The "Test Period"

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

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

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

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

FURTHER READING ON ANIMAL RIGHTS INCREMENTALISM

A Selection of Related Articles

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

go there

Short version of "Animal Rights Law".

go there

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

go there

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

go there

A Selection of Related Blog Entries

Anti-Cruelty Laws and Non-Violent Approximation

Use Not Treatment: Francione’s Cracked Nutshell

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

The False Dilemma: Veganizing versus Legalizing

Veganism as a Baseline for Animal Rights: Two Different Senses

Francione's Three Feeble Critiques of My Views

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

The Greatness of the Great Ape Project under Attack!

Francione Totally Misinterprets Singer

Francione's Animal Rights Theory

Francione on Unnecessary Suffering

My Appearance on AR Zone

D-Day for Francionists

Sztybel versus Francione on Animals' Property Status

The Red Carpet

Playing into the Hands of Animal Exploiters

The Abolitionist ApproachES

Francione's Mighty Boomerang

Dr. David Sztybel Home Page

Playing into the Hands of Animal Exploiters

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

FURTHER READING ON ANIMAL RIGHTS INCREMENTALISM

A Selection of Related Articles

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

go there

Short version of "Animal Rights Law".

go there

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

go there

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

go there

A Selection of Related Blog Entries

Anti-Cruelty Laws and Non-Violent Approximation

Use Not Treatment: Francione’s Cracked Nutshell

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

The False Dilemma: Veganizing versus Legalizing

Veganism as a Baseline for Animal Rights: Two Different Senses

Francione's Three Feeble Critiques of My Views

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

The Greatness of the Great Ape Project under Attack!

Francione Totally Misinterprets Singer

Francione's Animal Rights Theory

Francione on Unnecessary Suffering

My Appearance on AR Zone

D-Day for Francionists

Sztybel versus Francione on Animals' Property Status

The Red Carpet

Playing into the Hands of Animal Exploiters

The Abolitionist ApproachES

Francione's Mighty Boomerang

Dr. David Sztybel Home Page

New Site Name, Mission Statement, and Balluch Update

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

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

CLICK HERE

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

FURTHER READING ON ANIMAL RIGHTS INCREMENTALISM

A Selection of Related Articles

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

go there

Short version of "Animal Rights Law".

go there

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

go there

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

go there

A Selection of Related Blog Entries

Anti-Cruelty Laws and Non-Violent Approximation

Use Not Treatment: Francione’s Cracked Nutshell

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

The False Dilemma: Veganizing versus Legalizing

Veganism as a Baseline for Animal Rights: Two Different Senses

Francione's Three Feeble Critiques of My Views

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

The Greatness of the Great Ape Project under Attack!

Francione Totally Misinterprets Singer

Francione's Animal Rights Theory

Francione on Unnecessary Suffering

My Appearance on AR Zone

D-Day for Francionists

Sztybel versus Francione on Animals' Property Status

The Red Carpet

Playing into the Hands of Animal Exploiters

The Abolitionist ApproachES

Francione's Mighty Boomerang

Dr. David Sztybel Home Page

One of Greatest Animal Rights Pragmatists' Life in Danger: An Appeal for the Release of Dr. Martin Balluch

One of the animal rights activists I admire is in deadly danger. He is on hunger strike in an Austrian prison, arrested on charges without specific evidence. He was gotten naked out of bed at gunpoint and thrown into prison, and has gone on hunger strike. His group was responsible for getting a joint news conference of ALL the animal protection groups in Austria and got a ban on battery cages for hens, animal circuses, fur farms, rabbit cage-farming, and vivisection on chimps. This is the most animal protection won legally in the world. For details and who to write to see:

CLICK HERE FOR PDF DOCUMENT

Next I will write about how Francione has slammed Martin Balluch, who is one of the greatest animal activists the world has ever seen. This was before Dr. Balluch was arrested. Incidentally, Dr. Balluch was just about to launch a campaign for constitutional rights for chimpanzees, a project Francione has attacked when he tried to negate the Great Ape Project; as well, as I noted in "Animal Rights Law," Francione has mysteriously rejected constitutional rights for animals.

