All Discussions Tagged 'utilitarianism' - Animal Rights Zone2024-03-29T15:40:59Zhttp://arzone.ning.com/forum/topic/listForTag?tag=utilitarianism&feed=yes&xn_auth=noARZone Interview 92 ~ Stuart Chaifetz ~ SHARKtag:arzone.ning.com,2017-10-15:4715978:Topic:1659952017-10-15T00:12:42.054ZAnimal Rights Zonehttp://arzone.ning.com/profile/admin
<p><span class="font-size-4" style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">Episode 92 features Stuart Chaifetz from SHARK. <br></br><br></br></span><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;">Stuart Chaifetz is an investigator who works with SHARK - Showing Animals Respect and Kindness.</span></p>
<p><span class="font-size-4" style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">Stu - began his animal campaigning as a “sab” in England in 1990 and continued his…</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;" class="font-size-4">Episode 92 features Stuart Chaifetz from SHARK. <br/><br/></span><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;">Stuart Chaifetz is an investigator who works with SHARK - Showing Animals Respect and Kindness.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;" class="font-size-4">Stu - began his animal campaigning as a “sab” in England in 1990 and continued his anti-hunting work after returning to the United States.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;" class="font-size-4">He’s also run for Congress as a Green Party candidate and is the winner of a Sea Shepherd Conservation Society award for anti-whaling work.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;" class="font-size-4">Stu is also an activist for special needs children.<br/><br/></span><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;">Recently, SHARK released a video discussing some issues associated with the group Animal Charity Evaluators, or ACE. Stuart is joining us today to discuss that video, the claims made in the video and other issues that have followed the release of his video.</span></p>
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<p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;">To listen to Stu's ARZone Interview please click <span style="color: #ff0000;" class="font-size-6"><a href="https://ia601504.us.archive.org/4/items/ARZoneInterview92StuartChaifetz/ARZone%20Interview%2092%20~%20Stuuar%20Chaifetz.mp3" target="_blank"><span style="color: #ff0000;">HERE</span></a></span><br/></span></p>
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<p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;">To view the SHARK video we discussed in the interview, see below. <br/><br/><br/></span></p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;"><iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/3inYlGkFNv0?rel=0&wmode=opaque" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
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<div dir="ltr"><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;" class="font-size-4"><a href="https://animalcharityevaluators.org/transparency/criticisms/shark/?fref=gc&dti=332622766456"><font id="docs-internal-guid-0ae8234f-1d4f-afba-575d-b684e59d6275"><font face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><font color="#1155CC"><font size="5">ACE Response</font></font></font></font></a></span></p>
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<p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;" class="font-size-4"><font><font><font face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><font size="5"> </font></font></font></font></span></p>
<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: center;"><p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;" class="font-size-4"><a href="https://medium.com/@harrisonnathan/the-problems-with-animal-charity-evaluators-in-brief-cd56b8cb5908"><font color="#1155CC"><font size="5">Harrison’s ACE Article</font></font></a></span></p>
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<div><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;" class="font-size-4"><a href="http://www.sharkonline.org/index.php/charity-cops/1750-our-response-to-ace-s-response"><font size="5">SHARK's Response to ACE's response</font></a></span></p>
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<p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;" class="font-size-4"><font size="5"><strong><span class="font-size-4"><font face="Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif">Please click <a href="https://ia601504.us.archive.org/4/items/ARZoneInterview92StuartChaifetz/ARZone%20Interview%2092%20~%20Stuuar%20Chaifetz.mp3" target="_blank">H E R E</a>, or visit <a href="http://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/arzone-animal-rights-zone/id555064645" target="_blank">this webpage to subscribe using iTunes</a>, and please remember to <a href="http://arzone.ning.com/page/podcasts" target="_blank">visit the podcast page</a> to view a complete listing of all ARZone podcasts.</font></span></strong></font></span></p>
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<p style="text-align: center;"></p> The Dog in the Lifeboat: An Exchangetag:arzone.ning.com,2016-08-22:4715978:Topic:1591702016-08-22T23:05:47.787ZAnimal Rights Zonehttp://arzone.ning.com/profile/admin
<p style="text-align: center;"><span class="font-size-3" style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">The following exchange between Tom Regan and Peter Singer was originally published in the <a href="http://www.nybooks.com/articles/1985/04/25/the-dog-in-the-lifeboat-an-exchange/" target="_blank">New York Review of Books</a> in the April 25 1985 edition. Tom Regan's brief discussion of the "lifeboat scenario" has often been intentionally misrepresented. It is important not only for…</span></p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;" class="font-size-3">The following exchange between Tom Regan and Peter Singer was originally published in the <a href="http://www.nybooks.com/articles/1985/04/25/the-dog-in-the-lifeboat-an-exchange/" target="_blank">New York Review of Books</a> in the April 25 1985 edition. Tom Regan's brief discussion of the "lifeboat scenario" has often been intentionally misrepresented. It is important not only for honesty and integrity but also for the benefit of other animals that Tom's work is represented accurately. With that said, I encourage you to please read this exchange and learn what Tom actually says - that he may find it equally valid to decide to throw the humans out of the boat to save one dog. <span>To misrepresent Tom's "lifeboat" scenario as "speciesist" is to engage in a logical fallacy called <a href="https://www.logicallyfallacious.com/tools/lp/Bo/LogicalFallacies/65/Cherry-Picking" target="_blank">cherry picking</a>.</span><br/><br/><em><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">"To make much of my brief discussion of an isolated, bizarre, and scarcely common occurrence—the lifeboat case—is to miss the greater part of what <a href="https://books.google.com.au/books/about/The_Case_for_Animal_Rights.html?id=2OFPVE4cpYkC" target="_blank">The Case</a> attempts, whether it succeeds or not". </span></em></span><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;" class="font-size-3"><br/></span></p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;" class="font-size-3"><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">~ <a href="http://www.tomregan.info" target="_blank">Tom Regan</a> </span></span></p>
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<h2 style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: impact, chicago;" class="font-size-7">The Dog in the Lifeboat: An Exchange</span></h2>
