that they want to make a case against certain (perhaps more extreme) animal uses, as a step, rather than just gradually educating about animal use and veganism as a step. The real, strong moral issue against animal use, is in the idea that we have no right to use animals in the first place. All sentient individuals deserve a right not to be treated and exploited as things, and arguments to say the opposite are rooted in the same prejudice that roots racism and sexism – known as speciesism.

Of course an SIC could make this a primary part of the campaign, however it would then forgo its status and advantages as an SIC. After all, the purpose of an SIC is for immediate, or rapid results in that one area as a step. The way to do this, is not to challenge all animal use, speciesism, or the more normal animal use which a person indulges in, but rather just to take on 'one use at a time' – especially the more extreme, and least supported of animal uses.

To do this, an SIC must make the explicit implication to the audience that the animal use at the centre of this campaign is so different to the normal uses, that it must be abandoned and opposed (as the audience currently support and back normal animal use – so reference to it too as being immoral would be ineffective). Inherent within this is the justification of normal animal use as less problematic, and so there is a furtherance of the norms in society which say this anyway.

By differentiating this one use from others, we lose the strength of the animal rights argument in the first place – as, if normal animal use is okay, then there can not be a moral problem with disregarding sentience, indulging in speciesism, or using other animals against their will for our frivolous pleasures. As a result the SIC focuses on short term shock and abhorrence, rather than long term understanding and progression.

And from this is it easy to see why fur sales have returned to new highs. Indeed, so long as we wage SICs rather than only ever using single issues as a hooking tool within vegan education, it is unlikely any use will be affected in anything but cyclical change like this. SICs focus on short-term results – focusing on subjective ideas like 'excessive cruelty', and videos of horrendous 'gore' – and so it should be no surprise that after a certain period of time the public forget about this, and return to their basic beliefs about animal use, which have not changed on a fundamentally important level.

One further point to make, is that whilst an SIC can effect short term (all be it harmful overall) minor changes in demand, most of the time it is highly ineffective at doing so. I have already mentioned why it fails to forge an understanding of why any animal use is actually wrong in the minds of the people viewing the campaign, but this also limits its short term effectiveness. Whilst people oppose the likes of fur farming in their masses, very few are actually motivated to do anything about it – they will normally jump on board only if asked for insignificant, or zero changes in their life anyway – as the campaign is not forging any reason why they should have rational concern. And so the SIC is only succeeding in that it is highlighting that people are already against this – thereby not making any changes, and simply effecting supply shifts (such as moving the animal use abroad, or making people buy skin from cows rather than dogs – or perhaps not even making them boycott the one use at all, but rather getting them to agree with the boycott in social situations).

So the campaign itself is being used to uphold certain norms about 'extreme' animal use being the problem, 'excessive' cruelty being the only moral concern, etc., and furthermore they do not succeed in motivating action well in the first place. One further example is the campaigns against factory farming, where we can see that although factory farming is almost unanimously condemned within society, sales of intensively farmed meats, eggs and dairy do not greatly drop. Even where we can show they do, they are replaced by the meaningless 'welfare' raised products¹⁸, as this involves the insignificant changes that people will accept for an issue they have not appreciated any rational understanding of. So although in the short term these campaigns may achieve popularity in the media, they are not doing anything in terms of change for actual animals. To do this, you need for people to start understanding the reason animal use is wrong, or the way to actually help other animals. Single Issue Campaigns, by their structural nature, can't even begin to do this.

Differentiating animal uses

The differentiation between animal uses perhaps provides the biggest problem of all, when it comes to SICs' role in manufacturing consent.

If we tie together all that has been mentioned on SICs so far, there are several conclusions we can draw. The media is looking for an SIC to uphold the norms of society, or only provide 'safe' challenges to them (one example of which might be the challenge to factory farmed egg production in recent media outlets). The advocacy groups' agenda of new welfarism fits together with the media perfectly here. The media essentially submits to the welfarist norms of society, and it uses new welfarist groups to fit and support these, as a way of finding sincere patrons for animal interests, whilst still being able to maintain its support for the norm of acceptable animal use in society.

So whilst the advocacy group thinks it is being extremely pragmatic in using the media to push its own agenda, it is more likely that it is fulfilling the role of differentiating extreme animal uses from the normal animal uses (without greatly damaging most 'extreme' animal uses, anyway), and therefore providing the tool of easy moral satisfaction without any real action on behalf of the audience. The groups think that their slant on the campaigns (whether they be welfarist or not) somehow overcome this problem. But, as I have shown here, at best the slant provides a way to argue for the donations and support of an abolitionist, it does nothing to actually act as a slant in media coverage.

Seeing Through the 'Rational Masks'

New welfarist groups often come up with a variety of reasons as to why they are not doing anything harmful, and why they must carry on this way. Some of these have already been examined (i.e., the use of the slant, which they think neutralises the problems of welfarism or SICs). However, I think it is possible to show each of these other reasons to be nothing more than a 'rational mask' – by which I mean a method of defending an action in rational discourse, without actually fully believing what is being said. There is, I believe, a rational reason why new welfarist groups do continue with new welfarism, and I will discuss this in the next section. But firstly, what reasons do new welfarists provide to defend their continued use of welfarism and SICs?

All animal advocacy helps

First and foremost, almost always, comes the belief that 'it all helps'. Perhaps more clearly defined, this refers to the belief that even if a campaign is damaging or ineffective, it is at least putting forth the interests of non-human animals and/or publicising their plight.

It should be fairly obvious that this is a null argument, after reading what I hope has so far been an explanation of why new welfarism actually helps to play a role in manufacturing the consent from a public initially concerned about animal exploitation. However, we can dig deeper into the reasoning behind such a claim.

It is pushing the idea that awareness alone is a good thing, and that despite the huge problems of new welfarism, at least people are becoming aware of animal abuse in animal industry. It is useful to examine how animal advocacy works in order to flaw this point. As previously explained SICs (welfarist, or new welfarist) fail to achieve a good level of understanding as to the moral problem with animal use. As a result, as undoubtedly proved by the longest running and perceivably most successful SIC, against the fur industry, the failure to forge this understanding in the public has lead to a cyclical effect in terms of success (i.e., a slight dent in sales, followed by a resounding return to prominence once the short term campaign effects wear off).

Similarly, if we reference the point that the vast majority of the public are already appalled by factory farming, and yet do nothing about it, we can easily pin-point the problem with the view 'all animal advocacy helps'. Animal advocacy requires two factors to be successful – the publicity of the plight of animal exploitation, and an understanding of why this is wrong.¹⁹

What we can also substantially provide support for, given the assumption of the previously referred points on fur and factory farming, is that the latter factor is much more important – at least in society as we stand. Everyone, almost unanimously, is already aware of factory farming and its horrors, and subsequently most are disgusted²⁰. And yet, this has lead to no significant drop in sales, except where anthropocentric welfare raised products have risen (as referenced previously). We are at saturation point with knowing about the plight of animals, and yet at almost zero level of understanding in society as to why it is wrong. To say 'publicising the plight helps' once we know this, is to ignore the most basic of our rational abilities.

The idea that all animal advocacy helps is greatly flawed with reference to reality, and ignores the fundamental two-factored approach that the most basic analysis of animal advocacy would demand we take – awareness married with understanding.

Sensible steps

This has also been referenced throughout – the idea that we need to be new welfarist in our approach, as we need to be taking steps: not everyone will go vegan over night, so we need steps to get them there.

The evidence against this has been approached at various times in this essay. New welfarism does not provide steps toward anything; it is helping to uphold the norms that are currently in place. It is fulfilling an important societal role in providing the authoritative differentiation of normal animal use from unacceptable 'extreme' animal use. Thus the idea it is providing a progressive step is utterly incomprehensible.

In a society where animals are regarded as property, and things, the steps to overcoming this are to be found in showing them to be sentient, and providing the reasons why sentience demands moral respect both in terms of suffering and a continued interest in life. All we currently have through new welfarism is the understanding that they are treated 'badly', and the subsequent solution that we can avoid this by avoiding the badly treated parts of industry, and opt for more 'normal' or 'humane' use.

The genuine steps themselves consist of a gradual, snowballing movement for veganism. Yet new welfarism hugely undermines veganism. It does provide a slight publicity for the plight of animal exploitation, and yet offers solutions which do not involve veganism (whether it be the boycotting of one industry like with fur, or the boycotting of one use like with intensively farmed chickens). So even if it provides awareness of the 'plight', it quickly counters any good it could do for veganism by neutralising, and making veganism seem like an 'extreme' step, by promoting the direct, sensible step of boycotting that one thing.

If new welfarism provides steps through its publicity of animal suffering, it immediately disregards them by its very nature of providing steps to alternative routes, which are much easier to step on for those indulging in animal exploitation. At worst, it is doing harm in its role of manufacturing consent, at best it is reversing any good it could do with its ignorance of veganism as the only progressive solution.

Marketing Confusion – the Real Agenda

Confusion

One final role which new welfarism plays, is based around its own structural failure in creating a consistent ideology. As highlighted during the exploration of the idea of the slant, Animal Aid will happily make concessions to publicising 'vegetarianism' despite believing that vegetarianism is harmful. Similarly, they have called for people to buy meat from animals killed in slaughterhouses where CCTV is present, and yet also insist that slaughter is immoral full stop.²¹

They are not the only ones. VIVA! support veganism as the solution²², and yet also confuse this message by using the term 'vegetarian/vegan', and using the two almost interchangeably²³. They too will state their ideals on these concepts (which itself is confusing, given that vegetarianism may include more suffering than 'normal' omnivorous lifestyles, due to its reliance on dairy and egg products), and yet campaign for people to do act morally by doing much less (such as just boycotting factory farms²⁴) in other campaigns.

Whilst, on a basic level, these groups can defend these beliefs on grounds of wanting veganism, but also 'taking steps' and 'helping animals now' (however flawed these ideas are in reference to the real world) it still creates a huge amount of confusion.

There is a negative attitude toward these groups from some quarters of society, whereby people view it as this 'hidden agenda' whereby “sure, the groups are asking us to do this now, but next week it will be something else, and they won't stop until we're all vegan”.²⁵ This is a very real concern for the groups (as it threatens their popularity), and as a result, one must assume, these groups do blur the boundaries, and often hide what they actually believe. This gets us into deeper water than before, as we see groups going so far as to remove the slants altogether from their literature in some cases, or even providing lies such as using the term 'vegetarian' rather than 'vegan' as the ideal.

These groups get to the stage where they purposefully need to hide their beliefs, and thereby explicitly ignore their own goal of chasing eventual abolition/veganism. The new welfarist stance is harmful enough, and these groups can go so far as to hide even that so they can appear more 'normal', less 'vegan' and therefore more popular (hence the use of the term 'veggie'). This is done as a pragmatic matter, but it involves the further devaluing and palming off of veganism as a moral baseline. They are favouring a shallow pragmatism, whereby immediate results for their welfarist and SI campaigns are the focus, at the expense of greatly harming veganism in the long term (even if it is their own goal – in the same way high street banks risked their own long term goals of staying in business in favour of short term greed). Thus they use their own 'stepping stones' approach to bash the goal they are supposed to be stepping toward. The confusion, it would seem, is not just on part of the public, it seems to be controlling the very actions of the groups themselves.

What's really going on?

This moves us on to something else which has been touched upon throughout – the business aspect of new welfarist organisations.

We see rational mask, after rational mask, as explanation for why new welfarism continues to be the tactic of choice, despite reason showing that these excuses are creating a plethora of paradoxes and evidence weighing up to the contrary. Yet, honestly there is a very simple explanation for why they continue to choose new welfarism, and we can trace it back to the structure of the organisations, and of the movement.

The organisations

Advocacy organisations are generally nothing more than businesses – perhaps best seen in the case of large international organisations like PETA. Though still officially guided by advocacy rules, and charitable status, the managers they employ have to achieve certain goals. Primarily, that goal is staying in business. They believe they do good, and so have an obligation to stay financially afloat (which, not coincidentally, also protects everyone's job). The best way to do this is in fact to use the likes of SICs and welfarist tactics, which relate to the biggest number of people. Although these campaigns are rationally flawed, and are poor at creating progressive change or even short term actions, and are even shown to be harming the interests of non-humans, they are great at doing two related things – gaining donations, and pulling in media coverage.

The former is advantageous for obvious reasons – the business' objectives, and indeed the objectives of everyone involved is to stay afloat, and therefore rake in the donations. The latter is advantageous primarily for relation to the former (greater coverage provides greater financial income) but is also important in understanding one of the big structural weaknesses that the business aspect forces on new welfarism.

These groups (almost without exception) have cleverly named marketing experts, sometimes on six-figure salaries. These guys are mostly very good at what they do, although they are not referred to exclusively as 'marketing'; their title is often more likely related to 'campaigns' such as 'campaigns co-ordinator'. The job of marketing is to help a business succeed – to help garner attention, and therefore money. The people in these positions are often those well educated in the field of marketing. They can be really top professionals, especially those on the six-figure salaries, and as a result the groups expect results. However, 'we educated a lot of people about veganism this month' or 'we put in place foundations for understanding why animal use is wrong in the long term' is neither going to pull in the money, nor be within the expertise and nature of these 'marketing' oriented individuals, nor, subsequently, fulfilling the job they were hired to do.

As a result, we see these groups' campaigns being formulated and chosen by professionals whose job and entire expertise is to be in charge of making the company more appealing, and making the campaigns more popular, and at base level making the endeavour more profitable. The problem is, in some circumstances they have no knowledge of what this would entail morally speaking (and in every case, it is not their primary expertise), and furthermore, because it is business related goals that they must achieve, we see campaigns that would create lasting change being either ignored or reduced to the level of 'lip service' simply to appease more abolitionist or vegan minded supporters.

In essence, we see the same problems with new welfarist businesses' moral backbones as we see with businesses and corporations more generally. The people involved can be well meaning, and the organisations' foundations can have been sincere, however the structure of the business model means priorities get side tracked, and sustained profit/business ideology takes over. This is not uncommon in business, where we see good people having to submit to a lifetime of consenting to bad moral decisions in order to appease the structural goals that are necessary for business. So we should not be surprised that it occurs in charitable organisations, even though the primary financial objective may be staying in business for as long as possible, rather than making as much profit as humanly possible. Though, unfortunately, the two are intimately linked, and share many of the same objectives.

Advocates must not only take heed of the warning that new welfarism is necessarily and rationally flawed in order to sustain itself, they must also become aware that the solution of abolitionism must be founded in grass roots advocacy wherever possible.

The 'movement'

Whilst we can identify the cause of the problems, or lack of ability to change them at the level of big animal advocacy organisations, this does not explain why many individual advocates within the 'movement' are so opposed to the idea of changing from new welfarism. We can explain this in very simple and rational terms though.

The dominant institution

The dominant perspective in animal advocacy has been welfarism for many years, and now new welfarism is the growing institution as welfarism provides obvious, clear theoretical issues. The reason for this is that this is how the 'movement' started, this is what keeps the big groups afloat, and this is what fits best with what we are taught in the media.

And primarily speaking, this is what keeps many supporting it. The dominant institution is what people hear about, and many are still not even aware that there may be problems with it, or of what these problems may be (like is the case with Chomskyan views of the media among humans – if people were aware of the problems, they would do something about it). Especially among active advocates, the big groups hold the power as to what is heard, and what can be publicised – playing the role of the 'advocacy media' in the way that the mainstream media does when it comes to news coverage. It is in the best interests of the 'advocacy media' that people do not begin hearing about and turning to abolitionism, and so they do not promote it.

The evidence is there to support this. The likes of Francione's abolitionist approach to animal rights was largely ignored before the rise of the internet, where people could stumble across it and talk about it, and despite being a popular, sensible, sentience-based account of animal rights, it was, and still is ignored in all the large advocacy organisations.²⁶ In the case of PETA, they ignore abolitionism so completely that they struggle into using the theory of Peter Singer (a philosopher who doesn't believe in animal rights) as their explanation of what animal rights are, simply as Singer focuses on sentience. The dominant ideology is confused, but it is powerful in terms of its effect on what we hear about. What we can be sure of, though, is that abolitionism is growing in popularity, and today's dominant ideology will not be overawing forever – indeed it takes only a handful of well versed advocates to begin getting this message mass attention. The only hindrance is the lack of independent, trusted sources of information on non-human advocacy.

More 'rational masks'?

The other thing that keeps advocates from abolitionism is the likes of 'rational masks', as previously mentioned in relation to advocacy organisations.

Many advocates have been active for many years, and are almost passionately attached to certain groups and organisations, and also go so far as to feel that the theory of abolitionism is criticising their own lives' work. Understandably then, they cling to something which sounds rational in order to defend themselves on a social basis.

One aspect of this I will not discuss in detail is whether or not these activists have intentions in the right place, or whether they themselves have become convinced of the truth-value of the 'rational mask' statements which seem so flawed on rational analysis. We have to remember that many advocates became so before the likes of social science was considered a mainstream subject, and at times when non-vegans had hugely different beliefs to what they do now. It is not necessarily a lack of non-human focused intention, but perhaps the beliefs of a different age when abolitionism may have not been the ideal concept – this is not something I can accurately analyse, and my focus will stay on the world we currently inhabit.

Manufacturing Consent for Human Exploitation

Perhaps not a primary focus of this essay or a necessary part of new welfarism, it is interesting to note that the business model of new welfarism often devalues human focused morality also.

The likes of PETA are notorious for their 'anything for attention' stance, and as explained above, this is probably because of the business model to which they have to adhere. But this doesn't just stop with the role of manufacturing consent for non-human exploitation. PETA in particular are famous for their use of celebrities, often partially clothed, especially when it comes to women. PETA, and in fact a good few new welfarist organisations, very much sign up to the idea that 'sex sells'.²⁷

Whilst I will not delve into the issue of feminism too greatly within this piece, it is fairly easy to draw a link between the objectification of women, and the abuse and inferior status of women in the eyes of a patriarchal society. However far one subscribes to this statement, what I wish to show is that once advocacy groups for any moral issue start functioning like a corporation, they don't only risk harming their own intentions (and undoubtedly new welfarist groups have fallen into this trap), they also begin ignoring moral issues widespread. The need to prioritise profit making is fundamentally harmful to advocating for moral issues in a number of ways which should not be underestimated. So long as new welfarism is controlled and upheld as a value by a small number of powerful, profit orientated groups, and the solution is to be found in grass roots abolitionist advocacy, this point is very much relevant.

A Propaganda Model – Where Do We Stand?

One interesting part of Chomskyan theory can help us to nicely sum up where animal advocacy stands. Chomsky notes that the media plays the part of manufacturing consent for the dominant institutions and decision making processes in society, however it is the likes of sport (and other frivolous, attention stealing entertainment outlets like reality TV) which plays the role of neutralising any possibility of revolt, or progressive change, by providing an outlet for people's creativity and intelligence. For example, mainstream sports can involve the greatest tactically thinking minds of our generations, but keeps them hard at work in a frivolous environment, and out of the search for truth or morality. It does the same for the audience – helping to invest their time and passion in something other than decision making processes or social change, so as to keep them neutralised.²⁸

I believe I have shown that we can fit new welfarism into playing a vital role in manufacturing consent for normal, continuing animal use. It does this by helping to neutralise genuine concern for animals, with attention to short term and ineffective but profitable campaigns, whilst providing an authority to back the norms which uphold normal animal use as morally unproblematic.

Chomsky's analysis shows, primarily, how the media and the likes of entertainment play the vital roles in manufacturing consent. If we look at non-human animal interests, it seems we can substitute welfarism directly into the role of the media, and new welfarism directly into the role of sport and other entertainment.

Welfarism does little of significance, and in most cases nothing at all for non-human interests, and yet manufactures the consent for their exploitation and use with a mixture of marketing, patron groups' authoritative voices, and the related explicit deception. New welfarism plays the role of neutralising any genuine attempt for change for non-humans by providing a further authority to show that normal animal use isn't a sincere concern, and by placing distracting 'steps' for the creativity and intelligence which could otherwise be utilised in creating a genuinely progressive, snowballing movement for veganism.

As damning as this may be, as a final point, I stress much the same as leftist theory on manufacturing consent must. This is that the problems of welfarism and new welfarism are highly structural – and that the people conducting these campaigns are no more bad people than those courageously writing against them on the side of abolitionism. However this lack of bad intentions is not relevant if we are focusing on the correct target for our attention – which should be the non-human animals. Whilst it is difficult to paint an individual with a welfarist or new welfarist viewpoint as evil, it is certainly not wrong to oppose them, and do everything in our power to have the message of abolitionism provided rather than the message of welfarism or Single Issue Campaigns – indeed it is erring on the side of speciesism to say that these people's advocacy choices deserve more respect than the animals who will suffer because of them. It is toward this opposition of the norms, and moreover toward creative, non-violent, intelligent vegan education, that our attentions should be turned – and there is no time like the present.

References

1 Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky, Manufacturing Consent. The Political Economy of the Mass Media (New York: Pantheon Books 1988)

2 http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1313303/Britain-goes-halal---tells-public.html accessed 31^st July 2011

3 http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/racing/millions-watch-as-two-horses-die-in-grand-national-2265911.html accessed 31^st July 2011

4 “If one animal who is lying in a battery egg farm cage could have the extra room to stretch her wing today because of something you've done, I think she would choose to have that happen.” http://www.salon.com/people/conv/2001/04/30/newkirk accessed 31^st July 2011. Newkirk doesn't mention that chickens can not make such choices, and would not understand the concept – all the chicken can understand is that they are in extreme suffering, and not that this could be better or worse. The suffering they feel is 100% real to them at that moment, and that is the only relevant factor to non-humans.

5 http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/food-and-drink/news/shoppers-opt-for-freedom-food-chickens-1944742.html accessed 31^st July 2011. Article shows 'freedom food' chicken achieving higher sales, over and above the drop in sales off normal chicken meat.

6 Op. cit., Herman and Chomsky, p. 1.

7 Gary L. Francione, Rain Without Thunder: The Ideology of the Animal Rights Movement, (Philadelphia: Temple University, 1996)

8 It is difficult to exactly pin-point VIVA!'s position – whether it is welfarist or new welfarist, as they don't seem to explicitly make this clear – perhaps for purpose of blurring the boundary between the two, for reasons I will go into later. For the purposes of this piece, I have proposed they are new welfarist, due to their occasions of promoting veganism. This by no means guarantees they are a new welfarist group, but for the arguments I will make herein, it is not important which group they belong to – as each are flawed for roughly the same reasons.

9 Gary L. Francione, Introduction to Animal Rights: Your Child or Your Dog (Philadelphia: Temple University, 1999)

10 http://www.animalaid.org.uk/h/n/NEWS/news_slaughter//2498// accessed 31^st July 2011. Shows a classic example of the slant at the end of a piece on a single issue campaign piece “Of course, farmed animals will still suffer, and Animal Aid will continue to promote a cruelty-free vegan diet as the only way to stop that completely.”

11 http://www.animalaid.org.uk/h/n/CAMPAIGNS/slaughter/ALL/// accessed 31^st July 2011

12 I will come back to this later, but this 'slant' should, under the theory the new welfarist puts across about it, require a 'slant' of it's own, as it too is a problematic Single Issue statement which mentions only vegetarianism and not the ideal of veganism. So this paradox flaws the new welfarist argument before it even begins, in this instance.