Please write to support and help save the life of one of our best activists!

P.S. Of course, it would be worth writing to save ANY activist, but Dr. Balluch deserves to be praised for the powerhouse that he is and is in danger due to his hunger strike.

How Animal Rights Fundamentalism Harms the Animal Rights Movement

In the last post, I referred to ways in which animal rights fundamentalism harms the animal rights movement. It is worth, however, trying to list some of the different ways that animal rights is threatened:

1. Failure to promote kind culture that leads to animal rights, thus delaying animal rights incalculably
   
2. Failed unrealistic proto-rights campaigns, or even more likely, abstaining from legislative reform at this stage in history, leaving in the wake of such misguided practices the cruel culture of unmitigated animal misery; thus each interest of animals which should be protected by a right is either unprotected or hovering at a miserably low degree of being respected (i.e., it is substantially disrespected)
   
3. Failure to effectively promote animal rights laws such as the Great Ape Project
   
4. Leads to prevention or dissolution of potentially powerful alliances between animal rights and animal "welfarist" forces
   
5. Leads to fighting between animal rights fundamentalists and the alliance of pragmatists and welfarists
   
6. Causes infighting, hostility, lack of communication and cooperation among animal rightists
   
7. Spreads a bad image of animal rightists as harsh, judgmental, unrealistic, lost in theory, illogical, etc.
   
8. Spreads a crude, oversimplified and ultimately unworkable theory of animal rights (I will elaborate on this point in future posts)
   

Not everyone will agree that these harms are involved, but I think they are plainly associated with the animal rights fundamentalist movement.

It may be objected that I am also involved in "infighting." True, I am fighting animal rights fundamentalism. However, there is a world of difference between a fight to unite people who already exist and end infighting, and a fight to divide a movement in which it is inevitable that there will always be animal rights pragmatists. The fundamentalists, paradoxically enough, seek unity through infighting. The only unity envisioned by fundamentalists is what might emerge on the impossible scenario in which only they prevail. It will be a unity of animal rights, considered a fringe group, with any alliance with the welfarists lying in smoking ruins. Fundamentalist unity would also lie in a far-flung future, whereas my kind of unity is at work right now, and though dominant is threatened to some extent by fundamentalism.

I would not wish to exaggerate how much a pragmatist approach is threatened. It would be interesting to get some sociological data on how widespread is fundamentalism. My experience is that only a few out of sizeable animal rights groups will have that bug, and that must be indicative of the larger movement since I have seen this pattern in group after group. Often the fundamentalists are rejected by the larger group and they splinter off to form their own concern. Francione's blog touts his new book, Animals as Persons with the remark that he is widely regarded as the most interesting thinker in animal ethics, or something like that. Others insist he is "fringe." I think that's closer to the truth, judging from my observations of movement politics.

Now back to the concept of unity. By contrast to the fundamentalists, while I effectively argue for people to switch from animal "welfare" (really illfare) practices, I can tolerate and work with such people without being entirely negative and attacking towards them. Also, I am taking on the theories of animal rights fundamentalism by way of defense. It is in the nature of animal rights fundamentalism to attack other animal rightists as unethical and ineffective, and I am only undertaking part of the equally inevitable response.

If animal rights pragmatism is argued effectively, then it will not shut down dogmatic ideologues, but will play the vital role of (as my friend Michael Schwab puts it) reaching out to the huge number of people who are thoughtful but undecided, or who keep an open mind. We can build stronger animal "welfare" laws and thus grow animal rights, converting as many individuals as possible to the rights model. That is a very positive vision. By comparison, Francione has already attacked PETA, the Oxford Centre for Animal Ethics, and the Great Ape Project, and would not mind seeing them go down. He fantasizes if he thinks he can have that kind of influence, although I am concerned he can do these damage by misleading people. I say "misleading," but we can assume this is done in a relatively well-intended way, reflecting how he himself is misled by illogical reasoning.

