I was approached by the folks over at OpposingViews.com to weigh in on the debate over whether or not animals should have the same rights as people. What follows below is the quick essay I submitted to them. You can find the full debate here if their site starts working correctly..there have been transient failures all weekend.
In one episode of the 1980s absurd British sitcom “The Young Ones,” Neil, the hippie of the group, famously quipped “vegetable rights and peace!” comically upping his hippie cred into the stratosphere. Hippies, of course, are presumed to be for rights for all kinds of things: trees, rocks, water, air, and, of course, animals. Not being a hippie myself, I can’t really speak to the arguments for granting non-sentient things like trees rights (though there is a rather compelling environmental case to be made for protecting them from what economists call the “externalities” of capitalist industrial production) but it is worth thinking about why animals should be accorded at least some of the rights that we bipedal primates called “humans” enjoy.
To begin with, despite the question as posed, I don’t think animals should have the same rights as humans in all cases. Granting the dogs I live with a right to free speech or the right to vote is pointless (insert your own joke here about the election and re-election of George W. Bush). Instead, I’m advocating for something that is much more simple. In the respects that animals are like us—most notably, in their ability to feel pain, have subjective experiences, and value their own continued existence—animals should have rights similar to the rights we have. In the broadest terms, this would mean that we’d have to stop eating and wearing them, experimenting on them, and bringing them into existence for our own ends.
Anyone who lives with a cat or a dog knows that animals not only have personalities, but that they also have memories, fears, wants, and desires. The dogs and cat that I live with seek out comfort, avoid pain, and desire companionship, and it is clear to me that they suffer as acutely as I do (if not more acutely) when they are hurt, or sick, or scared. Moreover, having spent time around animals ultimately destined for slaughter, I also know that pigs and cows and chickens are also capable of these same pleasures and pains, and what appears to be a subjective awareness of their surroundings, yet for reasons that no one can really justify, we snuggle up with one set of animals called “pets,” while we eat another set of animals called “livestock.”
When it comes down to it, the case for animal rights is really a case for adopting a thorough moral and ethical stance in favor of treating like cases alike. My own outlook has been shaped by the ethical theory of Gary L. Francione, who argues that though animals and humans are clearly different, they are alike in the sense that they both suffer, and are both sentient. For this reason, Francione argues, animals should receive equal moral consideration. Most importantly, this would mean extending to animals inherent value, or really bringing them into the moral community by recognizing that certain aspects of their personhood cannot be “sold away” or sacrificed for the benefit of another. Put most simply, because animals are like us in some relevant regards, they should be treated like we would be treated in those instances.
The tired objections that animals do not deserve rights because they lack rationality, or language, or human levels of intelligence, or whatever arbitrary characteristics anthropocentric philosophers decide are important are so self-serving as to be almost comical. The obvious problem with using qualities like these to exclude animals from moral consideration is that we can almost always find humans who also lack those qualities. A great many humans lack what we’d consider to be “normal” rational faculties, yet no one seriously suggests that the mentally disabled be enslaved, or that they should be used for food or medical experiments. Similarly, you may be smarter or more eloquent or stronger than I am, yet none of those attributes gives you the right to make me your property. Why? Because in the relevant regard that both you and I share in not being the chattel of another, no arbitrary criteria—not intelligence, rationality, language, eye color, skin color, gender, etc.—can be used to violate this basic right that guarantees our inherent value. Those of us who are for animal rights (and not simply for animal welfare) wish to make “species” another irrelevant criterion for deciding who does and does not get the basic rights accorded to members of our moral community.
Surely, the road ahead towards giving animals more thorough membership in our moral community is a long one. Veganism—not consuming animal products of any kind—is certainly the first step of many in this direction, and a step that everyone can take today. In spite of what Neil the hippie might think, vegetables don’t need rights, as they feel no pain, and have no sentience. Animals, however, are another story altogether.
