Sunday, September 21, 2008

Contemporary Crises in (Animal) Ethics

Animal ethics is really ethics, in some sense. Any fully articulated theory of animal rights, for example, must not only be an account of our ethical stance towards nonhuman animals. Ideally, it should offer a complete system of ideas pertaining to the ethical treatment of human beings too. When I say “animal ethics” in this series, I really mean “ethics,” and only indicate “animal ethics” to let it be known that I take animals seriously, quite unlike most ethicists in my estimation. In my journal article (available on this website under Academic writing), "The Rights of Animal Persons," I begin to articulate an ethical theory to account for our obligations, etc. towards all kinds of sentient beings. However, I did not compose this theory, or perhaps discover it, because I was complacently adding to a philosophical tradition that had it “all figured out.” On the contrary, contemporary ethics is in the midst of important, far-reaching, and deeply seated crises. Here is a listing of these important crises as I see them, which I attempt to address in my forthcoming book:

  1. A crisis of justification in ethics, in the midst of which those who assert moral universals generally rely on variants of intuitionism, and those who deny such universals equally point to intuitionism only in a negative way. Widespread cultural skepticism might lead even noble people to become cynical about moral claims. Intuitions result in a stalemate between different ethical theories. The dead heat cannot be settled intuitively, for that just leads in circles. Yet without resolving the intuitive impasse, skepticism about ethics might well be justified. Tom Regan explicitly depends upon “reflective intuitions” in The Case for Animal Rights. Regan intuits that subjects-of-a-life (who are, roughly speaking, animals who might be the subject of rights, although there is controversy as to whether he means all sentient beings) have equal inherent value, which comes intuitively prepackaged with the idea that they must not be subject to utilitarian consideration. Others, such as Peter Singer, who criticize Regan's explicit intuitionism are what I call “crypto-intuitionists” (those who hide their dependence on intuitions) since Singer relies on his own intuitions. Singer is a utilitarian, and as moral skeptic Bernard Williams points out in Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy, utilitarianism depends on at least two intuitions: an intuited theory of value, and an intuition that we ought to maximize net utility.
  2. A crisis in rights theories, such that they do not even logically entail protective rights. I write about this in “The Rights of Animal Persons.” There I show that the leading theories of human rights are so logically vacuous that they permit almost any practical ethic whatsoever, although of course such an outcome is at odds with the intentions of various rights theorists. This shows, in fact, that the leading theories of rights that are not explicitly intuitionist are in fact crypto-intuitionist. Since so many practical commitments are possible on the six most popular rights frameworks, it follows that principles such as strong rights are selected merely intuitively. They certainly do not follow logically from the given frameworks.
  3. A crisis in animal liberationist ideas of equality, which are either vague or else lead to the untoward conclusion that we should flip a coin about whom to save, a baby or a mosquito. Joan Dunayer is a terrific writer, but she suggests that all sentient beings are equal, period. She recommends generally flipping a coin between a human and a dog, and one gets the impression that she would advise the same with a human or an insect from a close reading of her work. This is what leads a lot of people to reject animal rights as “absurd.” We need a coherent way of deciding such dilemmas that is not simply speciesist. Dunayer opens up a world of wonders describing the mental lives of insects and invertebrates of many sorts. Her writing is marvelous on such points. But I do not think such total equality which extends even to life-saving dilemmas is right or defensible. However, there is a crisis in that no account exists that resolves such conflicts nonarbitrarily or without simplying intuiting our way out of the difficulties, which is no help at all.
  4. A crisis in anti-vivisection theories heretofore, since they not only do not lead to their avowed conclusion, but sometimes even conduce towards vivisectionism. This can be seen with respect to my showing the rights theories are ambiguous as to logically permitting utilitarianism, the #1 framework for rationalizing vivisection. However, I will show how even principles of the leading rights theories that are explicitly brought to bear on vivisection do not logically rule out this practice and may seem to conduce towards rationalizing it as ethically permissible or even required.
  5. A crisis in critical moral theory, in which case (a) animal ethics theorists do not foresee logical objections to their own views, and (b) highly objectionable (to my mind) ethical theories are often rebuked, but there is a poverty of convincing refutations—a problem which applies to a whole gamut of such theories. This states of affairs constitutes a crisis since we need not only to assert our own ethical claims convincingly but also to rule out contradictory claims with sufficient reasons. We cannot rule out other views by fiat, or in effect, intuitively or with lame objections and expect to be persuasive in the end.
  6. A crisis of sectarianism in ethics, in which narrow theories battle against each other, and there is no transcendence to a holistic vision which embodies the advantages but not the disadvantages of the competing theories. In “The Rights of Animal Persons,” I hint how best caring ethics may well have reached this level.
  7. A lack of a coherent defintion of “speciesism” even among thinkers such as Regan and Singer. Dunayer criticizes their concepts ably, but succumbs to equally major logical problems in her own account;
  8. A lack of recognition that the traditional concept of “animal welfare” is an oppressive euphemism. This means that the whole debate is not between "animal welfare and animal liberation," but rather, "animal illfare and animal liberation";
  9. Continuing crises of denying animal minds in whole or in parts (although this trend is definitely on the wane, and a great deal of good work has been accomplished on this score); still much convincing argument can be provided to clinch this area of contention, I believe;
  10. A crisis of widely asserted incompatibility between deep ecology and animal liberation. I will try to show that such an impasse is neither necessary nor desirable;
  11. A crisis in religious ethics which casually permit violence towards animals. How can religionists be brought towards animal liberation on their own terms?;
  12. A crisis in personhood theory in which claims are sometimes made for nonhuman personhood that are at once suggestive and unconvincing;
  13. A crisis of a lack of refutation of the view, underlying so much of our culture, that I call “superiorism.” I will show that this view is so logically powerful that it can best existing animal liberation theories, and does not succumb to any of the prevailing objections to humanism (which I argue to be speciesism); this is a crisis of total impotence of existing animal liberation theory, as well as underdevelopment perhaps of humanistic theorizing. I am reputed by many to have come up with the strongest version of humanism in ethics, the better to refute it by tackling the strongest rather than weaker versions.

I will try to substantiate that these crises exist. I will also show that contemporary theory does not nearly meet them but generally allows them to deepen. We can address these “cultural emergencies” neither with denial nor complacency. Rather, we require sound theoretical provisions. There is also a crisis of global capitalism which undermines ethical commitment everywhere, but I intend to address that in a future work on political economy. Whether or to what extent I meet these listed crises in my forthcoming book is left for the reader to decide. Even if I make progress in addressing only one, that would be significant, although my work is more ambitious than that. However that may be, we cannot simply posit “education” as a solution to these crises. We as a culture need to learn better before we can better teach anyone.

Saturday, September 20, 2008

Martin Balluch and Fellow Prisoners Now Free!

Thank you for everyone who lent their support. A judge said that the penalties for the crimes in question are not major enough to warrant continued detention in jail. Dr. Balluch is now going to stand as a member of the Green Party in Austria, and I wish him all the best.

Tuesday, August 12, 2008

Is It Objectionable to Use the Term "Vivisection"?

Vivisection used to mean “live dissection,” or cutting an animal while still alive. Vivi means “live” and “section” means to cut. Rene Descartes did so without anesthetics. The Oxford Concise Dictionary also defines vivisection as the “painful treatment of living animals for purposes of scientific research.” In other words, the term has expanded in meaning to encompass virtually all harmful or invasive uses of animals in laboratories. Tom Regan, in The Case for Animal Rights, (p. 363) objects to the use of the term vivisection since it means “live dissection.” Later, Regan issued a speech called “The War on Vivisection,” which is linked to from my main page, although he never gave a reason for the switch from disapproving of this term. Perhaps I can give a reason in this blog entry. Do we need to hesitate to use this term, instead opting for the more neutral “animal experimentation”? Not all animal experiments are contrary to the principles of animal liberation, such as experimenting with a poodle to find her optimum diet. Even “invasive animal experiments” is too wordy, and means the same as vivisection. Vivisectionists (those who advocate vivisection; a vivisector is someone who performs vivisection) do not like the term “vivisection” because they consider it inflammatory to associate all of their activities with the root meaning of live dissection. However, not only do vivisectors sometimes do live dissections, but they are proposing that this word be dismissed because it departs from its root meaning, set out above. Yet if we upheld this practice in general, we would need to jettison the word “capital” because it originally referred to heads of cattle (cap means “head” in this context). Perhaps the vivisectionists are embarrassed that the term has come to be associated with pain, or more inclusively, we might say suffering or harm. That is too bad. The experiments in question inherently cause harm. Even animals being regularly deprived of fresh air, sunlight, natural surroundings, decent food, friendship or love, amusements, exercise, as well as safety are due to laboratory confinement. This is literal harm, not just a metaphor. Additionally, animals are subject to surgery without anesthetics, drowning, cramping, crowding, freezing, burning, crushing, car-crashing, starvation, induced aggression or passivity, compression, irradiation, weapons targeting, disease infections, and so much more. That is vivisection in the proper dictionary sense. Requests that we pussy-foot around so as not to injure vivisectionists’ delicate feelings would be a form of speciesist repression, and a valorization of ignoring the suffering of animals just to make things pleasant for humans. There is no good reason, I conclude, to abstain from the use of the term “vivisection” and associated terms, although I would argue that there are any number of excellent reasons to abstain from vivisection itself. Let vivisectors be held accountable for the harms they cause, including through the deliberate use of appropriate terminology.