FURTHER READING ON ANIMAL RIGHTS INCREMENTALISM

A Selection of Related Articles

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

go there

Short version of "Animal Rights Law".

go there

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

go there

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

go there

A Selection of Related Blog Entries

Anti-Cruelty Laws and Non-Violent Approximation

Use Not Treatment: Francione’s Cracked Nutshell

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

The False Dilemma: Veganizing versus Legalizing

Veganism as a Baseline for Animal Rights: Two Different Senses

Francione's Three Feeble Critiques of My Views

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

The Greatness of the Great Ape Project under Attack!

Francione Totally Misinterprets Singer

Francione's Animal Rights Theory

Francione on Unnecessary Suffering

My Appearance on AR Zone

D-Day for Francionists

Sztybel versus Francione on Animals' Property Status

The Red Carpet

Playing into the Hands of Animal Exploiters

The Abolitionist ApproachES

Francione's Mighty Boomerang

Dr. David Sztybel Home Page

Am I "Obsessed" with Gary Francione? No.

Some people might wonder about this "issue." In my mind it is not a serious question, since I know what I am about, but it might seem an interesting question to others, so I will say a few words in order to lay any doubts to rest. An obsession, according to The Oxford Concise Dictionary, is an “unreasonably persistent idea in the mind.” Actually, the idea of Gary Francione himself is not even what persists in my mind. Believe it or not, I am not overly fond of thinking about Francione. Rather, I am currently drawn to thinking about some of the things that he states. I do not address Francione as a person, with personal attacks, but merely discuss the issues that he raises.

Is it “unreasonable” for me to discuss the issues that he raises? Let me share some of my reasons. This blog, A Philosophical Animal Voice, focuses for now on Francione’s philosophy as one of the greatest threats to promoting animal rights and welfare in society. Speciesist arguments are for the most part easy to refute, because they are so transparently logically flimsy and false for the most part. Other animal rights thinkers than Francione do not exert such a destructive influence. Joan Dunayer argues along comparable, though not the same lines, as Francione, but for whatever reason she has not built up as strong a following, with an ever-growing internet presence as has Francione. In any case, I deal with her own contributions to the debate in my essay, "Animal Rights Law."

Francione’s own arguments, although often simple enough to refute for one well-versed in the ways of logical arguments, have the advantage of being partly right. Francione emphasizes sentience, animal rights, veganism, and other aspects that are fine to affirm. Yet part-truths are a greater stumbling block to inquiry than sheer falsehoods. Also, many are not well-trained in logic and may not be able to come to grips with poorly reasoned appeals that may easily seem slick and intellectual. Indeed, logic often proves to be an unsuspected problem even for professional theorists. So good people can be misled by seemingly sound arguments that are really wanting in logic, as I have extensively demonstrated in this blog. Not everyone has my particular qualifications for researching and engaging in critical analysis, so I am offering a public service, and there are reasons for me to be doing this. As I have argued, responding to his philosophy should be a high priority for the animal rights intellectual community.

Let me further characterize how his approach threatens the animal rights movement. Aside from individual activists whom he has spoken of with great negativity, he has attacked People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), the Great Ape Project (GAP), and the Oxford Centre for Animal Ethics (OCAE), organizations dear to my heart which he savages unjustly. There are legitimate criticisms of PETA and the GAP, to my mind, but his wholesale rejections I have tried to show are severely unjustified. Francione’s thinking obstructs offering animals relief in the form of animal “welfare” legislation, which is also conducive towards kindness culture. Is cruel culture more conducive to animal rights than kindness culture? This should be a no-brainer, however, his flawed thinking potentially affects billions of animals, and if people believe what he says, he could actually derail the GAP.