13 In more recent times, this campaign has been popularised with the celebrity appeal 'I'd rather go naked than wear fur' as used by PETA – examples of which can be found here: http://www.peta.org/mediacenter/ads/Print-Ads-Skins.aspx accessed 31^st July 2011

14 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fur_farming#United_Kingdom

15 Ibid.

16 http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2009/nov/22/fur-rather-go-naked accessed 31^st July 2011. “In 2007, fur sales worldwide totalled £10bn, up 11% on the previous year, with nine years of continuous growth. Last year, the fur trade contributed £13bn to the global economy, and although fur farming was banned in Britain in 2003, the UK's fur trade turnover is about £400-500m a year.”

17 http://fashion.telegraph.co.uk/columns/justine-picardie/TMG7005774/Why-fur-is-fashionable-again.html accessed 31^st July 2011. “...according to the British Fur Trade Association, "there has been a significant growth in fur sales" in the UK, which is part of a global increase (worldwide sales totalled $13 billion in 2008, an increase of nearly 60 per cent compared to the end of the 1990s).”

18 Op. Cit., http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/food-and-drink/news/shoppers-opt-for-freedom-food-chickens-1944742.html

19 http://animalrightsuk.blogspot.com/2011/02/taps-series-3-all-animal-advocacy-helps.html accessed 31^st July 2011

20 http://www.beefusa.org/uDocs/factoryfarming.pdf accessed 31^st July 2011

21 http://www.animalaid.org.uk/images/pdf/leaflets/Slaughterhouse.pdf accessed 31^st July 2011

22 http://www.viva.org.uk/aboutus/index.html accessed 31^st July 2011

23 http://www.viva.org.uk/goingveggie/index.php accessed 31^st July 2011

24 http://www.factoryfarming.org.uk/ accessed 31^st July 2011

25 An informal example of which can be found here: http://www.angelfire.com/oh/turkishangora/animalrights/agenda.html accessed 31^st July 2011

26 http://www.believermag.com/issues/201102/?read=interview_francione accessed 31^st July 2011. “I was told by various “leaders” of the movement that my views would be actively suppressed by the “movement” and that I would no longer be invited to speak at animal rights conferences. The large groups stopped promoting my work, and I became a nonentity as far as the “movement” was concerned. I continued to give talks at universities and community events, but I really lost contact with the “movement.””

27 Op. cit., http://www.peta.org/mediacenter/ads/Print-Ads-Skins.aspx accessed 31^st July 2011

28 Explained in Chomsky's speech excerpt taken from documentary 'Manufacturing Consent: Noam Chomsky and the Media' found at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vz1nIHv6P6Q&feature=related on 31^st July 2011

A Word About Non-Human Animals and Media

2011-08-28T06:15:00.000-07:00

We know a lot about the media. We know that 'freedom of speech' is meaningful, and that the 'freedom of the press' does not guarantee that press is neutral and impartial. We know this because although media is a tool in guaranteeing liberty and personal freedoms, it serves individual interests. For example, a newspaper has no marker for what is and isn't news worthy information, except to judge whether or not said information is going to grab the attention of readers. So it automatically has a serving bias in what information it provides.

The problem for humans

As a result, newspapers and other forms of media end up transferring the norms of society, by pandering to what is most popular. This leads to problems, as that which people don't want to read will not get published (so important human interests can get ignored). Other problems exist in the form of who controls media. People are not overly able to obtain information on, say, foreign wars, so those who own the media sources can happily provide greater or lesser coverage based on what they believe to be important.

Herman and Chomsky's seminal book 'Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media' examined this, and describes several examples whereby comparable atrocities or otherwise news worthy stories are provided minuscule amounts of coverage, compared to front page headlines and thousands of column inches for others.

In much of his work, Chomsky states the example of East Timor - a small state in Southeast Asia. Indonesia invaded East Timor in 1975, and carried out a huge slaughter of inhabitants between 1977-78. I will not go into great details of Chomsky's points here, but the atrocities in East Timor were largely ignored in the press, while 'news worthy' stories which held much lesser loss of life and/or US involvement, were covered with tens, perhaps hundreds, of times more coverage (The documentary Manufacturing Consent about Chomsky provides a direct comparison of the column inches, and is an invaluable, free to watch resource).

The reason given for this clear bias, is that the interests that own/control the media are most interested in the public not hearing about certain things, whereas they have an active interest in promoting others. For example, the situation in East Timor did not make the US look good, whereas they were happy to cover the Vietnam war, but with a pro-US slant.

The solution put forth to end such problems in the press, is to promote 'free' or 'independent' press, as the bias is lessened to a greater degree. If we couple freedom of information with an independently run media, than many of the problems with media disappear. These two factors can be considered useful in putting forth news and information about human beings, and a fair way to have interests heard.

How do non-humans fit in?

Many people in the animal movement take this reasoning about the media on board, quite rightly. They identify that for human interests to be fairly met, we must respect the need for independent, grass roots media, and the freedom of any information to be heard rated on independent importance. However they make a huge mistake when looking for fairness for non-humans.

The reason these ideals work extremely well in guaranteeing fairness for human beings (and indeed would work well for them were the mainstream media to somehow adopt them) is that it ensures that all human beings are heard equally. Our interests can not be ignored, and the level of bias about our interests can be subsequently reduced.

But this alone does not guarantee the same thing for non-humans, as they have the vital characteristics of not being able to speak up for themselves in our media. As a result, for fair reflection of their interests, and fair treatment of them, we need not just independent press and freedom of speech, we also need to ensure that our discussions be open to the rigours of rational discourse, and rational consistency.

Many people forget this. As a result, many forums and platforms crop up which claim to honour honest, respectful discourse about non-humans, and yet fail to live up to this. We have seen, in particular, sites claiming to be neutral or pro-animal rights, which provide platforms for anyone and everyone related to animals to have their say, without ever being held to the rigours of rational consistency - instead being allowed to simply promote their beliefs on the subject, and agree/disagree with comments put to them.

This fails for the interests of non-humans, for the same reason that the mainstream press fails for the interests of humans. The mainstream press allows for self-serving, norm carrying information to be transferred against the interests of other humans, as they can not be heard due to the format and bias. These social media do the same thing, in allowing the self-serving norms of the animal/animal advocacy movement to be transferred, as the interests of the non-humans in human interactions live only in rational discourse and consistency, and thereby can not be heard.

This is something to be very wary of. Before claiming to be doing something in debating the interests of non-human animals through any sort of media, we need to go one step beyond that which enables the interests of humans to be heard. If we fail to do this, we're doing nothing but transferring more of the same, and falling in the same traps that mainstream media falls into. Hiding behind the liberal theory which supplies fairness in human interest coverage, is to ignore that other animals require us to consider their interests directly - through back and forth rational discourse. With all that we now about speciesism and it's prevalence in society, we should be ready, able and willing to spot it in our views when it occurs like this.

‘Abolitionist’ – The intention to co-opt

2011-08-18T05:10:00.000-07:00

In animal rights, like in human rights, the term abolitionist has a very straightforward, logical meaning. It doesn’t refer just to intentions, goals or ambitions; it refers to actual, observable things.

The term ‘abolition’ in reference to animal rights, means the abolition of all animal use by human beings. Similarly, the term ‘abolitionist’ refers to methods of advocacy/belief that naturally focus on this abolition. Intentions and ‘efficacy’ levels are not a good judge, as these can’t be well observed, or even honestly portrayed – however the focus of the advocacy can, and so it is easy to define abolitionist fairly in this sense.

Welfare regulation is not abolitionist. It doesn’t matter whether we improve the welfare of animals every day for the next year, and mid 2012 animal use becomes abolished, it would still not be abolitionist, as it does not focus on campaigning for the abolition of animal use. It focuses on regulating one use of animals. It is welfarism.

A single issue campaign is not abolitionist. It doesn’t matter whether it abolishes one type of animal use every day for the next year, and in a year’s time animal use is completely abolished, it is still not abolitionist as it does not focus on campaigning for the abolition of animal use. It focuses on abolishing or shifting demand from one type of animal use.

An abolitionist campaign is where you say/advocate that ALL animal use is wrong and must be ABOLISHED. It doesn’t matter how you say it, whether you are effective about it, or whether you’re standing stark, bollock naked in a field screaming it at a scarecrow...

Abolitionist means abolitionist – it doesn’t mean someone who fancies abolition, or someone who intends to get to abolition, it means someone whose actions match their belief that animal use must be abolished, and that they are campaigning on this *now*. Not in 30 years when all hens are caged in a big shed rather than lots of little ones, not in 5 years when we’ve finished getting the university to stop doing so many animal experiments, and not in 3 years when people no long buy fur coats, and not tomorrow when you have finished campaigning for either of these other things. Now.

It is ultimately anthropocentric to claim abolitionist, in reference to non-human animals, refers to human ‘intentions’ or ‘goals’ like this. It doesn’t. It refers to your belief about them, and you voicing your belief about them. If you think you are being clever by hiding the fact you want the abolition of all animal exploitation (like you *have* to do in successful welfare or single issue campaigns) then however effective you think you are being, you are still being anthropocentric. It doesn’t matter a jot if this anthropocentrism will get you, or us, or everyone closer to abolition, all that matters is *it isn’t abolitionist*.

Co-option

People do co-opt this term without fully thinking it through. They see that so long as one sincerely wants abolition, they are an abolitionist. This is wrong as it is speciesist to claim that what matters is your intention, not just your actions. Actions mean something. If you advocate the abolition of all animal use in a campaign, you are being honest, and you are being abolitionist. If you however advocate for single issues, or regulatory treatment then you are, however succinctly, not being honest if you’re actual goal is the abolition of animal use.

Many defend this point with the weak argument that one can advocate for abolition *and* for these lesser steps. Again, this is speciesist. One wouldn’t consider someone who advocated against rape, but fought campaigns for more ‘humane’ rape to be an abolitionist about rape – it doesn’t make sense. After all, people will see the ‘humane’ rape campaign, and few will not know you also advocate for abolition. Unless each campaign has the over-arching message (however it is put) that ‘animal use should be abolished’ then it isn’t an abolitionist campaign, it’s a regulatory one. And if one tries to regulate an industry, then they are not an abolitionist. It’s very, very simple.

What about the example of a single issue campaign, which could advocate the end of all animal use at the same time? Get with the real world, folks. The entire point of an SIC is to differentiate one use from other (often more normal) uses, so as to make it more appealing to boycott that one use. If you have an over-arching argument which focuses on boycotting all animal use, forever, rather than just that one use, then you aren’t doing an SIC. You’re doing abolitionist education in the first place. And given that you aren’t going to be successful in differentiating that one SIC from other animal uses, purely because you aren’t trying to in the first place, then the SIC isn’t going to work anyway! So why bother defending the SIC! You either do regulatory campaigns, like SICs, or you do abolitionist campaigns. It’s a simple line of logic. And the two do not, and cannot cross over.

Badge of honour

In the same way that non-vegans have an interest in not seeing the argument for animal rights, many vegans have an interest in not seeing the argument for the logical definition of abolitionist. In this case it’s the badge of honour effect. People don’t want to be known to be regulationists, they want to be known as abolitionists, so they defend their own definitions of the word to the end (this often involves a muddle of mixing intention and efficacy). This is simply wrong, or in the worst cases it’s purposefully deceptive.

They will state, among other things, that abolitionists made up this definition as we believe ours is the only method to achieve abolition. It’s true that I do believe abolitionist advocacy is the only way which is going to actually help animals significantly, never mind about achieve abolition. However this has got nothing to do with the meaning of the word. If we do pander to this belief about abolition being simply defined as someone who wants abolition, there are all kinds of problems. Firstly, on this account one can be an abolitionist, and yet kill and maim other animals just for fun – an abolitionist would be able to farm, experiment on, and otherwise engage in profiteering for their misery. It is completely non-sensical to think that one can be engaging in actions that constitute animal slavery, and yet supporting this by claiming to be an abolitionist about animal slavery. That example shows the ‘intention’ argument to be insufficient as a definition of abolitionist, as many who could claim to be abolitionist would not be one. That’s as rational as reasoning can get on the matter, and it shows this definition to be wholly incorrect.

Similarly, the argument that ‘whatever gets us to abolition’ is the definition of the word, is also inherently flawed. Firstly, as we can’t actually know. I believe there is huge reason to suppose that dropping SICs and welfarism is the only way to start meaningfully helping animals, and I will argue and research this point til the cows come home (to the sanctuary, naturally). However definitions aren’t about persuasive arguments, they are about set, observable facts. One doesn’t call anything a kettle purely because it heats water – one calls something a kettle because it fits all the definitions of a kettle – and if one had to define it in official terms (for marketing purposes, perhaps), I am guessing a cup (for using to sit in the garden whilst full of water when the sun is out) would not fit the definition. And secondly, the world is a weird place. Whilst we can be pretty sure welfarism is not helping animals, judging by the evidence, we still can’t be overly positive that one day something completely random and unrelated won’t happen which will lead to abolition. For example, perhaps the environmental argument for veganism might suddenly have to be realised due to climate dangers – and animal use will be led to stop over the course of a few years. Would this mean someone who had researched this effect would have been be an abolitionist? Of course not. The environmental argument for veganism doesn’t even to take into account ideas about slavery and other moral concerns about the individual animals. To state it is abolitionist is, yet again, absurd and plainly incorrect. For a second time, a rational example shows that this definition of abolitionist doesn’t work.

And what about mixing the two? Can an abolitionist be defined as someone who has the intention, and an effective way to get there? Well let’s go back to the first problem with the definition of it ‘being an effective method to get there’. We can’t know if it’s going to work until after it’s happened. So, we have the same problem of needing to trust the ‘intention’.

These ways of defining abolitionist leave it open to meaning absolutely nothing, and referring only to our own selfish desires to be called abolitionists. It makes sense to say someone is an abolitionist, as oppose to a regulationist, if they believe in and embark on abolitionist advocacy. It also makes sense to say someone is a regulationist if they embark on regulationist advocacy. Hell, it even makes sense to call either of these groups ‘rights’ based, as either can be fighting for the ‘rights’ of particular species. And so being ‘for’ animal rights, gives a way for people who are regulationists to not have to admit it! So there, problem solved. Let’s not twist, or misappropriate words like abolitionist which actually have meaning, as they allow us to analyse different types of animal advocacy. Non-human animals everywhere rely on us to analyse what we are doing, why we are doing it, and moreover who is having the most success at helping them. What they don’t need is people mixing these words around in an irrational manner, just because they want to be something they are not. Stick with rational arguments, and drop those beliefs which run counter to them. If you engage in welfarism or SICs, you are not an abolitionist. Deal with it, become an abolitionist, or soothe your superhero tendencies elsewhere.

Thorough Practical Ethics - The Non-Human Perspective

2011-08-05T06:48:00.000-07:00

There goes a logical moral truth, that says we should strive to be vegan, but that as vegans (or non-vegans, for that matter) we should also strive to improve the lives of animals who exist now. Very few people in the area of animal ethics disagree with this, but it only tells half the story as far as non-human animals are concerned - it's a 'shallow' pragmatism, if you will, as it simply tells us the basics of the moral fact, without approaching how we are actually meant to go about this. It is, in essence a philosophical statement, with the second half lacking practical application.

This is the problem with many approaches to practical ethics when it comes to non-human animals. This statement is concerned with practical ethics, but is essentially no more than a statement of belief. Unfortunately, some people take it as face value - seeing it as a practical guide, rather than the basic belief it is. And as a result we see people claiming that the correct approach is one of 'everything helps' - that we need to promote veganism, vegetarianism, animals welfare regulation, single issue campaigns, etc, etc - anything that claims to help any animals.

This belies the truth of the matter, which is that regardless of the truth of the moral statement made in the first sentence, we have an obligation to disregard those activities that 'intend' to help non-human animals, but which uphold their status as things for us to exploit.

A problem can not have two solutions - the practical paradox of New Welfarism

Defences of the 'everything helps' tactic claim what is a theoretically nice sounding belief, but one which is ultimately paradoxical on a practical level. It is that we can promote vegan education, but also single issue campaigns and welfare regulation - after all, it all helps animals, and it all helps create dialogue about non-human interests.

This is paradoxical as a practical matter. The problem which we are publicising is the 'plight of animals', ie, animal exploitation. The solution to this is either regulating this exploitation, or abolishing it. If you promote one in society, you necessarily undermine the other, as they are two possible answers to the same problem. The problem with the 'abolition or regulation' debate in regards to non-human animals, is that the 'regulation' argument is already the stance of society. When one promotes it (especially as an 'advocate' of non-humans) one ingrains it. However it's not this easy for the other side - society is welfarist, most advocates support welfarism, and as a result veganism is actively demoted to 'extremism'. The more you promote regulation, the more difficult it is to be successful promoting veganism.

So the muddle of an approach that suggests we can support both forgets to mention that they undermine one another, practically speaking, and one in particular (welfare regulation) completely neutralises the other (abolition).

The fallacy of 'foresight'

Many also say that we will never get everyone to go vegan, and so we need welfarism and single issues as a 'step' now, and also to 'help' animals now.

This is, of course, a fallacy. One can never know if 'we will never get everyone to go vegan' or not, but moreover, no one is claiming we will, or that we need to. It's arguing against a point that no abolitionist has made.

Have you ever met a racist? I'm betting yes. Do think it's likely that the world will ever be free of racial prejudice? Probably not, at least not for many hundreds of years. Does this lack of a universal moral statement against racism mean we can't progress with anti-racism, equality and must instead help to regulate racism, or provide rights for only certain discriminated against groups? No.

Whilst animal exploitation is almost universally widespread, much more so than racism, it does seem hopeless to imagine an end. Similarly, it's impossible to imagine a world where every non-human lives unexploited from every human. But neither of these things need to happen. One doesn't need everyone to go vegan for veganism to become a rapidly growing social value, or even become a norm - this sort of universal has never been needed for social change, in fact. Only hypothetical, impractical theory would suggest it.

Practical analysis of social movements would say that they act like a snowball, and with every few people who migrate to it, the more attractive it becomes to everyone else, and the more speed it gathers. Such is definitely true for veganism. There's claimed to be only around 300,000 vegans in Britain, and yet we have 'vegan' labelling on foods, and an increasing vegan products selection. The main argument against veganism is convenience, and so another 10,000 vegans improves things a great deal in making veganism more attractive by way of providing a more significant vegan convenience market. From there, another 100,000 provides a solid, reasonably predicted consumer base for respecting vegan's consumer wishes, and another 1,000,000 doesn't seem many years away - yet would make veganism around as mainstream as vegetarianism is now (not to mention much more attractive to those very vegetarians, who mainly seem to value the convenience argument themselves - even half of those on board would shift numbers close to 2,500,000)

You don't need this snowballing movement to engulf everyone either. When a big enough ratio of the population goes vegan, the legislation will begin to reflect this, and people will fall in line - much like they do with racial equality. This is real, hard, practical theory.

To suggest that we shouldn't follow such a realistic idea of analysing how social movements work, and instead give up our 'Utopian' ideals about veganism in favour of a more shallow pragmatism which simply believes 'it all helps' isn't good enough. In a world where non-humans are considered things, and most advocacy approaches ingrain this idea further, it can't possibly all help.

We need 'steps'

Over and over again I hear this statement. 'Not everyone will go vegan, we need steps'. Well yeah, duh. The steps, in most social movements, consist of people gradually agreeing, one by one, family by family, social circle by social circle, and of the myths that hold up the discrimination gradually being displaced. And yet, in animal ethics, many advocates think 'welfarism' or single issues can provide these steps instead of the logical idea, which would be a gradual move, one by one, toward veganism.

But welfarism provides an answer to the same problem that veganism does. They are two different possible solutions in the eyes of the public, and in terms of their effect on animals - two different choices, on two different paths. It makes as much sense to say one is a step to the other, as it does to say watching TV is a step to exercising. There's appeal to the idea that one might see action dramas on TV, and become inspired, but what's much more likely (and indeed, what actually happens in society) is that people just become enamoured with the TV. The analogy is quite different in type, but similar in kind.

And what of single issues? I see that someone might see a 'ban' on fur, for example, as a step toward the abolition of animal use. But just think about what these campaigns actually do. Whilst welfarism teaches people it's only 'overly cruel' use we should be concerned with, single issues teaches that it is only 'extreme' or 'marginal' uses that should bother us. As explained before, these are not effective in the first place, and they play the same role as welfarism in providing people with a separate 'path' for their disagreement with animal exploitation, that isn't veganism, and that makes veganism seem 'unnecessary' and 'extreme'.

Being 'political'

It is difficult to give credence to the idea that politics is important at all in non-human ethics, especially after reading the likes of Francione's work, which shows regulatory efforts to be highly ineffective at helping animals, and to be a vastly productive way of making the exploitation of animals more, not less, efficient. Case studies of the practical effects of welfarism, rather than the hypothetical belief that it is simply useful, would seem to show the truth of the matter. And this would suggest that welfarism, if it is ever to be helpful, is not going to be so until a significant proportion of the population consider all animals to be persons, and reject their status as things. Otherwise we are fighting for the welfare of 'things', which can only be successful with appeal to the owners or stakeholders of these 'things'. Whilst the owners and stakeholders, almost as a whole, regard other animals as 'things', where is the practical ability to create change? Even on a small scale, it's almost impossible to do anything but make that exploitation more efficient. Take the ban on certain fur production in the UK - it was only possible as the government was able to negotiate a way for it to be profitable for the fur companies, by lubricating their move to countries with cheaper over-heads.

Once more, the idea of politics being a reason for us to use welfarism is nothing more than a sound byte to defend a shallow form of pragmatism. Yes we could push animal interests in the eyes of the law, however this could only realistically work as welfarism or single issue campaigns. Francione has found welfarism actually makes exploitation more efficient and appeases consumers, and what is clear is that single issue campaigns provide people with a reason to dismiss veganism as extreme, as opposed to their more 'sensible' views.

Without focusing on the labelling of vegan items, or the rights of vegans, or the availability of vegan foods, it seems highly bizarre to claim we need politics at this stage at all. As a proportion of the population, those who disagree with speciesism is tiny, and the only way to increase our chances of being heard on a political level is to indulge the welfarist and SIC tactics which actually harm other animals. The logic is saying we know these campaigns to be counter-productive, but we need to use them, else we can't use them. Does this not seem a rather circular argument? When spelled out, the truth is we don't need to use politics, as least not yet, so let's not keep falling for this nonsense.

Providing Solutions

If we look at more thorough practical ethics, we will realise it is counter-productive to be entering the political arena before a big chunk of the population is vegan, and we will notice that welfarism doesn't help animals, and that this and SICs are ineffective at best, and finally that all of these methods ingrain the idea of animals as our property or things in some way.

If we want to begin using welfarism or SICs to good effect at any point in the future, then we need to be creating a significant proportion of vegans in society now. To do this we need an abundance of vegan education, in order to get that snowball moving, and we need to be refraining from supporting welfarism and SICs, which are helping to undermine that vegan movement.

Basic, shallow practical ethics says we need to help animals now, but a thorough, rational approach would rule out all except creative vegan and abolitionist animal rights education at the moment. The likes of the literature at the following site provide ideas on how to begin doing this: http://www.veganuk.net/downloads.php

If you are serious about helping animals - in the real world, not just in hypothetical, philosophical beliefs - than drop your support for welfarist charities like VIVA! and RSPCA, drop your campaigning for New Welfarist groups like Animal Aid and PETA, as these are harming much, much more than they are helping. Just go vegan, and get out there and promote veganism! The approach is thorough and rational, but the solution couldn't be simpler.