My first two entries in my Animal Ethics series have been about the appropriate use of terms. I will now launch into more theoretical questions. Next entry will be: are we facing a crisis in animal ethics?

Work Cited

Regan, Tom. 1983. The Case for Animal Rights. Los Angeles: University of California Press.

Is It Speciesist to Use the Term "Animal"?

Tom Regan nobly uses the term “NHA” as an abbreviation for “nonhuman animal” in his book, Empty Cages. After all, there are human and nonhuman animals, and we are all animals. By using “animal” in opposition to “humans,” some take that to imply that humans are after all not animals. An alarming number of religious fundamentalists actually believe that we are not animals. Now I would find it tedious to say “nonhuman animals” over and over again, and while Regan is savvy to use “NHA,” I do not think there is any universal obligation to use that abbreviation. Should we always speak of "NHA rights" when we mean "animal rights"? Someone might think I was referring to rights associated with the National Hockey Association (1909-1917), the forerunner of the National Hockey League. There are different acceptable stylistic choices available. In my own writing and speaking, although I am aware of the obnoxiousness of those who can witness that we are full of animal structures and functions who yet deny our animality, I sometimes use the term “animal” to mean “nonhuman animals.”

Now Joan Dunayer, who has done first-rate work on animal liberation language-usage in her book, Animal Equality: Language and Liberation, and who in my opinion does perhaps the best writing on the mental lives of insects, mollusks, and others, maintains in her book Speciesism that it is speciesist to use “animal” as I am wont to do (unless I say "nonhuman" emphatically of course). She objects that saying “humans and animals” is logically the same as saying “blacks and humans.” (Dunayer 2004, 12) I agree that someone using the latter phrase is assuming that blacks are somehow (I know not how!) not human. However, thanks to standard usage, someone who uses the word “animals” to refer to nonhuman animals does not imply that humans are not animals. In the case of such an utterance, anyone who is competent in the life sciences will speak and listen with the understanding that humans are animals too.

Dunayer would have us say “nonhuman rights” instead of “animal rights.” Yet “nonhuman” applies to stones and saucepans, and it also seeks to encompass animals with an ironically human-centred term: nonhuman. It can be construed as anthropocentric to require all uses of “animal” to be prefaced with a reference to humanity or non-humanity, as the case may be. It can be viewed as a celebration of animality independent of “us” to refer to animals without any reference to humans whatsoever. That is in a certain respect a more nonanthropocentric usage.

The short-form “animal” is defensible theoretically since its meaning will be well-understood, if it is otherwise stated or implied that humans are animals too. It would also be unwise to leap to the conclusion that a speaker who says "animal" must mean that humans are better than other animals. In general, I agree with the broader intellectual tradition that it is wise to employ the principle referred to as "charity of interpretation." That means interpreting what others say in a favorable way, or the way that they intend, unless there is a good reason to do otherwise. Certainly I can find no theoretical or practical reason to do otherwise. I have already addressed the theory part.

Practically, “animal” is acceptable in terms of animal advocacy. I reason this by answering some relevant questions in this context. Will using “animal” make anti-speciesists treat animals any worse? No. Will the word usage make speciesists treat animals worse? No. Will the word make speciesists less likely to be “converted” by anti-speciesists? I doubt it. Who has ever resisted “animal rights” just because they were not called “nonhuman animal rights” or “nonhuman rights,” as Dunayer would have it (and as advocates for the rights of stones would have it too, I suppose). Nobody dismisses “animal rights” because one stylistically awkward phrase or another is avoided. Therefore, there is no oppressive implication that humans are “above” animality, and the term “animal” can be defended both theoretically and practically.

It is a commonplace, and my friend JoAnne Schwab reminds me, that the way we use language affects how we think. However, I do not think seriously that deniers that humans are animals will ever change their views just because I use the term "nonhuman," let alone will anyone who agrees that humans are animals change their mind over word usage. It might help people who deny human animality though by reminding them and getting them to think about the matter. That is why this debate is not all-or-nothing. I concede there is merit in sometimes emphasizing, one way or another, that humans are animals too. I am just denying that it is oppressive to use the term "animal." It is more of a stylistic and practical consideration I suppose.

In her zeal to label people such as myself “new speciesists,” (I am in good company here along with Tom Regan, Evelyn Pluhar and others) I do not think that Dunayer, in this particular case, reflects lucidly on traditional usage. It is a pity, since much of her work on language is inspired. For example, she says we should call animals (or in her usage "nonhumans") who live with us "animal companions" rather than "companion animals," since the latter phrase implies it is the human or perhaps divine purpose of animals to serve as our companions. Her own rephrasing carries no such implication. Still, in the case of "animal," I say it is a case of revisionism that itself stands in need of revision.

Works Cited

Dunayer, Joan. 2001. Animal Equality: Language and Liberation. Derwood: Ryce Publishing.

Dunayer, Joan. 2004. Speciesism. Derwood: Ryce Publishing.

Monday, July 28, 2008

New Series on Animal Ethics

Believe it or not, I have said all I want to for now concerning the animal rights pragmatism versus fundamentalism debate (on whether animal "welfare" laws are permissible, or even important, for the animal rights movement). I have written a lot about Francione's ideas on this score since he has a lot to say about the topic. I think this might have been the most urgent topic to discuss for the animal rights movement, since the outcome of the debate may determine what actions animal rights activists might take. There are some Francione followers who read my essay, "Animal Rights Law," and switched over to following the lead of my ideas on animal pragmatism, and they also desire to promote my blog which contains important additional insights not found in the essay just noted. I am pleased that I ended that series with a meditation on what is positive in Francione's approach, in keeping with my orientation towards being balanced and strictly issues-oriented concerning what he has to say.

Many other questions of animal ethics tend to be more academic. They are very important, but they are most often not apt to alter the behaviour of animal rights activists. However, theory is still vital for settling practical questions. In "The Rights of Animal Persons," I note how past theories of animal rights do not logically entail antivivisection. My own theory, I argue, does, and that is significant. I will comment in more detail in the Animal Ethics series how past theories do not logically rule out vivisection, since there are many different aspects of this problem.

While some people may be won over by reading philosophical arguments, it is not clear to me how large a percentage of society this amounts to. We should not underestimate in this respect though. We can list considerations which should cause us to conclude that so-called "animal ethics" matters a great deal:

  1. Whether philosophizing should take place is in many ways independent of how often it happens to occur in the world at this time. That something is uncommon does not imply that it is without value. People ought to cultivate philosophy that they may choose more wisely, and hopefully not be dogmatic in what they believe but rather justified. That is not easy to do, but it is essential to being accountable. Perhaps one far-flung day adults who are unable to fully reason about their ethical principles will not be regarded as fully mature. That cannot be the case today, however, since supposedly the best theories on offer cannot thoroughly be rationally defended, in my view.
  2. I myself have convinced people using arguments in favour of animal rights.
  3. Testing one's view for rational adequacy helps one to be accountable to oneself, to either shore up one's beliefs or indicate an area of thought that needs to be developed. The process of reasoning could well even cause one to modify one's stance, either to a greater or lesser degree.
  4. People read books on the subject to intelligently decide their stance on such matters
  5. University students take courses studying such material
  6. The leaders of society, politicians, lawmakers, lawyers and the judiciary, sometimes look to academic theories to ground their approaches, and then the practical reflection of what they believe may emerge in the rest of society
  7. As society makes progress in the area of animal suffering-reduction, the next phase of progress will have to be more philosophical; there will be no more atrocity images to show since the blatant cruelties will have been taken care of and we will be left with forms of animal slavery that need to be debated on more philosophical grounds
  8. Animal ethics are already debated to some extent in academics
  9. I predict that if all goes well, ethics education will one day find itself into mandatory schooling for everyone in society; in both of the latter two contexts, one real and the other still only imaginary, winning arguments are priceless.
Winning arguments, ultimately, is what I aim to achieve. Whether I attain that in any given case is up to each person to decide for himself/herself.