So my blog entries are profoundly issues-driven, and they derive from the fact that I have recently published a significant peer-reviewed journal article, “Animal Rights Law,” on Francione’s beliefs about movement strategy. It is only natural that when a researcher engages with a body of work by an author, that they may come up with a variety of results that they wish to share. So I have good academic as well as activist reasons to offer my results. Since there are several different topics, it makes sense to address them in different blog entries. And given that further thoughts occurred to me after publishing my essay, it makes sense to present them, or else to expand on some existing points.

I will not write on Francione “forever,” and what will determine the time limit is not any “obsession with Francione,” but rather how many significant issues remain in what I wish to discuss. Again, believe it or not, his work is not of unlimited interest to me. I started my blog when Francione referred me to his blog’s attack on the OCAE, and I was moved to respond to his illogical and harmful misportrayal.

So there is no shortage of excellent reasons why I’ve persisted in this course, and it should be obvious by now that “obsession” has nothing to do with it. I am merely a passionate scholar trying to do my job of offering relevant and accurate critical analysis, in an effort to promote not only separating truth from falsehood, but to try to benefit and protect sentient beings in crucially important ways. If, after considering all of this, someone still thinks I am “obsessing,” then he or she must be irrationally obsessed with that particular idea.

FURTHER READING ON ANIMAL RIGHTS INCREMENTALISM

A Selection of Related Articles

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

go there

Short version of "Animal Rights Law".

go there

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

go there

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

go there

A Selection of Related Blog Entries

Anti-Cruelty Laws and Non-Violent Approximation

Use Not Treatment: Francione’s Cracked Nutshell

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

The False Dilemma: Veganizing versus Legalizing

Veganism as a Baseline for Animal Rights: Two Different Senses

Francione's Three Feeble Critiques of My Views

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

The Greatness of the Great Ape Project under Attack!

Francione Totally Misinterprets Singer

Francione's Animal Rights Theory

Francione on Unnecessary Suffering

My Appearance on AR Zone

D-Day for Francionists

Sztybel versus Francione on Animals' Property Status

The Red Carpet

Playing into the Hands of Animal Exploiters

The Abolitionist ApproachES

Francione's Mighty Boomerang

Dr. David Sztybel Home Page

Veganism as a Moral Baseline for Animal Rights: Two Different Senses

Francione writes that veganism is the “moral baseline” for animal rights, and that we should unequivocally support veganism alone. He wrote in a blog entry of April 9, 2008 that we should not waste time with organizations that say that some forms of animal abuse are worse than others. This implies that we should be equally dismissive of lacto-ovo vegetarians and meat-eaters, and be equally condemnatory of factory farming and traditional “family” farms that try to be humane towards animals. I agree that veganism is a baseline for animal rights. One cannot be fully an animal rightist without eliminating all animal products from one’s diet, since all of these usages involve exploitation and harm to animals. I also agree that animal rights groups should promote veganism, and not directly promote injustice or lacto-ovo vegetarianism.

However, I do not agree that ethics is all-or-nothing, and that there are no distinctions to be made in the practices I outlined above. I also believe that while we should not promote lacto-ovo vegetarianism, it would be a mistake not to be at all positive about someone moving to that as a new diet. I also think we should refer them to resources that they seek, in hopes that they will start with that and then progress to veganism. When I say we should not promote lacto-ovo vegetarianism, what I mean is we should not ask for still-oppressive practices in our campaign. However, if someone responds wanting to go only part-way, resources about lacto-ovo might come in through the back door. You can call it not so much as failing to refer them to veganism (which of course is the most preferred course of events simply as such), as a more sophisticated attempt to refer them to a road to veganism, which subvegan vegetarianism will be if all goes well. If encouragement of walking along the road is offered, that is part of things going well. If discouragement is at once and always thereafter introduced, the road to veganism may well not even be trodden upon.