And there are plenty of animals we can help now, too. Adopt a cat, dog, rabbit, mouse, or any type of small or large animal that needs you to look after them - there are rescue centres all over the world, full of abandoned companion animals, who have been bought into existence simply because we wanted to use them, and now have decided we can't manage/can't be bothered. Provide a home for them if you can, and genuinely help animals now. Couple this with a vegan approach to advocacy, and you have yourself a wholesome, thorough system of practical ethics which makes a genuine difference to non-human animals.

The Rise of the 'Wait-And-Sees'

2011-06-17T09:55:00.001-07:00

Recently there has been somewhat of an odd phenomena occurring, regarding views on advocating the abolition of animal use. A year or so ago, it was a case of people being pro-tradition and going all out in favour New Welfarism, or else rejecting this in favour of a more abolitionist orientated approach. We now have a new class of advocates largely in agreement with the abolitionist theory, but whom don't feel satisfied there is enough evidence - and so refuse to take a side, or, more correctly, side against the abolitionist perspective.

This is worrying, as these advocates go on to assert certain other beliefs without this sort of evidence - which is paradoxical, and so raises questions not only about the validity of the argument, but about the intentions of those making it. One particular belief put forth from this opinion, is that abolitionist theory is all very well, but that all conversing about the human - non-human relations in society is helpful. So we don't need to be opposing things like single issue campaigns.

This particular belief is very telling, if you think about it carefully. For around 200 years people have been increasingly talking about the human - non-human relationship, and in fact not since Descartes has there been mass appeal to the idea that this relationship isn't important. What has happened with all this 'conversing', is that society has reasoned ways to make this conversation non-threatening. They have turned to companies to create excuses for them in forms of welfare regulation, and have turned simultaneously to animal advocates to provide them with single issue campaigns with which they can be horrified without ever having to do anything (think fur, whereby the vast majority need to do nothing but state horror at it's mention, and the campaign's goals are met).

And yet, despite this evidence - that people have not turned to veganism, reduced their consumption of, or began treating the animals they use any nicer (as far as the actual animals are concerned) - they still assert that all conversation about the human - non-human relationship is helpful... All the while they claim that the abolitionist has no evidence to show that Single Issue or Welfare campaigns are necessarily bad, despite the evidence which would show that they have done nothing to help animals, whatsoever.

On the face of it, the label of 'Wait-And-Sees' is extremely generous, as this would imply that they are waiting for a reasonable amount of evidence to begin to act. But what evidence do they want? The only evidence available is pretty conclusive. And there is not a study in the world that could be conducted to show that a single issue campaign is helpful, just as there is not a study in the world to show that the universe is not in a shoe box in someone's cupboard. And yet, we see reason as a useful tool in beginning to make the latter assertion, whereas when it comes to the former, all of a sudden we must wait for this evidence (which could never exist) and oppose it until that day. Are they 'waiting to see', or just being political in their choices? Given that what they are 'waiting to see' can't ever exist, it's an intriguing question.

People go vegan for all kinds of reasons...

The other big assertion the 'Wait-And-Sees' make, is as the title suggests. They claim to understand the problems with single issue campaigns and welfarism, and yet refuse to rule them out as 'people go vegan for all kinds of reasons'. This is an incredibly odd statement to make, when one thinks about it.

What abolitionist theory tells us, and this is very intuitive, is that New Welfarism will create a select amount of vegans. This has never been in doubt. New Welfarism makes vegans out of already passionate, or over-sentimental people, as those people don't just accept the campaigns put to them, they then get involved to help with the campaigns, and start becoming vegans of their own accord as they want to do 'as much as they possibly can'. They climb above the labels of 'extreme' and 'self sacrificial' which NW helps put on veganism.

New Welfarism necessarily gets this select group of people vegan, as it keeps the cycle going. In fact, it's big (and perhaps only) strength is in getting already very passionate people to veganism. It uses single issue to provide a 'hook' to veganism, if you like, and then those vegans go on to conduct NW advocacy themselves as they generalise on their own experience, and assume it is effective.

The problem is that those who aren't passionate are not engaged at all, and are in fact appeased way short of veganism. NW creates a minuscule, select group of vegans, at the expense of biasing the whole of society against veganism - by providing 'humane' animal use to stop people feeling they need veganism, and by providing single issue campaigns, which gives people the idea that they are already doing something (or alternatively, in an increasing number of cases, it gives people a feeling they need do nothing at all, as the SIC itself is based on over-sentimentalism, or irrationally disagreeing with just one animal use - and so animal ethics is not relevant at all).

What's more, remember those people NW actually helps get to veganism? Think about who they are - people already passionate about animal ethics, or morality, or people over-sentimental about animals. These are the first people that would be gotten by direct, vegan education. And, realistically, would be gotten to veganism much faster - as they wouldn't need to go through the whole 'see campaign, get involved in campaign, learn about veganism, overcome 'extreme' labels about veganism, become vegan' they could instead just 'see campaign, go vegan, get involved in campaign'. There isn't an argument in favour of NW when you admit that the good it does is minuscule, and can be gotten anyway by the argument that opposes it.

So how on earth does the argument 'people become vegan for all kinds of reasons' do anything other than further support abolitionist theory...especially seeing as it was a given part of abolitionist theory in the first place? This is where it becomes obvious that either those giving this argument didn't understand the theory in the first place, or have other motives.

Why the 'waiting'?

Abolitionist theory has not yet become the mainstream belief. We see people take it on board every day, and begin to see the damage of welfare and single issue campaigns, but it hasn't yet reached everyone - mainly as the big animal groups don't want this to happen.

So one reason people come up with this 'Wait-And-See' policy, is popularity. It would be a popular opinion if one could oppose abolitionist theory with some 'evidence' based idea - and it would garner that individual a lot of attention. Regardless of the worth the idea has (and as explained above, the 'Wait-And-See' argument is fairly easily disposed of), a lot of people want their current actions and viewpoints to be proved correct, as it is much more appealing than having to admit defeat. The 'Wait-And-See' argument is a popular one, as it provides a fallacy for proving something which can't be proved.

Secondly, perhaps these people just misunderstand how evidence works. As shown above with the assertion that 'all conversing about non-humans is helpful', the views they hold are not backed up by evidence. Perhaps they do not realise that morality and social reasoning work almost wholly on intuitions and not scientific data (which doesn't work well with social effects due to the infinite possibilities there are - you can not isolate variables). They perhaps do not note the lack of scientific evidence in their own views.

Whatever the reason why they come up with this bizarre 'Wait-And-See' appraisal, as shown above it is an argument which not only misunderstand the position it is trying to oppose, but which asserts the very facts which had already been taken into account. It then asserts these as if it were some sort of evidence which hadn't been accounted for. It might be an unfair comment to make, but the most likely reasons for this are either that (as explained above) it garners attention and popularity, or that it allows one to value the variety of human ideas and viewpoints over the logical reason which voiceless non-humans rely on us to adhere to, when protesting on their behalf. Perhaps I'm being unkind, and these people just generally don't understand the argument they have made. Either way, there is an obligation to begin understanding it, and it's corresponding ramifications.

'Animal Rights' and 'Animal Protectionism' - Rationally Opposed.

2011-05-19T10:03:00.001-07:00

Animal Rights

Rights don't naturally exist. We create the concept of 'rights' in order to protect a certain set of characteristics, for the benefit of a sentient individual that would not be protected without. In our social, highly developed (relatively) society, the characteristics that rights protect are the likes of freedoms to live, to move, and to express oneself. We have our problems with them, but we are overall fairly good at recognising our own, and other humans rights. In fact, historically we tend to get better at it as time goes on.

The movement for animal rights (young as it is) describes a growing concern from many, who wish to see similar characteristics protected in sentient individuals other than humans. Realistically, it means fighting for one over-ruling right which any sentient individual should have - the right not to be treated as property.* And subsequently, furthering society toward the recognition of this.

Animal Protectionism/Welfarism

What is important to comprehend, firstly, is that this is not necessarily anything to do with 'protecting animals'. Whilst Single Issue Campaigns may occasionally seek to protect certain animals (like in the case of protesting against a cull), this is not animal rights. Animals do not have rights in law, and what these single issue campaigns do is work on, either, rallying public disgust for the animals, or garnering attention on related issues which might incidentally help the animals involved. If the SIC were to make claims as to the legal rights of the animals, it would be unsuccessful as animals do not have rights under the law. This makes calling any SIC such as this 'animal rights advocacy' irrational. A mistake that the majority of groups who call themselves 'animal rights' groups make.

Of course an SIC participant might state they undertake this action to respect the right that the animals should have. This is confused. Rights don't exist, remember. They probably are intending to fight for the interests of those animals (and no doubt doing no good whatsoever, given the inefficiency of SICs, and the damage they do to actual progression toward general animal rights), however this is not, in any way, animal rights advocacy - it is animal protectionism (which is referred to as 'animal welfarism').

The movement for the rights of non-humans probably did come out of the initial disgust at how animals are treated, and the desire to do something about that. However we are at a stage of society where animal welfarism battles against animal rights - we see 'welfare-raised' animals exploited to stave off the need for animal rights, and we see consumers supporting/participating in individual single issues rather than actually being persuaded to stop exploiting other animals full stop. So to continue this confusion between animal protectionism and animal rights is damaging on profound levels.

Protectionism encourages exploitation

If anyone is in doubt that welfarism is damaging (even when perpetrated by the likes of those who want to see sentient individuals gain the right not to be treated as property) then they need to look harder at the issue. The fight for animal's rights isn't just opposed by those profiting from them, it is opposed by the norms and values in society which keeps people viewing animal use as acceptable and normal. In fact, if we are being honest, those who profit from animal exploitation wouldn't be able to do a thing if mainstream values began to abhor animal use. Just like any 'out of date' industry, animal use would crumble without the valuable norms it thrives upon.

Welfarism hasn't just pandered to these norms, it probably plays the biggest part in upholding them to this very day. In particular, upholding the most damaging norm - that one can use and exploit animals whilst being more ethical about it (a point of irrational pedantics). So if we agree with and want to further animal rights, the first thing we do is ignore 'animal protectionism'.

The role of single issues

Welfarism, and the single issues which it absolutely thrives upon (the likes of anti-cull, pro welfare regulation, anti-vivisection etc), are popular for one important reason - they provide a false dichotomy with which people are guilted into getting involved with. People are told they need to get involved, else those animals which the SIC aims at will die/suffer greater, and so it is immoral not to.

But of course, the truth is both that these campaigns are unlikely to be successful anyway (or at least unlikely to do any good for the actual animals, even if they are successful), AND that they end up doing endless damage by upholding the norms of animal exploitation in the first place. So in essence a false guilt is created for some animals which we can see (those that are involved in the SIC in the first place), whom we don't help anyway, whilst those we aren't focusing on (ie, all the billions of other animals we use) are ignored and have their interests damaged further.

Summary

In short, to summarise, animal protectionism seeks to keep non-human animals being used and exploited, whilst inefficiently campaigning for the protection of small groups of them, mostly in ways which will have no effect. While actual animal rights campaigning includes the furtherance of abolition (and so progression toward the right not to be used as property, which includes ignoring exploitative norm-upholding like protectionism), and indulgence in good vegan education. This latter method of taking a rational snow-balling approach, whereby understanding and foundations are built for the actual recognition of the non-humans right not to be property, one step at a time, is completely undermined by the former in every way. If one is pro-animal rights, one is anti-animal protectionism/welfarism as a factual matter.

* It's useful to restrict to this one right, as society could not function with an equal 'right to life' for all individuals, etc, due to the practical difficulties with insects, etc. Similarly, a right not to be treated as property respectfully manages to provide a single legal right which would remove the occurrence, and so problems of, animal use whilst being a genuinely feasible method.

The Paradoxical Charge of Being Illiberal

2011-05-12T11:07:00.000-07:00

I recently engaged in discussion with someone who claimed I should not criticise New Welfarist tactics (in this case, a Single Issue Campaign opposing a small deer cull) as it would be illiberal. The claim actually made, was that I was 'shoving theory down people's throats' and also 'demonising' a local group that took part in it.

These are basically accusations of 'being illiberal', ie, that I want to force my views on others rather than let them hold their own, or that I am demonising the work of some other persons rather than letting them get on with it unscathed.

This person however goes out and leaflets people on behalf of non-human animals, to whom she hopes to change the views of based on what she believes to be rational moral beliefs (a nicer way of saying shoving 'theory down people's throat's'), while in doing so demonising whichever group of persons it is who took part in the actual immoral behaviour which she is educating others about (in this example, demonising the council).

What should become clear is that this person doesn't actually believe that 'shoving views' down people's throats is wrong, or that 'demonising' those you believe to be engaging in immoral behaviour as wrong. After all acting 'illiberally' to other humans in this manner is a moral obligation toward those who are not human, yet still sentient. But she claims that when I take the view that she was acting in an immoral manner, and criticise her like she criticises others, this is somehow illiberal.

This is something to be weary of. New Welfarism, as I and many others have written about countless times before, is a monumental problem. It plays a huge part in upholding the non-human's status as property in society, and it culturally opposes the snowballing movement for veganism, which needs to happen for any significant improvement for animals to occur. And in defending these immoral tactics, New Welfarists will use many buzz words and sentences to make it seem like they are harmless, whilst anyone who criticises them is some sort of demonic aggressor. Spotting the paradoxes in their views, like that of the 'illiberal' charge, is vital.

On Unnecessary Suffering: Convenience

2011-05-08T05:00:00.001-07:00

Since I became vegan, I've heard a proverbial hat-full of reasons why one might want to ignore veganism (most of which I didn't ask for, but people felt the need to tell me anyway...), however it seems to me that there is really only one compelling reason at the bottom of it all - convenience.

Everyone disagrees with unnecessary suffering - it seems that these days, this belief is a given so long as you are speaking in human language. What constitutes 'unnecessary' is where the disagreement occurs. Veganism makes a pretty strong case for drawing the right lines, as it defines unnecessary suffering as that which occurs out of pleasure, taste or convenience. It similarly makes sensible concessions, in stating things like if you really need animal tested medicines, you should take them (as this wouldn't be 'unnecessary' given medicines are currently all tested on animals). But veganism maintains that 99.99999% of our uses of other animals can only be rationally defined as unnecessary, and so this use must end. Animal exploitation is irrational by our own moral beliefs about unnecessary suffering.

It's difficult to find fault in this reasoning, and thus the debate often switches to the excuses. After it has been established that you can buy products not tested on animals, and that in the modern world the vegan alternatives to omnivorous treats like ice cream and bacon are actually pretty good, it becomes abundantly clear that the big barrier facing veganism is convenience. Ie, big companies with their shiny new eyeliners do still test on animals, snazzy new designers often still use animal skins, and conveniently located shops will sell chicken sandwiches rather than the vegan alternatives to chicken sandwiches. Veganism seems hard because it isn't convenient as non-veganism.

But what can this sort of excuse really mean as a moral matter? If you were driving along a country road, and saw a fox crossing in front of you, wouldn't you slow down to avoid hitting her even though it was less convenient? One would be right to point out that the analogy is unfair - wasting a few seconds in a car journey is not tantamount to the inconvenience involved in becoming vegan in 2011. Let's make it fairer then. What if the only way to avoid hitting the fox was to reverse and take a different route. It's still the right thing to do isn't it?

It's very difficult to argue that convenience has any sort of pull on our intuitions when faced with this example. Of course it's the right thing to do to inconvenience yourself to save the life of a separate sentient individual. I'm not sure I've met anyone who understands the basics of moral reasoning who disagree.

The problem is we are all involved in this analogy every single day. When I'm in the supermarket, if I fancy a beef burger I am faced with a moral quandary, almost exactly the same as the previous analogy. I can choose to pay someone to kill a cow on my behalf, so I can eat it's remains in between two pieces of bread, or I can inconvenience myself slightly by eating something else, or by travelling to a store that sells vegan 'beef style' pieces.

There are important differences between the example of avoiding the fox in the road, and killing a cow for a burger. One could claim we gain sustenance from the cow, and many people can be fed, etc. Which of course is entirely devoid of meaning, given the fact we don't need to eat cows - we can be perfectly healthy eating anything else, and also that you can create far more vegan food with the resources you use to farm one cow.

However the most profound difference between the two examples is the level of directness involved. We are appalled by the idea of not inconveniencing ourselves for the fox as it would involve us directly murdering another individual, however in the supermarket this immoral choice is backed by public opinion, defended by business interests and hundreds of myths, and perhaps most importantly, we sub-contract the act of the killing to someone else on our behalf.

You will notice none of these differences in the level of directness justify the death or mass suffering they intend to, and yet when mashed together in a cultural mixing bowl, they deceive people to a level whereby the guilt of the immoral act of animal exploitation is temporarily removed. This doesn't excuse the act of animal exploitation, but it does place moral obligations on those who understand this irrational position to educate others upon it.

In utilising convenience as an argument to allow us to eat and use other animals, we err greatly as a rational matter, and we contribute to mass unnecessary suffering. It's absolutely unimaginable. 50-60 billion sentient individuals (10 times the entire human population) every year, killed just for food. That's not even counting billions of sea creatures, and those killed for other purposes. This issue is not just the biggest moral challenge facing human-kind today, it's the biggest moral dilemma we've ever faced. And it comes about because people don't think through what convenience really means. We can all choose to do something about this right now - we don't need parties to promise us it during elections, or charities to act on our behalf - we just need to make the choice to go vegan, and to educate others about veganism. We can choose to do it before we even reach the end of the next sentence. It's as simple and as easy as that. And more to the point, it's the right thing to do.

For more information on becoming vegan please visit vegan:uk.

Prejudice

2011-04-17T12:38:00.000-07:00

Prejudice is a funny thing. I don't remember ever meeting anyone who claims to be prejudice, or indeed who wants to be prejudice, and yet prejudice is still one of the biggest problems in society. I can't help but think this is because people don't actually understand what prejudice is.

Let's take the most well know of the prejudices, racism. I can honestly say I have never met anyone who believes themselves to be racist, and yet I have lost count of those I have met whom are undoubtedly racist. This racism ranges from the mildly ignorant rural stereotype, who more than anything does not know how to react to someone who simply looks different, all the way to individuals who will shout racist things out of windows at other individuals, whilst they remain veiled in the belief that they are just being 'ironic', or that they 'don't mean it'.

What seems to be the consistent stream running through 'accidental racists' like both of these examples (which are typical of the majority of racists in society), is the belief that it is what they say about racism that matters, rather than how they act with regards to racism. Ie, they do not think there could be a problem with how they think about or treat people with regards to racism, what is important is how they react when talking directly about racism. Racism just seems to be a problem to be attacked in formal conversations to these people.

All prejudice seems to work in roughly the same way as racism, in this sense. We quite often hear, for example, of instances where people find it acceptable to be derogatory about gay people, simply because they start the sentence with 'I have nothing against gay people, but...'.

Misunderstanding

So there seems to be an obvious misunderstanding of what prejudice is - that for some reason prejudice is just something to be seen to be against, or just something one has to disagree with in a formal manner, rather than actually do anything about on an individual or societal level.

This is a problem we all have to face. We all learn things from elders at some point, and odds on something you have learnt is prejudice non-sense. Whether it be about people of different nationalities 'stealing UK jobs', that women are 'naturally less intelligent' or that gay people are somehow 'wrong'.

The key to being a decent person is digging up these prejudices in your own views and hauling them out, rather than just being against them when questioned formally. It's not difficult, and indeed we all have the ability to reason our ways past them. It is simply a case of pitting your opinions against common sense.

The Hidden Prejudice

There is nothing particularly difficult about facing the prejudices of racism, sexism, homophobia, etc, in 2011. The world almost expressly rejects them on a legal level in an increasing number of developed societies - and as countries become more secular, there seems to also be a trend of logical equality building. What is not so easy, though, is spotting the prejudices that society itself explicitly holds, and is not open to discussion about.

When we see individuals who are different to the white middle class males who generally run society, but who are still human, there is an overwhelming ease with which we can recognise prejudice. Whether a person is male, female, black, white, gay or straight, it seems obvious that the individual is still to be respected - after all they are still human.

But here lies a prejudice that we have yet to even admit too at a societal level - speciesism. Reason states that so long as an individual is human, they should have their human interests respected. Reason also states that so long as an individual is sentient, they should have their sentient interests respected.

Whilst sentient individuals other than humans should not vote or get an education, they most certainly should have the interests that sentience provides, safeguarded. Whatever else these interests may be, we know that a sentient individual (due to their ability to experience their own lives) should have a right not to be treated as someone else's property.

Currently this prejudice is not only harmful, like racism, sexism and homophobia, but it is also not even accepted as a valid prejudice by many. I have written at length previously as to why this might be, and I think most of this is down to the 'animal advocates' themselves who are not making a clear case for anti-speciesism. But whatever the reason, it is something that is damaging on a mass scale.

Society is racist and sexist, and hugely homophobic, and these things cause major problems ranging from one on one violence all the way around to unfair work place bullying, and unequal pay packets. However, what is clear is that speciesism dwarves these problems hugely, owing to the fact that 50 billion individuals will be slaughtered just for taste buds alone this year (only counting land animals, 100's of billions of sea-dwelling individuals also die for the same reason).

And what is the usual response when one references this point? 'They are not humans', 'human problems come first', etc. So not only does this mass slaughter occur because of a hidden prejudice, it is defended on prejudice grounds. Just think about it for one second.

'They are not human'

Why does that matter, so long as they experience their lives?

Would it be okay to justify prejudice slaughter on grounds that 'they are not white', or 'they are not male', or 'they are not straight'?

If you say not, then you have some thinking to do. Not just so as next time someone asks you about your thoughts on animals you can say 'yeah, eating animals is a bit horrible', or appease yourself by 'only eating meat from free-range animals'. If you disagree with prejudice, you need to act on an individual and societal level - and the first step is veganism. It's the moral baseline, not an optional extra. Whatever else you do, if you disagree with prejudice, you go vegan.

Check out Vegan:UK for more information, and a guide to going vegan.

Joining the dots

2011-04-07T14:25:00.000-07:00

In my last two essays I've written about two very controversial subjects. The first being how vegans tend to be weird, and focused on 'illogical' campaigns like more 'kind' treatment of farm animals, or about banning extreme uses of animals etc, rather than the logical idea of promoting/furthering veganism. The second was a piece on how veganism isn't about compassion, and how it "simply requires people act reasonably and consistently with this basic level of decency which they already hold.".

Shortly after this, I spotted a thread in which an abolitionist friend of mine was speaking to a rather anxious non-vegan, who was quick to jump to the conclusion that veganism is a form of anthropomorphising about non-human animals.

This individual is completely wrong - as veganism is simply about affording basic respect to other sentient individuals, and not about affording them the rights of humans. But it still got me thinking, can anyone blame him for thinking what he stated?

After all, if one is to look to the 'famous' groups who claim to be vegan/promote veganism, one could easily be forgiven for thinking it is about over-sentimentality. We see pictures of goats being cuddled, the terms such as 'compassion' being banded about, and even t-shirts with pictures of sad animals shouting 'don't eat me!' and the like.

Join it all together...

If you join all these points together, I think it's fairly obvious to get to the bottom of why exactly veganism has not yet garnered mass appeal. We have most vegans themselves not talking about veganism, but instead only giving it lip service in favour of focusing on less-logical campaigns (most of which, like Single Issue Campaigns, actually oppose veganism as a cultural matter). When they do talk about veganism, it is in such a fluffy, anthropomorphic manner that one could be forgiven for thinking they are simply confused about what species non-humans belong to. And to top it all off, this 'vegan' movement seems to believe the way to get these terrible ideas to the masses is by using 'gentle' language like 'compassion' and 'kindness' - terms which further denigrate the idea of veganism into the realm of 'not worth bothering about' for any normal person.