My series on animal ethics will examine animal rights theories, and also theories that compete with animal rights. Believe it or not, I have not yet commented on Francione's animal rights theory (with the exception of his views on "unnecessary suffering"). I have only addressed his arguments on animal activism. However, we have had an abundance of Francione lately so I will turn now to other animal theorists, such as Tom Regan, Evelyn B. Pluhar (as her name appears on her important book; her surname is now Pluhar-Adams), Paola Cavalieri, Julian Franklin, Bernard Rollin, Steve Sapontzis, Mark Rowlands, Mark Berstein, and others. Eventually, I will get to Francione's own theory of animal rights. All in good time. I will illuminate my perception that animal rights theory is in a state of crisis. I have already argued this in "The Rights of Animal Persons" in a manner that many people have found to be right and even refreshing. There I argue that astonishingly enough, current theories of animal rights do not even logically entail rights in any strong form. However, while the article contains other, more specific criticisms of the theories of animal liberation, it could by no means be comprehensive. I will highlight what in other theories seems to me right or positive, while also criticizing in a way that recognizes problems. I will not be able to vindicate what I regard as right though without my own theory of morality, called "best caring ethics." (BCE) This is introduced in my published article (accessible on this website) called "The Rights of Animal Persons," and I will make some reference to that essay. The forthcoming series of blog entries will highlight why I think we need a book defending BCE at a length that permits much more depth and thoroughness. My book is on the way but still needs time before it greets the public.

Wednesday, July 23, 2008

Negativism in Francione, and Avoiding Negativism towards Francione

I find that much of what Francione suggests or advocates is strikingly negative in character or orientation. Consider:

  1. Francione at times in his Introduction to Animal Rights argues in favor of one right for animals—not to be considered property (Francione 2000, xxxiv). At times he says, more consistently, that it is the basis of all other animal rights. (Ibid., xxviii) This is at base a right to something negative rather than expressing a positive vision. It therefore leaves anything positive to the dice of fate.
  2. Francione tries to negate animal rights pragmatism as “new welfarism,” denying that such pragmatists are genuine animal rights abolitionists, although we have seen that he himself hypocritically buys into speciesist “proto-rights” outcomes
  3. He negatively construes the majority of the public as being like the sadistic psychopath Jeffrey Dahmer since they eat meat, and obscenely portrays PETA supporters as “petaphiles”
  4. He is immovable in his pessimism that “welfarist” laws only allows animals to be exploited more profitably, even after this idea is utterly disproven
  5. He is sweepingly negative in his assessment of progress that has been won for animals thus far
  6. He seeks to negate animal rights in the form of garbaging his former advocacy of the Great Ape Project
  7. He only views, say, lacto-ovo vegetarians negatively, rather than having anything positive to say about what they accomplish

Of negativism what good will come? This is not to say that some things should not be negated though. I have tried to refute erroneous statements and illogical arguments in Francione’s work.

Sometimes advocates of Francione are biased in being mesmerized by certain positive aspects of his ideas, while conveniently ignoring many dire considerations associated with what he claims. Yet we must also avoid a biased account of Francione, or one that is unduly negative. I would like to conclude, therefore, with a recognition of what is positive in Francione’s professions:

  1. He advocates veganism
  2. He is assertive about animal rights, unlike some believers in that ideal
  3. He does not wish to see justice compromised by commercialism, as it so often is in human affairs too
  4. He tries to promote a rational vision of equality in the form of what he calls “the principle of equal consideration”
  5. He recognizes that his “proto-rights” proposals are not perfect but instead “tries to approximate an idea in a sensible way”
  6. He uses arguments to try to deflate speciesism
  7. He tries to find the most efficient way of promoting animal rights that is most consistent with his perception of ethics
  8. He strives to avoid outcomes that will conduce towards complacency and increased animal consumption
  9. He has pioneered in the field of animal law
  10. He contributes much education through his scholarship, informal writing, university teaching, talks for the public, and internet activism
  11. He acknowledges that some attempts to promote animal welfare are fine, such as helping individual animals, and in general agrees that it is wise to avoid “unnecessary suffering” in a demanding, abolitionist construal of these terms
  12. He tries to put forward an original theory of animal rights and animal law

Surely there is much that I have omitted regarding both his negativism and positive contributions. Certainly this is not intended as an attempt to weigh pros and cons of subscribing to his approach. Much of what is positive is just his efforts to realize animal rights with integrity. I have refuted that he is most effective in vegan advocacy, negating complacency and animal consumption, putting forward coherent theory, and a great deal more. However, intentions and efforts matter. For all their possible folly, they remain partial indications of character.


FURTHER READING ON ANIMAL RIGHTS INCREMENTALISM

A Selection of Related Articles

Sztybel, David. "Animal Rights Law: Fundamentalism versus Pragmatism". Journal for Critical Animal Studies 5 (1) (2007): 1-37.

go there

Short version of "Animal Rights Law".

go there

Sztybel, David. "Incrementalist Animal Law: Welcome to the Real World".

go there

Sztybel, David. "Sztybelian Pragmatism versus Francionist Pseudo-Pragmatism".

go there

A Selection of Related Blog Entries

Anti-Cruelty Laws and Non-Violent Approximation

Use Not Treatment: Francione’s Cracked Nutshell

Francione Flees Debate with Me Again, Runs into the “Animal Jury”

The False Dilemma: Veganizing versus Legalizing

Veganism as a Baseline for Animal Rights: Two Different Senses

Francione's Three Feeble Critiques of My Views

Startling Decline in Meat Consumption Proves Francionists Are Wrong Once Again!

The Greatness of the Great Ape Project under Attack!

Francione Totally Misinterprets Singer

Francione's Animal Rights Theory

Francione on Unnecessary Suffering

My Appearance on AR Zone

D-Day for Francionists

Sztybel versus Francione on Animals' Property Status

The Red Carpet

Playing into the Hands of Animal Exploiters

The Abolitionist ApproachES

Francione's Mighty Boomerang


Dr. David Sztybel Home Page

Tuesday, July 22, 2008

Do-Nothingism Triumphant? [note: this post outdated and has been negated; please see comment below]

We have seen that although Francione claims one can reasonably abstain from advocating any laws at this stage in history, he does in his book Rain without Thunder accept legislative proposals that he believes amount to “proto-rights.” I outline Francione’s version of proto-rights in my article, “Animal Rights Law.” It includes, to take his most original example, respecting an entire animal interest (e.g., liberty of movement). Francione seems to advocate not bothering with legal reforms at this stage more recently. It is truly astonishing for any social activist to advocate doing nothing on the legislative front to improve conditions. The purpose of this blog entry is to assess which is more logically compatible with his futilitarian approach: advocating proto-rights or doing nothing on the legislative front? I think do-nothingism best fits his unfitting program, for several reasons:

  1. He himself seems to advocate doing nothing legislatively, claiming that “vegan education” is the best use of activist time, although I have argued that unique and important gains can be had through legislative reform in my above-mentioned essay. Vegan education converts certain people one at a time and that is invaluable. Laws however may well affect billions
    of animals in dramatically suffering-relieving ways at times. That is hardly to be blown off as easily as Francione would like.
  2. Proto-rights amount to nothing in the end anyway, as it is ludicrous to expect a speciesist society’s government, let alone animal industry, to shoulder the cost of 100% protection of any animal interests. So doing nothing saves the trouble in arriving at nothing anyway on the more activist version of the futilitarian legislative approach.
  3. Francione, in the above-mentioned book, laments that animal rights is not reflected in the animal rights movement. However, his own proto-rights proposals are not only “welfarist,” as I argued in an earlier entry, but they violate animal rights and embody speciesism. Protecting one animal interest while leaving others neglected violates animal rights and allows speciesist treatment in the interests that are violated or disregarded. Joan Dunayer’s all-or-nothing animal rights legislative approach is wholly more consistent in this respect, or is consistent with advocating animal rights per se. However, it is also futilitarian, as I’ve discussed earlier, since if you expect everything you often get nothing.
  4. In terms of effectiveness, too, do-nothingism is more consistent with what Francione professes since he insists that so long as animals are property, there cannot be any legal relations between owners and property, and therefore animal interests will not be taken seriously in animal “welfare” legislation. However, if Francione believes this, it is profoundly inconsistent for him to seriously entertain his proto-rights proposals. For they too seem to suppose legal relations between owners and their property.
  5. Francione objects that “welfarist” laws will create complacency that animals are well-treated, thus hampering further progress in animal law, but the same reasoning applies to his proto-rights.
  6. Francione argues that so long as animals are property, if they have no market value, then they have no value at all. However, this would be true of animals’ inherent value which he claims “proto-rights” would in part protect.
  7. Francione notes how it is impossible that a pen should have rights against its owner since it is property; however, the same argument would apply to having proto-rights against the owner.
  8. Francione claims that “welfarist” laws are negated too because there is a presumption that animal owners look after their animals. If this blocks “welfarist” laws it would do the same with proto-rights. Indeed, if it is perceived that owners look after their animals, only small changes at most would be allowed for, not the sweeping changes that Francione recommends.
  9. Francione notes that animal “welfare” laws are not adjudicated in the animals' favor, penalties are minor, judgements not enforced, anti-cruelty laws often require the virtual impossibility of proving intent, and many species of animals are exempt from lawful protection. All of these factors, meant to discourage “welfarist” reform attempts, should even more discourage the much more difficult project of proto-rights.