Posted by Bob Torres 
Filed under: I can tell when the propaganda machine at PETA has decided that an issue matters, because slowly but surely, it starts to make its way into my consciousness, no matter how much I might wish to avoid the idiocy. Such was the case with the recent Action Alert from PETA which got Zappo’s—the massive online shoe retailer—to stop selling fur.
On their site, PETA says:
Well, it seems that Zappos.com got the message that people hate fur, because yesterday, the company officially adopted a permanent policy never to sell any products containing the fur of an animal!
Like I told the people on Twitter who nagged me about this pointless single issue campaign, this isn’t really a victory in any real sense for several reasons.
First, Zappo’s may have agreed to stop selling fur, but have a look around their site: they still sell leather and wool. And if you can manage to be honest with yourself—something that a lot of animal rights activists seem unwilling to do, or incapable of these days—what is the real difference between leather and fur when it comes to the animal rights issues involved? Leather is simply the hide of a different kind of animal with the hair removed. Unlike the implicit argument in a lot of these anti-fur campaigns, I do not think that fur is worse because it is more expensive, and in any case, I’m really not into comparing wrongs in this regard: if you believe that animal exploitation is wrong, fur is just as bad as leather—period. Yet, to argue that fur is “bad” while implicitly accepting that leather is okay sends an odd message about what we’re demanding. Do we think that all animal products are cruel, or just ones that wealthy people can afford, and/or ones which we somehow view as “frivolous?” Thanks to PETA, there is ample confusion on this front. This campaign reinforces that confusion.
Second, false “victories” like these distract from the actual issue at hand. If you read around Twitter and search on the terms “fur” and “zappos”, you’ll see that people seem genuinely excited about this so-called “victory,” and many have again pledged to shop at Zappo’s after threatening to boycott the store if they did not cave to PETA’s demands. But again, I remain confused by this excitement. The best thing I can come up with to explain it is that people who are supporting this are not thinking clearly about the similarities between leather and fur. The result is that people who ostensibly care about animals are distracted by these pseudo-wins from the actual single thing that can make a real difference in this whole fight: going vegan and getting others to do the same. Veganism is the conscious rejection of all forms of animal cruelty and exploitation in one’s life; it is the only real and all-encompassing solution. If you want to make a difference, don’t bother with Zappo’s and fur; don’t bother with cage-free eggs; don’t bother with organic milk. Go vegan, use your talents to get others to consider veganism, and help build a genuine movement of people who will directly challenge the root causes of animal exploitation. Anything else is ignoring the real problem.
Finally, if this campaign was good for anyone, it was good for the public relations machine that is PETA. Sadly, however, PETA has ceased to be much more than a propagandist for its own brand. That said, I know the predictable reactions from those of you who supported this campaign, or who think it is a good idea. Some of you will say “we have to start somewhere,” or “doing something is better than doing nothing,” and I agree: we do have to start somewhere, and I obviously believe doing something is better than nothing. To be completely clear, I’m not urging inaction, I’m just urging a different kind of action. In a world where time and attention are limited, we need to be especially cautious and thoughtful about what we promote and what it says about our overall message in the long run. The only sensible place to start is to go vegan if you aren’t already and to promote ethical veganism. Anything short of that is forestalling actual awareness of the issues.
We just posted Vegan Freak Radio #99 over at our podcast site.
On today’s show, we feature an interview with Mark Love, a fitness trainer with over ten years of experience in training all kinds of people, from athletes to sedentary adults and people recovering from illness or injury. Mark gives tips on how to get motivated and keep yourself motivated to exercise, and discusses what it’s like to be a vegan in the fitness industry.
We also have our usual Vegan Freak fare: we discuss articles about dog rental services and about the subjectivity of our perception of food, and in response to listener voicemails we talk about standing up for what you want in a restaurant, the “manliness” of eating what you want and dying young, and why it isn’t healthy to channel your anger and sadness over the state of the world inward.