What those who are not vegan should realise is that, yes, these people are nuts. They do seem to think animals are 'cute' cartoon-esque models of humans, and they do seem to have no idea what they are talking about when it comes to ethics.

But what you should also realise, is that this nonsense has absolutely nothing to do with veganism. If you aren't vegan, please take a look at the wealth of genuine information about veganism that actually exists (vegan:uk, or Abolitionist Approach are good starters), and please ignore anything you hear that comes from the likes of 'PETA', 'Animal Aid', 'VIVA!' or any other bunch of 'big, organised animal people' that you can think of - as they are nothing to do with actual veganism.

Veganism is a logical idea which starts with the recognition that all sentient individuals deserve respect based on that sentience, and which ends with a common sense discussion about the necessity of animal use. It's nothing to do with compassion, over-sensitive humans, extremists bombing labs, or cartoons of talking pigs. Don't get sucked into the myths.

It's not about compassion

2011-04-05T10:55:00.000-07:00

I constantly hear people talk about veganism using the word 'compassion', and saying people who go vegan are being more 'compassionate'. There's little I would disagree with less than this statement.

Veganism isn't about compassion - almost everyone has the basic levels of compassion that allow them to disagree with murder, torture, child abuse etc. Veganism simply requires people act reasonably and consistently with this basic level of decency which they already hold.

Show me a huge number of people who agree with needless murder, and the torturing of weaker individuals, then I will agree the problem is compassion. This large number of 'evil' people don't exist. Sure there are individuals who do not care if others are murdered, and who do not cringe when they hear of child abuse, etc. But these people are not the norm. These are the people who are frowned upon in society - can you imagine someone shrugging their shoulders after hearing some horrendous story about a child murder in the newspaper? These people *do* lack compassion, but they are a tiny, tiny minority.

People in general are already compassionate enough. The problem is they aren't educated and consistent in their beliefs. There is no one who deep down believes we should go around murdering and torturing less intelligent, or weaker individuals for the sake of our tastes. Connecting this commonly held belief to it's logical conclusion of relating to all sentient individuals, is where the problem is. It simply isn't about compassion. It's about reason.

The Problem With Vegans

2011-04-02T02:23:00.000-07:00

Vegans are weird. Well, most of them are. I find myself speaking with vegans in some capacity most days, and a lot of them are really quite bizarre. Some are over-sentimental when it comes to thinking about animals, and in their heads just believe animals are tiny, fluffy/feathered human beings. Some are arrogant to the point of disbelief, with their ideas that reason doesn't apply to them. And the vast majority are only vegan in the first place as it seems like a 'cool' or 'rebellious' thing to do. And further more, any vegan that breaks party-line and criticises other vegans is thrust upon like a traitor in a cult. Thankfully, encouraging the wrath of cults is one of my favourite past-times, so my essay will not be progressing in a subtle manner.

What really perplexes me about most vegans is their anger and disappointment that normal non-vegans do not go vegan because of them. I see them standing with signs pleading for 'happy meat' or with posters and leaflets urging people not to slaughter cute fluffy dogs in China, or 'adorable' badgers in the UK. And they do so all the while with this hatred of humanity, which manifested itself recently with racial slurs about 'Japan deserves whatever it gets' simply because they slaughter cuter/'more human-like' animals over there.

I, however, (along with a growing number of mainly newer vegans) sit in stark contrast with most vegans, and hold much hope of human beings. Historically speaking, human being always move the right way. Over the last few centuries, human civilisation has made significant steps toward racial and sexual equality. And recently most have begun accepting there is nothing wrong with homosexuality. About time too. And there is no reason to believe we won't move significantly closer to a vegan world over the next few years - especially due to the pretty flawless reasoning that supports veganism.

I mean if you are non-vegan, think about it for a second. Any reason you can think about to defend our consumption of animals is flawed on some level. The argument that it is natural misses the point that 'natural' does not mean 'right'. The point that we have 'always done it' misses the fact that we have 'always done' a lot of things which we now rule out for moral reasons (rape, infanticide, etc). The point that 'it isn't healthy to be vegan' has been blown out of the water in nutritional studies during the last 30 years. The fact that other animals are 'less intelligent' does not mean they value their own lives any less...I could go on all day, bringing up all the myths like this which I once believed, but instead will direct you to a page which goes through a few of them itself - http://www.grampianara.org/why.php (see the FAQ beneath the document).

The reason why we aren't transitioning toward veganism, as a species, at the moment (and many 'weird vegans' disagree and say that we are - so this bit is to all the sane vegans and also all the non-vegans in the world, who do realise the world is not getting closer to veganism at the moment) is because most of those who are meant to be championing veganism, and showing that all sentient individuals have a right not to be enslaved and used as property etc, don't understand their role. The arguments for 'happy meat', or for single issue campaigns where they try to ban 'one extremely bad use at a time', don't make sense. There is strong reasoning to suggest veganism as a moral choice, there is none at all to suggest that a single issue campaign alone is righteous, or that happy meat is a necessary intermediate step. And yet vegans push these things, rather than educating and campaigning on veganism - a subject of advocacy that actually makes logical sense.

As a result - and I know this from my experience as a non-vegan, and from living on a farm where we profited because of 'happy' animal use - people see veganism as non-sensical, and not worth bothering about. They see these campaigns as being aimed at the 'animal lovers' and the 'over-sentimental' - because really that's exactly what they are. Whilst 'vegans' continue to miss the point, be arrogant, and generally over-sentimental and rebellious, rather than abolitionist (ie, promote/educate on only veganism or abolitionist animal rights), then veganism will not be able to progress.

I hope non-vegans read this blog, and I hope they agree with what I'm saying. My view of vegans hasn't changed since I became vegan, but I have seen that not all vegans are imbeciles. I work with a group of scientifically minded vegans here in Aberdeen, and I now have reasonable vegan friends across the UK. Unfortunately we are outnumbered by those who are vegan for the wrong reasons, and who probably do a lot more harm than good.

However, there is hope - but that hope is in intelligent non-vegans reading about the reasoning behind veganism and getting on board. We can't rely on those 'New Welfarist' vegans (ie, those who support welfarism like 'happy meat' and single issues) seeing the error of their ways, as most of them are simply not open to that. For the same reason as when I speak to Jehova's Witnesses about atheism - they have a fixed faith that they are right, and are not willing to open their opinions to reasonable discourse. This faith is unintelligible in both cases, and it is a shame that many humans think like this. But they do.

This isn't really a surprise, because most of those who are currently vegan are so because of the likes of these non-sensical PETA, Animal Aid campaigns, etc, themselves. They went vegan either because of over-sentimentality, or personal rebellion etc. Few were pushed toward seeing the reasoning by these groups, and then gaining a proper understanding of veganism - after all this is not what these groups try to do (please see previous essay on all animal advocacy helps for a discussion of this issue). They try to garner public attention with stunts and single issues, which most intelligent people will brush off as ridiculous. Those that do get on board are hardly likely to be intelligent individuals, and as a result - brace yourself - most vegans are either naive, or extremely deficient at fathoming moral issues. So not only do these methods of advocacy not reach out to the masses, they also reach out almost wholly to the unintelligible members of society. These people will then happily volunteer their services and be general slaves for furthering these non-sensical campaigns - but will never, ever further veganism.

The hope for non-human animals, and the future of veganism, lies squarely in the hands of intelligent non-vegans. If you are non-vegan, please consider this statement carefully - as a human being, you have a moral obligation to be thinking about this. Veganism is the right thing to do. There isn't much academic debate about this any more, and the only reason this knowledge hasn't reached the masses previously is because, as stated above, those individuals in the position to educate about veganism, do not, and can not do so. The fate of everything lies with you, and it's time to stand up and make a difference.

"Veganism is not difficult. What is difficult is living with yourself knowing that you are participating in the exploitation of the innocent. What is difficult is maintaining the incredible denial required to justify non-veganism." Gary L. Francione

The Problem with Religion

2011-03-22T07:55:00.000-07:00

It's Atheism Week this week, and I am an atheist. The idea of atheism reaches out to me primarily because of its sound logical basis, but I actively support it for a far more pressing reason: Religion, and the blind faith it entails, is a scourge on society.

Why Atheism?

Agnostics often say, quite confidently that both atheists and religious people are 'cocky' for claiming to know the truth rather than asserting that they do not know (which, of course, is the position of agnostics). Whilst this may hold a degree of appeal, it is mistaken for the agnostic to make such an assertion, as the agnostics themselves often make the assertion of knowledge without being 100% sure. In fact, everything we 'know' about science is considered 'fact', and yet none of it can be proved to a 100% position. An atheist claiming there is no bearded man in the sky who created the world in 7 days is no more controversial than a scientist claiming that it is not jelly that pulls us back to the Earth when we leap off of tall buildings.

It is scientifically accurate to say I am an atheist about the 'jelly gravity' theory, just as it is scientifically accurate to be an atheist about the 'holy spirit creation theory'. After all, one does not have to 'know all the answers' to be able to confidently assert some of the answers are wrong. In fact, often in scientific discourse, we see theories discarded in favour of better ones - but this doesn't mean we have to always be agnostic about those things that we know not to be true. Agnosticism itself implies that there is no evidence either way, or at least that there is no significant evidence either way. So one might want to be agnostic about certain theories of quantum physics, perhaps, but there is no reason whatsoever to take the same stance with religion. There is an awful lot of proof and fact at the basis of science, whereas at the basis of religion there is none.

The Moral Problem

Thinking along similar lines to which I have just written, it becomes easier to grasp why atheism is the right answer when faced with religious dogma. However, one might be forgiven how this makes religion a 'scourge on society' - after all irrationality as a concept doesn't go around beheading people, so why must we be concerned with religion?

In the words of Voltaire, "As long as people believe in absurdities they will continue to commit atrocities". What he was getting at, is that prejudice and discrimination occurs through the lack of respect for reason. Once you cast reason aside and start valuing mythical, spiritual beliefs as if they were truths, you have unintentionally justified every prejudice of every individual in that society. You can do what you like with legislation, charity, moral campaigns, etc, but at the very least you slow down the progress of morality when you accept and protect religious belief.

In the early 20th century we saw the Suffragettes really pushing home the logical case for gender equality, we saw Martin Luther King doing the same for racial equality. And yet today there still exist many people who don't value the logic behind what these people stood up for. We are at best inching toward these obvious moral truths, because we protect and encourage the behaviour of prejudice over reason - had we fought these 'faith' based ideas in the first place, we'd be running toward reason and equality by now.

But let's not forget the larger case at hand. Somewhere close to 60 billion sentient, conscious non-human land animals will die for unnecessary reasons this year simply because we 'fancy a burger' or 'wanted a milkshake'. We have known for YEARS that we do not need to eat animal products to be healthy, and yet this continues to be why the majority of those 60 billion lives are taken. We are ignoring the reason on the matter and siding with the arbitrary prejudice that 'animals are lesser', 'animals are stupid' or 'animals taste good', despite the fact that we KNOW this doesn't provide a logical reason for doing what we do. That's because we all value the 'faith' that we are right regardless of logic - and where do you think that comes from?

Religion is an absolute scourge on society. It makes even some of the most intelligent people believe that they 'don't know' the right answer, and furthermore it encourages almost everyone to ignore the biggest moral problems of our time. Atheism is important - please help spread some awareness this week, and support it forever after. And please think about going vegan - because animals are sentient persons too, and no amount of prejudice can change that.

TAPS Series - 3: All animal advocacy helps

2011-02-27T07:26:00.000-08:00

This sentiment manifests itself in a variety of ways: 'all advocacy is useful as it helps to raise awareness to the plight of animals', 'all advocacy helps people become kinder to animals', etc. In my correspondence with David Sztybel last year, you can see that he takes the view that all advocacy helps, in the form of the slightly more intellectually worded phrase that it all helps to create a 'kinder society'.

Firstly, it's vital to understand the importance of this assertion. This blog site contains various criticisms of the likes of welfare regulation campaigns, and single issue campaigns which would rationally say that these things are not helpful for advocating the interests of other animals. Similarly there are books and essays and all sorts of media outlets that are now noticing this. So if the assertion that 'all advocacy helps' is correct, then it means there is a place for welfare regulation campaigns, and indeed for all those things previously thought ineffective. Whilst it still doesn't excuse those who refuse to admit there might be better forms of advocacy, this phrase is still important to consider

Publicising the Plight of Animals

To examine the validity of the claim, we need to break this assertion down into what assumptions it is making. Why is it making the claims it states?

Firstly is the assumption that all advocacy does intend to help animals, and therefore regardless of other effects it 'publicises the plight of animals'. We need to be critical of this for several reasons. Firstly, everyone already knows about the plight of animals. I mean how often do you meet someone who has no qualms with factory farming, or the fur industry etc?

Society is already heavily engaged in and aware of the plight of animals. To the degree where TV chefs and national tabloid newspapers side with non-humans against what they perceive as 'extreme cruelty'. If a campaign is doing nothing more than attempting to open eyes that are already open, then it is doing nothing.

For example, many people claim that although they wish for all animal exploitation to be ended, they are happy to promote more 'humane' forms of exploitation in the mean time. When it is pointed out that welfare regulation is industries biggest tool against animal rights reasoning, the campaigner will often assert that this welfare campaign isn't helping industry as it is helping awaken society to the plight of animals.

This is non-sensical as society is already aware of their plight - otherwise industry wouldn't be able to capitalise on this with their welfare regulation in the first place, both as a Unique Selling Point and also so as to retain concerned consumers (think Free Range, Freedom Foods, humane, organic, etc - all of which are very profitable labels). Industry is easily defeating the welfare regulation campaigner here, who is naively fighting a battle to help industry - as in truth, welfare regulation wouldn't occur in the first place if society wasn't already aware of the plight of animals. Industry is using welfare regulation against animal groups, primarily because of a misunderstanding of what welfare regulation is, by individuals in the groups.

So, it's clear society was already aware of the plight - the battle is between those who want to appease this concern with kinder exploitation, and those who want to end it. Industry capitalises on this, and non-humans lose out as the campaigners on their behalf support the wrong side through failing to understand what battle was occurring in the first place.

A defence by those who support welfare regulation is often that 'we promote veganism (and so the opposite side to welfare regulation) as well'. It astounds me that one can think this is a rational answer. Think about it for a second.

By giving people a clear moral option of more 'humane' exploitation, and by supporting industry efforts to achieve huge numbers of consumers for these products, welfare regulation campaigners are actively building a viable, easier alternative to veganism. Occasionally following this promotion of the easy, humane option with the much harder choice of veganism, is obviously inconsistent and counter-productive. If one understands the basics of economics, these two approaches do not work together - so to say you are doing both is not just a confused position, it is incredibly counter-productive to the one that is most negatively perceived in society. Veganism loses out every time. Hugely. And the welfare regulation movement snowballs support for industry.

Single Issue Campaigns

The example just given was a brief description of how welfare regulation campaigns don't really help in promoting non-human interests. However they aren't the only ones, Single Issue Campaigns (SICs) are similarly problematic. What these campaigns attempt to do is differentiate one single animal use from others in terms of cruelty, therefore building a resounding support against this one use. The strength of these campaigns, and indeed the reason why they are popular, is because they (like welfarism) offer people an ethical choice with which to soothe their conscience, which doesn't require anything 'difficult' like veganism. They do this as if groups asked people to just do everything, including this one option, it wouldn't work as fast as they would like it to. So they set out to differentiate this one use from all others, to garner support faster.

They fail to build a deep understanding of why this single issue is unethical, as they fail to promote the reasons why animal exploitation itself is immoral - as they need to differentiate this one use from all the others, so such reasoning wouldn't build their case. Instead they focus on the 'levels of cruelty' and the like, and various other subjective factors which have no long lasting effect on people's views. For instance, with the fur campaigns. These were very popular and extremely effective at reducing sales in the short term, however after a short period people forget about the horrible images and emotive words from the campaign, and now fur has returned to new highs in sales.

When we examine the claim that SICs are 'creating an awareness' it then becomes apparent that there is a further problem with the importance attached to this notion of 'raising awareness'. What society already has is an awareness of the plight of animals, what it needs is a reason why this plight itself is immoral.

One could even claim that welfarism and SICs were instrumental in creating this 'awareness' at first (though this claim is highly suspect), but this would not change the fact that it is no longer necessary. If these things were useful at one stage, we now need to begin leaving them alone and building on the 'awareness' that was created. These campaigns are too problematic to be continuing with seeing as all the advantages they have are not useful in the modern world.

'Kinder Society'

The points made in previous paragraphs show that the idea that these campaigns all help create a 'kinder society' are heavily mistaken. A kind society consists of one with both an awareness of the exploitation that is occurring, and also a deep understanding of why this exploitation is wrong. These campaigns are fine at creating an awareness, but completely counter-productive in creating an understanding. And given that we are in a situation where the majority of society is aware, we can not claim that these campaigns are anything but counter-productive.

Saying that they do still 'make people think about animals' is ridiculous, and really scratching the bottom of the barrel for a reason. Do you think if we made people aware of rocks, they would suddenly start protecting them and being nice to them?

Let me repeat, a kinder society requires an awareness of the exploitation and a reason why this exploitation is wrong. SIC's and Welfarism can do very little for the former in today's society, and are astoundingly counter-productive to the latter.

Why have advocates not realised this sooner?

I often think that when analysing an issue like this, it is useful to examine why this occurred, as it gives a deeper understanding - why do people not spot the flaws in this 'TAPS' statement? There are several factors that can be mentioned.

The Groups

Firstly, the animal organisations themselves. Like any social movement, or indeed any society full stop, norms are passed well from authority/professional figures - we will almost always listen to experts on the subjects they are expert in. So, generation after generation, it is easy to see why advocates follow the norms of animal advocacy. These groups are the professionals in looking out for animal interests, they are seen as the voice of the animals themselves.

Similarly, it appears to be in the best interests of those groups to keep these campaigns. Most will genuinely believe they are helping animals by conducting these campaigns, however the groups themselves need the 'victories' of welfare regulation, as "we created more vegans this month" doesn't keep the donations rolling in, that in turn keeps the campaigns spinning.

Part of the reason for these campaigns is that advocates believe the groups do good things, and so need to conduct profitable campaigns to keep the group filled with staff, creating leaflets etc. The problem being that this is illogical. If all the reasoning suggests that welfare regulation and SICs are harmful, it doesn't make sense to keep conducting them in order to keep the wheel of even more SICs and Welfarism rolling. Even donating half your resources to the less profitable 'veganism' is going to nowhere near battle the problems inherent with what you are doing with the other half, which not only strengthen animal use, but also undermine your own 'vegan-based' campaigns. As stated earlier, it doesn't make sense to be fighting both sides, even if it does keep the doors open.

The Campaigns

It isn't just the groups, the campaigns themselves are worded so as to suggest this is the right thing to do. The way a welfare regulation campaign is worded, one would think that a free range farm is some sort of luxurious living for a hen, and that whilst she will still die, we can be happy that we are giving her a significantly improved life.

What these campaigns often fail to mention is the truth that we have no idea if these campaigns are doing anything at all. As someone who grew up on an egg farm, it's clear to me the free range hens were not particularly delighted to be able to go outside, and the extra inches simply meant they could move their legs or wings. One is creating a fallacious argument in claiming that an individual is better off free range than battery for obvious reasons.

We have a clear idea that chickens think nothing like humans do. The main reason people would claim Free Range for instance, is better, is because it allows hens more space, and allows them to go outside. To a human being this sounds great, as animals should go outside, right, they belong outside, and also more space is always better than less. But then ask yourself how a free range chicken's life is any better? She does not know she could have less space, or could have no chance to go outside. So long as we still use her as property, deny any of her natural instincts, or kill her at the end, then nothing has changed from the perspective of balanced human - non-human relations. We still give her a miserable life and a needless death which we didn't need to, and so long as we understand how basic individual psychology works (especially in other species who can not understand concepts of living better or worse, and who indeed have never tasted either) then we shouldn't give any value whatsoever to such a campaign.

And what do the welfare regulationists say to this point? 'If I was her, I would rather be free range'. You are not her, you are not in the same mental postcode as her, in fact you are not even in the same conceptual universe. If you would 'rather be free range than battery' it means that if the day comes when you are kept as a battery chicken, we should give value to the idea of 'free range you'. It means nothing for our relations with other species at all, and it is absolutely awful that individuals with such a lack of a grasp in animal psychology and basic philosophy are employed by large animal organisations to defend these sorts of campaigns

Conclusion

Whilst here I have briefly noted some examples of welfarism and single issue campaigns that actually harm other animals, they are largely representative of these sorts of campaigns as a whole. The 'Free Range' issue is very generic in terms of welfarist campaigns, and the fur campaign is easily the norm in terms of SICs. These campaigns are flawed by the nature of the sociological and economic effect of how they work, and this flaw exists in all welfarism and SICs by their very nature. They wouldn't be SICs or Welfare campaigns without it.

When one is conducting animal rights advocacy, it is a given that not only do you need to convince people of the worth of them taking action, you also have to first foster the environment which will best allow you to convince them. These Welfarist and SI campaigns have done an okay job of creating awareness, but the problem now is that people are happy with what they are aware of - also thanks to these campaigns. Which is self defeating. At some stage we have to acknowledge this and make all other advocates aware of it. It is elitist to believe that because someone is 'trying' on behalf of animals they are beyond criticism, and it is speciesist and disrespectful to allow someone to unintentionally damage the rights of non-humans 'with the best intentions'. The truth is some animal advocacy is entirely counter-productive, and as well as it being 'okay' to openly criticise it, we are obliged to do so.

ARZone: Digging For Truth

2011-02-03T10:01:00.000-08:00

ARZone is a social networking chat site, which offers chats from a collection of guests in the Animal Rights 'movement'. These chats are the cornerstone of ARZone, and are heavily promoted across social networking sites and the like, with advocates being asked to submit questions to their weekly guests. The site then offers the option of joining follow up forums about said 'chats', in which the guests views can be dissected. These 'chats' are obviously far less well attended, and promoted less heavily for obvious reasons. The final thing to note about ARZone, and this is the important bit, they claim to be an abolitionist endeavour.

The reason this blog has been written, is there has recently been a small (well, to those of us involved it seemed big for a while...) debate about ARZone. I can't summarise all of the views here, but I will do my best to go through the main points on either side, as I feel the only relevant pieces so far available on-line are impassioned defences by the ARZone moderators.

I hasten to add, in the interest of fairness, that I have been one of those critical of ARZone. I will however endeavour to put this position behind me for the rest of this piece and examine the issue as fairly as I can. After all, I managed to put my lifelong, childhood indoctrination of being raised on an animal farm behind me, I'm sure I can manage to look objectively on something like this for a few minutes.

Criticism

The main thing to note about the criticism of ARZone is that it hinges on a very important fact. This fact is that ARZone claims to be an abolitionist endeavour. For instance, take a look at the description on it's facebook page:
"ARZone is opposed to speciesism. ARZone believes that human and nonhuman animals are rights bearers and that human beings violate the rights of nonhuman individuals when they use them."

There are many, many sources an abolitionist might focus their attention on if they were looking to be critical - for instance, the industry of animal exploitation, 'animal welfare' groups, explicitly stated 'New Welfarist' groups like PETA...so it may seem odd that a group of abolitionists are the ones creating a criticism of another group claiming to be abolitionist. Therein lies the major problem.

