Animal Rights, Animal Welfare, and the Slavery Analogy.

[FYI. For Your Interest.]

by Gary L. Francione.

http://www.abolitionistapproach.com/animal-rights-animal-welfare-an...

Many vegans become irritated with non-vegans who claim to care morally about animals but who continue to consume them. The former will often invoke an analogy to human slavery. It goes like this: we all agree that the use of humans exclusively as resources–the condition known as human slavery–is morally abhorrent. Similarly, if people think that animals are members of the moral community, then we ought not to be treating them exclusively as resources either and we ought to oppose animal slavery. And if one opposes animal slavery, one adopts and promotes veganism.

Does the analogy work?

Yes and no. The slavery analogy, which I have been using for two decades now, is not particularly compelling if one maintains that nonhumans, unlike human slaves, only have an interest in not suffering and do not have an interest in continued life or in autonomy. And that is a core belief of the welfarist position going back to Bentham–that animals can suffer and have interests in not suffering but are cognitively different from us in that they are not self-aware and do not have an interest in continued existence. To put the matter another way: welfarists maintain that animals do not have an interest in not being slaves per se; they just have an interest in being “happy” slaves. That is the position promoted by Peter Singer, whose neo- or new-welfarist views are derived directly from Bentham. Therefore, it does not matter morally that we use animals but only how we use them. The moral issue is not use but treatment.

Add to this that most welfarists are utilitarians–they maintain that what is right or wrong is determined by what maximizes pleasure or happiness or interest satisfaction for all of those affected–and you end up with the view that as long as an animal does not suffer “too much,” and given that the animal does not have an interest in her life, her having lived a reasonably pleasant life and ended up on human plates is better than her not having lived at all. If we provide a reasonably pleasant life and relatively painless death for animals, we actually confer a benefit on them by bringing them into existence and using them as our resources.

Therefore, it is understandable that, if one is a welfarist, one does not accept the slavery analogy. “Happy” slavery is not only not a problem; it is a good thing. The problem with human slavery is that even “humane” forms of slavery violate fundamental human rights in continued existence, autonomy, etc. But if animals do not have those interests, then “humane” slavery may be just what is needed. And that is precisely the thinking that motivates the “happy” meat/animal products movement and the entire welfarist enterprise of trying to make animal use more “humane,” more “compassionate,”, etc.

I have argued that this sort of thinking is problematic in at least two regards:

First, the notion that nonhuman animals do not have an interest in continued existence–that they do not have an interest in their lives–involves relying on a speciesist concept of what sort of self-awareness matters morally. I have argued that every sentient being necessarily has an interest in continued existence–every sentient being values her of his life–and that to say that only those animals (human animals) who have a particular sort of self-awareness have an interest in not being treated as commodities begs the fundamental moral question. Even if, as some maintain, nonhuman animals live in an “eternal present”–and I think that is empirically not the case at the very least for most of the nonhumans we routinely exploit who do have memories of the past and a sense of the future–they have, in each moment, an interest in continuing to exist. To say that this does not count morally is simply speciesist.

Second, even if animals do not have an interest in continuing to live and only have interests in not suffering, the notion that, as a practical matter, we will ever be able to accord their interests the morally required weight is simply fantasy. The notion that we property owners are ever going to accord any sort of significant weight to the interests of property is simply unrealistic. Is it possible in theory? Yes. Is it possible as a matter of practicality in the real world. Absolutely not. Welfarists often talk about treating “farmed animals” in the way that we treat dogs and cats whom we love and regard as members of our family. Does anyone really think that is practically possible? The fact that we would not think of eating our dogs and cats is some indication that it is not.

Moreover, a central thesis of my work has been that because animals are chattel property–they are economic commodities–we will generally protect animal interests only when we get an economic benefit from doing so. This means that the standard of animal welfare will always be very low (as it presently and despite all of the “happy” and “compassionate” exploitation nonsense) and welfare reforms will generally increaseproduction efficiency; that is, we will protect animal interests in situations where treatment is economically inefficient and welfare reforms will, for the most part, do little more than correct those inefficiencies. For example, the use of gestation crates for sows is economically inefficient; there are supposedly more “humane” alternatives that actually increase production efficiency. Similarly, “gassing” chickens is more economically efficient than electrical stunning.

So I understand why welfarists have a problem with the slavery analogy. I think that they are wrong in multiple respects but they never really engage the arguments. Instead, they claim that I am “divisive” and “do not care about animals suffering now” because I make these arguments. Some get even more dramatic.

The rights paradigm, which, as I interpret it, morally requires the abolition of animal exploitation and requires veganism as a matter of fundamental justice, is radically different from the welfarist paradigm, which, in theory focuses on reducing suffering, and, in reality, focuses on tidying up animal exploitation at its economically inefficient edges. In science, those who subscribe to one paradigm are often unable to understand and engage those who subscribe to another paradigm precisely because the theoretical language that they use is not compatible.

I think that the situation is similar in the context of the debate between animal rights and animal welfare. And that is why welfarists simply cannot understand or accept the slavery analogy.

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If you are not vegan, please consider going vegan. It’s a matter of nonviolence. Being vegan is your statement that you reject violence to other sentient beings, to yourself, and to the environment, on which all sentient beings depend.

[Tim Gier]

I'm not a fan of the analogy to human slavery, especially as Francione draws it in this piece. 

