Why we use animals?

[Pablo Fernández-Beri]

Recently I've been focusing on the "why?" aspect of animal use. We all know as advocates there's a large list of questions we usually regard as "silly" or "repetitive" asked by non-vegans. Anyway, we manage to answer them patiently for the sake of advocacy.

 

I've been thinking about why people ask all those things, so I somehow sorted the questions out and I think they can be pretty grouped into 2 or 3 categories depending on how you sort them.

 

1- "Rational" statement for supporting speciesism (animal use): The belief that "humans are superior to all other species so humans have god's will to consider them as a means to their ends".

 

2- "Irrational" statement(s) for supporting speciesism (animal use): Fear of need for animal use as it's understood as "vital" for humans e.g. "kids need to drink cow milk in order to grow", "where would I get my protein?", "if we don't experiment on animals, then where?", etc. , and addiction to animal use as it's understood as "funny", "tasty", "entertaining", "irresistible", and so on.

 

I made this scheme just to reflect on why people use animals, to order my ideas, and somehow facilitate advocacy. Just let me know if you find this useful. So far I haven't been unable to sort any of the FAQs into one of these categories! ha

[Pablo Fernández-Beri]

Exactly!

 

It takes no rocket scientist to aknowledge the fact that all animals are sentient, I've seen plenty of this throughout my own humble experience advocating for animal rights.

 

Departing from the premise extensively quoted by Prof. Francione that "most people agree that causing harm to animals is wrong", people try to do whatever in order to persist obstinately on their belief that either "using animals is somehow necessary" or "using animals is so good that it doesn't matter that we use them"

 

There's where we must act, precisely to prove them incoherent with the first belief, that no sentient being should be considered merely as a means to our ends!