If ARZone were simply marketed as a stance-neutral forum for hosting chats and discussing animal rights, I'm unsure it would receive any criticism at all. Well, it certainly wouldn't have received any from me. After all there are hundreds of groups and sites peddling animal rights chats and discussion, and many are pushing/promoting counter-productive and false ideas onto a plethora of already convinced individuals. One more wouldn't garner attention. The fact ARZone markets itself as abolitionist, though, leaves itself open to the definitions and obligations that go along with any position.

Let me use an example here - take Newsnight, which is a news and current affairs program here in the UK. The cornerstone of Newsnight (at least as far as I'm concerned, if you don't agree/know this, then let us just suppose) is it's interviews with people currently in the spotlight of politics/media. Say Newsnight decided this evening it would adopt a stance of socialism from now on (I'm well aware this is un-probable, that's not the point), and publicised this stance as it's description on it's web pages, and adverts. Newsnight would now be viewed and expected to behave very differently. After all, previously Newsnight was just a 'news programme', it is now a 'socialist standing news program'.

Now imagine Newsnight was interviewing a right-wing, conservative politician. But imagine that politician was simply asked questions which, rather than challenge his stance for the most part, simply asked him about certain policies and how they worked. Much like Newsnight does now (sorry, Paxman), it would be taking a neutral stance toward the politician, not a socialist stance. This would undoubtedly be noticed, and those socialists in the audience might feel aggrieved that the politician had got off 'scar free'.

Now imagine further - 3 months into socialist Newsnight, and it was still adopting a largely neutral agenda. It had perhaps interviewed a small amount of socialist politicians and figures, but largely was on neutral ground.

Would you really say Newsnight was socialist in any way, or is it just intending to be? It seems to me that such a situation would show that although the producers had perhaps decided to take a socialist stance, the program itself had not been socialist in any form.

And what should socialists think of this? A socialist sees socialism as the right way to do things, and the right path forwards. She has seen 3 months of socialism being turned into some neutral stance via this program, and she has seen no real sign of the socialism which has been spoken. And, in fact, given the percentage of socialists that there already were on Newsnight previously, has seen not even a larger percentage of socialists than one would expect given the relatively small political spectrum. Does the socialist not have a right to feel aggrieved that Newsnight is using the tag of socialism in this way?

So far I have used the example of Newsnight and socialism, but the smarter among you will have already realised that this is an analogy for ARZone and Aboltionism. And in fact the only difference is that there seems to be a slight bias toward abolitionist guests on ARZone than toward socialists in the Newsnight example - but, as I hope is clear, a slight increase in the number of socialists on Newsnight would not be justification for calling Newsnight a socialist programme.

Clearly a socialist might feel that, not only is Newsnight misappropriating her morally favoured position, but also that it is diluting it. It is telling anyone watching it that 'this is socialism', and that socialism need not necessarily agree with basic socialist theory. If you believed passionately in socialism, would you not consider this a problem?

Suggested Improvements

The abolitionist criticism, then, has gone onto suggest improvements. The first, which has been rarely mentioned, is to remove the abolitionist label. As the Newsnight examples shows, ARZone is not currently acting in any way abolitionist. The individuals behind it may well claim to be abolitionist, but the individuals in the example may also claim to be socialist - with all due respect, so what? It changes nothing.

A second would be that, rather than treating the guests in this neutral manner, an interviewer was appointed who was abolitionist, in order to quiz guests if abolitionist criticisms are not forth coming from the audience. If you simply endeavour to question a guest about their own actions, for the sole purpose of receiving an answer, this doesn't constitute the actions of an abolitionist so much as the actions of someone who is more generally interested. At best ARZone could currently claim to be an 'animal protection' site (not even animal rights, as the title suggests, as many of their guests are not rights advocates - even in one of ARZone's own administrator's views). An interviewer who has prepared questions could at least challenge the guest on matters of abolitionist theory, and hence promote an abolitionist promotion via any short comings in the guest's answer. It would then be clear that ARZone was at least attempting to be an abolitionist endeavour, however wrong that attempt might go.

A second improvement would be to replace the chats with debates. ARZone's chats currently resemble a fan club - not in the harsh sense that they desperately adore everyone who comes on, but in the sense that even badly answered questions are largely ignored. The guests of course are often professionals, and hence extremely experienced at twisting around and wriggling out of even the most difficult questions - and so, as to be expected, the advocates whom ARZone have persuaded in to participate in the chats do not generally spot this. However, if you have a professional on the other side, or at least an experienced, knowledgeable other, then you have someone who will push these inconsistencies. Sure, on some occasions you will pick badly and have someone ill suited to such a role - but on the whole ARZone will see an improvement toward it's abolitionist claims.

Responses

As to be expected on a moral issue, emotions have often ran high - and each side has made personal comments about those on the other. However in the midst of personal comments, came response from ARZone. I will summarise these roughly, along with their validity in lieu of the actual criticisms/suggestions for improvement made:

a) ARZone does not allow guests to reject questions. The guests now (as opposed to early policy) have to answer the questions put to them.

- The problem with this response is that it is largely irrelevant. I myself had the impression that rejection of questions was allowed, as earlier in it's history this was true. However, as stated previously, these guests are professionals/extremely experienced - the few challenging questions are easily wriggled out of. An interesting example of this is where a new-welfarist blogger was allowed to mis-define abolitionist in it's entirety (with no challenge from any of the 'abolitionist' administrators). The ARZone even featured a further occurrence of this as a highlight of the chat in their blog, in which the blogger claimed he himself was an abolitionist.

The blog is called 'words to inspire debate' and I'm sure ARZone will use this to say they were only trying to inspire debate. Still, if we go back to the Newsnight analogy, would Newsnight get off by saying they are socialist, but they are simply trying to inspire debate? Rationally, it doesn't seem so.

b) ARZone have a disclaimer - you can view their disclaimer on facebook, or on their main site - it goes something like this:
"Disclaimer: We are an abolitionist animal rights site. Although our guests may include advocates of regulation and some pro-violence advocates, we only support the abolitionist approach to animal rights. We do not necessarily endorse or agree with everything stated by guests or ARZone members or any links on our site provided by members and guests. To the extent that these sites promote: (1) any type of violence against persons or property; (2) welfare regulation; (3) any form of racism, sexism, or heterosexism; (4) endorse any of the large national animal organizations or (5) promote "happy meat" or vegetarianism, ARZone rejects those positions."

- If we were all in a court of law debating abolitionism, this disclaimer might be perfect as a defence of any non-abolitionist promotion ARZone engaged in (though, even this is highly arguable). However, again, so what? We are not in a court of law, and for this disclaimer to do it's job of making ARZone abolitionist, it would have to be viewed by every single person viewing or participating the site. After all, abolitionism is a theory - it is a set of ideas. For a person to be abolitionist they simply have to agree with them, for a group or project to be abolitionist it has to have some significant practical sign of this - as a group or project has no ideas of it's own. As I said before, the creators of ARZone may claim to be abolitionist, but this doesn't make ARZone abolitionist.

A disclaimer, therefore, sets forth a position in a sense of 'we are this - so don't bother challenging us as it says it right here'. However, let's go back to Newsnight - would Newsnight suddenly be socialist just because it claimed to be? Even if it offered it in small text in the credits or something? I really don't think so. It is possible one individual can claim a stance, and be that position without ever acting on those beliefs. However it is nonsensical to think a thing can be so with the same old neutral, or even simply non-significant positive actions.

c) The promotion and event of guest chats may not be perfect, but they are just to get an idea of a guests position for which to dissect afterwards in forums.

- This itself would be defendable on some level. But let's place it in context of what actually happens. Facebook events are created with thousands of people, perhaps even within that hundreds more, cross posting when it comes to chats. It is treated as a very public, socially marketed event. Nothing even close to this occurs for after-forums. ARZone have made more attempts at promoting the after-forums since the criticism, but unless they both spend as much time doing this (if not more) than promoting the actual chats, and also manage to drum up as much pull for the after-chats, then they are not succeeding at the level needed for this response to be defendable.

Hence why one of the improvement suggestions was to change the format to debate or add a challenging interviewer - as at the end of the day, you aren't going to be able to counter the problem the softer guest chats provide.

d) Debates are not an option as most guests will not do them.

- this response says more about the problems with ARZone than it does about the suggested improvement. I mean, why does a certain calibre/stance of advocate not want to go into debates? All other things equal, it seems fairly intuitive that such an event would not offer them the opportunity that a chat does to defend and promote themselves! The reason you get higher reputation guests with the chat system is precisely because the format is ineffective for an abolitionist outcome, as higher calibre advocates would not want to be quizzed on abolitionist theory, but are happy to do the chats.

Open Debate

Perhaps the most important aspect of the discussion regarding ARZone has been on the subject of 'open debate'. It seems clear the objective of ARZone is to allow for 'open debate' to be available and accessible for all - as summed up here in the closing lines of one of the Administrators impassioned defences:
"ARZone tries very hard not to censor anyone’s opinion – and certainly not because of a mere disagreement with a particular view. Those with the best ideas surely need not fear others with different ones."

This, of course, is a noble intention. But, again, this is not really what is being criticised. Open debate IS an important part of any movement, and of any furthering of understanding. And if the guests were all deliberating and speaking/being questioned constantly over abolitionism, then such an open debate might quite easily allow for the site to 'be' abolitionist. The chats do not resemble this, though, and the abolitionist-based questions take up a minority percentage of the time - and even then, as highlighted with the mis-characterisation of the term 'abolitionist' previously in this piece, the outcome may well be that open debate is only forthcoming from the opposite side of the abolitionist.

One response to this has been of ARZone to claim that this is the fault of the abolitionists - after all if they attended, then the abolitionist side would be put forward. This seems a strange claim from a site claiming to be abolitionist. After all, I indulge in many forms of abolitionist advocacy, and am involved with at least 3 abolitionist groups - not once does a group unleash the shackles of the abolitionist theory we believe in and allow others to take the reigns. We often are involved with non-abolitionist individuals, but we don't let them control our actions. Perhaps this is another problem with the format - after all, if Newsnight were to go socialist, but then allow viewers to decide the questions for the interviewer (as well as allowing mis-characterisations to go through), surely Newsnight is not being socialist in any manner.

In open debate, does the best argument win?

One further point to consider, is the administrator's comments on the subject of 'open debate' previously mentioned. I quote "Those with the best ideas surely need not fear others with different ones.". Of course what is meant is that in an arena of open debate, if your argument is the best, you should win. In my criticism of ARZone, I labelled this an idealistic view of communication, and an idealistic view of debate. And though this subject is not really something one can approach with neutrality (ie, you either think ARZone is acting effectively, or you don't - there seems no objective way to prove it) I feel that it is important to discuss the issue - as, after all, regardless of whether ARZone is abolitionist, it's entire being is to provide open debate.

Firstly, what is assumed is that the best ideas will always win. A survival of the fittest appears in relation to ideas, basically. I think this is mistaken for a very good reason.

Richard Dawkins coined the phrase 'memes' in his 1976 book The Selfish Gene. The central focus of the book was on biological evolution, as conducted through genes trying to find ways of passing copies of themselves on. Such a tactic in nature is often referred to as 'survival of the fittest', as the fittest individuals with regards to performing necessary tasks in any given species tend to be the one's who reproduce more and populate the gene pool. Dawkins though explains a second type of replication outside of biological evolution towards the final chapters, and that is the evolution of ideas/sets of ideas (or 'memes') in human culture.

Dawkins analogises the two types of evolution often, as there are huge similarities. However the focus of Dawkins life work, on the morality front, has been in showing human culture does not appreciate rationality, and that the 'best' or most rational ideas (I assume this is what the administrator meant) do not always win. Whilst in biological evolution the survival of the fittest is a pretty easy to understand term (if one understands the environmental context), in cultural terms it is similar - but by no means does 'fittest' mean most rational.

To explain briefly, the reason for this (and it is a fairly wide held believe now among rationalists) is that memes, like genes, work together. So several genes might clump together to define that an individual has red hair, and that gene might be well populated in bodies where an individual also has freckles - as the freckles and red hair genes might thrive in similar environments/help one another. The same goes for ideas. One example Dawkins has been vocal about throughout his entire career is religion. Belief in a deity, for example, thrives when accompanied by the fear of burning in hell. Similarly, a cynical individual (like myself) might add that 'faith' itself thrives when accompanied by other ideas which are not rational, or that irrational arguments for other beliefs thrive when an individual values 'faith'.

Further explanation is perhaps for another day. But what I'm trying to ask, is what reason does ARZone have for believing that even if they don't explicitly push abolitionism (and instead favour open debate where abolitionism is a relatively minor consideration), that they are promoting abolitionism? Or perhaps more poignantly, if you allow a figure from a welfarist organisation to debate 'openly' and 'freely', without much explicit challenge, to people who are already pre-disposed to agree to this position (for the reason that they live in an extremely welfarist and speciesist society), then why wouldn't people be influenced toward welfarist beliefs?

The reaction to such a claim is obvious even to a critic like me. Firstly, censorship is wrong. Well yes, of course it is. But this doesn't mean we should create conferences to hear paedophiles out, or allow murderers to walk scot free because they disagree with us. If it is a moral issue, there is an obligation to push rational consistency. Censorship should be a part of no forum, and no one wants ARZone to censor it's chats. Asking a guest questions which show the inherent rational inconcistency of their position is still a must.

Secondly, the response will be that 'the best ideas will win'. This doesn't make sense though for the reasons just mentioned. For an idea to grow and thrive it requires propagation, not a straight battle with mainstream fallacies. If I stand out in the street tomorrow simply chanting abolitionist theory, it is unlikely it will spread, at all. This is a bizarre example, but it shows clearly that an idea needs propagation to grow - it's need to be strongly challenging it's 'allelles' (opponents) and not just lying by and hoping to be picked up in passing conversation. The advocates for the idea need to push it, and in the vast majority of cases (especially those like veganism or abolitionism where huge mental shifts are required) 'open', audience decided debate will simply allow for the mainstream views to be propagated.

Abolitionism is not only contrary to the opinion of the public, it is contrary to the belief of most animal advocates. The idea that they will pick it up whilst having the beliefs that support welfarism or single issues seems optimistic at best, unless these allied beliefs are also challenged. 'Planting seeds' is pointless if the nutrients in the soil are propagating invasive weeds.

Conclusion

I must stress that although this final point, to me, seems to be backed up by the rational evidence of what we know about ideas and 'memes', it is just my opinion.

It seems intuitive to a very large degree, though, that ARZone's problem is it's claim to be abolitionist - it just doesn't seem to be abolitionist. Whether or not it provides a stage for new welfarist 'memes' is a matter for further debate - though if I'm honest it would take a strong argument to displace the heavy evolutionary ideas that seem to weigh against it.

TAPS Series - 2: 'abolitionist' isn't an exclusive term

2011-01-27T07:08:00.000-08:00

Meaning

There is no general way this one gets said, its more of an implication in a person's stance or position. What it means is that no one person has a monopoly over the word 'abolitionist' when it comes to abolishing the exploitation of non-human animals. This is very simple. The explanation with this saying comes in the way it is mis-used.

Mis-use

a) often someone who supports 'incremental steps' or welfare regulation will claim they are an abolitionist. One of these is the 'animal protection' blogger David Sztybel whose pieces I have critiqued in detail previously.

His point is that because he agrees that the abolition of animal exploitation must be the eventual goal of the movement, then he agrees with abolition, and hence is an abolitionist.

David misses the point in a rather large way as far as I am concerned, as he is using the term 'abolitionist' in a very different way to how it is understood. Wanting the abolition of something, and indulging in an abolitionist method (ie, being abolitionist, rather than just fancying abolition) are two very different things. For instance, I might agree that the abolition of animal exploitation is a good idea, but I might prefer to eat meat in the mean time from what I consider 'better' raised animals. Similarly, I might have wanted the abolition of the slave trade back in it's day, but believed that I should still sue 'better treated' slaves as an incremental step. This is fancying abolition as a long term goal, but not being abolitionist.

It is difficult to imagine there being a point to the word 'abolitionist' if it will include anyone who simply says they are one. Animal industry is not abolitionist, but see's a lot of value in 'better raised' animals, for instance, so if one is indulging in the same practices and beliefs regarding animals as is taken by those who exploit them it seems non-sensical to call oneself 'abolitionist'.

b) Following on, to be abolitionist represents something very real - it represents a personal commitment to the abolition of the exploitation of other animals, and this requires a strong anti-exploitation stance. It's not only problematic for someone to indulge in 'exploiter' behaviour to call themselves an abolitionist, it should also be a commitment on your behalf to not engross them in any form of it any further.

Thus, being 'abolitionist also requires one not partake in things that would further entrench the status of an animal as someone else's property. It's obvious that welfarism does this, as it is the exact tactic that companies use to continue their exploitation of other animals. But it is strongly the case that Single Issue Campaigning does it also. It differentiates between different types of animals use simply to make one use seem worse, and in doing so it legitimises the 'less extreme' type.

c) Speciesism, and not taking part in speciesism, plays a huge part. One cannot be an abolitionist in any meaningful sense whilst advocating or promoting speciesism. Welfarism and single issue campaigns focus on one single use, or one single treatment. These are regulatory, both of them, always, in that they intend to regulate the phenomenon of animal exploitation by regulating, at best, the inclusion of one or several particular species. Putting one single sentence at the end of your materials saying 'you can also go vegan, that's even better' does not get you off the hook and allow you to state yourself as an abolitionist. It has to be a constant part and message of campaigns, else you are not abolitionist at all.

Use

The reason abolitionist is, and indeed should be, defined as this is obvious. It is because when people are prompted to think about it and then maybe google 'abolitionist animal rights' they will be open to a world of theory which will show them ways to actually help achieve the abolition. They will be shown that welfarism is actually a tool of industry to help exploit other animals, and they will be shown Single Issue campaigns are very much an outdated source which could be replaced with creative vegan campaigning.

When people like Sztybel claim that he too is an abolitionist, it not only misunderstands what an abolitionist is (to the point of abusing language), it damages the genuine fight for the interests of other animals which is occurring. It muddies the water to the detriment of other animals, for the sake of our own philosophical pondering and interactions with each other - which is yet another occasion of human fancy trampling over the interests of other animals.

Practical Implications

This term is almost always mis-used, but it does have it's uses. Whether someone is a rights theorist, a utilitarian or a moral relativist, if they agree that the abolition of animal exploitation is our goal, and they are willing to adopt abolitionist and not regulatory or speciesist methods to get there, then they have an equal claim to the term 'abolitionist'. Indeed they are one.

The Problem With Faith

2011-01-23T03:30:00.000-08:00

In a recent blog I wrote that the promotion of 'non-causation' led beliefs are problematic to the moral interests of other animals, as “Ideas which promote non-causation inherently teach that reason isn't always important. While this norm is still in place, how are we meant to force people to be consistent with their own reasoning about morality? While non-causation is tolerated, there will always be an excuse.”. A 'non-causational' belief, essentially, can be defined as faith. Ie, though there is no logical evidence that God exists, one can have faith that He does. Or whilst there is no logical evidence that homoeopathy cures, one can have faith that it does. 'Non-causational' belief, or faith, is the phenomena of belief without, or even perhaps in spite of, evidence or reason.

Faith is of course a personal belief. It occurs where there is no evidence, but one wants to believe in something anyway. This occurrence is of course not initially problematic, as there is nothing in itself wrong with people taking comforting guesses and holding randomly generated beliefs for reason of comfort or tradition. The problem comes with the society that perpetuates such ideas as useful or important. For instance with religion, which is perhaps the biggest occurrence of non-causational belief in society, we happily promote and pander to it's importance constantly. There is a certain level of meaning and respect attached to religious beliefs, and we explicitly uphold this in all areas of society.

It isn't just religion though, the fact you can spot horoscopes for the pseudo-science of astrology in almost every publication you can get your hands on, and the growing interests in alternative 'medicine' that can-not be scientifically proved like homoeopathy, are also signs of acceptance of faith as important and meaningful in society.

The problem is faith represents all that is wrong with human reasoning. It represents the perfect excuse to act in a prejudice way as it doesn't force people to act consistently with reality. And this effects non-human animals especially in a profound way, though by no means is it unproblematic for human interests.

To highlight this point I'll begin with a real world event that occurred at one of our advocacy events recently. A person approached our stall, and politely enquired as to what we were advocating. After a short period of interaction with a couple of individuals, and the explanation that we were there to promote veganism and the idea that other animals are not our property to use, he casually noted that as God didn't have a problem with killing and eating other animals then we shouldn't care. (This argument is unfortunately not a rare one. There are Christian advocates who are both vegan and excellent advocates, but on the whole Christianity does not advocate well for veganism.)

The problem with the man at the stalls' position, is that belief in God is faith. There is no logical reason to suppose a God as put forward by any religion exists, and so there is only blind faith to cling to as a comforting guess that he does. It's his personal decision then whether he believes in God, or a giant, omnipotent, ninja blue rabbit. But why should his personal irrationality be allowed to justify a prejudice?

Faith takes reason out of the equation. As soon as we throw reason away and rely on faith (which, really, is another word for a prejudice – belief without reason) or authority figures to justify our moral choices, we make the mistake of acting irrationally. And most will not need this explaining, but I will say it anyway – it is not right to justify our abuse of others with irrational prejudice like this. It never has been, it never will be. And any argument which relies on faith IS prejudice, there is no respectful way around this blatant fact. Any rational person owes it to themselves to be honest at this stage – by all means allow yourself the comfort of faith in your personal life, but do not push irrationally formed actions to the detriment of others.

But the problem does not lie solely in religion – indeed it is present in many ideas. It is the 'open-mindedness' that things like astrology, homoeopathy, psychics, 'alternative medicine', etc, are acceptable and perpetuated whilst being irrational and unscientific, that provide even greater problems. We do not hold these things up to the rigours of reason, but rather accept them in spite of the fact that the best science we have shows them as nonsensical. People therefore feel that they do not need to be acting consistently with reason to be acting in an acceptable manner within society – and why would they? We have a society not just of tolerance toward irrational ideas, but of active acceptance and promotion of them.

This occurrence has a profound effect on the way people see morality – especially with regards to non-human animals. Whilst religious people often cling to their irrational, faith based idea that homosexuals are somehow immoral (despite the fact that the existence of God can not be proved – and therefore the immorality of holding such an irrational view is squarely at the foot of the prejudiced homophobes), people in society are similarly almost wholly unaffected by the path of consistent reasoning which would not allow them to be unnecessarily torturing and killing other animals for their tastes and pleasures. Whether we like it or not, if we do not challenge faith, we leave strong one of the major pillars of a speciesist, and just generally prejudice, society.

People know that other animals are sentient. But there is no will whatsoever to challenge the faith they have that it is okay to exploit them. In the same way that the Christian I mentioned earlier saw no value in consistent reasoning on the matter due to his irrational appeal to God and rejection of reason and reality, non-religious members of society (who are now the majority) simply need to appeal to the cultural norm that rational consistence isn't at all paramount. They don't even need to understand this faux-principle they subscribe to as it is so deeply embedded, and as a result things like animal use are not even important for them to think about it.

What I am not saying here is that we must be intolerant of religious or non-causationalist individuals – they are still persons to be respected by virtue of their person-hood. But perhaps we should be challenging our own beliefs on this, and challenging theirs. Challenging and being intolerant of irrational prejudice itself, which means taking a stance against faith and non-causation. It is highly unlikely that we can create a world of morally consistent individuals whilst not cherishing the ideal of rationality and rational consistency in the first place. It is not wrong to challenge a non-vegan on their non-veganism, and similarly it is not wrong to challenge a non-causationalist on their irrational tendencies. Indeed, as I hope I have managed to briefly explain here, it is important that we do.