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<div class="author" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;" class="font-size-4"><a href="http://www.nybooks.com/contributors/tom-regan/" target="_blank">Tom Regan</a>, reply by <a href="http://www.nybooks.com/contributors/peter-singer/" target="_blank">Peter Singer</a></span></div>
<div class="details" style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.nybooks.com/issues/1985/04/25/" target="_blank">APRIL 25, 1985 ISSUE</a></div>
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<h6><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;" class="font-size-3">In response to:</span></h6>
<p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;" class="font-size-3"><em><a href="http://www.nybooks.com/articles/1985/01/17/ten-years-of-animal-liberation/" target="_blank"><br/>Ten Years of Animal Liberation</a></em> from the January 17, 1985 issue</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;" class="font-size-3"><i><br/>To the Editors</i>:</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;" class="font-size-3"><br/><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/3038399006?profile=original" target="_self"><img width="300" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/3038399006?profile=RESIZE_320x320" width="300" class="align-right"/></a>During the past ten years or so Peter Singer and I have been independently developing and applying very different ethical theories to a variety of moral and social issues, including the treatment of nonhuman animals. Singer, a utilitarian, denies that animals (and humans) have moral rights, and endeavors to rest his case for what he calls “the animal liberation movement” on utilitarian calculations. In <a href="https://books.google.com.au/books/about/The_Case_for_Animal_Rights.html?id=2OFPVE4cpYkC" target="_blank">The Case for Animal Rights</a>, recently reviewed by Singer in these pages [<i>NYR</i>, January 17], I attempt to lay the theoretical foundation for what, in contrast to Singer, I call “the animal rights movement.”<br/><br/></span><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">There is more than a verbal difference here. It is by appeal to basic moral rights that the rights view, as I call the position developed in my book, issues its categorical condemnation of chattel slavery, for example. This institution is categorically wrong, whatever the consequences, because it systematically violates the right of human beings to be treated with respect. Singer’s position, however—(assuming that equal interests have been counted equally)—must be that chattel slavery is wrong, if it is, because of the consequences, a position which, because it makes the wrongness of the institution contingent upon consequences, clearly implies that it would not be wrong, if the consequences happened to be optimific [</span><i style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">sic</i><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">]. It is difficult to exaggerate the radical moral difference between Singer’s utilitarianism and the rights view.<br/><br/></span><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">This same difference can be illustrated when we consider the treatment of animals. The rights view offers a categorical condemnation of the harmful use of animals in science, for example, calling for its total abolition. And it does this independently of appeals to consequences, resting its case here, as in the case of its condemnation of chattel slavery, on this institution’s systematic violation of the right of animals to be treated with respect. As a utilitarian, Singer cannot offer a critique that is independent of appeals to consequences; indeed, he is obliged to concede—and he has—that some harmful uses of animals in science may be morally permissible. Singer’s position is not antivivisectionist. The rights view’s is. Again, the difference between the two positions could not be clearer.<br/><br/></span><i style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">The Case for Animal Rights</i><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">, as the preceding discussion of the institutions of chattel slavery and the harmful use of animals in science might suggest, primarily is concerned with offering a basis for assessing ongoing social practices or policies. This is something a reader of Singer’s review might miss, since Singer concentrates his critical fire, not on this aspect of the book, but rather on my brief discussion of a lifeboat case: four normal, adult humans and a dog will all die unless one of the humans sacrifices his life, or one of the humans or the dog is thrown overboard. Would it be wrong to throw the dog overboard in these dire circumstances? I do not believe it would, and I argue that the rights view supports this judgment. Singer, for his part, “confess[es] to some difficulty in understanding” my answer, and wonders whether my willingness to sacrifice the dog in this case might not be inconsistent with my categorical opposition to the harmful use of animals in science.<br/><br/></span><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">There is no inconsistency here, however, since the two cases differ in morally crucial ways. In the case of the harmful use of animals in science, animals are coercively placed at risk of harm, risks they would not otherwise run, so that others might benefit. Day in and day out they are forced to run our risks for us (or for others), and so are institutionally treated as if they exist as mere resources, whose place in the moral scheme of things is to serve the interests of other individuals. This coercive transference of risks, from others to these animals, when the animals themselves would not otherwise be at risk of suffering the harms imposed on them, is, as I explain at length in </span><i style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">The Case</i><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">, an indefensible violation of their right to be treated with respect.<br/><br/></span><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">The lifeboat case differs. The dog’s risk of dying is assumed to be the same as that run by each of the human survivors. And it is further assumed that no one runs this risk because of past violations of rights; for example, no one has been forced or tricked on board. The survivors are all on the lifeboat because, say, the mother ship has sunk or the river has flooded.<br/><br/></span><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">There is no hint of inconsistency, therefore, in making different moral judgments in the two cases. It is wrong—categorically wrong—coercively to put an animal at risk of harm, when the animal would not otherwise run this risk, so that others might benefit; and it is wrong to do this in a scientific or in any other context because such treatment violates the animal’s right to be treated with respect by reducing the animal to the status of a mere resource, a mere means, a thing. It is not wrong, however, to cast the dog on the lifeboat overboard if the dog runs the same risk of dying as the other survivors, if no one has violated the dog’s right in the course of getting him on board, and if all on board will perish if all continue in their present condition.