The reasons why I avoid Francione’s all-or-nothing approach relate simply to truth and goodness. The truth is, such a dietary switch has much positive about it, but also something very negative for dairy cows (and of course veal calves, since those are the male offspring of dairy calves) and chickens used for creating eggs. Lacto-ovo vegetarians assist animal rights by degrees by respecting the rights of some animals, though not all. By doing this they help offset speciesism, a human health epidemic related to eating animal products, and an environmental disaster for all animals, again related to human consumption of animal products. That should be praised as progressive because it does indeed make progress, while also it should be pointed out that lacto-ovos are not only imperfect, which can be innocent, but commit injustice, which is not innocent.

So it is absurd to put all forms of animal husbandry on the same “moral baseline.” Francione himself would abolish dehorning of cattle as a legislative proposal, as I have discussed elsewhere, and presumably this is based on the assumption that it is “better” to do without the dehorning. Well, this can be generalized to ridding animals of all factory farming hellish treatments. The animals would have no trouble identifying what is preferable and neither should we.

I would like to contrast two approaches to a lacto-ovo vegetarian who falls short of veganism, but struggles to make progress:

1. Fundamentalist: rejects that some forms of animal abuse are worse than others, and so negates a moral distinction between meat-eaters and lacto-ovo vegetarians, and factory farming and “family” farms; so meat-eaters, lacto-ovo vegetarians, factory farmers, and traditional animal agriculturalists would equally be greeted with rejection, scorn, dismissal, etc., as tends to be the actual animal rights fundamentalist response;
   
2. Pragmatist: rejects all forms of animal abuse, claims that we are morally obliged to be vegan as a duty of justice, but that some forms of animal abuse are worse than others, that factory farming is a much worse evil than traditional rearing of animals for flesh, and that lacto-ovo vegetarians are more progressive than meat-eaters; accordingly, while all animal agriculturalists would be considered morally wrong and unjust, and the same goes with all animal consumers, an element of praise could be had in that some forms are worse than others, and trying to eliminate abuse by degrees deserves some limited praise and less blame.
   

These two approaches involve two different senses of veganism as a moral baseline for animal rights:

1. Fundamentalist animal rights requires veganism, and every other kind of diet is equally bad or on the other side of the baseline in an equal way, since we "should" not proceed on the assumption that any form of animal abuse is worse than any other;
   
2. Pragmatic animal rights requires veganism, but not every practice is the same distance from the baseline; factory farming and meat-eating are farther away than traditional farming and lacto-ovo vegetarianism for example.
   

So is veganism the moral baseline of animal rights? Yes, but the form that baseline should take is crucial. Some conceptions of veganism as the moral baseline of animal rights are better and more accurate than others.

I have seen Francione confuse the issue, on a part of his so-called “The Abolitionist Approach” website (the title of course arrogantly and wrongly assumes there is only one abolitionist approach—namely Francione’s) by stating that my sort of approach simply calls eating animals “acceptable.” That is an oversimplification. And it is based on an oversimplified picture of animal abuse and flesh-eaters. I reject the flaws and accept the parts that are progressive. I reject eating eggs and milk, but I accept not eating cows, goats, pigs, and fish. That, logically, is how it should be, and also cannot logically be equated with full acceptance. I condemn what is unacceptable, and praise what is acceptable. Francione’s negative and in fact illogically distortionist approach is thus unrealistic or lacking in truth-value as well as being too stingy in the appraisal of others.

Perhaps fundamentalists have had the experience that if veganism alone is praised, and everything else is condemned, people might have a “crisis of conscience,” and admit, “Yes, you are right. Veganism is the best way for all concerned. I’ll become vegan.” This is one possibility. The problem for the fundamentalists is, my approach has the same advantage, since I also praise veganism as best and the only just way, condemning all other approaches by degrees. My approach thus can get exactly the same response by making an ethical appeal.

However, Francione’s approach is apt to get other poor responses which my approach does not engender, and here it is relevant to try to do some movement psychology. At the ethical level:

“Vegans are high-and-mighty and holier-than-thou. They are unpleasant people. They reject me. I don’t want to join that club, thank you very much.”

Howard Lyman states in his talks that studies show that people like the message of animal rights but they often don’t like the messengers. That would seem to indicate that animal rightists are often too angry, self-righteous, and negative in their approach to activism.