If animal advocates want proof of this phenomena just talk to your average person on the streets about veganism. Normally you'll hear a defensive bunch of faith-based ideas like 'but animals are not as intelligent as humans' followed by 'but we've always used animals' and then perhaps 'but animals eat other animals'. After all your responses, most often comes the final 'well I will/could never go vegan'. This shows something very important, in that however far the individual believes the initial objections which they've stated, at the base of it all they are just a 'rational mask' for the truth - that it is not imperative for them to be rationally consistent. And where do you think that belief comes from?

So rational consistence is important in morality. The done thing after reading or hearing something persuasive about a moral theory you don't currently take on board, is to ignore it/pretend you've never seen it/run to put on your 'rational mask' of myths about said moral theory, which you think provides you a social shield against taking it on board. This is neither honest nor decent, and needs to be addressed. Whilst the acceptance of faith based ideas in society undoubtedly causes a less respectful environment for rationality, we still have the individual ability to step outside of it and change things for the better – else I wouldn't be writing this. We can become rationally consistent, and challenge the promotion of non-causation. And we should. This implores vegans to challenge faith/prejudice, but it also implores non-vegans to start transitioning toward veganism.

The Call to Reason 2011

2011-01-17T10:38:00.000-08:00

“Those who will not reason, are bigots, those who cannot, are fools, and those who dare not, are slaves.” Lord Byron

Reason is always the voice of sense, often in a sea of faith and prejudice. Since before the scientific discourse of reason defeated the faith based idea that the world was flat, right up until modern moral achievements where we have seen humanity almost universally accept the ideals of equality between human beings – regardless of race, sex or creed. Make no mistake about it – reason is important when it comes to advancing the human race, and making all of our lives better. It's absolutely essential for defeating prejudice.

In more recent history, reason has been posed the question of ‘animals’. What do we owe to those we share the planet with who are not humans, but who are sentient – those outside not only our classic spheres of morality, but also the new rules of equality which reason has provided us with? How do we treat them, and how should we act on their behalf? The following three sections will attempt to come to conclusions in three important areas, by examining three debates in the area of animal ethics.

Animal Welfare vs. Animal Rights

There's an obvious answer for why Hellman's only use 'free range' eggs in their mayonnaise¹, or for why the RSPCA support the raising of non-human animals in certain conditions with their 'freedom food' label², and that answer is animal welfare. People have recognised that our use of other animals is, at its worst, disgusting. So companies have countered this feeling by being seen to share the concern of the public, and amending their products accordingly (not all, just some - but enough to counter the majority ill feeling toward animal products³). Those who defend such moves for higher standards of animal welfare are, you would assume, well intentioned. They believe that humans should be able to interact with other animals in methods which would allow us to gain what we wish from them, through things like meat, dairy, eggs, leather etc, but that interaction should not be 'cruel' toward the other animal involved. I use the term 'other animal', as humans are evolutionarily speaking, animals, yet are not permitted to be used by those who support animal welfare – and so other animals are used but granted welfare regulation, whereas other humans are not able to be used and granted rights. The distinction is drawn fully.

Such an idea seems very sensible, after all we are taught such things early in life, and all hold them as beliefs. It is the occurrence of reason which challenges the morality of the distinction drawn between rights and welfare. The strongest moral intuition we all have, in my opinion, is that 'unnecessary suffering/killing is wrong' – I say this as the times I have spoken of it, it is one of the few things I have never heard someone disagree with. It's a reasonable assumption that we all share, and seems grounded in many different concepts we hold. This in turn justifies our ideals that humans have rights – as we don't need to abuse others in order to live healthily. There is no necessity for us to murder or force suffering on other humans, so they have equal rights not to be treated in such a manner. Regardless of levels of intelligence, appearance, or physical manifestation, it is therefore right (until it is reasonably challenged) that all humans in normal society have basic rights which relate to these things. And, accordingly, acts like torture and murder are outlawed.

Reason says that if these things are accorded to humans in a hierarchical rather than equal manner, when no safety of other humans is at danger, it is an occurrence of prejudice. For example, we can take away the freedom of prisoners in some instances if they threaten the freedoms of others (especially another humans freedom to live), but if such a necessity isn't present, then we shouldn't restrict these rights or form hierarchical structures with them. For example, giving one race a higher value and so a higher set of rights. This is prejudice as rights have nothing to do with race, they apply equally to individuals who have an individual experience of life (regardless of their race, intellect, age etc, they all experience life for themselves, and so fulfil the criteria for basic freedoms or rights). Using race to 'rate' who has a right to something that race is irrelevant to, is an unreasonable act, and so is labelled a prejudice. It's one most of us recognise, and that the Anglo-American law now opposes. The right, reasonable thing to do is 'rate' based only on the occurrence of that one characteristic which the right relates too. So in the most basic of instances, anyone who experiences any sort of life – anyone who has sentience, shall we say – has an equal claim to a right to live, to be free, to not be treated as anyone else's property, etc.

When we relate this to the issue of animals other than humans, it becomes increasingly clear that there are still prejudices that we hold – both in law and as individuals. Animals such as cows, pigs, sheep and dogs are not human beings. They do not share most of the same capacities for intellect that most humans do. However, we have known for many years now that animals are sentient. And also that sentience is not a scale – you are either a living, sentient individual or are you not – there is no scale of sentience. Many years ago major public opinion did not know this, however the vast majority today are swayed by the fact most animals share things like a central nervous system, and by virtue of such factors are sentient, individual subjects of a life.

As we stated earlier, sentience is the only relevant characteristic that an organism must hold for it to be able to claim basic rights. Other animals do not require the vast array of rights that humans do (such as a right to vote, a right to education etc) as they do not hold the correct intellectual characteristics which those rights relate to. They do however hold the one characteristic which is necessary for them to be granted they not be forced to suffer, or not to be killed unnecessarily, and in ignoring this we err greatly. Basically, reason dictates to us that sentience is all that is required for an individual to be granted a right not to be used as someone else's property – but the animal welfare position which most in society hold, is ignorant to this.

What backs this up is that very ideal of 'unnecessary suffering/killing is wrong'. Animals do hold conscious lives, and they can suffer – they are sentient in every sense of the word, and few deny the strong scientific reason that forces us to accept this once and for all. Animal welfare is a concept that does nothing to satisfy this, our strongest of all moral intuitions. The only defence of animal use is the vain attempt to show it is necessary – but of course it isn't. It is bold prejudice and faith that tells us that despite a large proportion of the world living on a vegan diet, and despite the millions in our own societies thriving on such, that we cannot sustain ourselves without animal products. Testament can be made on the fact that animal products are a leading cause of most of our major diseases (heart disease kills more than any other⁴, and is mostly bought on by excess cholesterol, which animal products play a big part in creating), so not only are they unnecessary, they are detrimental. Not that this strengthens the case, unnecessary use would not require the use to be detrimental – it simply shows that prejudice can be so strong as to mask even acts that are detrimental to the groups who hold the prejudice.

Following this comes the response of taste – an entirely subjective concept, which every right minded vegan has noticed does not hold up for very long. Try even smelling cheese after not eating it for a year, and then proclaim that the taste is enough to shun our greatest moral intuitions. Tastes change, and it is a testament to the power of advertising if we now feel weak enough that we cannot even adhere to basic moral principles if it means something that provides short term, easily replaceable pleasures cannot be cast aside.

But of course it isn't just food, it's clothing, entertainment and science too. We don't need to wear leather, yet the most hardened of animal welfare supporters generally do. We don't need to look at other animals locked up in cages, yet we take our children to gawp at them. And we still claim, despite the rich variety of scientific techniques that have become available in the last 100 years, that we need to cut up and experiment on animals of a different species – with completely different biological systems – to see if our cures will work on humans. Such methods have a less than 50% success rate (so less than tossing a coin)⁵, and yet are still lauded as necessary. And as we have already said, sentience is not a scale – if I can not cut up and experiment on a reader of this piece to test my latest drug, I should not be able to do it to anyone else. To think otherwise would be morally irrational.

There's nothing reasonable about animal use, there is nothing logical about animal welfare. They are systems based on prejudices and beliefs that state things like 'we've always used animals' or ' we wouldn't be where we are now without eating animals'. Such tremendously sentimental or comforting sentences are not enough to deflate reason – and if anything it should force us all immediately on our guard. It was after all ideas that 'we wouldn't be able to accomplish half as much without slavery' which kept that morally bankrupt system alive for so long – nobody now agrees that such a sentence justified the immoral acts it seeked to, and the same should be clear about animal use when one can get to a stage with which to compare it with reason. More than 60 billion individuals will suffer and be killed each year in the ignorance of reason on this particular issue – animal welfare is seeking to wrongly justify this. The correct response to respecting the interests of other animals is in giving them the rights they deserve, and not justifying or aiding our use of them at all. That means becoming vegan, not exploiting other animals at all, and not promoting the exploitation of them however 'humane'.

“Man is a rational animal who always loses his temper when he is called upon to act in accordance with the dictates of reason” Oscar Wilde

New Welfarism vs. Abolitionism

If the last section was at all eye opening, the battle here may be somewhat unfamiliar. Whereas welfarism seeks to assist the human use of other animals in continuing ignorance of reason, new welfarism is a whole different animal (pardon the pun). New welfarism is the idea that welfarism is useful in order to progress society further and further, and eventually to a society in which animal's have rights. Welfarism, and perhaps campaigning against single, marginal issues of animal use, are in this approach 'baby steps' if you like. Baby steps toward the just, reasonable attribution of rights to protect the interests that non-human animals hold, but which our use of them ignores. The argument for this approach appeals to the idea of abolishing animal use, one use at a time, and of improving conditions for animals constantly until that use can then be abolished also. It's a compelling idea, and one that 'animal people' and animal organisations large and small have been dedicated to for years. In fact, it's the approach every single large 'animal rights' group claims to support – not only does it make sense to them on the 'baby steps' philosophy, but it also provides them with constant victories with which to garner donations from the public. After all a group saying they have 'educated more people about veganism this month' is going to get far fewer donations than a group who claims to have increased welfare for one set of animals, or campaigned against one marginal, particularly disgusting sounding use. As in the latter they appeal to those who are opposed to animal use as well as those who are not but who support an animal welfare ideology, or even just those who like one type of animal and feel guilted into donating (ie, the animal group might oppose fur farms, and play on the idea that cat and dog fur is being used – then it would reach out even to those who have no issue with animal use, but who have a companion cat or dog).

This, as with animal welfare, seems very reasonable when you hear that side of the issue. But, similarly, it is the appeal to reason which offers up a different story. There are several different factors which make new welfarism problematic. Firstly, as pointed out in the tireless efforts by Professor Gary L. Francione⁶, animal welfare does not increase much for animals, if anything – and works within the law only to aid industries to use animals more efficiently. This is as welfare laws can only be successful with appeal to the law (companies are not forced to make lasting changes without a law), and given that animals other than humans are not seen as persons in the law, they have no moral standing – they are merely property – and a law will not be passed which improves the welfare of a piece of a property at the detriment of the owner.⁷ This is a surprising point if it's new to you, but is never the less spot on. And when we consider animal welfare laws that have been passed, and which seem to benefit property over owners, there's always an explanation as to why it didn't. This is not to say that the lives of farm animals, for instance, cannot be incidentally marginally improved in serving the owners interests (after all it's better an owner feed her property than let it waste away – so the law protects such a seeming interest which the animal has) but it does show that you cannot gain any significant change for animals through an ideology of animal welfare. It can only help those animals be exploited more efficiently in the long term. How else could a legal challenge on behalf of property itself be successful?

If we add to this the fact that, in Francione's own words, “animal welfare measures make the public feel better about animal exploitation and this encourages continued animal use”⁸ then it becomes clear that animal welfare is taking us further away from the abolition of animal use, not closer to it. He goes on to state that “There is no question that this phenomenon occurs. For example, in Europe, veal consumption has increased as the result of regulation about the confinement of veal calves.”⁹More animals are used as a result of welfarism, and this is undoubtedly the case when you see the animal groups literature on animal welfare; they constantly make the case that industry will be 'better off' adopting the welfare regulation, so there is no doubt that the exploitation becomes more efficient in these circumstances. It's an explicitly agreed point.

'Successful' animal welfare campaigns work on the premise of identifying what is a more efficient way to exploit animals, but end up doing nothing significant for the animals themselves (Francione often characterises welfarism as nothing more than 'padding a water board' or organising an orchestra to play on the way to the gas chamber¹⁰), and in fact encourage the continued consumption and use of them. All of which makes welfare methods a dangerously counter-active occurrence for the interests of animals.

But what of single issue campaigning? This is the instance of campaigning not for welfare increases, but for or against one single issue at a time (ie, holding stalls with a plethora of leaflets, each one persuasive about a different animal use, or protesting about a single instance of animal use). Well, undoubtedly this seems better – at least in the sense that it wants to abolish a certain animal use rather than improve it. And it is also likely to be eventually successful, as it generally picks 'low hanging fruit' – ie, that animal use which is already largely frowned upon in society (consider, fur, foie gras, factory farming etc – all, among others, are popular single issues). But what else does reason have to say? Well, firstly, if you're an 'animal group' or an 'animal person' (basically any sort of 'animal interest guardian' in the eyes of the public) then what you say to the public has a certain level of authority. Not in the sense that they will always listen to and do what you say (quite the opposite in cases of groups like PETA, where many see them as oddballs), but because when you say something they consider your words to be the bottom line as far as the animals are concerned. Ie, 'no-one is looking out for animals like you are'. You are after all an 'animal advocate'. This is problematic for single issue campaigns for two reasons.

Firstly, a single issue campaign has to differentiate itself from other animal uses. For instance, if an SIC on fur is to be successful, it must show why it is different to the other animal uses which are in society – else it loses it's only strength as an SIC, which is to abolish this one horrific use (one step at a time, remember). To do this it must make claim for this one use to be unnecessarily cruel, or worse than other animal uses. To be successful or effective, it follows that it must get people thinking this way (if not then there is no way to get people thinking this one use is any different to any other animal use, and there would be no point in campaigning on an SI – it would be ineffective and fruitless, and there would be no reason to continue with such an SIC). But this is obviously counterproductive as it's this idea that extreme cruelty is the issue, and not the 'unnecessary suffering/death' occurring at all, which justifies animal use right now. It is the very notion that some animal use is too horrific and cruel to be justified that necessarily teaches everyone that 'normal' animal use isn't an issue. So to campaign on an SIC, whichever way you phrase your campaign materials, is to ingrain the ideas that hold up animal use in the first place. Not only does this, like welfarism, encourage continued use of animals, but it ridicules the idea that SICs could possibly be a step toward abolishing animal use. They hold up and encourage the exact same values as a position of welfarism does – we need only go back to the first section (Animal Welfare vs Animal Rights) to see why this is flawed as an approach. Such SIC's realistically fight a fraction of 1% of animal use (like the fur industry), while upholding and promoting the ideas that hold up 99% of all animal use. That's obviously not only a poor idea for getting toward the animal rights, it is a prime way of moving even further away from them.

A reasonable counter to this would be to say that we don't need to oppose the idea that animals are products; as if we abolish each use one by one then eventually we will abolish them all. Such a response is to underestimate human opportunism, and how economics actually works. Campaigning on SIs is known as picking the low hanging fruit (as it focuses on those often 'achievable' bans), but the use of animals grows at a rate far greater than others are abolished. To use the terminology of fellow abolitionist advocate Dan Cudahy¹¹“the "low-hanging fruit" that SICs supposedly address grows back on the non-vegan exploitation tree multiple times faster than all the SIC activists can pick it off.”. After all, humans in a capitalism based society are going to be coming up with new business ideas all the time – and a good number of them involve animals. Picking off the 'low hanging' fruit is a never ending task so long as animals are seen as items to be used in the eyes of the law, as humans will forever find new marginal ways to use the products they are permitted to use. Uses will get better, and worse, presumably in infinite cycles, but numbers of animals used won't decrease so long as the majority of animal people advocate SIs or welfarism. They are straining for low hanging fruit, whilst more grows all around them, and by straining for the fruit they necessarily sew the seeds which cause the fruit to grow in the first place. It's futile. We will never reach a place where we can effectively challenge the majority of animal use whilst campaigning on welfarism or SICs at all – they need to be dropped completely.

As Francione points out, the only way to take steps toward abolition is to challenge the property paradigm – challenge the notion that animals are property or items to be used. SICs and welfarism fail to do this, and so he supports abolitionist techniques as the way to do it. Whether it be educating the public that veganism is easily nutritionally sufficient, or is not hard to turn to, or whether it be through a gradual dispelling of the myths that plague veganism or the notion that animals should have a right not to be used as property, the only effective way to campaign for the rights of other animals is to do so in a creative, abolitionist manner.

New welfarism's strength is in accepting that animal use is wrong, but it's failure lies in it's refusal to accept the reason that is available about it's methods. In one correspondence with a new welfarist that I recently had, this individual even claimed their group simply 'believe in a certain philosophy - that some SICs work.' when they had refused to respond to the issues with SICs. Such a belief is no more than what I referred to earlier – faith. Where reason is available, the occurrence of faith to counter it is obviously an unintelligible response, and at worst is an incredibly dangerous one. To the more than 60 billion non-human animals which we wrongly exploit, this 'faith' that new welfarists adhere to is no more helpful than the faith involved in the welfare approach. Non-human animals cannot speak for themselves, and as a result their only voice is through others listening to reason when it comes to their interests – if we ignore this in favour of faith, no matter how well intentioned, we ignore their interests in favour of our own beliefs. This is prejudice at it's most basic level.

“Faith is the great cop-out, the great excuse to evade the need to think and evaluate evidence. Faith is belief in spite of, even perhaps because of, the lack of evidence.^12... (it is) powerful enough to immunize people against all appeals to pity, to forgiveness, to decent human feelings.”¹³ Richard Dawkins

Militant Direct Action vs. Non-Violence

As a third and final issue, I will come down on the side of popular opinion – in thinking that reason cannot justify MDAs (occurrences of Militant Direct Action). These are, within the animal rights movement, instances where advocates use force to either rescue individuals from labs, farms and the like, or cause damage merely for the sake of disturbing the economic security of an institutional exploiter of non-human animals. Such acts are justified as the non-humans they seek to help are indeed innocent, and do not deserve the treatment forced upon them. Similarly, the damage they cause and property they destroy is not sentient – and are simply material items, so hold no value compared to those they help to imprison, or torture.

Whilst, again, such a view seems entirely reasonable (so long as those acts do not harm other individuals – human or non-humans), I would disagree with them on grounds of reason. There is absolutely no doubt that MDAs are judged negatively by the public. If it were a more general SIC which were being engaged in, it would be the equivalent of the fur campaigners throwing blood on those wearing fur – something that even the most fervent defenders of SICs would disagree with. Not on grounds that fur is okay to wear, but because such an act would be deemed aggressive and forceful, and helps create an image of animal rights advocates as individuals who seek to 'force' their views on others, or who commit outrageously aggressive actions to the property of other individuals. Ignoring such public opinion is ignoring the biggest factor in animal use. Use does not continue as certain labs or farms 'do evil' by partaking in the use, but because public opinion en masse condones, and so funds it. Influencing that opinion negatively against the interests of animals – however it is done - is the very worst thing an advocate can do. It is counter productive in the most obvious and harmful sense – and it has no place in a fight for the rights of others.

Secondly, MDA suffers the same faults as an SIC. What can it hope to accomplish? Even in the toned down versions, called open rescues. These are when the advocates openly go into farms, no masks or the like, and destroy the property to remove the animals in the appalling conditions, often leaving the funds to fix the property that was damaged. At best, this shows the press (whom in these cases the advocates are actively very open with) that these conditions were so appalling that they had to rescue the animals. Not that all animal use is appalling – which creates fundamental, unsolvable issues. The only way for a group to get around these negative connotations of open rescues, is by making their message more useful – ie, by using the rescue as a stunt to show the press that all animal use is wrong (hence getting publicity for the issue). But in a population where most use animal products, would it be viewed positively? The occurrence of a few 'animal rights people' destroying property to take away some of the other property which might have been on our dinner plates later this evening? Some might distance themselves enough to perhaps contemplate the issue as desired. But this is assuming the press report it to the masses in the way the advocates intended – the nature of the press make this highly unlikely though, as they need to sensationalise it. In fact, were such a reasonable sounding act to be partaken in, and such a reasonable message to be put forward, it is doubtful that it would be represented like this in the press. If it seemed this way to the journalist, would they not either sensationalise it, or ignore it? Either way, most likely it will be misrepresented in a harmful manner.

At best then, even the most logical of MDAs are simply a way to rescue individual animals – with little reason to hope for influencing the population positively, and a much greater risk that the opposite will occur. Some will view this as a respectable thing to be doing. But won't these animals be replaced? Won't a demand for the same amount of animals be created by the loss of those that have been rescued? Are we not equally obliged to rescue those which we have created demand for? And is this not then an infinite circle, where we would have been better served simply focusing on reducing demand for these individuals to be imprisoned and tortured in the first place? Reason would suggest we would.

It seems to me that in doing MDA you put the lives of a few animals, who are already being exploited, above the lives of others whom you will create demand to be there – either through replacing the individuals rescued, or by negatively influencing public opinion against animal rights. There is no greater obligation to rescue those animals, than to stop the demand for an equal amount of animals. You are essentially picking and choosing the individuals you will save (in doing so, damning separate others) and all the while realistically risking encouraging consumption, and ideals about animals as products with your actions. Whilst I would agree that open rescues are the least harmful of all MDAs, I think it's fair to say that reason sits against MDAs fully. Perhaps one day we will be at a place where open rescues are relevant enough to the public so as to be a useful tool in removing the last shards of the property paradigm, which would be a step toward rightly recognising the interests of animals which are currently ignored. But that time isn't now. And until someone can reasonably point out a counter to this logic, then we must not base our actions in prejudice toward the animals we can or can't see, or in faith that an act will do something good when all the odds are reasonably telling you that it's going to be harmful.

What we can do, instead, is rescue the millions of other animals on death row in shelters and homes, unwanted by the human population. Every time an individual is rescued illegally from a farm, it happens to the risk of other animals everywhere – animal rights is about respecting other animals, but also about challenging the norms and values of a society which exploits other animals. Whilst there exist other animals we can rescue without ingraining the norms and opinions which hold up animal use in the first place, we make a mistake in not doing so. After all, these 'death row' animals are just as worthy of respect as farmed animals – if there exists a third factor which dictates rescuing one of the groups to be dangerous to others (however small the risk of danger), we are morally obliged to choose the least harmful option. While there are still other animals being killed in shelters, there can be no reasonable excuse for MDAs or open rescues. The most heroic act isn't always the most dangerous.

“When valour preys on reason, it eats the sword it fights with” ¹⁴ William Shakespeare

For now, the path to progress is obviously through non-violent vegan education and advocacy – married with an active adoption advocacy for animals in shelters. Not forcing anything on anyone, and not representing the movement as the press would like to see it represented. Not giving anyone the opportunity to entrench the non-human further as the commodity of societal pleasure. And yet helping other animals now whilst ensuring the long term shift toward respect of their interests. With this base camp in campaigning, and an active furtherance of ideas through abolitionist campaigning, reason is on side and therefore progress is afoot. Without such reason, we simply make the same mistakes the movement has been making for years – doomed to repeating the past, and never putting in place the foundations for real, tangible change. We owe it to non-human animals to be opposed to making this mistake.