<br/><br/></span><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">Given that these conditions are fulfilled, the choice concerning who should be saved must be decided by what I term the harm principle. Space prevents me from explaining that principle fully here (see </span><i style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">The Case</i><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">, chapters 3 and 8, for my considered views). Suffice it to say that no one has a right to have his lesser harm count for more than the greater harm of another. Thus, if death would be a lesser harm for the dog than it would be for any of the human survivors—(and this is an assumption Singer does not dispute)—then the dog’s right not to be harmed would not be violated if he were cast overboard. In these perilous circumstances, assuming that no one’s right to be treated with respect has been part of their creation, the dog’s individual right not to be harmed must be weighed equitably against the same right of </span><i style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">each</i><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;"> of the individual human survivors.<br/><br/></span><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">To weigh these rights in this fashion is not to violate anyone’s right to be treated with respect; just the opposite is true, which is why numbers make no difference in such a case. Given, that is, that what we must do is weigh the harm faced by any one individual against the harm faced by each other individual, on an individual, not a group or collective basis, it then makes no difference how many individuals will each suffer a lesser, or who will each suffer a greater, harm. It would not be wrong to cast a million dogs overboard to save the four human survivors, assuming the lifeboat case were otherwise the same. But neither would it be wrong to cast a million humans overboard to save a canine survivor, if the harm death would be for the humans was, in each case, less than the harm death would be for the dog.<br/><br/></span><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">Having endeavored here to dissipate the grounds for Singer’s confessed “difficulty” in understanding my treatment of the lifeboat case, I want to re-emphasize my earlier point, that </span><i style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">The Case</i><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;"> attempts to offer a theoretical basis for assessing the ethics of ongoing social practices and institutions, and, in the course of doing this, attends to the task of laying the foundations of the animal rights movement. To make much of my brief discussion of an isolated, bizarre, and scarcely common occurrence—the lifeboat case—is to miss the greater part of what </span><i style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">The Case</i><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;"> attempts, whether it succeeds or not.</span></p>
<blockquote><p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;" class="font-size-3">Tom Regan</span></p>
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<p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;" class="font-size-3">National Humanities Center</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;" class="font-size-3">Research Triangle Park, North Carolina</span></p>
<h6><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;" class="font-size-3"><br/>Peter Singer replies:</span></h6>
<p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;" class="font-size-3"><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/3038399248?profile=original" target="_self"><img width="300" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/3038399248?profile=RESIZE_320x320" width="300" class="align-right"/></a>Regan seeks to emphasize the differences between his view and mine. He says that his position requires the total abolition of the harmful uses of animals in science, while mine does not. It is true that on a utilitarian view there could conceivably be circumstances in which an experiment on an animal stands to reduce suffering so much that it would be permissible to carry it out even if it involved some harm to the animal. (This could be true, incidentally, even if the animal were a human being.) But if we focus on the social practice of experimentation, as Regan would have us do, a utilitarian position requires that we seek to end such tragic conflicts of interest by developing methods of research which do not involve the harmful use of sentient creatures. The abolition of all harmful uses of animals in science is thus as much the aim of my view as it is of Regan’s.<br/><br/></span><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">But, Regan would protest, for the utilitarian this is only an ultimate goal; on the rights view it is an immediate requirement. In fact—thinking still of the social practice of experimentation as a whole, and not of individual cases—good utilitarian arguments could be offered for the immediate abolition of animal experimentation. The suffering animals would be spared would be immense; the benefits lost at best uncertain; and the incentive thus provided for the speedy development of alternative means of conducting research, the most powerful imaginable.<br/><br/></span><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">If, on the other hand, we switch our attention from the existing social practice of experimentation to hypothetical cases, then Regan’s view also cannot consistently imply the total abolition of all harmful uses of animals in science. In my review I suggested that, given what he says about the lifeboat case, he cannot consistently deny that it would be permissible to sacrifice an unlimited number of dogs to save a human life. He now responds that the lifeboat case is different from animal experimentation, because the animals in the lifeboat have not been coerced into the situation in which they are at risk of harm. This difference, however, does not distinguish the lifeboat situation from all possible circumstances in which animals might be experimented upon.<br/><br/></span><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">Suppose, for instance, that a new and fatal virus affects both dogs and humans. Scientists believe that the only way to save the lives of any of those affected is to carry out experiments on some of them. The subjects of the experiments will die, but the knowledge gained will mean that others afflicted by the disease will live. In this situation the dogs and humans are in equal peril and the peril is not the result of coercion. If Regan thinks a dog should be thrown out of the lifeboat so that the humans in it can be saved, he cannot consistently deny that we should experiment on a diseased dog to save diseased humans.<br/><br/></span><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">That is not all. Since Regan says that in these cases numbers do not count, and a million dogs should be thrown overboard in order to save a single human being, he would have to say that it would be better to perform the experiment on a million dogs than to perform it on a single human. Here we can see the extraordinary consequences of the refusal to take notice of numbers: in the circumstances described, Regan’s allegedly “totally abolitionist” rights view actually permits much more—in fact, literally infinitely more—animal experimentation than the utilitarian view, which adds up the harm suffered by the dogs and would at some point say that this harm is greater than the harm which would be suffered by a single human being.<br/><br/></span><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">Quite apart from this unfortunate consequence of Regan’s view, it seems wrong to hold that what we may do to a dog in a lifeboat depends on how the dog came to be in the lifeboat in the first place. The point is well made in an as yet unpublished paper by Dale Jemieson, a philosopher at the University of Colorado. As Jamieson argues, it scarcely seems appropriate to inquire, before we decide to pull them into our lifeboat, whether drowning animals or people are in the water because they have been pushed (which would presumably be a violation of their rights), or because they fell (which would not be).<br/><br/></span><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">So Regan has not succeeded in reconciling what he says about the lifeboat case with his professed support for the total abolition of animal experimentation. I entirely agree, however, that such bizarre hypothetical cases are of no practical significance. The practical value of Regan’s book lies in its attack on our social practices of using animals as research tools and as mere lumps of palatable living flesh. On these practical issues Regan and I are in full agreement. Viewed from the perspective of a society which continues to accept these practices, the philosophical differences between us hardly matter.<br/><br/></span></p>