Francione discourages the possible and beneficial to be found in animal rights pragmatism, but offers a “ray of hope” in the form of impossible proto-rights proposals (since again speciesist society structurally cannot fund 100% protection of any animal interests).

If it is structurally impossible for “welfarist” laws to succeed in a society in which animals are regarded as property then it is even more impossible for his proto-rights to succeed since they are far more demanding forms of “welfarist” laws (although Francione would not accept that label; see my blog entry for June 1/08). His negativism about “welfarism” boomerangs back on his positively presenting his proto-rights proposals in ways that he does not acknowledge, or perhaps is not even aware of.

Francione’s futilitarianism is indeed futile. His pessimism about animal “welfarism” applies with redoubled negativity to his proto-rights ideas. And so, after negating, negating, and negating we are left with a void of nothingness, and the vacuity of do-nothingism on the legislative front, an outcome that the animal industries would salivate over. None of this is true of animal rights pragmatism, however. For I refute Francione’s forecasting of futility in “Animal Rights Law,” along with his claim that animal rights is not to be found in the legislative short-term for animal rights pragmatists (whom he derisively labels “new welfarists”). We can find animal rights in the short-term in seed form, and also as a model to approximate as much as possible. Animal rights are seeded in the short-term since kindness culture in the law conduces towards animal rights in the long-term (see "Animal Rights Law"). I do not see how Francione's approach could logically be conceived as conducing to abolition any day sooner—just the opposite! When I think of "the abolitionist approach" that Francione boasts of on his website, I think what he and his followers would most definitively abolish is taking action any time in the foreseeable future on the legislative front. That is a disaster-recipe for animals in so many ways as I have discussed before. We can promote the closest thing to animal rights, which is the maximum respect for all interests, by demanding as much degrees of protection of interests as is possible in the short-term and on to the long-term. Here I speak of the really possible, not just what we can possibly conceive as an idea. Let us leave nothing to the do-nothingists and instead do something far more constructive in the form of substantive suffering-reduction laws. As Edmund Burke penned in another century, in a way that is no less relevant today: "All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men [and women - DS] do nothing."


FURTHER READING ON ANIMAL RIGHTS INCREMENTALISM

A Selection of Related Articles

Sztybel, David. "Animal Rights Law: Fundamentalism versus Pragmatism". Journal for Critical Animal Studies 5 (1) (2007): 1-37.

go there

Short version of "Animal Rights Law".

go there

Sztybel, David. "Incrementalist Animal Law: Welcome to the Real World".

go there

Sztybel, David. "Sztybelian Pragmatism versus Francionist Pseudo-Pragmatism".

go there

A Selection of Related Blog Entries

Anti-Cruelty Laws and Non-Violent Approximation

Use Not Treatment: Francione’s Cracked Nutshell

Francione Flees Debate with Me Again, Runs into the “Animal Jury”

The False Dilemma: Veganizing versus Legalizing

Veganism as a Baseline for Animal Rights: Two Different Senses

Francione's Three Feeble Critiques of My Views

Startling Decline in Meat Consumption Proves Francionists Are Wrong Once Again!

The Greatness of the Great Ape Project under Attack!

Francione Totally Misinterprets Singer

Francione's Animal Rights Theory

Francione on Unnecessary Suffering

My Appearance on AR Zone

D-Day for Francionists

Sztybel versus Francione on Animals' Property Status

The Red Carpet

Playing into the Hands of Animal Exploiters

The Abolitionist ApproachES

Francione's Mighty Boomerang


Dr. David Sztybel Home Page

Thursday, July 17, 2008

Is Animal Rights Fundamentalism "Purist"?

Calling animal rights fundamentalists “purists” actually gives them more credit than they deserve. It implies that they occupy the moral high ground and that they more than anyone else accord with principles of moral rightness or justice. However, this seems to me to be untrue. As shown in “Animal Rights Law,” fundamentalists are very much at variance with trying to secure the best possible for sentient beings at all times, including the legislative near-term (in which, as all agree, practically available options are highly unideal). And their conception of animal rights for the long-term is in no sense more “pure.” Therefore it seems like a mischaracterization to portray animal rights fundamentalists are “the pure ones” and animal rights pragmatists as somehow “impure.” “Pure what…?” is perhaps the salient question. It is also well to recall that Francione's proto-rights are far from pure animal rights, securing, say, only one interest while several are neglected, or accepting the banning of dehorning but not hot-iron branding. Joan Dunayer's philosophy would have a better claim to "purism" than Francione's, since she demands animal rights laws bar nothing. However, again, it would be a mistake to suggest that her disastrous recipe for the legislative short-term is somehow more purely ideal. The purest ideal I know, unsurprisingly, is what is best, and that is precisely what the pragmatists aim for at all times. However, animal rights pragmatism is not "the pure one" either since the best we can achieve is hardly synonymous with pure perfection. Purism seems allied with perfectionism, and that seems to be an irrational prescription for a world which must always be described as radically imperfect, and in which the nature of perfection itself remains safely obscure behind an impenetrable veil of mystery.



FURTHER READING ON ANIMAL RIGHTS INCREMENTALISM

A Selection of Related Articles

Sztybel, David. "Animal Rights Law: Fundamentalism versus Pragmatism". Journal for Critical Animal Studies 5 (1) (2007): 1-37.

go there

Short version of "Animal Rights Law".

go there

Sztybel, David. "Incrementalist Animal Law: Welcome to the Real World".

go there

Sztybel, David. "Sztybelian Pragmatism versus Francionist Pseudo-Pragmatism".

go there

A Selection of Related Blog Entries

Anti-Cruelty Laws and Non-Violent Approximation

Use Not Treatment: Francione’s Cracked Nutshell

Francione Flees Debate with Me Again, Runs into the “Animal Jury”

The False Dilemma: Veganizing versus Legalizing

Veganism as a Baseline for Animal Rights: Two Different Senses

Francione's Three Feeble Critiques of My Views

Startling Decline in Meat Consumption Proves Francionists Are Wrong Once Again!

The Greatness of the Great Ape Project under Attack!

Francione Totally Misinterprets Singer

Francione's Animal Rights Theory

Francione on Unnecessary Suffering

My Appearance on AR Zone

D-Day for Francionists

Sztybel versus Francione on Animals' Property Status

The Red Carpet

Playing into the Hands of Animal Exploiters

The Abolitionist ApproachES

Francione's Mighty Boomerang


Dr. David Sztybel Home Page

Tuesday, July 15, 2008

Francione's Mighty Boomerang

In my studies of Francione's ideology, I have noticed that he often accuses others of that which applies to his own claims in one respect or another. This is called "hypocrisy." Yesterday I collected more than 20 of these together. I call them "boomerangs" since he sends them out as accusing shots at his opponents, whom he mislabels "new welfarists," but they rebound back at him. If one is not careful, a boomerang can come back and knock one upside the head. However, he seems to be unaware of his theoretical predicament. Indeed, logical implications cannot be physically felt, let alone seen, heard, smelled, or tasted unlike physical boomerangs. Thankfully, Francione himself remains safe, however, the same cannot be said for the logical status of his position.

Francione’s Claim: “Welfarist” reforms are futile.

BOOMERANG!-1: His proto-rights recommendations sometimes overlap with “welfarist” proposals, e.g., banning the leg-hold trap. So why is such a proposal “futile” when a “welfarist” supports it, but a potent part of abolitionism when coming from the mouth of Francione?

BOOMERANG!-2: Logically speaking, his proto-rights proposals that protect 100% of animals' interests must be super-futile to pursue if much less stringent "welfarist" proposed laws are futile to seek approval of.

Francione’s Claim: Animal “welfarism” promotes complacency.

BOOMERANG!-1: Since Francione does not advocate any legal changes for animals now this creates complacency with total animal misery on the legislative front.

BOOMERANG!-2: His proto-rights proposals would create even more complacency. For then people would say that it is as though part of animal rights is achieved, with the entire protection of an animal’s interest. People would be much more complacent with something strong like animal rights over a weaker “welfarist” law that is enacted.

Francione’s Claim: Animal “welfarism” laws boost animal consumption.

BOOMERANG!: His proto-rights, if passed into law, would boost consumption even more by implication from his reasoning. That is because they promote more complacency or satisfaction with the state of animal law, as argued above, so fewer consumers would boycott the animal industries.

Francione’s Claim: We should not instrumentalize animals (which I can define as treating sentient beings as though they are merely useful while not respecting their interests).

BOOMERANG!: Francione opposes reforming laws because this will create complacency. The unstated (because embarrassing) logical implication here is that keeping laws so that animals are miserable will reduce complacency, since then people will be upset by all of the cruelty. This way of thinking perversely uses animal misery as a mere means towards reducing complacency.

Francione’s Claim: Many other animal rights advocates are “new welfarists.”