¹ http://www.unilever.com/brands/nutrition/cookingandeating/articles/good-eggs-for-hellmanns.aspx

² http://www.rspca.org.uk/freedomfood/aboutus

³ http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/food-and-drink/news/shoppers-opt-for-freedom-food-chickens-1944742.html Article figures show that whilst surge in freedom food chicken replaces the drop in 'regular chicken' sales, it also increases sales of chicken overall. This is the reason why companies co-operate with welfare campaigning in the first place (as it is profitable for them to do so), so it should be no surprise that evidence is beginning to prove this is the case.

⁴ http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/lcod.htm

⁵ http://www.curedisease.net/news/050825.shtml

⁶http://www.abolitionistapproach.com/

⁷ Rain Without Thunder: The Ideology of the Animal Rights Movement. Gary L. Francione (1996)

^8&9http://www.abolitionistapproach.com/the-four-problems-of-animal-welfare-in-a-nutshell/

¹⁰http://www.abolitionistapproach.com/

¹²Untitled Lecture by Richard Dawkins at Edinburgh Science Festival (1992)

¹³The Selfish Gene, Richard Dawkins (1976)

¹⁴ Antony and Cleopatra, William Shakespeare

The Fundamental Flaw in Utilitarianism

2011-01-14T04:54:00.000-08:00

Utilitarianism (also: utilism) is the idea that the moral worth of an action is determined solely by its usefulness in maximizing utility or minimizing negative utility (utility can be defined as pleasure, preference satisfaction, knowledge or other things) as summed among all sentient beings.

Utilitarianism seems to do something most moral theories don't - in that it extends morality beyond human beings, and to all those who deserve consideration (ie, all sentient beings). This is advantageous as it theoretically extends morality to a more rational position - at least partly rising above prejudice positions that might assume males, whites or humans lives are of infinitely more importance. However it makes a fundamental mistake in it's formation.

Consider what morality is. There is no evidence for morality, you can not trek vast mountains to find morality. It develops as beings develop, and is supported solely in intuitions. As far as we know, human beings are the only fully capable moral agents, and as such they are the vessels for morality. We can't even know for sure how we developed systems of morality in the first place (though there are good theories), but we can perhaps take a bet that they stay in place because of mass agreement, so as to provide a fair and just world for us all to reap greater benefits from.

It is true that morality probably is there to allow us all a beneficial and just life as a result of it's rules, but if we were being rational with our definitions of 'just' we would extend this morality not just to those weaker humans who couldn't harm us (and so to whom morality is not physically beneficial just to us), but also to those other species whom do not understand morality (and so with whom it is also not physically beneficial for us to). Morality exists for our own benefit, but keeping it rational and functioning fairly involves an extension to sentient animals other than humans. The fact it wasn't originally devised to extended to anyone other than humans means nothing.

Utilitarianism accepts this, on the whole, and then attempts to define morality in more thorough terms. The most classic form is to reduce morality down to a maximisation of pleasure and reduction of pain (though terms like suffering might be substituted, and often given more negative bearing than the positive bearing which happiness has in the equation). There are no real world facts that support this, however it is intuitive to a utilitarian that this is correct as this seems right - after all, we would morally always do less harm than more, and choose to cause more happiness than less. It seems that suffering reduction or pleasure maximisation are fundamentally correct moral intuitions.

But is utilitarianism really a guide for morality, or just an explanation of how our minds work? We undoubtedly think in terms of suffering reduction and pleasure maximisation, and so it obviously seems intuitive, but there are certain examples where utilitarianism is completely counter-intuitive. In terms of gang rape, would we ever think that a large enough number of participants could justify the suffering of the victim? Of course not, and hence why most utilitarians will give higher importance to suffering than pleasure. But if suffering is the sole aspect, then would we not be justified in choosing to painlessly destroy the world rather than letting one person suffer a paper-cut? This is a utilitarian consequence, but is strongly counter-intuitive.

Such examples show most think that morality is more than just suffering reduction. It isn't just these extreme examples though, what about examples of individual liberal freedoms. A utilitarian would judge someone immoral for causing suffering to themselves, or for choosing to cause suffering to themselves rather than die etc. This shows that utilitarianism plays the role of deciding on behalf of others what they do to themselves, which is incredibly illiberal and unintuitive also.

The overall point I'm trying to make is that utilitarianism is flawed on a deep level as it's only support is by examining how humans think (ie, in a formulaic method), but it then uses this as a justification for all moral judgements. This is a flaw, as showing why something occurs does not justify why it should continue morally. Therefore there is no reason we should rationally reject our strong intuitions about life itself being important, and about individuals having the liberty to decide their own fate so long as they don't harm others in the process, simply to fall in line with a theory that says, essentially, that 'we should think this, because we already should think this'. This is logically irrational.

One of the consequences of this is that we shouldn't be rejecting seemingly consistent improvements to morality simply to fall in line with a theoretical notion of utilitarianism. Many argue against the idea of abolishing animal use on grounds that we can, theoretically, use animals for our own benefit without causing great amounts of suffering. But of course, consistent morality would say that due to their sentience, animals other than humans have a right not to be treated as property full stop (like is true for those humans who also do not possess moral capabilities such as infants). As a theoretically consistent, and practically important matter, it is the just thing to do to allow them to live their own lives. And this is at the base of the morality on the matter. We shouldn't scrap this intuitive consistency to fall in line with any theory which is irrational at it's core.

'Things Animal People Say' 1: A 'Vegan World' will not just be this one, but without animal use.

2011-01-02T05:26:00.000-08:00

I thought I would start a new series of blogs on the specific subject of 'Things Animal People Say' (or, the T.A.P.S series, if you will) - primarily as there are a lot of phrases and sentences that get banded around animal rights circles, and they aren't often explained, but instead are used to justify and support all kinds of things. The purpose of the T.A.P.S series will be to just give a basic explanation of these ideas, and what they do and don't mean - both for clarity, and for future reference.

1: A 'Vegan World' will not just be this one, but without animal use.

Meaning

This, and sentences like it, are there to explain a very simple point. Our use and inherent exploitation of other animals is not 'one set of occurrences' on the earth - we cannot fight the occurrence of animal exploitation on it's own. It is held up by a variety of societal and cultural norms and values. To fight effectively against this we must fight these norms and values, and not just the symptoms which manifest in the slavery and death of other animals.

For instance if we only educate people about how disgusting factory farming is, or how healthy veganism is for you, then we aren't changing any of the cultural norms and values we need to in order to fight the occurrence of animal exploitation - we are simply fighting the symptoms. In the same way that a doctor might treat a long standing cold, rather than the disease causing it, this cold will come back - or might never go away at all - if we don't confront the cause itself. To fight animal exploitation you need to fight the cause, not the symptoms. The idea that animals are our property to be used, for instance, is a problematic belief that is rife in society, and educating people about a single issue like factory farming is unlikely to do anything other than make them unhappy and force them to consider only extremely disgusting animal use an issue. After all, you haven't challenged this belief that underpins the animal exploitation in the first place. It's giving them tissues to deal with the cold, rather than lessening the cold, or in any way removing it's more serious cause.

Practical implications

The implications this has for us have already been touched on.

a) attacking the symptoms that we see (ie, the worst exploitation, etc) won't do anything to reduce the exploitation itself, or move us any closer to a vegan world. The symptoms you attack when you campaign against factory farming, (or other marginal/extreme uses like foie gras or the fur industry) are really just human interests - ie, you are trying to stop people being disgusted by animal use, as you aren't showing them animal use is a problem, but rather just that this animal use (which is widely considered to be the worst) is problematic. So one implication of this phrase, is that we shouldn't either be campaigning for welfare reform or for single issues at a time - both attack symptoms, and pretend that the world is fine except for animal exploitation. Hence both view a better world as this one, but without the visible symptoms. Both ignore that there are underlying causes which require attention to rid the world of symptomatic animal exploitation

b) being for animal rights, and for the end of animal exploitation cannot sit side by side with prejudice of any kind. To fight animal exploitation, one of the most fundamentally important norms we must challenge is the idea that it is okay to value your own personal preferences and tastes over the well being of others. This means we must be vegans, and oppose animal exploitation where it sits, but it also means we must not be racist, sexist, homophobic, or indulge in or promote any norm which will uphold these or other prejudice ideas.

Simply put, all prejudices are related. If we live in a world which holds the idea that reason itself isn't important, but instead says that we should be allowed to use faith and prejudice to overcome reason when it comes to our dealings with others, then we promote one of the most problematic cultural norms there is. Sure, people have a right to search for personal meaning in faith and in spirituality - but we shouldn't be glorifying such a pursuit as a cultural value. Doing so causes a disrespect for reason, and so inherently for equality.

c) following on, it seems fairly clear that a tenant of good, balanced advocacy would be the condemnation of both mild exploitation and non-causation. So not only refusing to partake in animal exploitation, or racial prejudice, but also in refusing to play the language games that devalue homosexuals (using the term 'gay' as an insult for example), or that promote the idea that animals are our 'lessers' (as explained in detail by the work of Joan Dunayer - mild phrases like 'he is acting like an animal' when another human behaves poorly, seek to continue our exploitation of other animals even in our cultural sayings).

A less obvious, but just as important, aspect of this is to challenge the promotion of non-causation where it occurs. Things like astrology, homoeopathy, and organised religion inherently ask us to leave reason at the door and embrace the ideas instead of non-causation. Of course it is fine to imagine a vegan, peace advocate who is religious, and does no harm. But it's also easy to imagine an elderly racist who never speaks her views, and so does no harm. It doesn't change the fact that whether we like it or not, the promotion of this idea that non-causation is an okay thing to believe in causes huge cultural problems which inherently uphold prejudice. After all, prejudice itself is "an unfavorable opinion or feeling formed...without knowledge, thought, or reason.". Ideas which promote non-causation inherently teach that reason isn't always important. While this norm is still in place, how are we meant to force people to be consistent with their own reasoning? While non-causation is tolerated, there will always be an excuse. We lose nothing if we drop our self-involved promotion of non-causation, we risk losing all that we should be holding dear if we keep it.

False implications

While it is important to remember that this phrase is correct - stepping toward a vegan world will involve changes in basic cultural norms, and not just the end of animal exploitation - people do often misconstrue it's meaning also. It doesn't mean that to begin change, we can't make compromises. We obviously shouldn't compromise by being 'a bit racist' or 'a bit speciesist' so as society itself becomes 'a bit less racist/speciesist' gradually. This sort of compromise doesn't work as you can't challenge norms from a place of agreement with them - your position isn't strong enough for others to take you seriously. But we can identify the key areas we might want to change and focus on them.

There is no excuse for promoting welfare reform or single issues, or for not challenging homophobia or non-causation if you get the chance. However the best way to go about changing the world is not to stand on a soap box in the nearest park reading out all the things you want people to change. I did a blog called the game changer, where I identified that the main cause we could all agree, in my opinion, would be that of putting sentience back in it's place. Rather than spending one hour a day doing AR advocacy, a second doing human rights, a third doing anti-homophobia, a fourth speaking out against organised religion etc - we would be better served always focusing on the basic cultural norms and values which hold all these things up. My suggestion then was that by educating others about the importance of sentience, we do a great service to this - and I still think this is the case. And the same is true with all vegan education - so long as we focus on the reason-based, ethical aspect of veganism, we can easily fight the norms which hold up prejudice against other humans and non-humans alike.

People do misconstrue this term to mean that we should therefore be advocates for veganism, but also members of amnesty international, on anti-climate committees etc, but this doesn't make sense. If there are cultural values we need to change, then approaching these values themselves doesn't require we fight against every single piece of injustice we see, so much as keeping a balanced attack against the foundations of each injustice. Indeed as showed earlier, fighting the symptoms of every single injustice is largely pointless and ineffective whilst the societal foundations for the injustice go largely unattended.

Interestingly enough, promoting veganism and the ethics and reasoning behind it, does help in a rather simple manner. You can't say this of climate campaigns, or human rights advocacy, but inherent in good vegan education is a promotion of reason and sentience, which is a good balanced fight against all forms of injustice.

Should we be anthropocentric for the good of other animals?

2010-12-22T07:46:00.000-08:00

Published in the Critical Society Journal, Winter Edition.

Something to think about

2010-12-16T06:15:00.001-08:00

It's coming to that time of year when almost everyone has a bit of time off - at least some time to relax and do nothing for a while. I'd like to ask you to use a small amount of that time to think about something you may have not had time to consider during the rest of your year.

6 billion individual human beings will, collectively, have killed and eaten somewhere in the region of 50-60 billion land animals this year. This figure rises much further when you consider the countless billions of sea dwelling animals also killed for the same purposes. And when you factor in animals tortured and killed for clothing, as subjects in our experiments, and as methods of entertainment and the like, it is a conservative approximation that 6 billion human beings have this year killed and otherwise maimed 100 billion other animals.

Do not just think about this enormous figure, (100 billion) but also think about the fact that most of the world does not consume a significant amount of animal products. So we, individually, have more direct responsibility than even the basic maths would suggest. (ie, 100 billion divided by 6 billion - which suggests we each are responsible for the deaths of 16 animals each year, this figure is realistically above 50)

And thirdly, think about the fact that every use of animals we currently have is entirely trivial and unnecessary. We do not need to use other animals for clothing (we have much more effective and efficient alternatives), we do not need to use them for food (in fact we can get every single nutrient we need from healthier sources) - we simply do not need to use them.

It is entirely unnecessary. And it is 100 billion conscious, sentient, living individuals. 100 billion individuals who all had mothers, all struggled to live their own lives for their own purposes, and all we're killed entirely unnecessarily. They were killed for us, and people like us.

And if you do think about this, find it abhorrent, but then think 'but I like the taste' - just think about what you are saying. Would a rapist be let out of court if he claimed 'I like sex'? The argument is the same, and it doesn't make sense. Not to those 100 billion others, who would have begged you to restrict your tastes this year, anyway.

Animals other than humans live in different bodies, and with different brains to us - but their lives mean as much to them as ours do to us. They experience their lives, and fare better or worse for how they are treated. And just as humans deserve moral respect, and the guarantee that we won't kill them for unnecessary reasons - so do other sentient individuals. Sentience, and not the characteristic of being human, is the marker of moral respect.

100,000,000,000. Can you justify contributing to this any more?

Please see Vegan:UK for further information and advice on how you can become vegan today.

Divisive?

2010-12-07T10:34:00.000-08:00

Now, hold onto anything you might drop in event of a shock. I don't want to be blamed for causing a mess with my next sentence (you have been warned). On numerous occasions, by a fair few people, I have been accused of being...divisive. That's right. Okay, reel in your jaw.

Seriously, I'm not the first to be accused of it, and I'm sure I won't be the last. It often happens when I talk to other animal advocates, and I commit the cardinal sin of criticising a campaign or a group which is supposed to advocate for the interests of other animals. Apparently, it is the case that I am being divisive as we "are all animal people and should stick together" or "are all making a difference" or "are infighting when we could be out helping animals". That sounds very reasonable. I would like to use this blog, though, to briefly dissect this idea. You know, just in case it isn't correct.

A device for storage whilst cooking, accuses a vessel whose primary purpose is boiling water, of being the unimaginable absence of colour.*

What is meant by divisive? As far as I can see if divisiveness alone is seen as a problem, then it seems to me that every single advocate is guilty of it. After all, almost everyone is happy consuming their animal products, and wearing their leather jackets, yet advocates are divisive in trying to ruin this...so it seems hyporcitical to use the term divisive as a criticism; it should be blatantly obvious to ANYONE who has a independant thought in their head, that 'divisiveness' can be a hugely positive thing.

Of course there is nothing wrong with advocates being divisive in this manner, as in this case:

Division of one group is being done for the purpose of solidarity with a much wider one.

Though I'm almost positive it happens, an advocate who starts advocating for the end of animal use should not be criticised for being divisive. It is the case that we act divisively by doing so, however we do so in exactly the same way Martin Luther King Jr was divisive, or the same way the suffragettes were before that. Ie, we act divisive to one small, privileged group in such a way as to create a more respectful environment for a much wider group. In the same way that the movement for equality between humans occurred to the slight detriment of the privileged groups who gained financial reward from such inequality, the movement for equal respect of sentience will occur to the immediate detriment of those who exploit other animals (though arguably to the environmental and health benefits in the long run). Acting divisive to advocate for this movement is an act of dividing yourself from exploitation, and aligning yourself in solidarity with all sentient individuals. It is therefore unfair to label it divisive (as a criticism at least), as the person is conjoining with many more than she is creating division with.

And my point is?

Well, if advocates act divisively only to the ends of much greater solidarity in a wider encompassing picture, then abolitionists (of which I am one) are doing the same thing when they criticise animal groups or campaigns. The advocate is divisive among humans in saying 'we need to be doing what is in everyone's interests' and the abolitionist is divisive among advocates in saying 'we need to be doing what is in everyone's interests'. Regardless of whether we are right in our criticism, it is the case that we are being divisive only so far as we are reaching for solidarity with a larger wider, all encompassing group.

Placing the claim of 'divisiveness' into context

As a final thought, I'd just like to look at why people throw around this term. Most advocates who use it do so as abolitionists (and other advocates who put forth criticisms) threaten their identity in some way. Advocates come in two sets (I apologise for the huge generalisation...bare with me). In the first are those who have sacrificed something in becoming an advocate, the second are those who simply built it into their lives where it fitted.

The first group are understandably drawn to other advocates and like minded individuals, campaigns, groups etc...after all these are often people who have sacrificed certain foods, perhaps clothes, maybe even pleasurable situations. And of course they look at 'omnivores', who may have been close friends before, in a completely different way. There is nothing wrong with this - like a football fan might be drawn to others who like football, or even the same team, an advocate will be drawn to others who share their concerns. It should be no surprise then that people in this group can see criticisms of anything which they now identify with as 'divisive' and act hostile toward it - after all they have already felt some sort of loss or marginalisation. They are weary this no idea will cause them more.

The second group haven't changed much at all. They might not even be vegan. So it also shouldn't much of a surprise that this group will also label criticisms of their favoured ideas as 'divisive' - after all they didn't want to do anything to compromise their position at all in the first place, they obviously aren't going to react well to someone basically bringing this up.

What I would point out, as a concluding point, is that both groups are not thinking clearly and honestly about those that matter. Both groups put their own personal preferences (*) above the vital interests of other animals. If my criticisms are correct (criticisms I've written about at length in this very blog) then advocates are harming other animals in a hugely devastating way, and are doing so because they want to be cuddly with other advocates. I'm not being divisive by pointing that out either. No conversation should start or end with 'you're being divisive', not when others' lives are at stake. And until someone comes up with a reason why the criticisms that I, and various others having been bringing up for ages aren't true, then we shouldn't be using this word at all. We should know better.

* In case you were struggling 'the pot calling the kettle black'. If you're still struggling, it's a saying, google it.

(*) and insignificant ones at that - I've not heard of any abolitionist losing friends because they are one. Quite the opposite, people tend to respect those who are consistent and honest. As long as you're friendly with it.

A World Without Single Issue Campaigns?

2010-11-23T10:45:00.000-08:00

When weighing up whether single issue campaigns are useful or not, the normal response is to pit today's world of welfarism and single issue campaigns against a world in which these are fully replaced with holistic, creative vegan education. But I'd like to propose a new way of looking at the issue - imagine not a world where vegan education replaces single issue, but a world in which single issues simply disappear. This is not to say advocates wouldn't advocate veganism if single issues were cast out (for the many problems with single issue campaigns please see various of my previous posts, but most recently 'Putting Theory Into Practice') but as a simple, pragmatic point, would we be any worse off without SICs?

Well, first off, what role do SICs play in society?

Welfare Regulation

Perhaps most important is the role in welfare regulation. Well, as also explained in previous blogs, welfare reform acts counter to actual animal welfare - in that it seeks to provide 'some', usually insignificant 'change' on behalf of 'some' animals, but does so at the expense of encouraging consumption of them.

They also work by promoting the interests of human property (ie, non-human animals) and are often (if not always) only successful by effectively convincing industry that they would be economically better off adopting this change. In essence 'welfare regulation' succeeds only in the areas of aiding the economic exploitation of other animals - the campaigns which don't make the economic case well tend to fail, and hence the only changes made are those which improve the efficiency for businesses.

But, of course, given the constant focus of industry on improving upon their profits anyway, it is likely that such 'improvements' would be made without welfare regulation. In fact, some might go so far as to say that 'animal welfare' campaigning actually slows down the process; as industry does not want to make welfare changes when it will not receive the maximum benefit. Ie, an industry might often wait until an animal welfare group is ready to promote the cruelty/strike deals in order to make the change, as then it actively succeeds in appeasing concerns about cruelty that individual consumers might have. The short and long term economic and reputational gains that can be made through this wait often outweigh the smaller gains that would be made by switching immediately. To sum up; the fact that welfare regulation campaigning exists often slows the industries adherance to new policies for economic reasons.

So then it would appear that most, if not all, successful welfare regulation would occur in a world without these campaigns. And it is very feasible that such regulation would also progress faster withoiut such SICs pushing.

'Hooking' People into Animal Rights

The second role SICs are said to play is in 'hooking' people into AR. Much as it sounds, this is simply the method by which people get into AR, or become vegans after a progression which started with an SIC. Of course, I've written before about how vegan education does this much, much better. However, would we be worse off in a world where this wasn't replaced?

Well we first need to discover how many people go further into AR, and again, there are no exact figures for such. However, if you weigh up all the people you know who have heard/been in favour of a SIC (almost without exception, everyone...think fur, foie gras, factory farming, seal clubbing etc) and then you consider how many of these people are vegan (I think we are looking at a tiny >1-3% of the population here) then it's obvious that this isn't much of a factor to consider. Ie, most people are not the types to be hooked in with single issues (at least not those SICs that are not also vegan education).

But are we not better with this 1-3% than without? The question is loaded. First of all, most of us who are vegan didn't choose to be so as a result of SICs. I went vegan after research into AR philosophy, others go vegan because of podcasts and websites, others have vegan friends...and then also consider the effect of longstanding groups who do not do SICs but constantly promote veganism. I have always argued groups like The Vegan Society, for example, do much for veganism than all the SICs put together.

But let's pretend a generous 1% of people do go vegan/get into AR through SICs. Would we lose them in a world without? Undoubtedly you're going to lose someone, somewhere, and this is a problem that needs to be accounted for against the positives. There is bound to be a number of people who would have gone vegan because of SICs, who do not do so.

The Advantages of Dropping SICs

Very much first and foremost, SICs take away from vegan education. If we're honest, there are a small amount of people who would only go vegan because of SICs, but do SICs do more damage than that tiny amount of 'hooked' vegans would do good?

Well, consider the point I made earlier about SICs - almost everyone has been in agreement with some SIC or another down the years. Why is that? Simply put SICs provide appeasement for guilt that would otherwise linger. SICs soothe people that our concerns regarding cruelty are correct, but then appease it short of what these concerns are actually at. So whilst there are only, say, 1% of persons who are vegan, there are at least 90% who have felt some sort of concern and yet feel comfortable enough with that concern to now continue using and consuming the other animals in a normal capacity. They feel rightly disgusted with factory farms, or caged eggs, or fur, or foie gras, or dolphin slaughter, but feel that doing something more is a little extreme given that they already are disgusted with the one thing they see as the worst. People like middle ground, and SICs provide an immoral middle ground that we don't need.