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<p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;"><em>This article was originally published in the <a href="http://www.nybooks.com/articles/1985/04/25/the-dog-in-the-lifeboat-an-exchange/" target="_blank">New York Review of Books</a> in response to a review of Tom's <a href="https://books.google.com.au/books/about/The_Case_for_Animal_Rights.html?id=2OFPVE4cpYkC" target="_blank">The Case for Animal Rights</a> by Peter Singer in 1985. It is republished here as a resource to educate the animal advocacy community about the reality of Tom's brief lifeboat discussion. </em></span></p>
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<p></p> A New Animal Liberation: Why?tag:arzone.ning.com,2016-05-10:4715978:Topic:1556032016-05-10T05:23:28.598ZAnimal Rights Zonehttp://arzone.ning.com/profile/admin
<p style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://veganplace.wordpress.com/2016/05/03/a-new-animal-liberation-why/" rel="bookmark" style="font-family: impact, chicago; font-size: 24pt; text-align: center;">A New Animal Liberation: Why?</a></p>
<h1 class="entry-title" style="text-align: center;"><span class="font-size-4" style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">Written by <a href="https://veganplace.wordpress.com" target="_blank">Lee Hall…</a></span></h1>
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<p style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://veganplace.wordpress.com/2016/05/03/a-new-animal-liberation-why/" rel="bookmark" style="font-family: impact, chicago; font-size: 24pt; text-align: center;">A New Animal Liberation: Why?</a></p>
<h1 class="entry-title" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;" class="font-size-4">Written by <a href="https://veganplace.wordpress.com" target="_blank">Lee Hall</a></span></h1>
<div class="comments-link"><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;" class="font-size-3"><a href="https://veganplace.wordpress.com/2016/05/03/a-new-animal-liberation-why/#comments"><br/> <br/></a></span></div>
<div class="entry-content"><p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;" class="font-size-3"><span><a href="https://veganplace.files.wordpress.com/2016/05/2016-paperback-cover-thumbnail.jpg?w=241&h=246" target="_blank"><img src="https://veganplace.files.wordpress.com/2016/05/2016-paperback-cover-thumbnail.jpg?w=241&h=246&width=250" width="250" class="align-right"/></a></span></span><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">On Earth Day weekend 2016, the Cleveland Animal </span><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">Rights Alliance invited me to the Cleveland Heights library to offer a presentation (public; free vegan pizza and homemade dishes) on </span><em style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">Why We Need an Animal Liberation for the 21st Century.</em></p>
<p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;" class="font-size-3">So we focused on the subtitle and reasons to recharge the phrase <em>animal liberation.</em></span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;" class="font-size-3">Discussions of <em>rights</em> so often veer into questions about who qualifies. We laud certain animals for demonstrating (often <a href="http://seedmagazine.com/content/article/a_little_bird_told_me/" target="_blank">at great cost to the animals themselves</a>) that they can decipher and <a href="http://vegnews.com/articles/page.do?pageId=6757&catId=5" target="_blank">respond to our cues</a>, or <a href="http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/1026/p17s02-sten.html" target="_blank">adapt to our domestic environments</a>, or <a href="http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/speaking-bonobo-134931541/" target="_blank">act like us</a>. Our assessments of what animals deserve can trap them again. As Catharine MacKinnon observed more than a decade ago, the model that “makes animals objects of rights in standard liberal moral terms—misses animals on their own terms.”<br/> <br/></span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;" class="font-size-3">And lately I’ve been<a href="https://veganplace.files.wordpress.com/2016/04/kai-and-candice.jpg?w=330&h=251" target="_blank"><img src="https://veganplace.files.wordpress.com/2016/04/kai-and-candice.jpg?w=330&h=251&width=250" width="250" class="align-left"/></a> leaning to <em>liberation</em> as our real objective: it evokes those living on nature’s terms, autonomous, free.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;" class="font-size-3">We can credit Peter Singer as a catalyst for a rising conversation, in the English-speaking world, of animals’ interests and human responsibility. Singer personally <a href="http://www.nybooks.com/articles/2003/05/15/animal-liberation-at-30/" target="_blank">underscored this </a>in the <em>New York Review of Books </em>three decades after having published <em>Animal Liberation.</em></span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;" class="font-size-3">The thing is, the theme of Peter Singer’s 1975 book was not so much liberation as pain management.<br/> <br/></span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;" class="font-size-3"><a href="https://veganplace.files.wordpress.com/2016/04/slide4.gif?w=584" target="_blank"><img src="https://veganplace.files.wordpress.com/2016/04/slide4.gif?w=584&width=500" width="500" class="align-center"/></a></span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;" class="font-size-3"><br/> To Singer, <em>Animal Liberation </em>promotes a principle that most people already accept: we should minimize suffering. This became the keynote argument for the animal-rights advocacy that followed.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;" class="font-size-3">The next slide, quoting Singer at<em> Taking Action for Animals</em> (sponsored by the Humane Society of the United States, 2006), highlights a point of contention. While many advocates agreed with Singer’s opinion that pain sensitivity is what draws our ethical consideration, some wouldn’t wave off our role in their deaths this readily. <br/> <br/> <a href="https://veganplace.files.wordpress.com/2016/04/slide5.gif?w=584&h=438" target="_blank"><img src="https://veganplace.files.wordpress.com/2016/04/slide5.gif?w=584&h=438&width=500" width="500" class="align-center"/></a></span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;" class="font-size-3"><br/> Many advocacy groups followed Singer, though, and never established precepts against killing. The Animal Legal Defense Fund wrote up a <a href="http://animalbillofrights.aldf.org/" target="_blank">Bill of Rights for Animals</a> that accepts killing though <em>livestock must be stunned into unconsciousness prior to slaughter.</em></span></p>
<div id="attachment_1478" class="wp-caption alignright"><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;" class="font-size-3"><a href="https://veganplace.files.wordpress.com/2016/04/humane-slaughter-is-an-oxymoron.jpg?w=387&h=293" target="_blank"><img src="https://veganplace.files.wordpress.com/2016/04/humane-slaughter-is-an-oxymoron.jpg?w=387&h=293&width=250" width="250" class="align-right"/></a></span><p class="wp-caption-text"><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;" class="font-size-3"> </span></p>