BOOMERANG!: He himself is a kind of animal “welfarist,” as I substantiate in my blog entry for June 1, 2008. And while mixing animal rights and animal “welfare” approaches is not new in general, his kind of “proto-rights” welfarism is indeed a relatively new form of welfarism, ironically enough.

Francione’s Claim: Animal “welfare” laws just mean that animals will be exploited more efficiently and profitably.

BOOMERANG!: Francione recommends abstaining from legal reforms at this stage. This gives animal exploiters total freedom to exploit animals more efficiently, e.g., through factory farming, which saves money by treating animals miserably (less space = less rent money, and crappy food is cheaper, as is lack of veterinary care, poor air quality, leaving animals in filth, no amusements, not letting them move around, etc.).

Francione’s Claim: His abolitionist approach will eliminate the root cause of animal suffering (as though this is unique to his approach).

BOOMERANG!: His opponents, the animal rights pragmatists will not only eliminate that cause too, but will do so sooner since a kinder legal culture is far more conducive to animal rights, as I explain in my journal article, “Animal Rights Law.”

Francione’s Claim: Animal welfarist laws are complicit with speciesism.

BOOMERANG!: He would approve of a law banning dehorning of cattle, which would join a body of speciesist laws. It is also conducive to speciesism in law to refuse to try to ameliorate speciesist harms through legal reform at this stage in history.

Francione’s Claim: We must reject the Great Ape Project since it favours animals who have “similar minds” to humans.

BOOMERANG!: He would save a human over a dog in an emergency, other factors being equal. This is presumably due to the different minds of the two, not their different bodies, although Francione merely states he “intuitively” favours this idea.

Francione’s Claim: We do not accept abolishing child abuse by degrees, as the “welfarists” advocate, so we should not accept this in animal law either.

BOOMERANG!: Francione’s proposals would also abolish exploitation by degrees, e.g., protecting some entire interests but others not at all, or banning dehorning but not necessarily hot iron branding.

Francione’s Claim: “Micro” animal welfare action is acceptable, but “macro” animal welfare practices such as laws must be rejected.

BOOMERANG!: If everyone should pursue “micro” animal welfare practices, as Francione seems to support, that automatically becomes a “macro” phenomenon.

Francione’s Claim: Seeking political “insider status” is counterproductive.

BOOMERANG!: Nothing could produce less benefit for animals than staying outside the legislative process for a long time to come: that guarantees zero productivity in that particular respect.

Francione’s Claim: We should not pursue legislative reforms since animal rightists will not be taken seriously by legislatures.

BOOMERANG!: Francione’s crew is among those taken the least seriously by legislatures since they do not even try for legislative change. By contrast, animal rights advocates such as Martin Balluch of Austria, as I have reported earlier, are taken so seriously that laws are signed into effect banning battery cages, fur farming, vivisection of apes, etc. This is accomplished without hiding long-term aspirations for animal rights.

Francione’s Claim: Animal “welfarism” laws play into the hands of animal exploiters by failing to advocate animal rights.

BOOMERANG!: Advocating that animal rightists abstain from legislative change plays into unmitigated animal exploitation more than any other approach. Or Francione’s accepted converse of proposing only laws that finance 100% protection of animal interests, which would obviously be defeated by speciesist legislatures, would also play into exploiters’ interests since then again no animal law reforms would result, a very happy outcome for animal industrialists.

Francione’s Claim: We cannot sacrifice animals’ interests today in the hope of winning animal rights tomorrow.

BOOMERANG!: He agrees to banning dehorning of cows while hot-iron branding would still be permitted. That manifestly sacrifices the protection of whole interests.

Francione’s Claim: It is “morally schizophrenic” to reject unnecessary suffering of animals while accepting practices that involve needless torment.

BOOMERANG!: Again, banning dehorning but not hot-iron branding accepts unnecessary suffering in a legislative proposal and is therefore “morally schizophrenic.”

Francione’s Claim: Do not support groups that claim that some forms of animal abuse are worse than others.

BOOMERANG!: Presumably his banning of dehorning rests on the presumption that it is worse abuse to have cattle industries which permit dehorning.

Francione’s Claim: Animal rights pragmatism does not focus on vegan education unlike his own approach.

BOOMERANG!: Usually animal rights pragmatism not only focuses on veganism, but does so more effectively since Francione condemns all non-vegans equally, and this negative approach discourages—through self-righteous condemnation—those who might only gradually work their way towards veganism.

Francione’s Claim: "New welfarism" is far from most conducive towards abolishing speciesism in the long-term.

BOOMERANG!: Animal rights fundamentalism, as I have argued, is far from most conducive towards animal rights in the long-term since fundamentalism promotes crueler culture in the legislative realm, and such a culture is obviously less conducive to respect for animal interests than kinder culture.*

Francione’s Claim: Animal rights pragmatism is unethical, since its proposals go contrary to animal rights and anti-speciesism.

BOOMERANG!-1: His own proto-rights proposals are also short of animal rights and anti-speciesism, while, like the pragmatists, claiming to affirm animal rights and anti-speciesism as much as possible.

BOOMERANG!-2: His philosophy goes contrary to promoting what is best for sentient beings in both the short-term and the long-term and on that basis, can be judged to be unethical.

These shots with the boomerang Francione perceives as demolishing the pragmatists' argument. Instead they reflect badly on his own stance (once the full implications are understood) while leaving the contentions of his opponents completely unscathed, as I show in "Animal Rights Law."

Notes

* I would like to thank Ian, who prefers his last name to remain anonymous, for taking the time to write to me and to discern and point out that the way I originally phrased this "boomerang" was not exactly in the logical form of a boomerang. I have corrected this problem thanks to Ian's feedback on Tuesday, August 5, 2008.



FURTHER READING ON ANIMAL RIGHTS INCREMENTALISM

A Selection of Related Articles

Sztybel, David. "Animal Rights Law: Fundamentalism versus Pragmatism". Journal for Critical Animal Studies 5 (1) (2007): 1-37.

go there

Short version of "Animal Rights Law".

go there

Sztybel, David. "Incrementalist Animal Law: Welcome to the Real World".

go there

Sztybel, David. "Sztybelian Pragmatism versus Francionist Pseudo-Pragmatism".

go there

A Selection of Related Blog Entries

Anti-Cruelty Laws and Non-Violent Approximation

Use Not Treatment: Francione’s Cracked Nutshell

Francione Flees Debate with Me Again, Runs into the “Animal Jury”

The False Dilemma: Veganizing versus Legalizing

Veganism as a Baseline for Animal Rights: Two Different Senses

Francione's Three Feeble Critiques of My Views

Startling Decline in Meat Consumption Proves Francionists Are Wrong Once Again!

The Greatness of the Great Ape Project under Attack!

Francione Totally Misinterprets Singer

Francione's Animal Rights Theory

Francione on Unnecessary Suffering

My Appearance on AR Zone

D-Day for Francionists

Sztybel versus Francione on Animals' Property Status

The Red Carpet

Playing into the Hands of Animal Exploiters

The Abolitionist ApproachES

Francione's Mighty Boomerang


Dr. David Sztybel Home Page

Thursday, June 26, 2008

The "Test Period"

Francione often states that animal “welfarism” has been tried for hundreds of years, but it has failed to abolish animal exploitation. However, it is erroneous to say animal “welfarism"—as part of an animal rights pragmatist position—has been tried for that long. Yet that could be the only relevant "test period" for the debate in question here. We will see that it is unfair to declare the testing to be over even for this newer pragmatist movement. As for traditional animal "welfarism," it was never even meant to abolish animal exploitation in the first place. Francione's reasoning here is startling in its flashy irrelevancy.

What are we "testing" for? Francione seems to be testing for whether animal rights pragmatism, which he calls "new welfarism," will cause the abolition of the property status of animals. I have already commented on how the matter is not so simple, and the real question is not whether animal "welfare" laws simply cause abolition. They don't. Just putting out animal welfare laws does not magically bring about abolition, but then, no one but Francione ever seriously entertained the possibility of such magic happening. Rather: are "welfarist" laws conducive towards animal rights in the long run in conjunction with animal rights championed as a long-term goal? I have argued that such conduciveness can occur with animal “welfare” laws in my essay, "Animal Rights Law." I show how such legislation inherently passes the test of what is conducive towards kindness culture, and that such culture passes the test of what conduces towards animal rights. Crueler culture does not pass that test, but that is what we are left with if we remain outsiders to the legislative process, as Francione urges, or if we futilely advocate proto-rights that Francione would approve, but any contemporary legislature would utterly defeat. Another thing we need to test for is whether animal "welfare" laws significantly reduce animal suffering or try to make the best of the short-term. Sweden and the reforms led by Martin Balluch and others in Austria pass that test already as I have argued.