Human slavery is not simply “the use of humans exclusively as resources” in the way that the use of other animals is. Human slaves (in the Americas up until the 19th century) were not bred, raised, confined and then slaughtered for use as food or clothing. Human slaves were owned as property to be sure, and they were treated as resources, and many of them were unjustly killed, but the purpose of owning human slaves was for the work they were able to do, not for the meat on their bones. 

Now, considering that what we do to those other animals who we slaughter for food and clothing has nothing to do with making them perform work for us, then those animals aren’t slaves. Perhaps we might say that they are the victims of a genocide or holocaust, but that wouldn’t be right either. Genocides are waged to eradicate whole populations once and for all, holocausts are similarly about destruction. However, by our use of other animals for food and clothing we are not conducting either genocide or holocaust, we are doing something quite more pernicious. We are purposefully breeding into existence conscious beings with the sole intent of killing them. Were it not so commonplace and taken for granted it would be seen as the insane obscenity that it is. I'm not sure I know the word to label what we do to other animals, but in the case of those we slaughter for food and clothing, at least, slavery is both inappropriate and inadequate.

[Tim Gier]

As to the question of autonomy, it's difficult to know what Francione means, because he doesn't explain. Autonomy could mean something like the ability to act on one's own. In that sense, every living creature is autonomous - even bacteria are known to swim up a sugar gradient but to tumble aimlessly in plain water - self-directed behavior is ubiquitous in living creatures. However, autonomy usually means something more than just the freedom to act. Typically the word is used to mean something like "the condition of being able to govern one's own actions" when "to govern" means to control by way of proper assessment of current circumstances coupled with reasonable predictions of the future in light of one's own desires. There's also autonomy in the sense of "moral autonomy", which Kant developed, that has to do with being able to answer within oneself to "moral laws".

It can't be the first sense of autonomy that Francione is referring to - no one seriously thinks amoeba have a right not to be killed. And, I know of no one who thinks other animals (with a few possible exceptions) are capable of Kant's kind of moral autonomy, so I will assume that Francione is referring to the second sense of autonomy above. Is it the case that all other animals possess this kind of autonomy? Is this kind of autonomy simply a set of cognitive abilities? If not all other animals possess this kind of autonomy, then what does it mean for animals' rights?

I think it isn't the case that all sentient beings possess this kind of autonomy, and this is not a controversial opinion. Anyone who has spent anytime around infants should agree with me. Infants are clearly able to experience pleasure and pain, but they are just as clearly not able to govern their actions into the future based on reasoning about their desires. It isn't clear that infants (or very young children) have any sense of the future at all, not in any meaningful way, and it's difficult to ascribe to them any reasoning ability when their behaviors can be more simply and easily explained by stimulus/response mechanisms. (We ought not to look for complex solutions when simple ones will suffice). Obviously, if it is the case that human infants do not possess autonomy, then the newborn offspring of other animals are almost certain to not possess it either, and it's likely that many other animals are not autonomous in this sense at any age (do oysters and worms ever reason?). It is for this and other reasons that Prof. Tom Regan has written that it is both wrong and unnecessary to pursue the idea of "animals as persons". Persons are autonomous beings, it isn't clear that many other animals (and even some human beings) and are autonomous, therefore some human beings and many other animals are not persons (consider the severely mentally enfeebled, people in persistent vegetative mental states in addition to infants).

Is this kind of autonomy simply a set of cognitive abilities? No, it reduces the concept of autonomy too much to say that it is simply a set of cognitive abilities. Autonomy requires, at least, consciousness, and more likely, self-consciousness. Neither of these states of mind are reducible to mere cognitive abilities. That is, mind possesses cognitive abilities, but mind precedes cognitive abilities, and the states of mind can therefore not be made up of or reduced to these abilities. 

What does this mean for animals' rights? I would reverse the question and ask, what does it mean for human rights? Since we know that some human beings are not persons (as has just been demonstrated)  and yet we still respect and protect the lives of those human beings, then it must be the case that one need not be a person in order to be respected and protected. Therefore other animals need not be regarded as persons in order to be respected.

Animals other than the human kind ought to be left to live their lives as best they see fit because they are the sorts of beings who have experiences in their lives about which they have preferences. It isn't necessary to ascribe to them states of mind that we do not know, and in many cases cannot know, that they have. Do other animals make reasoned decisions about the future after carefully considering their present circumstances and desires? Who knows, and more important, what does it matter? Other animals ought to be able to live life in accordance with their natures, not according to how they measure up to ours. Curiously, this is the same conclusion Francione seems to reach, but in talking about animals as persons, as if they were autonomous, he perpetuates the very notions of human supremacy that ought to be discarded. Unfortunately, the rest of his thinking is clouded by outdated and confused notions as well, but that will have to wait until another day.

[Tim Gier]

http://eatingplantsdotorg.wordpress.com/2012/01/05/a-house-divided-...

Professor of History and vegan James McWilliams on the abolition of human slavery:

It would be easy to look at the abolitionist movement alone—followed by the Civil War, Emancipation Proclamation, and Thirteenth Amendment—and portray the abolition of slavery as an example of principle trumping process, immediate change eschewing gradualism, and ideals triumphing over pragmatism. The truth is something more complex. And it something to do with the fact that the dialect of change—a dynamic blend of principle and process—fueled a process that, after decades and decades of tolerating what many abhorred, eventually reached the purity of principle. Had the Garrisons of the world not had their Madisons, and vice-versa, both process and principle would have floundered, allowing slavery to spread into the American West .