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<p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;" class="font-size-3">The idea that causing a conscious being’s death is allowable under the “liberation” banner is bizarre, yet taken for granted in a lot of advocacy. To this day, <a href="https://speciesandclass.com/2014/10/10/catelli-brothers-watching-workers-kill/" target="_blank">exposés</a> don’t decry the killing so much as the <em>way</em>animals are killed.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;" class="font-size-3">Peter Singer’s “equal consideration” for nonhuman interests will essentially regard animals as containers of pain and pleasure. To cut down on the most suffering, the activist is urged to oppose glaring abuses in animal husbandry. Here’s the point as originally stated in Singer’s <em>Animal Liberation</em>:<br/> <br/> <a href="https://veganplace.files.wordpress.com/2016/04/slide6.gif?w=584&h=438" target="_blank"><img src="https://veganplace.files.wordpress.com/2016/04/slide6.gif?w=584&h=438&width=500" width="500" class="align-center"/></a></span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;" class="font-size-3"><br/> To a large extent, even rights advocacy (while taking great pains to differentiate itself from Singer’s brand of utilitarianism) reflects Singer’s model.<br/> <br/> <br/></span></p>
<div id="attachment_1405" class="wp-caption alignright"><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;" class="font-size-3"><a href="https://veganplace.files.wordpress.com/2016/04/slide8.gif?w=584" target="_blank"><img src="https://veganplace.files.wordpress.com/2016/04/slide8.gif?w=584&width=500" width="500" class="align-center"/></a></span><p class="wp-caption-text" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;" class="font-size-3">– Peter Singer. nybooks.com/articles/2003/05/15/animal-liberation-at-30/</span></p>
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<p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;" class="font-size-3"><br/> Singer, who wrote <em>Animal Liberation </em>during a key decade for human equality movements, says equal consideration ought to be extended to nonhuman animals. But according to Singer this consideration will only the cover interests we deem <em>similar</em> to those we seek to protect for ourselves.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;" class="font-size-3">This might seem logical on its face, but I’m not convinced it’s a fair (or even relevant) way to judge the interests of other animals who have no need for our assessments.</span></p>
<h2><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;" class="font-size-3"><strong><br/> Nautical Dogs and Sterile Deer</strong></span></h2>
<p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;" class="font-size-3">Animal-advocacy theorists have presented hypothetical emergencies to justify our preference for putting humans first. Picture a lifeboat that can’t carry an entire group of humans and a dog to safety. Who gets to stay in the boat?</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;" class="font-size-3">Tom Regan’s <em>Case for Animal Rights</em> came out in 1983. In Regan’s version, the dog loses. Regan assigns a human and dog equal moral significance: we all experience our lives. Yet Regan distinguishes the <em>value of the lives lived</em> by the humans and dog from the<em>value of beings themselves</em>. And then allows the sacrifice of any number of dogs to save the human. <br/> <br/> <br/> <a href="https://veganplace.files.wordpress.com/2016/04/slide10.gif?w=584&h=438" target="_blank"><img src="https://veganplace.files.wordpress.com/2016/04/slide10.gif?w=584&h=438&width=500" width="500" class="align-center"/></a></span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;" class="font-size-3"><br/> This assertion was repeated quite recently by Gary L. Francione and Anna Charlton, who, in <em>Eat Like You Care: An Examination of the Morality of Eating Animals</em> (2013), say they “will not challenge these widely-shared moral intuitions” that “may tell us that in situations of genuine conflict between humans and animals, humans win. But our intuitions also tell us that in situations in which there is no conflict, we cannot inflict suffering on animals simply because we get enjoyment from doing so.”</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;" class="font-size-3">Here’s the message the 21st century is sending to animal advocacy: There is hardly any uncontested space on this planet. There are more than seven billion of us, and <a href="http://www.capsweb.org/blog/mass-man-makes-mess" target="_blank">everywhere, humans are “winning” while everyone else is disappearing</a>.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;" class="font-size-3"><br/> People now impose contraception on deer so we can <a href="https://veganplace.files.wordpress.com/2016/04/cle-lee.jpg?w=227&h=397" target="_blank"><img src="https://veganplace.files.wordpress.com/2016/04/cle-lee.jpg?w=227&h=397&width=250" width="250" class="align-right"/></a>spread ourselves out without having to deal with the “conflict” of animals in our way. Or we oust untamed animals in the name of human rights. In India, a Tribal Rights Bill was introduced to redress discrimination by allocating land to several million indigenous forest-dwellers—while annihilating the region’s last few hundred tigers. Is erasure of tigers acceptable because the tigers would have had less possible sources of satisfaction than the indigenous people? Or does ethical decision-making require a thought process more complex than that?</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;" class="font-size-3">Under new global climate patterns, lifeboat scenarios will happen a lot. Environmental crises are unfolding more quickly than could have been predicted when many animal-rights texts were written.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;" class="font-size-3">Chapter Nine of <em>On Their Own Terms: Animal Liberation for the 21st Century</em> reviews advocates’ agreement to control the fertility of free-living animals over the years. In 1975, Singer suggested that animals have an interest in our research and development of fertility control over free-living communities.<br/> <br/> <br/> <br/> <a href="https://veganplace.files.wordpress.com/2016/04/slide16.gif?w=584&h=438" target="_blank"></a></span></p>
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<p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;" class="font-size-3"><a href="https://veganplace.files.wordpress.com/2016/04/slide16.gif?w=584&h=438" target="_blank"><img src="https://veganplace.files.wordpress.com/2016/04/slide16.gif?w=584&h=438&width=500" width="500" class="align-center"/></a></span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;" class="font-size-3"><br/> The assumption that free-living animals might wreck their environment and need us to step in as supervisors matches the claims of administrative officials ready to lower the boom on animals in woods, parks, and fragments of green space. In 2008, when deer were targeted near Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania, rights advocate Tom Regan accepted the premise that the local deer must be controlled, but argued that it should be done by pharmaceutical means. The contraceptive substance porcine zona pellucida (PZP), made from the membranes of pig ovaries, triggers the deer’s immune system, forcing the body to attack the deer’s own eggs.<br/> <br/> <br/></span></p>