As for the long-term goal of animal rights, it is unreasonable to press present-day animal rights pragmatists for not having achieved this. Serious education about animals and the ethics governing their treatment has only penetrated a relatively small minority of contemporary society. An even tinier percentage has any kind of sure grasp of the logic of animal ethics, as opposed to superficial "fast food" for thought. How could anyone reasonably expect a tiny minority to produce animal rights laws in a democracy? The answer is: no reasonable person would expect this. We are nowhere near any point in history where we can "test" whether animal rights will one day succeed due to any given approach. It is too soon to tell. It is like contemptuously looking over a sapling and pronouncing, "This will never be a tree." And indeed, the animal rights fundamentalists have their own version of the sapling. Do we arbitrarily say their test period is over too?

The real question here is success in bringing about animal rights, and fundamentalists seem disposed to fail in being as effective in that regard. Although we cannot test the empirical effectiveness of animal rights coupled with animal “welfare” laws, we are at the point where we can test movement strategies for logical soundness. We can always do that. And the futilitarian position has been found to be contrary to what is best for animals, and comparatively ineffectual in both the legislative short-term and long-term, not only in terms of reducing suffering for animals, but indeed conducing towards animal rights in the broader society (see "Animal Rights Law"). Rather than speak of the end of any test period for any part of the animal rights movement, let's create a movement much greater than what we now find which will test the integrity and political will of the broader society. For it is the speciesists, and to a greatly lesser extent, the fundamentalists, who fail to pass the test of animal-rights-conduciveness, not members of the animal rights pragmatist movement.



FURTHER READING ON ANIMAL RIGHTS INCREMENTALISM

A Selection of Related Articles

Sztybel, David. "Animal Rights Law: Fundamentalism versus Pragmatism". Journal for Critical Animal Studies 5 (1) (2007): 1-37.

go there

Short version of "Animal Rights Law".

go there

Sztybel, David. "Incrementalist Animal Law: Welcome to the Real World".

go there

Sztybel, David. "Sztybelian Pragmatism versus Francionist Pseudo-Pragmatism".

go there

A Selection of Related Blog Entries

Anti-Cruelty Laws and Non-Violent Approximation

Use Not Treatment: Francione’s Cracked Nutshell

Francione Flees Debate with Me Again, Runs into the “Animal Jury”

The False Dilemma: Veganizing versus Legalizing

Veganism as a Baseline for Animal Rights: Two Different Senses

Francione's Three Feeble Critiques of My Views

Startling Decline in Meat Consumption Proves Francionists Are Wrong Once Again!

The Greatness of the Great Ape Project under Attack!

Francione Totally Misinterprets Singer

Francione's Animal Rights Theory

Francione on Unnecessary Suffering

My Appearance on AR Zone

D-Day for Francionists

Sztybel versus Francione on Animals' Property Status

The Red Carpet

Playing into the Hands of Animal Exploiters

The Abolitionist ApproachES

Francione's Mighty Boomerang


Dr. David Sztybel Home Page

Wednesday, June 25, 2008

Playing into the Hands of Animal Exploiters

I would like to comment on the animal rights fundamentalist threat to the alliance of animal rights pragmatists and "welfarists." This is a point I mentioned in my outline of harms to the animal rights movement posed by the fundamentalists, and I will now expand on it. Animal rights fundamentalist movement strategy plays right into the hands of the arch-animal-exploiters' own Napoleonic strategy of "divide and conquer." When I speak of animal industries I refer to the factory farmers, fur ranchers, vivisectors, and so on. They do not mind so much if there is a minority of animal rights advocates in society. They do not really find that threatening. What they are concerned about, and may well be prepared to pay millions of dollars to offset, is "welfarist" legislation which would protect animals and cost industrialists a lot of money. So as a strategy, these animal industries favour a "divide and conquer" strategy with animal "welfare" proponents. The best way to kill chances of animal "welfare" laws, from the point of view of animal enslavers and destroyers, would logically consist of several different prongs:

I. To weaken support for "welfare" reforms by taking animal rightists, together with their outspoken and influential advocacy, right out of the picture.

II. Industries want to pit their enemies (the animal rights people and the "welfarists") against each other, and this is accomplished through
(a) fundamentalists attacking the pragmatist-and-traditional-welfarist alliance, and
(b) the ongoing bitter and strategically costly conflict that ensues.

III. Taking out animal rights advocates of suffering-reduction takes a lot of oomph out of the reform movement, since animal rights people are more highly motivated, serious and passionate about animal interests. Even Francione is a very demanding "welfarist," I have argued, although he would disagree with that assessment. Traditional reformists might just say, "Well, it's OK to use animals, but can't we agree to make things a bit better?" When they are already willing to kill animals for a taste of their flesh that is an indication that animal interests will be much less strongly championed as a matter of psychological fact.

IV. Try to make animal rights fundamentalism, which sabotages strong "welfare" measures in the law, seem like the "only" approach to animal rights. This is done by Francione calling his site "The Abolitionist Approach," as there is only his way or no way, and him calling his followers animal rightists or abolitionists, and animal rights pragmatists are just mistakenly called "new welfarists" (see "Animal Rights Law," especially MIRROR PRODUCTIONS version, for a discussion of "new welfarism" as a misnomer)

V. Stir up hate against animal rights pragmatists and speciesists. See my earlier post on "Insults and Illusions." Using insults makes people hate or at least dislike each other and undermines chances of animal rights/welfarist people working together. It is not only profitable to disrupt alliances between animal rightists and animal rights pragmatists, but if traditional animal "welfarists" are compared to "Simon the Sadist" or Jeffrey Dahmer, there will be very little chance of humanist legislatures being receptive to the hateful animal rights message.

VI. Make animal rights industries seem committed to animal welfare and respecting the law. Francione furthers this goal by his definition of "legal welfarism" as mere rhetoric in favor of humane treatment which merely means adopting measures that make the exploitation of animals more profitable. This move makes "legal welfarism" the preserve of industry and exploiters, rather than of people who seek anything more progressive for animals such as Martin Balluch (whose contributions are discussed in earlier posts). Francione ironically states that any "welfare" laws will just make animal exploiters earn more money. Meanwhile, abstaining from strong "welfare" laws saves them a lot of money. Francione himself notes that factory farming's cramming saves money in rent, crap food costs less, as does no veterinary care, not cleaning up, etc. It follows logically that anti-factory farming measures will cost "producers" of misery money. However, Francione's urging that animal rightists abstain from political/legal reforms saves money to animal industrialists, not animals.

Now the fundamentalists help out a great deal with all of these goals, and are fervently animated in this general direction. So this is what futilitarians would have, a convergence of animal-rights-enemy and their own animal-rights-proponent strategy. This explains why, in my conversations with others, some fundamentalists are repeatedly suspected of being collaborators with "the other side." Even if they are not paid by animal industries, I would say they usually do an effective enough job to earn such a salary. The industries must be delighted that they are getting so much free work. By the way, I am neither stating nor implying that any given fundamentalist is an infiltrator. Such an interpretation would be mistaken. I am merely exploring the fascinating territory of trying to understand why some people in my experience (whose identity will be protected by me) have thought that way.

Ironically, fundamentalists often believe that animal rights pragmatists play into the hands of exploiters by posing legislation that is not animal rights. However, such legislation is not possible in the short-term anyway, so it is neither here nor there for the exploiters' agenda. Rather, again, it is "welfare" laws that are the real thing the industries are averse to, and animal rights pragmatists are much more likely to foil the animal industrialists' agenda in that respect as I have argued (i.e., fundamentalists staying as outsiders to the legal process may have something to do with that). Also, animal rights pragmatists are generally more effective in cultivating animal rights for the long-term, which means the pragmatists foil the exploiters' agenda more effectively in the big picture as well. It is a bitter turnaround for the fundamentalists that yet again they are guilty of that which they accuse others.



FURTHER READING ON ANIMAL RIGHTS INCREMENTALISM

A Selection of Related Articles

Sztybel, David. "Animal Rights Law: Fundamentalism versus Pragmatism". Journal for Critical Animal Studies 5 (1) (2007): 1-37.

go there

Short version of "Animal Rights Law".

go there

Sztybel, David. "Incrementalist Animal Law: Welcome to the Real World".

go there

Sztybel, David. "Sztybelian Pragmatism versus Francionist Pseudo-Pragmatism".

go there

A Selection of Related Blog Entries

Anti-Cruelty Laws and Non-Violent Approximation

Use Not Treatment: Francione’s Cracked Nutshell

Francione Flees Debate with Me Again, Runs into the “Animal Jury”

The False Dilemma: Veganizing versus Legalizing

Veganism as a Baseline for Animal Rights: Two Different Senses

Francione's Three Feeble Critiques of My Views

Startling Decline in Meat Consumption Proves Francionists Are Wrong Once Again!

The Greatness of the Great Ape Project under Attack!

