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Twitlonger: Anyone who claims that ethical veganism, as it is represented in the abolit... - 0 views

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    "No mainstream group has adopted ethical veganism as its exclusive, or even a, central focus. An ethical vegan would not support any animal exploitation. Therefore, to say that ethical veganism is a SIC is to fail to understand the nature of ethical veganism or the fact that SICs rest on distinguishing among various forms of animal exploitation and promoting the notion that some forms are worse than others and, by implication, that other forms of exploitation are morally desirable or morally acceptable. One can, of course, use the expression "veganism" to apply only to diet in the sense that one who does not eat any animal products may be considered to have a vegan diet. This use of "vegan" is more restricted than the notion as I have developed it in my abolitionist theory. Promoting a vegan diet is more like an SIC than is promoting ethical veganism and the abolition of all animal use. But the practical reality is that if people rejected eating any animal products, we would see a rejection in all sorts of other animal use. The most significant form of animal exploitation--the form that "legitimizes" all the others--involves using animals as food. If you dislodge that use, you dislodge all others."
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No Kill en el mundo - An Interview with AR Zone : Nathan J Winograd - 0 views

  • I don’t begin to pretend that I know the culture of South Korea. But I also cannot deny that the world is a lot smaller than it once was because of technology and human mobility. I also cannot deny shared human experience. We are people, and despite the ugly things that people are capable of, we are also capable of great compassion. I agree with abolitionist Theodore Parker that the arc of history may be long but it bends toward greater compassion. So, my initial caveat aside, I do not see why a model that works in the U.S. and works in Canada and works in Australia and works in New Zealand cannot work elsewhere.
  • It is also hard for me to see how the absence of “large, well-funded animal charities” in South Korea would be a bar to No Kill success. In the U.S. No Kill began and continues as a completely grassroots effort. In fact, in the U.S., the “large, well-funded animal charities” have been a roadblock to success. Without exception, the large national organizations like the Humane Society of the United States, the American Humane Association, the ASPCA, and PETA have been hostile to No Kill, championing killing and fighting reform efforts. Today, the biggest barrier to more widespread No Kill success in the U.S. is not “pet overpopulation.” It is not an absence of spay/neuter. It is not the “irresponsible public.” It is not a lack of funding. The single biggest barrier to No Kill is the fact that 3,500 shelter directors are mired in killing and they are legitimized, protected, and promoted by the large national organizations.
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On Human-Nonhuman Relations: On Rights and Animal Rights (Part One). - 0 views

  • Regan also articulates his firm belief that ‘moral philosophy is no substitute for political action’, but insists, ‘still, it can make a contribution. Its currency is ideas’. This assertion was made many years ago in 1983. However, it appears that large sections of the animal advocacy movement was not (and is not) listening to this important message. Many factions in the modern animal protection movement do not agree that a well worked out philosophical position assists in the furtherance of altering the moral standing of nonhuman animals. Moreover, many of those that do seem to agree with the general point that social movements require a solid basis for claims-making, appear not to accept the case for animal rights in the first place. Recent developments in the animal movement tends to confirm such a view. For example, Francione [4] states that ‘the modern animal “rights” movement has explicitly rejected the doctrine of animal rights’. In fact, it might be tempting to claim, analogous to Gilroy’s [5] declaration that ‘there ain’t no black in the Union Jack’, that there ain’t much rights in ‘animal rights’ either. This tends to beg the question, if not rights violations, what do modern animal advocates substantially rely upon in order to make claims on behalf of nonhuman animals? Francione argues that the contemporary animal movement appears content to rely on a new formulation of traditional ideas, which he labels ‘new welfarism’. He describes this conception of new welfarism as a ‘hybrid position’ which may be understood to be a more progressive, or in Francione’s terms, a ‘modified’ welfare position compared with traditional animal welfarism, especially in the sense that this ‘version of animal welfare…accepts animal rights as an ideal state of affairs that can be achieved only through continued adherence to animal welfare measures’.
  • However, for Francione, new welfarists – despite what sets them apart from traditionalists of the genre - should be regarded as committed to the endorsement of measures ‘indistinguishable’ from policies put forward by those ‘who accept the legitimacy of animal exploitation’.
  • Advocates who wish to pursue a position based on rights thinking are very few in number and, furthermore, do not often feature in ‘leadership’ positions within the current animal protection movement.
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  • Francione’s work, especially because it includes a strong critique of new welfarism, has not so much been regarded as a source of philosophical clarity within a social movement, nor helpful in terms of strategic thinking, but rather labelled ‘disruptive’, ‘divisive’ and ‘elitist’.
  • For understandable psychological reasons, ‘victories’ on any scale tend to be loudly trumpeted within social movements.
  • Why, since the modern animal protection movement has rarely if ever pursued an abolitionist agenda for any prolonged period, are many advocates apparently and unequivocally so sure that it is doomed to failure? Why are they so convinced that it will take hundreds of years? Why, moreover, that a philosophical grounding in widely accepted ideas of rights undoubtedly represent demands that unrealistically call for ‘too much’?
  • Francione agrees with Regan that philosophy and political action go together.
  • Indeed, in contrast to many in the movement, he claims the latter requires the former to inform its direction:
  • it is my view that the explicit goal must be abolition and that abolition must shape incremental change.
  • basic rights
  • a paradoxical situation in which the so-called ‘animal rights movement’ virtually rejects genuine rights theories while embracing a non-rights animal liberation position as its main philosophical stance.
  • ‘as a practical matter, [animal welfarism] does not work. We have had animal welfare laws in most western countries for well over a hundred years now, and they have done little to reduce animal suffering and they have certainly not resulted in the gradual abolition of any practices… As to why welfarism fails…the reason has to do with the property status of animals. If animals are property, then they have no value beyond that which is accorded to them by their owners.
  • Benton and Redfearn write: ‘Peter Singer’s Animal Liberation is…within the utilitarian tradition, and it may be that the animal welfare movement’s concern with animal suffering is a measure of the pervasiveness of utilitarianism as the ‘common sense’ of secular morality’
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    This tends to beg the question, if not rights violations, what do modern animal advocates substantially rely upon in order to make claims on behalf of nonhuman animals? Francione argues that the contemporary animal movement appears content to rely on a new formulation of traditional ideas, which he labels 'new welfarism'. He describes this conception of new welfarism as a 'hybrid position' which may be understood to be a more progressive, or in Francione's terms, a 'modified' welfare position compared with traditional animal welfarism, especially in the sense that this 'version of animal welfare…accepts animal rights as an ideal state of affairs that can be achieved only through continued adherence to animal welfare measures'.
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