<div id="attachment_1414" class="wp-caption alignright"><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;" class="font-size-3"><a href="https://veganplace.files.wordpress.com/2016/04/slide17.gif?w=623&h=470" target="_blank"><img src="https://veganplace.files.wordpress.com/2016/04/slide17.gif?w=623&h=470&width=500" width="500" class="align-center"/></a></span><p class="wp-caption-text" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;" class="font-size-3">The Swarthmorean, 18 Dec. 2008</span></p>
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<p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;" class="font-size-3"><br/> Regan’s position startled and disappointed me—for Regan’s book <em>The Case for Animal Rights</em> had urged: “With regard to wild animals, the general policy recommended by the rights view is: let them be!” But support for human-controlled reproduction in free-living communities had precedent in animal-rights legal work. In the 1990s, Gary Francione and Anna Charlton, on behalf of their Animal Law Project at Rutgers<em>,</em> <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20041025114500/http://www.animal-law.org/hunting/huntintro.htm" target="_blank">explained</a> their action on behalf of <a href="http://www.pzpinfo.org/home.html" target="_blank">Pity Not Cruelty, Inc</a>. to change deer-control policy in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania:</span></p>
<blockquote><p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;" class="font-size-3">“We are assisting the plaintiffs in the Lower Merion challenge in the dissemination of information concerning non-lethal methods to decrease any deer/human conflicts, including the possible use of immunocontraception where the deer population can be verified to have increased considerably.”</span></p>
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<p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;" class="font-size-3"><br/> This presents the deer’s very act of reproducing as a possible situation of true conflict. The stance ignores <a href="https://veganplace.wordpress.com/2015/11/19/deer-simplicity/" target="_blank">the obvious—</a>balancing the deer population isn’t up to humans; it’s the role of native carnivores and omnivores.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;" class="font-size-3">Today, communities are demanding the systematic spaying of deer.<br/> <br/></span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;" class="font-size-3"><a href="https://veganplace.files.wordpress.com/2016/04/slide20.gif?w=584&h=438" target="_blank"><img src="https://veganplace.files.wordpress.com/2016/04/slide20.gif?w=584&h=438&width=500" width="500" class="align-center"/></a></span></p>
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<p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;" class="font-size-3">A liberatory theory <em>ought</em> to call for the neutering of cats (TNR) or to prevent dogs from mating, they already lack the ability to reproduce and raise their young on their terms. Phasing out the breeding of animals as pets would, essentially, put wildcats and wolves off-limits to selective breeding to suit our whims. But contraception for free-living animals is animal control—nothing more, nothing less. Note the importance of distinguishing selectively bred animals from communities of animals who could actually experience autonomy, and shouldn’t be denied that opportunity.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;" class="font-size-3">I’ll let the next slide speak for itself.<br/> <br/> <br/></span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;" class="font-size-3"><a href="https://veganplace.files.wordpress.com/2016/04/slide21.gif?w=584&h=438" target="_blank"><img src="https://veganplace.files.wordpress.com/2016/04/slide21.gif?w=584&h=438&width=500" width="500" class="align-center"/></a></span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;" class="font-size-3"><br/> But for context, let’s talk about how much room we take up on this planet, thanks to some work made <a href="http://www.capsweb.org/blog/mass-man-makes-mess" target="_blank">available</a> by Californians for Population Stabilization.<br/> <br/> <br/></span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;" class="font-size-3"><a href="https://veganplace.files.wordpress.com/2016/04/slide22.gif?w=584&h=438" target="_blank"><img src="https://veganplace.files.wordpress.com/2016/04/slide22.gif?w=584&h=438&width=500" width="500" class="align-center"/></a><br/> Humanity’s mass (we’re the red bar segments in the next chart) has eclipsed the collective weight of<em> all</em> Earth’s free-living land mammals (green segments).<br/> <br/> <br/></span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;" class="font-size-3"><a href="https://veganplace.files.wordpress.com/2016/04/slide24.gif?w=584&h=438" target="_blank"><img src="https://veganplace.files.wordpress.com/2016/04/slide24.gif?w=584&h=438&width=500" width="500" class="align-center"/></a></span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;" class="font-size-3"><br/> Add to this the weight of our entourage of purpose-bred animals (blue segments).<br/> <br/></span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;" class="font-size-3"><a href="https://i1.wp.com/www.alaskaforreal.com/uploads/5/7/9/5/57956761/638_orig.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="https://i1.wp.com/www.alaskaforreal.com/uploads/5/7/9/5/57956761/638_orig.jpg?width=250" width="250" class="align-left"/></a>Witness our expansion as we press the rest of Earth’s bio-community off the chart.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;" class="font-size-3"><br/> Can we so readily accept the claim of “too many of them”?</span></p>
<h2><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;" class="font-size-3"><strong><br/> <br/> <br/> Shoppers gonna shop. Can we accept that some (really fancy) husbandry improvements <em>support</em> the liberation mission, sort of?<br/> <br/></strong></span></h2>
<p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;" class="font-size-3">OK, let’s look at an e-mail I received from Whole Foods Market in London on 15 April 2016, just one week before Earth Day. <span>It says…</span><br/> <br/> <a href="https://veganplace.files.wordpress.com/2016/04/slide25.gif?w=584&h=438" target="_blank"><img src="https://veganplace.files.wordpress.com/2016/04/slide25.gif?w=584&h=438&width=500" width="500" class="align-center"/></a></span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;" class="font-size-3"><br/> <br/></span></p>
<blockquote><p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;" class="font-size-3"><span>“While organic dairy cows yield on average a third less than intensive production, the benefits of organic dairy are huge. In order for a dairy to achieve organic certification the herd must be pasture-grazed throughout the grazing season.”</span></span></p>