Francione Totally Misinterprets Singer

Francione's Animal Rights Theory

Francione on Unnecessary Suffering

My Appearance on AR Zone

D-Day for Francionists

Sztybel versus Francione on Animals' Property Status

The Red Carpet

Playing into the Hands of Animal Exploiters

The Abolitionist ApproachES

Francione's Mighty Boomerang


Dr. David Sztybel Home Page

Tuesday, June 24, 2008

New Site Name, Mission Statement, and Balluch Update

I would like to announce a renaming of my website: Liberation Unlimited. Rather than say why I do so here (and I will not reproduce the clunky old name I used before, now become gaseous and becoming one with the fine ether of cybervoid), I refer interested readers to the Mission Statement put in place right below the new name at the top of the Home page.

Martin Balluch is being artificially fed so that he does not die of starvation from his hunger strike. Regardless of whether one approves of his decision, people should defend the dignity of human beings in general and one the greatest animal rights activists in particular. As well, there is a question of who to believe, Balluch and his colleagues or the Austrian authorities. However, I have a lot of faith in people who brought about world-leading animal legislation. I have less faith when I hear about people who profess non-violence being taken at gunpoint in the middle of the night, being deprived of legal counsel, given minimal visitation privileges as though they are guilty, rather than presumed innocent until proven guilty. Far from proof, there are concerns that various animal liberation criminal offences have not at all been evidentially linked to the activists now in custody. Concerns over the legality and decency of Austria's actions have prompted Amnesty International as well as the Greens and Social Democrats to make some very serious statements and to ask some very pointed questions. See the website of the Association Against Animal Factories for more detailed updates:

CLICK HERE

Also, for those who fear they do not have much time for letter-writing, the site features instant letters that you can send off to appropriate government officials.

Please seriously consider joining the campaign to free these abused prisoners!

Tuesday, June 17, 2008

Responding to Martin Balluch's Essay, "Abolitionism versus Reformism"

This blog entry will comment on Dr. Martin Balluch’s essay, “Abolitionism versus Reformism,” then on Francione’s attack on the essay, and finally, I will make some observations regarding Balluch's reply to Francione.

Dr. Balluch appears correct when he states that both animal “welfarist” reformism and animal rights start with empathy and compassion. Thus he is able to state: “The ideology of animal rights and the animal rights movement have their psychological and political roots in animal welfare.” He states that there is a “deep philosophical gulf” between animal welfare and animal rights, but psychologically and politically they are on a continuum. I would comment that there is indeed a gulf in terms of magnitude of respect. However, animal rights and animal “welfare” not only start with empathy, they build respect for animal interests such as welfare and freedom by degrees, and so they can be conceived on a philosophical continuum, wherein animal “welfare” often involves pitiful dispensations of protection for these animal interests, and animal rights affords very strong degrees of protection for these same interests.

It is incredible that in no small part due to Balluch’s activism along with legions of other people, Austria has recently achieved breakthroughs such as no dogs and cats being used for fur or meat, no fur farming, no animal circuses, and no vivisection of great apes. Balluch argues that these reforms leave behind “pure welfarist ideals.” I would agree with him there. My own understanding is that traditional welfarism would just make fur-farming, animal circuses, and vivisection of great apes “kinder,” but these laws eliminate these practices. That is why these reforms fall into the second of the three categories I use in my animal activism guide:

  1. traditional animal “welfarism”
  2. partial abolitionist
  3. total abolitionist.

These reforms are partial abolitionist since they eradicate a part of the animal exploitation spectrum. It is pretty much impossible to exploit animals in certain ways now in Austria. Balluch also notes that activists there have achieved language in their very Constitution: “The state protects life and well-being of animals as cohabitants of humans.” Balluch does not comment on this much, but this seems like a huge breakthrough. I have argued for a right to welfare or well-being, along with rights to freedom, life, respect, and nonviolence. Animal rights protects the good of animals and is the only true form of “animal welfare” as I have argued elsewhere. The idea of animals as “cohabitants” puts nonhumans on the same playing field as humans, at least conceptually, and that is very dramatic. So is making their lives significant. As well, in Austria there are now “animal solicitors” whose governmental job it is to work on behalf of animals in the court system.

It is thrilling to read an analysis of movement strategy by someone who has already achieved so very much. He states that his approach in campaigns is never to try to change individual minds, but to attack industries and businesses. Doing so creates a different social climate that is more favorable to animal welfare and rights, he believes, and the public will just go with the flow or take the path of least resistance if certain types of animal exploitation are banned: they will not seek it in other countries.

Balluch characterizes politics as purely consequentialist, or it is to be judged solely by consequences. I do not see that as necessary, although a concern with consequences is vital. A nonconsequentialist philosophy can animate political changes (e.g., my theory of best caring ethics). But I do not think we really disagree here. Later, he comments that abstract-rational theory can be deontological whereas politics is consequentialist. Perhaps on his thinking, we can even think of attaining deontological ethics as a consequence of a campaign. Here we are probably spinning our conceptual wheels. He states that government will side with whoever kicks up the most “fuss,” and produces the most political pressure. This Balluch has learned by extensive experience.

Specific tactics used that did not involve trying to change individual minds:

  • protesting outside each animal circus show to make it “no fun” for those attending; after 6 years all wild animal circuses went bankrupt, and with no political opposition, it became easy to introduce a ban
  • there were already 86% of the public opposed to battery cages, so it was easy to win political allies and to extensively badger the Conservatives to eventually take a more popular stand

I would caution about his analysis here though. No doubt it is true they did not try to argue with individuals about the ethics of these things, and “social climate” is vitally important in winning major changes. He states that humans are social animals more than rational animals. Perhaps. But protests no doubt not only made it “not fun” to attend animal circuses. I am sure the public also got an ethical message not least of all. Similarly, with the 86% of public support, that is individual minds that were changed. So his campaigns might rest on changing minds after all, although not perhaps as a direct tactic.

Balluch addresses the concern that reforms will calm consciences and people will suddenly consume without a second thought. He says there is no data on this question, but writes:

A positive image for animal welfare, after all, means that compassion and empathy for animals get a higher value, and that means there is more support for further animal welfare reforms. And if people do open up to the idea of animal welfare and its underlying motives, then the experience shows that they are more likely to be prepared to think about animal rights. Animal welfare and empathy form the psychological basis for animal rights.

This seems to me to be right, and is additionally supported by Balluch’s experience that there have been more and more animal protectionist laws in Austria since his successful campaigns.

Balluch offers some commentary on some who profess an “abolitionist” approach. He is too generous, I think, in leaving that name entirely to Francione and others. Balluch too favours veganism and abolishing animal exploitation. He claims that Francione is arbitrary as to what is called abolitionist and what is called animal welfarist. I have proved that Balluch is right in “Animal Rights Law” in which the same measures that welfarists would support are called “abolitionist.” Also, my blog entries proving that Francione’s measures are conceptually more like animal “welfarist” laws than animal rights laws supports Balluch’s point here. Balluch similarly criticizes Lee Hall’s uncompromising “abolitionist or nothing” approach. Balluch favors attacking the animal industries rather than trying to convince people, although he agrees that: “Using rational arguments, we can argue convincingly that animal rights is the ethical ideal.” He recommends centring campaign material on suffering and stimulating compassion and empathy in people rather than abstract-rational phrases. I agree that this sometimes may be more advantageous in terms of contemporary media since only sound-bites and flash-images are generally permitted, although I would speculate that progress towards abolition cannot be won without discussing the very ideas we wish to one day infuse in our laws.

Overall, I find Balluch’s analysis important. We should try to counter industry since he has been so successful in doing so. I do not see why that cannot be accompanied with trying to convince people though, and I have argued how his campaigns are seemingly dependent on people being convinced ethically. People were stimulated ethically at his circus protests, and that is why it was no longer “fun” to get inside and see the animals perform. That must be the only reason, since activists were not allowed to disrupt actual circus shows. Moreover, the 86% support for battery cage bans was a result of individuals being convinced. So he sells this aspect short. I am however nonetheless thrilled with his example, courage and achievement.

Now enter Francione’s commentary on Balluch’s essay. Francione claims there is no new approach to the rights/welfare debate in Balluch’s approach, conveniently ignoring Balluch’s new emphasis on not trying to convince individuals, and focusing instead on industry/business and the resulting social climate. This is indeed new, and Francione is too stingy to fail to recognize this, instead emphasizing only what Balluch has in common with other theories. Although Balluch has achieved, with his comrades, more legislative change than People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) or any other group, Francione does not have anything positive to say about Balluch’s achievements except a grudging concession that it is good that apes will no longer be vivisected, followed by Francione’s swift recondemnation of the Great Ape Project. Francione dismisses Balluch’s inspired, carefully thought-out paper as “long” and “convoluted,” rather than seeing an insightful analysis by someone with uniquely relevant experiences. Balluch and his cohort are not only pioneers, as are setters of weird and useless records in Guinness. He is an important pioneer in the history of the animal protection movement.