Simply put, by splitting everything into SICs we (the 'animal people') give the public this moral choice of what to feel disgusted by. And in doing so, of course, it is the 'marginal' animal uses like fur, battery hens and foie gras where people choose to put this limit of moral intolerance. A limit that 99% of our animal uses never even come close to breaching. Of course they don't, we are the ones speaking for the animals, and we've given them this middle ground.*

* It is also no excuse to say we 'also do vegan education', and so to pretend we have also said 'veganism is best'. As shown above SICs take away from vegan education. Why on earth would anyone but the most passionate 'animal people' listen to vegan education, when they have already seen campaigns which have given them the choice of a middle ground? Such an excuse is not grasping the issues with SICs, and is often simply a method of appeasing the vegans whilst also grabbing donations for the SICs.

Vegan Education Already Exists

Vegan education does already exist. There are far, far fewer groups of us doing solely vegan/abolitionist AR education, but there is no doubt at all (for the reasons stated above) that the existence of SICs desperately limits the effects our vegan education can have. Given the tiny, tiny amount of people that SICs actually get towards veganism, and the huge amount of people that they push further away (and continue to do this to every day), then isn't it obvious that a world without SICs would be a world where vegan education has more effect? Okay, yes, I know I asked you to imagine a world with no replacements of vegan education. But vegan education still already exists, and would still exist.

That small proportion of us who do it would begin reaching many more people - and begin properly snowballing. Even in the immediate present, wouldn't we be better off? As SICs disappeared, people would only have one place to turn with their concern - no more 'humane' option with which to ignore other animals, or sensationalised 'marginal' animal uses with which to attract concern away from the rest. With no humans actively providing an immoral middle ground, people would have to listen to the interests of other animals.

What about if, as is sensible to imagine, advocates didn't just drop SICs, but also turned to promoting veganism? Abandoning these welfare campaigns, and 'traditional' SICs against marginal uses like fur, and focusing 100% on vegan education? We'd not only stop pulling people away from veganism, we'd actively push them towards it.

So what would a world without Single Issue Campaigns be like? Well imagine veganism is a snowball, currently rolling down a very slight, snowy hill (like all social campaigns, they gather momentum and size). At the moment there are spades and spades of single issue campaigns digging the snow from in front of it. The snowball isn't getting any bigger - and to the naked eye it has stopped rolling. Stop those spades shoveling, and you remove the obstacle to a bigger snowball (if someone helps push it). Use those spades to lever it forwards...you see where I'm going.

A world without single issue campaigns is a positive net gain for veganism, and so for a growing movement. But the best thing is not just removing them for the good of current education, but replacing them with more vegan education.

Putting Theory Into Practice.

2010-11-02T11:03:00.000-07:00

With veganism, the truth is that the theory is sound, and the majority of people's objections are of a practical nature – 'what will I eat?!' 'what will we do with the animals?!' etc etc – I mean these practical objections are based on misinformation about veganism, but never the less, they are objections on a practical level. My discussion about abolitionism recently have made me realise a similar thing – most people don't like the idea of reducing animal advocacy to abolitionist and vegan education because of practical concerns. Almost everyone admits that veganism is a good thing to be promoting, and that the abolition of animal exploitation would be a positive step. In my past blogs I've shown why I, along with an increasing number of advocates around the world, think that campaigning for welfare reform/regulation, or via single issue campaigns (SICs) are a bad idea – and I think this is compelling for all all but the most indoctrinated large animal group employees. The problem is people see practical issues with relying on just vegan education – with the help of some abolitionist vegan education materials we have been working on recently, I hope to approach some of these objections.

1) We need SICs to relate to people/'hook' them in.

This proposition is one which I've heard countless times, and from countless sources – but of course there are two things it ignores – firstly that although SICs 'hook' people, they do so as they provide people with an idea for action which they already agree with, or which costs them so little as to be ineffective. For example, SICs which focus on asking people to stop buying fur have been successful to some degree (in garnering agreement, at least) as they ask people not to buy something which they already probably don't buy, as well as giving them the relation that these animals are cute and fluffy etc. There's no reason to suppose the fur campaign has stopped avid fur consumers from being so, and there's no reason to suggest any but the most passionate of already 'animal-interested' people have been hooked to interest in animal rights through such a method.

What you can do though, with vegan education, is use SICs to relate to people, but then draw it back to the actual moral issue of animal use being problematic. You can use these ideas about moral animal issues that people already agree with/are disgusted by, and link it back to why it is so appalling. In doing so you provide the 'hook' that an SIC would provide to 'animal-interested' people, as well as not appeasing other people in thinking that fur is somehow worse than other uses of animals – whether we like it or not a leaflet that is trying to stop the use/sale of fur is going to do this to a large amount of people, and in doing so will legitimise these other uses.

You can see my point in the vegan education material which we have produced on fur:

One thing to be careful of when creating this sort of SI material (notice the lack of a C – it talks of a SI, but does not aim to just defeat the fur industry so there is no Campaign aspect), is not falling into the trap of writing an entire leaflet about one issue, and then providing a single liner 'you can also go vegan' or 'fur isn't the only bad use' at the end. While this defends you on a personal level, ie, you can say 'it's not an SIC' you still will suffer the same issues an SIC does as you haven't provided any support for why anything but this one use is wrong, so you've made it seem like this one use is worse. People are intelligent (on the whole) and will respond to logic, not to commands – and all such an approach does is provide logic as to why one use is wrong, yet provide command for going vegan. People will not (and indeed should not) simply follow commands.

2) Not everyone will go vegan.

You don't need an example leaflet to see that this argument is poor, we can just use simple reason. Not everyone will go vegan tomorrow, of course they won't, but no-one will ever go vegan if they don't know about it. Considering welfare regulation does little, if anything at all, for animals, and SICs similarly have little effect WHILST teaching people that the majority of animal uses are absolutely fine, then regardless of whether vegan education is immediately effective, it is still a better option for building a realisation and a movement for veganism – look back in history, morality always snowballs once the logic of the issue becomes clear (when people are economically comfortable enough to put the moral rule in place). Promoting welfarism and SICs is stopping this snowball from being formed – as it is teaching people they don't have to be a part of it, they can ignore it where it stands.

Besides it is interesting that these reforms which do little, perhaps nothing, for the actual animals also do not have everyone's support. If we get 1000 people to agree to welfare reform, it's doubtful we've done anything but massage our egos. If we get just one person to go vegan...well that's a hell of a lot of demand reduced over a year, let alone a lifetime. The logic here is as clear and as simple as it could be.

3) The argument is not relevant to the public/there are no materials available

Of course the abolitionist movement is just coming together – there aren't a good deal of materials available, but this number is now growing at an exciting speed. Links of good abolitionist materials are available at the bottom of this blog.

The argument for the abolitionist approach being too academic/not relevant to the public is a last line of defence. And it's wrong. I submit right now that the initial abolitionist materials produced were, of course, about the theory itself. Providing the basic arguments, and the reasoning in a plain manner. Well, what did you expect? Every movement has to start somewhere. However we're now producing more and more resources all the time, and we aren't the only ones. From ideas simply explaining animal rights or veganism, or the problem of property, to the idea (above) of using publicised single issues in the right way, or jumping on the most accepted form of animal ethics as a pedestal (humane/free range as in the picture below):

The real issue isn't that we can't do it, it's that big groups haven't done it for us, in their colourful, glossy manner. Well given that they release leaflets which will attract them more donations, in order to produce more leaflets (at some point presumably hoping to do some sort of actual advocacy with a bit of spare cash...) then I would suggest this isn't a good idea anyway. We're not here to support a group, and unfortunately that is what animal organisations are about nowadays. We need to understand that large animal orgs both can't and won't produce these materials – and we also need to understand that promoting materials on their behalf is not a good idea in their first place. There are abolitionist materials available now – all you need to do is download them. Then it's just a case of printing a few off at home/a local printers or via an online deal (shop around, you can get good deals here). Even if you can only afford black and white – an effective b&w is better than an SIC of welfarist glossy card.

A list of abolitionist/vegan education material sources is as follows:

GrampianARA / VeganUK

(If you are in need of abolitionist materials with your group logos/contacts on, please contact us and we will happily input this onto our materials – others below may also help like this.)

Animal Emancipation

Boston Vegan Association

Abolitionist Approach

Peaceful Prairie

http://www.veganpoet.com/Becoming-Vegan-pamphlet.pdf

http://veganfreaks.net/animalemancipation.pdf

CCTV in Slaughterhouses?

2010-10-27T10:48:00.000-07:00

The name of this blog is 'Animal Rights UK', and it's primary purpose is in examining the practical application of animal rights advocacy.

Recently the largest 'Animal Rights' group in the 'UK' has taken to a controversial campaign in the name of practical animal rights advocacy.

Sometimes these blogs pick themselves.

So what's the issue? For those who don't know, Animal Aid (the self proclaimed 'UK's largest animal rights group') have started a campaign to get slaughterhouses to install CCTV in an effort to stop the worst abuses that they found in recent investigations. The premise is fairly simple. Putting CCTV in slaughterhouses will stop (or so the theory goes) some behaviour which is unnecessarily cruel. For most animal advocates, alarm bells have already started ringing.

Why? Over the last few years most people have become aware of the problems with what is called 'welfare regulation'. The issue being that if you campaign to raise the welfare standards of animals, not only can you do nothing significant for them (as they are property in the eyes of the law, and hence can only receive 'improvements' that are profitable for industry to make), but you end up condoning the use of the animal per se. Those who stand up for animal rights, are recognised as societies claim makers on behalf of the animals – so if you stand up and say what is required is a slightly larger amount of space, then people will note that it is treatment that needs improving, and that the question of use is not the issue. As a result their guilt and concern is displaced upon the perceived improvement of the use (or most of the time, simply with the idea that use 'could' be improved, such is the odd way people justify things). In result, at best the animals involved receive an insignificant amount of improvement to their lives(and even this happens rarely), but have their reputation as 'property' cemented, along with every other animal in the world.

The CCTV campaign is flawed for this reason. It tells consumers that extremely bad things happen to animals in the food industry, and offers them the reassurance that doing what is right is in not supporting that one thing. When the truth is these extremely bad things are no worse than the rest of the events that happen in the industry. The only reason one has to be disgusted with animal cruelty (whether it be in a slaughterhouse, or in the street) is if that cruelty is unnecessary. News flash to Animal Aid – all animal use is unnecessary! The extra kicks a cow receives during the process of slaughter to satisfy some abattoir worker is no more unnecessary, and in fact causes a great deal less misery than the years of exploitation and abuse that occurs to satisfy the desires of your every day omnivore.

The surprise is that it's taken UK advocates this long to realise Animal Aid's ideas are flawed – for years they along with the RSPCA, VIVA! etc, have been promoting welfare regulation campaigns and single issue campaigns that do exactly the same thing. Putting CCTV in slaughterhouses is no worse than putting stamps of approval on horrendously raised 'freedom food' animals, or singling out fur as an unnecessary extravagance and teaching people that only this sort of extreme suffering is at all problematic. If anything this CCTV focused campaign has done something marvellous in that it sounds so horrendous that it might just have woken an entire nation of jaded animal advocates into action.

People have often doubted that welfare regulations and single issue campaigns were useless. The reasons they gave? Some say there wasn't enough evidence – well now sales show welfare raised meat rises sale of meat wholesale, and even national newspapers have noticed that fur is coming back into fashion – and has become acceptable again (yet more proof that focuses on single issues helps only in the short term). Others noted these problems with VIVA! and the RSPCA, but clung to Animal Aid like a friend of the past. They did so under the notion that they never encouraged anyone to use animal products (at least not outwardly). And now there can be no doubt left – actively encouraging the buying of meat from slaughterhouses that use CCTV is an outward signal of something that has always been inherent within most of Animal Aid's work. The recognition of it now allows us to see this.

Most shocking of all, in preparation for all these attacks that they knew were coming Animal Aid provided a disclaimer which they somehow think gets them off the hook. After tirades against these extreme abuses, and pleading for people to buy meat from supermarkets that engage their CCTV rules, they state in one solemn proposition at the bottom 'Of course, as an individual you can choose not to eat meat or other animal produce at all.' When I spoke with Andrew Tyler at Animal Aid (a good few months ago now) I asked about his campaigns, as a concerned ex-supporter – and I asked, in what seemed like a million different ways, 'don't you think you're just encouraging people to eat normal animal products when you propose campaigns entirely against unnecessary suffering, but which only consists of extreme or marginal cases?' His response was 'we promote veganism'. I wondered at the time whether Andrew Tyler understood the claim made against him. I wondered whether he understood that out of all their campaigns, the one's that are popular are not about veganism (the little they do on it, that isn't surprising) – the one's they spend time on, and which the media help publicise are the welfare and single issue campaigns. Most do not know every word of an animal aid press release, and most will go with the flow of the frenzy that a campaign creates. But Mr Tyler was making out that by putting one sentence at the bottom, or by inherently just being an Animal Rights group that occasionally promoted veganism, then Animal Aid would not fall foul of this criticism.

I wondered whether he really understood the problem, or whether he was avoiding it and simply providing a token answer which shows Animal Aid supports veganism and therefore provides him a theoretical 'get out clause'. Well it's becoming blindingly obvious, with this recent campaign, that the latter is the truth. I know a LOT of people, a LOT of omnivores who have heard of this campaign, it has created a LOT of publicity. Yet, I don't see anywhere in this publicity anything about veganism. I also see nothing in the responses of omnivores about veganism, they all think what Animal Aid has been saying, ie, that CCTV would improve the way animals are treated and that it's a good idea (after all Animal Aid, like the RSPCA want what's best for the animals in the eyes of the public). In no way has veganism been put across to the public in this whole media frenzied campaign, and one would have to look at the material for a fairly long time to find the messages which relate to veganism with their ambiguous suggestions. And yet, strangely, the director of the group (who let's not forget is very experienced in campaigning) seems to think that one sentence occasionally dotted around is somehow promoting veganism.

What that sentence is there for is to allow him to garner new support and donations from omnivores, whilst providing a token message that will please the vegans (or those vegans stupid enough to not read the actual news stories, or talk to the public). Tyler and Animal Aid know full well what they are doing, and they've been doing it for years. The focus is on pleasing as many people as possible, not helping the animals.

Let's not allow this opportunity to go to waste. We've known the arguments against welfare and single issue campaigns for a while now, let's use the disgust at the latest failure of our most publicised 'allies' to affect real change for animals. Get out there and do vegan education, put forward the ideas that promote animal use as unnecessary full stop, and as wrong period. You will be amazed at people's responses when you're actually honest with them and treat them like intelligent adults. The fur campaigns have shown that all single issue campaigns do is send niche animal use in cycles of trends and fads, and the failure of welfare regulation is there for all to see. We need to start campaigning on veganism and abolition, and WE NEED TO DO IT NOW! Seize the opportunity, and reposition animal advocacy back in the interests of animals.

Details of existing vegan advocacy literature can be found at VeganUK.net

The 'Game-Changer'?

2010-10-19T10:15:00.000-07:00

Human rights advocates often ignore the issue of animal rights, and vice versa. And I sympathise with both. After all, so many of each are exploited and abused across the world, it must seem an impossibly daunting task. So to be asked to join an even more daunting one, where the figures then work even more against your favour...well you wouldn't would you? Add to this the fact that we each have a limited time with which to work within our lives, and the struggles often become necessarily separated. And it isn't just the two explicitly named causes of human and animal rights, environmental advocacy and the like also fits in here.

Similarly, a lot of these people concerned about good causes (the environment, poverty, social injustice, animal rights...etc) feel helpless and often like they are fighting an endless battle. But what if there was one thing at the heart of all of these moral problems which had gone unnoticed...what if we uncovered a 'game-changer'? Something which affected everyone. Let me start by explaining the basic ideas which need to be grasped.

For hundreds of years moral philosophers have been examining the effect that animal exploitation has on human interaction – and so in essence, exploring the issues that connect those sentient individuals (human or non-human) who we may deem to have 'inherent value'. The basis of the idea here could be argued back to Immanuel Kant. He, although strongly against the idea of non-human animals having inherent value, believed that the abuse of animals would negatively affect the interaction between humans also. To explain such an idea in modern terms: if one spends all his time killing, and becoming numb to killing sentient, obviously conscious and experiencing individuals in a slaughterhouse, he is not going to be that affected by sentience when it appears in humans. And hence in situations when he thinks he will gain and can get away with it, that individual is much more likely to cause harm to other humans also. It's a strongly intuitive idea. After all, our capacity for morality has evolved as we have, and has always been related to sentience. The guilt in harming a cat, mouse or human, for example, is guilt that doesn't exist in anything near the same way in kicking a flower or a rock – as the reactions of sentience are the thing that pulls it. And this is true from our early childhood.

But this moral ability is numbed somewhat during our socialisation. Since the eras in which we lived in baron lands, and had to kill to eat in order to survive, we have continued this process of necessarily numbing our young to the pull of sentience – in order to allow them to eat and use animals in ways which harm them. We necessarily either teach children that animals are not harmed (and dent their ability to comprehend the world) or that this harm is not important, as our human interests matter more. The second is by far the most widespread as parents do not like to lie to their children, and those who do not learn this expressly from their parents tend to pick it up at some point during their life. As a result, we have a society full of people who recognise that sentience itself isn't important, and instead follow social rules only based on species, occasionally extending these to domestic animals through similar societal rules.

It's difficult to study a phenomena such as morality, but we do know it evolves with social intelligence, and is related to empathy, and so as such is wholly based in the recognition of 'felt' harm – sentience. So the fact that we now have a society almost full of people who through either being taught in primary socialisation, or learning to accept later in in life, that sentience isn't as important as following social rules, means we have negated our moral capabilities in pursuit of continuing animal use.

How does this affect all moral and ethical thinking? Well let me get to the point. Since we have been removed from the large moral pull that sentience naturally provides us, we've created harm in a number of obviously harmful ways to all concerned. Increased inter-human violence, ignorance of poverty stricken nations, perhaps even a lack of willingness to do anything about global warming as it doesn't directly relate to that person and their life – as well as of course over 60 billion non-human animals being decimated for our uses every year. You'll note that people also do follow and do something about these events when social rules ask them to do – when councils ask them to recycle, when comic relief makes it socially necessary to donate, when TV chefs make it almost obligatory to be concerned about factory farms etc. What we have done is removed sentience from it's place of primary importance within people's heads, and therefore had to create a society of almost mindless rule followers to make it an even vaguely moral place to live – creating occasional rules which spark people's moral conscience, but never igniting that spark through allowing them to see the importance of sentience.

What's more, the campaigns and causes we follow to do something about these terrible occurrences often increase the problem. It's a lack of sentience-respect essentially, and a substitution of social rules in it's place which has caused such massive problems – and yet most working against or to limit the problem simply suggest further incremental social rules as the solution. Those working for human rights talk of just that – 'humans' 'compassion' etc; those on side of anti-poverty use emotion inducing images, without ever connecting the spark of conscience it creates back to the problem; animal advocates talk of 'humane use' or 'extreme suffering' rather than mentioning the entire fact that we shouldn't harm sentient individuals at all; and of course environmental campaigners desperately try to bring the issue back to it being in all of our interests – but perhaps aren't aware that interests mean nothing in societies where sentience has lost it's pull and social rules provide the only guidance.

The 'game-changer' is putting sentience back in it's place.

What does it involve? We need to change the focus of our concern, and aim it back at the problem instead of the symptoms. It's obvious when we think about it, that each cause of major human, animal and environmental concern can be traced back to this taught ignorance of sentience, and so a wholesale ignorance of others' interests. As a long term plan, the solution is simple, unbelievably simply, and unbelievably effective. It's to slightly reposition our lifestyles, and hence the next generation's lifestyles in a place where sentience is granted importance. Social rules try and achieve facets of this anyway (in relation to humans we have direct correspondence with), so the key is to extend this to the other sentient individuals in the world, and make the social rules accept this (social rules are only a bad thing if substituting for morality – using them as an initial connection is no bad idea). All individuals then, regardless of sex, race, religion, number of legs, intelligence levels or woolliness of skin, demand a right to not be treated as a means to an end – a right that protects their sentience for exactly what it is.

And yes, this includes all of us going vegan – and doing so as soon as we can. We are in the year 2010, they sell soya milk in shops now, it's incredibly easy to be vegan and it is the very first step you need to take to do something – to do anything – for the good of others. It's the one thing inherent in everyone's very identity which completely ignores the moral pull of sentience, and it needs to be noticed immediately – no matter how attached we are to our steak or our dairy ice cream (vegan burgers have never tasted meatier, and dairy free ice cream never creamier anyway so you'll get over it – tastes change very quickly)

People may be selfish by nature of being desire led animals, but they have an incredibly intelligent ability for morality which is necessarily trodden down in infancy – and continually pushed further all the way into adult hood. It's not hard for you to be vegan, not in today's world, and then it will be normal to your children, and their children, and their children after that. Think of the racist ethics widespread in the early 1900s, you'll notice it is no longer visible in our laws today – and with the next generation we'll be even further away from it. As soon as the importance of sentience is recognised, we'll see ideas like racial equality become a thing of possibility, not just of the liberal.

We should of course still fight situations of unjust activity where it occurs – but we need to radically change the focus of our campaigning. Regardless of how intelligent, or what species an individual is from, the characteristic of sentience should guarantee their interests be taken into account and not discriminated against. Whether its a human child being worked in a sweatshop, a mixed race individual being abused by virtue of her skin colour, or a cow being slaughtered for the taste of her flesh. Starting to accept these events as immoral – all of them – and conducting abolitionist universal animal rights (human and non-human) is the only way to start fixing this problem. We need to make this the ground for all of our campaigns. Oxfam shouldn't be using sentient individuals as gifts to other sentient individuals in the third world – that's simply fixing one symptom in the short term by exacerbating one much larger problem (and they aren't the only one's who need to progress or be replaced). Similarly, everyone should be getting behind one another – we're all failing for the same reason – and admitting the importance of sentience is the first step in admitting it.

The opportunity is amidst to work together not on individual issues but on one large issue that could change everything. And in a world where ideas are necessarily divisive, this could be a 'game-changer' for everyone. As an animal rights advocate, I've recently seen a huge change toward such states of advocacy anyway – we have seen people start accepting that promoting the 'cruelty' involved in fur, for example, isn't going to make people accept the inherent call of sentience that demands we don't use animals for our pleasure at all. As a result abolitionist animal rights advocacy, which mimics the abolitionist slavery movement, has begun cropping up all over the place – so in essence the groundwork is in place for human and environmental causes to join with it. This single idea, and chance to get sentience recognised and to help people connect with their moral abilities is upon us. Let's all be abolitionists to eliminate human and animal rights violations, and that includes those we are all currently contributing to in the environment – and let's start by choosing veganism, and all of us getting this idea out there and into people's lives. This is an idea for everyone, one that chooses to fight the root of the problem, and not just effects single issues for a short period while they are popular with the public – please share, discuss, blog about, write on and move it forwards. This could be the 'game-changer' we've all been waiting for.

The following links provide more information on some of the ideas above, and the vast growing abolitionist animal rights network, whilst the last should provide help with switching to veganism:

www.abolitionistapproach.com

(http://www.abolitionistapproach.com/human-rights-and-animal-rights-perfect-together/)

http://animalrightsuk.blogspot.com

(http://animalrightsuk.blogspot.com/2010/10/game-changer.html)

http://human-nonhuman.blogspot.com/

(http://human-nonhuman.blogspot.com/2010/07/animal-abuse-symposium-situating.html)

http://veganproletariat.blogspot.com/

(http://veganproletariat.blogspot.com/2010/03/introduction-consistently-opposing.html)

http://www.veganuk.net/