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<p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;" class="font-size-3">The cows are on pastures (read: sprawl – and let’s explain it as such to our shopping friends), and they only “yield” a third of what densely confined cows produce. So, if all the cow’s milk shoppers switched to organic, they’d effectively demand three times as many cows? <strong>Look at these cows.<br/> <br/> <br/></strong> <a href="https://veganplace.files.wordpress.com/2016/05/capsweb-org-blog-mass-man-makes-mess.jpg?w=584" target="_blank"><img src="https://veganplace.files.wordpress.com/2016/05/capsweb-org-blog-mass-man-makes-mess.jpg?w=584&width=500" width="500" class="align-center"/></a></span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;" class="font-size-3"><br/> The next slide joins the two above advocacy positions: (a) constricting the populations of free-living animals, and (b) allocating more space to animal husbandry. Both positions, and certainly the two combined, support human claims to habitat and, in turn, the disappearing of the untamed.<br/> <br/></span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;" class="font-size-3"><a href="https://veganplace.files.wordpress.com/2016/04/slide27.gif?w=584&h=438" target="_blank"><img src="https://veganplace.files.wordpress.com/2016/04/slide27.gif?w=584&h=438&width=500" width="500" class="align-center"/></a></span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;" class="font-size-3"><br/> <br/> Both campaigns arguably advance ye olde humane-treatment principle “based on values that most people accept” but neither supports true animal <a href="http://etymonline.com/index.php?term=welfare&allowed_in_frame=0">welfare</a>. The vegan response to these campaigns is non-participation. (That doesn’t mean doing nothing! We need to give our active support both to vegan-organic farming and predator coexistence initiatives.)<br/> <br/> <br/></span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;" class="font-size-3"><a href="https://veganplace.files.wordpress.com/2016/04/slide31.gif?w=598&h=451" target="_blank"><img src="https://veganplace.files.wordpress.com/2016/04/slide31.gif?w=598&h=451&width=500" width="500" class="align-center"/></a><br/> Peter Singer and Jim Mason, in <em>The Way We Eat: Why Our Food Choices Matter,</em> suggest animal husbandry could be a beneficial system for the animals involved. Hogwash. The hills were <a href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/20/Britishwolfhunt.jpg" target="_blank">the habitat of wolves</a> and wildcats before we came in with our animal husbandry.<br/></span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;" class="font-size-3"><br/> <a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/3038396654?profile=original" target="_self"><img width="250" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/3038396654?profile=RESIZE_320x320" width="250" class="align-right"/></a>As for an incremental step on the way to rights for animals, let’s be clear: no improvement in the conditions for purpose-bred animals cuts the mustard. The more connected to nature the farm is, the more reasons for the farm owner to set traps or call the “nuisance control” professionals.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;" class="font-size-3">Free-living animals lose where they’re overlapped by controlled ones, as the owners continually introduce problems into habitats.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br/> No authentic rights await purpose-bred animals; the concept is an absurdity we can accept only as long as we accept purpose-breeding.<br/> <br/> <br/> <br/> <a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/3038403082?profile=original" target="_self"></a></span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;"><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/3038403082?profile=original" target="_self"><img width="500" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/3038403082?profile=RESIZE_1024x1024" width="500" class="align-center"/></a><br/></span></p>
<h2><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;" class="font-size-3"><strong>Cultivating Active Respect</strong></span></h2>
<p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;" class="font-size-3">One rights scholar has said: “If we are going to make good on our claim to take animal interests seriously, then we have no choice but to accord animals one right: the right not to be treated as our property.” Will this resolve all the problems?<br/> <br/> <br/></span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;" class="font-size-3"><a href="https://veganplace.files.wordpress.com/2016/04/slide36.gif?w=446&h=338" target="_blank"><img src="https://veganplace.files.wordpress.com/2016/04/slide36.gif?w=446&h=338&width=250" width="250" class="align-right"/></a></span><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">Reindeer were domesticated back in 14000 BC; dogs were bred from wolves about 13000 BC—long before modern conceptions of rights and property.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;" class="font-size-3"><br/> Because domination is a deeper, broader problem than property status, we’d best think of abolitionism—the call to stop treating animals as commodities—as a <em>component</em> of animal liberation. We’ve got to get over our practice of warring against other beings, displacing them, hijacking their reproduction and demolishing their spaces. Authentic animal-liberation theory conceives of affirmative action to facilitate animals’ flourishing on their own terms. This means cultivating active respect for animals’ connections with their own communities, for their interests in the climate, in the land, water, and air they require to experience freedom.<br/> <br/> <br/></span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;" class="font-size-3"><a href="https://veganplace.files.wordpress.com/2016/04/slide37.gif?w=584&h=438" target="_blank"><img src="https://veganplace.files.wordpress.com/2016/04/slide37.gif?w=584&h=438&width=500" width="500" class="align-center"/></a><br/> And while the interest in shifting other animals’ legal status from property to person is worthwhile, the outcome will be limited if we base our claims on their remarkable abilities to adapt to human environments. Or if we focus on pain control. <br/> <br/> <br/> <a href="https://veganplace.files.wordpress.com/2016/04/slide38.gif?w=584&h=438" target="_blank"><img src="https://veganplace.files.wordpress.com/2016/04/slide38.gif?w=584&h=438&width=500" width="500" class="align-center"/></a></span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;" class="font-size-3"><br/> The argument for nonhuman personhood, in the 21st century, will defend the life experiences for which animals themselves evolved, free from our assessments or supervision.<br/> <br/></span> <br/> <span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;" class="font-size-3"><a href="https://veganplace.files.wordpress.com/2016/04/cle-convenors.jpg?w=435&h=249" target="_blank"><img src="https://veganplace.files.wordpress.com/2016/04/cle-convenors.jpg?w=435&h=249&width=250" width="250" class="align-right"/></a></span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;" class="font-size-3"><strong>Thank you . . .</strong></span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;" class="font-size-3">to Cleveland’s vegan community for encouraging this exploration of our movement and the writing of the book itself. Having a launch date helped to move the new work from a computer file to a book! Bill, thank you for choosing the graph slide and explaining its elements during the presentation. Thanks to all our animal writers, including those not mentioned and those critiqued here, for their contributions to the advocacy dialogue. This writing is not an attempt to compete or compare. It’s intended, in the vegan spirit of collective progress, to help refine our wayfinding, knowing that involves dynamic and sometimes knotty discussions.<br/> <br/> <br/></span></p>
<hr/><h3><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;" class="font-size-3">PHOTOS OF THE EARTH DAY CELEBRATION AND BOOK LAUNCH IN CLEVELAND HEIGHTS COURTESY OF THE CLEVELAND ANIMAL RIGHTS ALLIANCE. THANKS TO <a href="https://shar.es/1ejmPr" target="_blank">ARKIVE.ORG</a> FOR OFFERING A HUB FOR PHOTOGRAPHERS OF ANIMALS IN HABITAT, AND ENCOURAGING THE SHARING OF THESE IMAGES. ENCAMPMENTS MEME: TIFFANY WARNER ON <a href="https://www.pinterest.com/pin/188799409348881150/" target="_blank">PINTEREST</a>, PINNED FROM KNOWYOURMEME.COM<br/> <br/> <br/></span></h3>