Hope you enjoy, and see you next for the big 100 show!
Enjoy!
Every so often, kind readers or listeners will forward us particular bits of the news that make me wish that I had nothing to do with the so-called animal “rights” movement (when it comes down to it, it really seems to be a movement that is less about rights and more about humane treatment). Here are 3 things that are not only embarrassing for us as animal rights activists, but damaging to our overall message and potential impact:
1. PETA ad compares Greyhound bus attack to slaughtering animals
Playing off of the heinous stabbing-decapitation death aboard a Greyhound bus in Canada, PETA came up with an ad comparing the suffering of the decapitated passenger to the suffering that animals experience in slaughter. While there is little doubt that animals do suffer significantly during slaughter, the subject of this ad makes PETA not only appear to be completely fucking bonkers, but also insensitive to the plight of human suffering. It drives home the idea that any and all animal rights activists focus on animal suffering to the exclusion of all other suffering. None of this does the animal rights movement on the whole any favors, and PETA gets what PETA always wants: attention. The question is, at what cost?
2. PETA wants to advertise vegan message on border fence
Speaking of PETA’s stupidity, we again see them riding the coattails of another current news item in a desperate attempt to draw attention to themselves. This time around, PETA wants to put up billboards near the US border with Mexico that say “If the Border Patrol doesn’t get you, the chicken and burgers will—go vegan.” In the article linked above, PETA tries to play this off as concern that the undocumented workers from Mexico will be leaving behind a relatively healthier diet in favor of the standard American fast food fare. While there may be something to this on a factual basis, it stretches the bounds of rational comprehension to imagine that PETA actually cares about the well being of undocumented immigrants. As far as I can tell, they care about one thing and one thing only: shamelessly forcing themselves into the spotlight, so much so that any message that they originally had about animals or vegetarianism is lost.
3. Firebombings at Homes of 2 California Researchers
SANTA CRUZ, Calif. — The police and federal authorities are investigating firebombings at the homes of two researchers at the University of California, Santa Cruz.
The attacks, which the university described as “antiscience violence,” occurred nearly simultaneously before dawn on Saturday, just days after the police in Santa Cruz discovered pamphlets in a coffee shop warning of attacks against “animal abusers everywhere.” The pamphlets included the names, addresses and other personal information of several researchers at the university, according to a news release put out on Friday by the university.
In my book Making A Killing: The Political Economy of Animal Rights, I discuss why violent property destruction is a poor solution to the problem of animal exploitation. First and foremost, it makes animal rights activists look like hypocrites. If we claim to care about “life,” there’s certainly no point in doing things that threaten human life. As I wrote in the book:
Today, most people see the violence and torture done for their palates as absolutely acceptable: animal exploitation is the norm, despite the contradictions inherent in it. Given how overwhelmingly strong the societal currents run against treating animals as anything more than commodities and property, the kind of change we need will require more than violence, more than property destruction, and certainly more than a re-creation of the exploitative dynamics that got us here to begin with. If we are to ever win or advance, we must do so by changing the social relations that are at the heart of the problems we face. If we re-create those damaging social relations by relying on the dominance and oppression of violence, we are essentially doing nothing but deepening the problem we are, more often than not, claiming to fight.
In short, we can’t force people to make decisions about morality while they’re staring down the barrel of a gun (or on the receiving end of a bomb). We have to do the hard and often inglorious work of creating a broad-based social movement that will call into question the speciesist dynamics that underlie our social and cultural norms. Bombs or guns or violence or completely shameless attention whoring cannot achieve this, ever.
I was quoted in a recent article in Metro Newspaper (along with Denyse of Urbanvegan) about which diet is most affected by the rise in food costs. The article doesn’t delve very deep into the issue, but basically the conclusion seems to be that vegans are the most affected by these increases in food costs, because our costs are higher to begin with and we are hit harder when there’s bad weather that wipes out crops. Of course, none of this is borne out by actual studies, which would actually be interesting to see.