Another common reaction at the practical level could well be:

“It’s too much for me to handle becoming vegan all at once. If I can’t get help from animal rights people to at least cut down on animal products, then I don’t think I’ll bother at all. Why go through any part of my life as a lacto-ovo vegetarian if I’ll always get flack from animal rights people and still have them compare me to Jeffrey Dahmer, the psychopathic murderer?”

So they may not become lacto-ovo vegetarian, and may well be much less likely to go on to become vegans, since the only way most people get to veganism is not through an overnight change, but through a gradual evolution of diet. As my friend and fellow animal activist JoAnne Schwab tells me, by far most people who change to vegetarianism are adults, who have years of conditioning to animal consumption. As well, she insightfully points out, it is not necessarily selfishness which produces reluctance to change since some cannot change diet to save their life, as the cases of those who needlessly fall to heart attacks, strokes, and other ailments silently testify. Given the gradualism of most changes to veg*anism, if the gradual stages are eliminated, then so too goes the veganism in most cases. It does not help to berate these people that veganism is easy, although in so many ways it is. Most people need time to adjust and adapt. I myself took most of a year to go from vegetarian to vegan some twenty years ago. I know someone who went vegan overnight, and I admire him for that, but apparently he is exceptional in this respect. Fundamentalists agree it can take time to switch, but the crucial difference is that they are less encouraging or supportive about gradual changes. That can make all the difference in some cases.

So the one advantage of the fundamentalist approach, that it can get some people to change on ethical grounds, is shared by my approach. However, Francione’s negative approach has the following disadvantages that my approach does not carry at all:

1. Fundamentalist vegan campaigns make changes to veganism right away (the one possible advantageous response to this negative approach) less likely because most people really do not wish to listen to, let alone associate with, those who are negative in their approach. This is a basic fact of human psychology.
   
2. A negative image of animal rightists is fostered in the immediate recipient of the fundamentalist campaign as intolerant, unkind, impatient, condemning, blaming, accusing, judgmental, etc., unlike the more positive approach which will be experienced as inspiring, enthusiastic, progressive, offering praise where it is due and blame where it is due (i.e., fair), patient, kind, more fun, etc.
   
3. Will lead to negative word-of-mouth among others about animal rightism and ill repute for vegans in general too, extending right into media portrayals as well.
   
4. Might discourage people from going for any kind of vegetarianism and thus veganism (see above discussion). This is ironic since fundamentalists pride themselves on being the most pro-vegan of all animal rightists. However, indirectly, they weaken the vegan tendency overall even though they directly advocate it as do the pragmatists.
   
5. Does not account for problems such as feeling overwhelmed or stressed out by dietary changes, or intolerance by friends and family; if a supportive attitude that is positive and encouraging is not offered, efforts may flounder and fail quite easily in the face of such social conditions. Not everyone is equally strong in the face of such challenges.
   
6. Dietary campaigns are educational, so let us evaluate them on that basis. As a teacher who received training at a first-rate teacher’s college, I was instructed that teaching involves information, focus, and emotional support. The fundamentalist approach provides some information, although it is imperfect in claiming that all forms of animal abuse are equal; it provides some focus, although it is confusedly all-or-nothing and has no subtlety of degrees or parts of wholes; and it scores almost a zero in terms of emotional support.
   
7. Fundamentalists of the sort that Francione portrays do not recognize the positive in partial solutions, only the negative, so people will rightly feel cheated in how fundamentalists “judge” them, and will resent and rebel accordingly. People’s defenses will go up rather than be open-minded. Personal attacks have a way of arousing defensiveness whereas personal dialogue and sharing have a way of maintaining free and open spaces of community in which so much more is possible.
   
8. Fundamentalism will undermine attempts to prevent cruelty in animal agriculture. In “Animal Rights Law” I argue it would be a mistake to miss the opportunity to outlaw factory farming, or aspects of it, out of a crude ideology that “equates” all forms of animal abuse.
   