Francione frames Balluch as someone who would promote “welfarist” reforms rather than vegan education, and I think he might be right about that. I believe in vegan education as part of a full-spectrum approach. Also, ethical education: again, Balluch’s campaigns push off the platform of previous ethical education. Francione makes the tired old point that we would not push for more humane rape or child molestation, ignoring the point I made in my MIRROR PRODUCTION of “Animal Rights Law”:

It might be objected that we do not propose abolishing child abuse by degrees or asking to make it merely “kinder.” However, this is not an analogous case, since there are already laws and norms against such abuse. Even calling for the norm in child abuse means calling for its end, since that form of violence is normally unacceptable in modern societies. But calling for “normal treatment” of animals merely invites further abuse of these sensitive beings. Exposing animal abuse does not mean shutting it down unlike human abuse. That animal abuse is morally wrong does not make its abolition possible in the short-term, and thus may not change what is really best to choose in the near-term. No less damning is the point that, metaphorically speaking, Francione only abolishes child abuse by degrees too: after all, he will protect some animal interests but others not at all, or accept banning some areas of animal exploitation though not others. That is more like eradicating degrees of child abuse than eradicating the whole thing. He does not notice that he is guilty of that which he denounces.

Francione says animal welfare “does not work,” and only is conceded if it is economically beneficial. However, Balluch’s campaign to end battery cages was ethical, as he writes in his essay in In Defense of Animals, and alternative arrangements for hens are more expensive since more space is required, and also more food since hens use more energy moving around, as Balluch notes in "Abolitionism versus Reformism." These laws “work” in reducing suffering, but apparently that does not create any kind of blip on Francione’s radar. The legislation also works in promoting kindness culture, but of course that has not been taken account of in Francione’s thinking either. Francione protests that we should not marginalize veganism, but it is hard to see how Balluch is altogether doing that by trying to promote veganism in the way he thinks most effective. I agree though that vegan education is evidently being given an insufficient priority by Balluch. Balluch doubts there can be successful vegan outreach, but where I live, the Toronto Animal Rights Society holds outdoor video education displays and we make a lot of converts, and additionally, I teach Critical Animal Studies at Brock University and the films as well as the arguments happen to have an impact in convincing people to go vegetarian, etc.

Francione claims that people have already opposed animal suffering for a long time, but there is no evidence of an abolitionist direction. As I point out in “Animal Rights Law,” though, Sweden banned fur farming too and have signaled intent to ban trapping as well. That is a clear counterexample. The building up of bans in Austria is also evidence of what I call “partial abolitionism.” It is too soon to say what an animal rights pragmatist approach can accomplish since while animal kindness is somewhat old, animal liberation is still a historical novelty.

Francione mistakenly writes that on Balluch’s model, the general public is irrelevant, and instead we should go after the animal industries. Francione read dismissively rather than with care. Balluch noted that his reforms depended on 86% support of banning battery cages, and on people ceasing to turn out in sufficient numbers to animal circuses. What Balluch clearly stated was that the public as mere observers plays no role. Their role as consumers, indicators of public support, and as voters for politicians were absolutely and explicitly crucial to Balluch’s campaign. Francione distorts Balluch’s actual position, stating that the latter “indicates a profound lack of understanding of the political process,” meanwhile Francione is busy demonstrating a profound lack of grasp of what Balluch is truly saying.

Francione states dogmatically that welfare reform does not weaken animal industries. As Balluch stated, however, he helped shut down various types of industry. It costs more to switch gears if your fur farming is banned, or rabbit cage farming. And the industry for vivisecting great apes was not only weakened, but abolished!

Instead of stating anything positive about the animal circus bans, Francione notes that this does not ban domestic animal circuses. The constitutional amendment which I praised earlier is dismissed by Francione as what is similarly found in animal weflare laws. Francione misses the positives I accentuated above, even of any constitutional presence of animal protectiveness which is extremely rare. Rather than offer more than grudging praise of banning vivisecting apes, Francione reiterates his opposition to the Great Ape Project, a tactical direction that would have crippled Balluch’s campaign to win this protection for the apes. That is because Francione disallows focusing on apes as special, but lack of focus is fatal to any hope of a specific campaign. Francione states that animal welfare reforms do not do damage to industry, not noting the abolition of certain industry types. Francione cites a Humane Society of the United States study showing that banning the gestation crate is economically cost-effective, as though this disproves it is of any value to animals. Something can make a difference in being much less cruel to sows while also saving “producers” money. For some reason, Francione thinks that if anti-cruelty is cost-effective, it can no longer really curb cruelty. Where is the logic in that? It is just as illogical as Francione concluding that we cannot have “two-track activism” where one track is clearly wrong. Francione has not shown one iota how solid “welfarist” campaigns are either ethically or practically wrong.

Francione thinks he is clever in stating that it is absurd to promote welfarism in order to undermine it. This conveniently ignores that pragmatists can promote abolition of speciesism and welfarism at the same time, as PETA does, and also, higher forms of protection of interests can very well lead to higher and higher recognitions of interests—until we get to animal rights. It is only unclear how animal “welfare” can lead to animal rights if one lacks a clear sense of degrees of protection of interests.

In reading Francione’s response, I get the sense of extreme negativism, and grudgingness to concede any progress. I see in Balluch someone who really achieves things that are tremendously positive both for the short-term and the long-term. Balluch is really doing things for animals rather than undermining animal protection from the theoretical fringe as Francione does in a theoretically ineffective manner. Balluch is showing us a great road for progress that Francione would like nothing more than to block. Ideological blindness prevents him from seeing the importance of suffering-reduction as both a short- and long-term measure. When will the world wake up and follow Balluch’s visionary lead?

Balluch himself has responded to Francione’s commentary at: http://www.vgt.at/publikationen/texte/artikel/20080325Abolitionism/20080414index_en.php It is a devastatingly effective reply. The reader is of course encouraged to read the original papers. Balluch is quite right that Francione does not reply to most of his arguments, and takes other arguments out of context as though Balluch is arguing that “welfare” laws lead to abolition when that is not what is being argued at all. Francione accuses Balluch of statistical inaccuracy, in effect, in claiming that 35% fewer eggs are consumed in Austria, but Balluch was able to account for Francione’s faulty figure and to cite an authoritative source, the Laying Hen Producers Association. Balluch offers a clear counterexample to Francione’s claim that animal “welfarist” reforms only facilitate more profitable exploitation: many fur farms go bankrupt! Balluch gives examples of how we accept reformism in human cases: most think animal rights activists should not be locked up at all, but as long as they are, they should have vegan options, etc.

However, I continue to take issue with some of Balluch’s claims. Balluch argues that confrontational political campaigns are needed and friendly talk with individuals does not work. Here, again, I express some skepticism. Confrontational political campaigns do indeed work, and are needed to be effective as Balluch has shown in real life. But Balluch had popular support, and that is based on individuals quietly and peacefully figuring out the issues, often in conversation with others or from reading literature. Balluch reaffirms that while there is a psychological continuum between animal “welfare” and animal rights, there is a philosophical gulf between them, but I have disputed that above with my degrees of interests model. Balluch writes:

It is a very rare occasion that a person becomes vegan after hearing theoretical animal rights philosophical arguments. Its [sic] suffering and the feeling of compassion that moves people, i.e. animal welfare, to turn to animal rights. That’s because humans are social and rather not rational animals.

He may be right about this to a large extent. However, these dynamics may change as ethical theory becomes more advanced and more integrated into the education system. Once a lot of the suffering is cleaned up, we will need to rely on philosophical arguments to win animal rights.

Overall, I argue that a multifaceted approach is needed: educating individuals to build economic and political support for animal rights, as well as confronting animal exploitation industries and political figures as Balluch and his fellow activists have so masterfully done.


FURTHER READING ON ANIMAL RIGHTS INCREMENTALISM

A Selection of Related Articles

Sztybel, David. "Animal Rights Law: Fundamentalism versus Pragmatism". Journal for Critical Animal Studies 5 (1) (2007): 1-37.

go there

Short version of "Animal Rights Law".

go there

Sztybel, David. "Incrementalist Animal Law: Welcome to the Real World".

go there

Sztybel, David. "Sztybelian Pragmatism versus Francionist Pseudo-Pragmatism".

go there

A Selection of Related Blog Entries

Anti-Cruelty Laws and Non-Violent Approximation

Use Not Treatment: Francione’s Cracked Nutshell

Francione Flees Debate with Me Again, Runs into the “Animal Jury”

The False Dilemma: Veganizing versus Legalizing

Veganism as a Baseline for Animal Rights: Two Different Senses

Francione's Three Feeble Critiques of My Views

Startling Decline in Meat Consumption Proves Francionists Are Wrong Once Again!

The Greatness of the Great Ape Project under Attack!

Francione Totally Misinterprets Singer

Francione's Animal Rights Theory

Francione on Unnecessary Suffering

My Appearance on AR Zone

D-Day for Francionists

Sztybel versus Francione on Animals' Property Status

The Red Carpet

Playing into the Hands of Animal Exploiters

The Abolitionist ApproachES

Francione's Mighty Boomerang


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