Our grocery bill has definitely increased over the last several months, which I’m pretty sure is due to the cost of fuel that affects everyone no matter what they eat (unless you grow absolutely everything you eat yourself). But from what I understand, there are other factors involved in the high prices. Increased demand for wheat around the world is making flour more expensive. Bad weather has hurt rice prices. Floods in the midwest have ruined a lot of grain crops. The price of milk, meat, and eggs is increasing because the cost of the animals’ food (corn and other grains) is increasing from all of these factors.
Now, it seems to me that if you eat a diet heavy on meat, dairy, eggs, and processed foods (SAD, anyone?) that tend to contain a lot of wheat, corn, and soy by-products, then your prices are going to be through the roof.
Our diet mostly consists of fresh produce, beans and other legumes, a few grains, and a few processed things like tofu, veggie burgers, and seitan. Unless bad weather affects every single crop we eat (which is unlikely), then I don’t see how vegans are affected any worse than your average omni consumer. It seems to me that everyone is affected in different ways by higher prices, but that vegans really don’t take a bigger hit than other groups unless you subsist solely on bread and processed foods.
I get frustrated when people have the misconception that veganism has to be expensive. It can be, certainly, depending on how you structure you diet, just like if you’re an omni with a penchant for Kobe beef and truffles, it can be expensive. (And unfortunately in this country, it is often more expensive to eat healthy than unhealthy, but that is a topic for another blog entry.) But there are plenty of things that vegans can do to lower their grocery bill no matter what state the economy is in. As I said in the article and in a previous blog entry, you can eat locally, and try to eat what is in season, since it will tend to be the cheapest (and most tasty!) then. You can stock up on bulk grains and dried legumes. You can plan out your meals before you go to the store, and not buy on impulse. You can stay away from expensive frozen or boxed processed foods. You can make large batches of things like soup one day to eat throughout the week so you aren’t tempted to go out to lunch. You can eat high fiber fresh veggies that fill you up so you aren’t eating more later in the day. Veganism doesn’t have to be incredibly expensive or complicated if you get into the habit of knowing where your money is going and what to look for.
There’s a response on Dr. Joel Fuhrman’s blog Disease Proof to the study that links soy and infertility that we discussed in Vegan Freak Radio 97:
Disease Proof: Does Soy Really Lower Sperm Count?
Dr. Fuhrman points out that more likely mitigating factor for low sperm count was the obesity of the test subjects, and that the study used highly processed soy, rather than tofu or soy beans themselves. I like how he emphasizes staying away from highly processed foods rather than soy itself, as well as reminding people to eat a variety of legumes rather than just relying on one.
According to this piece in the New York Times labor abuses were rampant at Agriprocessors Inc., the nation’s largest kosher slaughterhouse. According to the article, underaged workers sometimes worked as long as 17 hours a day, and worked while injured:
“‘My work was very hard, because they didn’t give me my breaks, and I wasn’t getting very much sleep,’ he said. ‘They told us they were going to call immigration if we complained.’
Elmer L. said that he was clearing cow innards from the slaughter floor last Aug. 26 when a supervisor he described as a rabbi began yelling at him, then kicked him from behind. The blow caused a freshly-sharpened knife to fly up and cut his elbow.
He was sent to a hospital where doctors closed the laceration with eight stitches. But he said that when he returned, his elbow still stinging, to ask for some time off, his supervisor ordered him back to work.
The next day, as he was lifting a cow’s tongue, the stitches ruptured, Elmer L. said, and the wound bled again. He said he was given a bandage at the plant and sent back to work. The incident is confirmed in a worker’s injury report filed on Aug. 31, 2007, by Agriprocessors with the Iowa labor department.”