So there we have it. Negative attitudes just create more negativity. Perfectionism notoriously leads to a more imperfect world. If two approaches have the same advantages, but one carries several disadvantages, people should get the point that something is wrong with the disadvantageous standpoint. By the way, I do not count as an advantage that activists get to feel smug, superior, “great,” or powerful by putting down others. I only count advantages that are legitimate and compatible with genuine and full respect for all sentient beings. So let veganism be considered morally basic to animal rights. But let a view of parts and wholes, of degrees and fullness, also be a part of any “basic” view in terms of both truth and goodness. “Baselines” or “basics” should not lead to oversimplification. Francione acts as though all forms of animal agriculture and animal consumption are equally on the other side of his “baseline.” Forms of vegetarianism short of veganism form percentages of animal rights, even as veganism forms 100% of animal rights in the dietary aspect.

Francione is inconsistent in maintaining that we cannot praise percentages of animal rights since his theory would approve of a law wholly protecting an entire animal interest with a proto-right, while the same law might neglect all other animal interests (see my essay, “Animal Rights Law” for a discussion of this view). That would only amount to a limited percentage of animal rights—and a minor percentage at that—since animals possess many different kinds of interests. I have argued that such an analysis makes Francione an animal “welfarist” in a previous blog entry. However, his negative approach to vegetarianism as a whole, while it does produce some fine results, merely prolongs animal illfare much more than a truly positive approach.

FURTHER READING ON ANIMAL RIGHTS INCREMENTALISM

A Selection of Related Articles

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

go there

Short version of "Animal Rights Law".

go there

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

go there

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

go there

A Selection of Related Blog Entries

Anti-Cruelty Laws and Non-Violent Approximation

Use Not Treatment: Francione’s Cracked Nutshell

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

The False Dilemma: Veganizing versus Legalizing

Veganism as a Baseline for Animal Rights: Two Different Senses

Francione's Three Feeble Critiques of My Views

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

The Greatness of the Great Ape Project under Attack!

Francione Totally Misinterprets Singer

Francione's Animal Rights Theory

Francione on Unnecessary Suffering

My Appearance on AR Zone

D-Day for Francionists

Sztybel versus Francione on Animals' Property Status

The Red Carpet

Playing into the Hands of Animal Exploiters

The Abolitionist ApproachES

Francione's Mighty Boomerang

Dr. David Sztybel Home Page

The Greatness of the Great Ape Project under Attack!

I was teaching a fourth-year seminar class on “Animals and the Law” last term at Brock University and we explored rights for great apes for many weeks. We looked specifically in one week at resistance to great ape rights. Some of the opposition is blindly speciesist. But some of it is by thoughtful anti-speciesists, who think they have a better perspective than other anti-speciesists who are prepared to support rights-for-great-apes campaigns. Animal rights pragmatism versus fundamentalism is a debate that bears implications for great apes activism, such as the Great Ape Project (GAP), which tries to secure a commitment to give great apes (chimpanzees, gorillas, and orangutans) the rights to life, liberty, and freedom from torture. I believe that apes deserve not merely to be free from torture—an excessively conservative goal—but to experience well-being or welfare, for example on animal sanctuaries. However, that aside, I generally support the GAP. Steven Wise advocates rights only for chimpanzees and bonobos in his book, Rattling the Cage. I think we can successfully win rights for more great apes than that. I address the Great Ape Project in passing in “Animal Rights Law,” but not in depth. However, this Project is of immense importance, and so I feel the need to contemplate it today.