<p><span class="font-size-3" style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;"><i><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/3038400869?profile=original" target="_self"><img width="150" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/3038400869?profile=RESIZE_180x180" width="150" class="align-left"/></a></i></span><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;" class="font-size-3">Longtime vegan Lee Hall writes on agribusiness and habitat, domestication, personhood, immigration & refugee law, and the intersections of social-justice issues. Lee has worked as an adjunct faculty member at Rutgers Law School and Widener Delaware Law, and has served as legal officer or board member for several NGOs. Lee holds a general law degree, and an LL.M. from Vermont Law School on environmental law with a focus on climate change. Lee’s most recent book is <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Their-Own-Terms-Liberation-Century-ebook/dp/B01C8D3OQ8" target="_blank">On Their Own Terms: Animal Liberation for the 21st Century</a>, which was launched in Cleveland in April 2016.</span></p>
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<p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;" class="font-size-4">Read more from Lee at Vegan Place: </span></p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;" class="font-size-4"><a href="http://veganplace.wordpress.com/" target="_blank">Vegan Place: Challenging human supremacy, and living day by day.<br/> <br/></a> *******<br/> <br/></span></p>
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</div> Utilitarianism and Replaceability or Are Animals Expendable? by Stefan Sencerztag:arzone.ning.com,2013-01-04:4715978:Topic:1213242013-01-04T17:25:02.823ZSpencer Lohttp://arzone.ning.com/profile/SpencerLo
<p style="text-align: center;"><span class="font-size-4" style="font-family: times new roman,times;">Utilitarianism and Replaceability or Are Animals Expendable?</span></p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><span class="font-size-3" style="font-family: times new roman,times;">Stefan Sencerz</span></p>
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<p><span class="font-size-3" style="font-family: times new roman,times;"><strong>Abstract</strong>: In her very interesting paper, “Peter Singer on…</span></p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><span class="font-size-4" style="font-family: times new roman,times;">Utilitarianism and Replaceability or Are Animals Expendable?</span></p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><span class="font-size-3" style="font-family: times new roman,times;">Stefan Sencerz</span></p>
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<p><span class="font-size-3" style="font-family: times new roman,times;"><strong>Abstract</strong>: In her very interesting paper, “Peter Singer on Expendability,” L. A. Kemmerer re-examines Peter Singer’s utilitarian argument implying that some being are replaceable and the implications of this argument for the issue of treating animals. I attempt to defend Singer, and more generally utilitarianism (including the principle of replaceability), against these objections. I argue that, given a utilitarian outlook, some animals are indeed replaceable. But I also argue that few animals are replaceable in practice.</span></p>
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<p><span class="font-size-3" style="font-family: times new roman,times;">Please click this link to view and read the .pdf: <a href="http://digitalcommons.calpoly.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1176&context=bts" target="_blank">Utilitarianism and Replaceability or Are Animals Expendable?</a></span></p>
<p>The index of ARZone's online library of academic papers is <a href="http://arzone.ning.com/page/academic-papers" target="_blank">here</a></p>
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<p><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/3807313081?profile=original" target="_self"><img width="300" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/3807313081?profile=RESIZE_320x320" width="300" class="align-center"/></a></p>
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<p></p> Expected utility, contributory causation, and vegetarianism by Gaverick Mathenytag:arzone.ning.com,2013-01-02:4715978:Topic:1211382013-01-02T00:40:40.611ZSpencer Lohttp://arzone.ning.com/profile/SpencerLo
<p style="text-align: center;"><span class="font-size-3" style="font-family: times new roman,times;"><span class="font-size-4">Expected utility, contributory causation, and vegetarianism</span></span></p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><span class="font-size-3" style="font-family: times new roman,times;">Gaverick Matheny</span></p>
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<p style="text-align: left;"><span class="font-size-3" style="font-family: times new roman,times;"><strong>Abstract</strong>:…</span></p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><span class="font-size-3" style="font-family: times new roman,times;"><span class="font-size-4">Expected utility, contributory causation, and vegetarianism</span></span></p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><span class="font-size-3" style="font-family: times new roman,times;">Gaverick Matheny</span></p>
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<p style="text-align: left;"><span class="font-size-3" style="font-family: times new roman,times;"><strong>Abstract</strong>: Several authors have argued that act–utilitarianism cannot provide an adequate critique of buying meat because a single meat purchase will not actually cause more farm animals to be raised or slaughtered. Thus, regardless of whether or not the production of meat is inhumane to animals, someone who buys meat is doing nothing wrong. This argument fails to show that meat purchases are morally permissible, however, because it assumes that act–utilitarians would use actual utility in their decision to buy or not to buy meat. I show that act–utilitarians cannot use actual utility as a decision procedure and must instead use expected utility to prescribe or proscribe actions. I then demonstrate how expected utility can be applied to cases of contributory causation, where many people seem morally responsible for causing something to happen. Buying meat is one case of contributory causation where the probability of any single individual's affecting meat production is slight, but the expected disutility of affecting that production is substantial. Thus, in its expected utility form, act–utilitarianism defeats the ‘causal inefficacy’ defence of buying meat [1]</span></p>
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<p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times new roman,times;" class="font-size-3">Please click this link to view and read the .pdf: <a href="http://www.veganoutreach.org/enewsletter/thresholds.pdf" target="_self">Expected Utility, Contributory Causation, and Vegetarianism</a></span><span class="font-size-3" style="font-family: times new roman,times;">; see <a href="http://www.veganoutreach.org/articles/saveanimals.html" target="_blank">modified version</a> here.</span></p>
<p><span class="font-size-3" style="font-family: times new roman,times;">The index of ARZone's online library of academic papers is <a href="http://arzone.ning.com/page/academic-papers" target="_blank">here<br/><br/><br/></a></span></p>
<p><span class="font-size-3" style="font-family: times new roman,times;"><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/3036200332?profile=original" target="_self"><img width="300" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/3036200332?profile=RESIZE_320x320" width="300" class="align-center"/></a></span></p>
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