It is important to note that these abuses are the necessary by-product of the cheap meat that consumers rely on and demand. A giant disassembly line, slaughterhouse work is dangerous, violent, dirty, and exhausting, as workers are often butchering animals that are still alive, and often still kicking, mooing, or otherwise resisting. This work must be done quickly, as the contemporary slaughterhouse relies upon quickly moving animals in one side and animal flesh out the other. Illegal immigrants are often chosen for this work, for two reasons: first, they work cheap; and second, they are less likely to complain to authorities about abusive and dangerous work situations. Like every other sector of the animal economy, profit is the motivating factor:
Another Guatemalan, Joel R., who gave his age as 15, said he dropped out of school in Postville after the eighth grade and took a job at Agriprocessors because his mother became ill. He said he worked from 5.30 p.m. to 6.30 a.m. in a section called “quality control,” a job he described as relatively easy that he got because he speaks English.
But he said he and other workers were under constant pressure from supervisors. “They yell at us when we don’t hurry up, when we don’t work fast enough for them,” said Joel R. He and Gilda O. did not want their last names published because they are illegal immigrants and they were not arrested in the raid.
Animal rights activists often say that there’s a little veal in every glass of milk. By this, they mean that the production of milk relies on the production of veal. Similarly, it appears there’s also a little blood in the meat. It is the blood not only of the slaughtered animal, but of the exploited, abused, and powerless worker who suffered to bring that meat to market.
We just posted Vegan Freak Radio #97 over at our podcast site.
Yes, there are more sensationalistic headlines in the news these days about the evils of soy, and we use some of our critical thinking skills to analyze why the studies aren’t necessarily what they seem on the surface.
No voicemails this show, but we do finally get around to some positive email stories and other articles that listeners have sent us, including some very pragmatic nutritional advice, jewelry made of cicadas (?!), and female butchers who feel like cavewomen.
PETA’s Sexy Lettuce Ladies Give Away KFC’s New Faux-Chicken Sandwiches:
“Quebec City, Quebec--Wearing nothing but skimpy bikinis made of vegetable leaves, PETA’s lovely Lettuce Ladies will hand out delicious samples of the new Classic Vegetarian Sandwich, which is now available at KFC restaurants in Quebec City.”
PETA obviously has never been afraid to use sexism to sell their own campaigns and to promote their own brand, but now they’re out on the streets using sex to promote their own brand plus the brand of a multinational fast food chain that, last I checked, still sells dead animals. On top of it all, I’m sure the samples the “lettuce ladies” are handing out are not actually vegan.
But you know, times are changing. Expecting an animal rights organization to promote veganism is almost like expecting the United States to stick to the Geneva Conventions. Both are apparently artifacts of a more “quaint” time when we could actually have ideals and principles.
Thanks to the Vegan Wookiee for passing this along to us.
Thanks to the few of you who alerted us to the wonky RSS feed. Looks like in some readers there were no paragraph breaks or other formatting making it through. This morning, I fixed the formatting, and for most of you, it should look fine now.
The sole exception here seems to be with Google Reader, which seems to cache the feed site-wide. I guess those of you who are using Google’s reader will just have to hang on until the cache expires; I have no idea how long this is, but it shouldn’t be too long (I hope).
MakingA Killing: The Political Economy of Animal Rights explores the intersections between human and animal oppressions and their relation to the exploitative dynamics of capitalism. Combining nuts and bolts Marxist political economy, a pluralistic anarchist critique, as well as a searing assessment of the animal rights movement, Bob Torres challenges conventional anti-capitalist thinking and convincingly advocates for the abolition of animals in industry — and on the dinner plate.
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Vegan?
we don't eat nothin' that farts. or anything with a face. or anything from anything that farts or has a face. Basically, vegans avoid animal products to the greatest extent possible, with the overall goal of abolishing animal exploitation. No eggs, meat, dairy, honey, wool, leather, etc. This sounds onerous, but trust us, it isn't. Why kill to eat when you don't have to?
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