Now, animal rights fundamentalists sometimes (not always) take issue with great apes activism. Joan Dunayer, an animal rights fundamentalist, supports great apes activism—with a qualification that it can only legitimately be based on arguments that the apes are sentient; we must never cite their higher intelligence, according to Dunayer. Gary L. Francione used to support the GAP (he was a contributor to the volume, The Great Ape Project, St. Martin’s Press, 1993), but has since condemned it. By contrast, philosophers who advocate animal liberation such as Paola Cavalieri, Peter Singer, Tom Regan, Bernard Rollin, Steve Sapontzis, Richard D. Ryder, Marc Bekoff, Stephen R. L. Clark, James Rachels, Collin McGinn, Dale Jamieson, Harlan B. Miller, and Barbara Noske advocated the GAP in their articles in the GAP volume (along with others such as Jane Goodall, Roger and Deborah Fouts, and Richard Dawkins) presumably without any backpedalling. Yet none of these authors, to my knowledge, has engaged with fundamentalist negativism about the GAP. So first, I will outline an animal rights pragmatist defense of great apes activism. Then I will deal with Francione’s objections, and finally show how Dunayer’s position on great apes activism needlessly undermines the effectiveness of the general campaign.

Animal rights fundamentalism in its core form is very simple (a more elaborate understanding of this topic is presented in my article, "Animal Rights Law"). It holds that anything contrary to animal rights is morally wrong, or inconsistent for an animal rights activist to support. Francione’s own view is more complicated than that. However, the version of animal rights pragmatism based in best caring ethics holds that animal rights is not our ultimate consideration. This suggestion might startle many animal rightists, but allow me to explain. Rights are mere things, and nothing matters to any mindless thing including stones, toasters, and rights. However, sentient beings are another matter. Many things matter to sentient entities. So it makes sense, if our actions are to have any positive significance, to act ultimately for sentient beings. And we cannot do better than to advocate what is best for sentient beings, as best caring ethics urges. It is best for sentient beings to have full rights, and that is what is unequivocally advocated both in the near-term and the long-term. Individuals and groups can and do embrace animal rights through social transformation. Yet with respect to law, it is different. We are not about to pass laws granting equal rights to sentient beings any time soon in legislatures. That is why, in “Animal Rights Law,” I argue that we should do, in the legislative near-term, whatever is best for sentient beings, even if that would be contrary to making "rights" our ultimate consideration. Let it be clear though: animal rights laws are advocated to be put in place as soon as possible.

Now in addressing potential legislators and judges, there are two ways of making legal progress for great apes:

1. We can convince others to adopt our own beliefs. Thus, animal rightists seek to convince everyone that all sentient beings deserve rights.
   
2. If we fail to convince others of our own beliefs, we can try to show others that even according to their own beliefs, they should make concessions to the animal rights movement.
   

Granting great ape rights would be one such concession along the lines of 2. Many people argue that anyone with self-awareness, rationality, linguistic capacity, social awareness and other cognitive abilities deserves rights. That is why they say, albeit questionably and I think wrongly, that humans have rights. We can therefore use these people’s beliefs as a lever to grant great apes rights. Such a use does not logically imply that we are saying such people are right. Using the first appeal too states rather that they are wrong. The use of the second appeal as well only implies that we recognize that others believe differently than ourselves, which is simply true. It is an appeal in favor of others' integrity and against their ongoing hypocrisy. Of course, we should also urge that great apes deserve rights simply as sentient beings, but to fail to make the secondary appeal is to fail to convince multitudes of people who are not persuaded, at least for now, solely by appeals to sentience. It is a failure to help others to realize the full logical development of their view which would be better not only for them but for others as well. Failing to convince others has a cost: lack of rights for great apes. Francione does not even make the distinction between these two types of appeal, let alone provide the slightest argument as to why simply appealing to others to be self-consistent is somehow unacceptable or wrong.

We do not have to claim that appeals to humanlike cognition are valuable in the sense of being correct or true, or that they promote the greatest possible good of sentient beings in principle. On the contrary, such arguments seem incorrect and to fail to support what is best for all in the abstract (which is crucially different from what is best in context—see again "Animal Rights Law"). However, they are manifestly useful appeals, because they do convince people who might not be moved by sentientism in general. And great apes rights are a viable form of animal rights in the near-term, since they have already been accomplished in some countries. Britain, New Zealand, and Sweden have banned the use of great apes in scientific research. The Baeleric Parliament of the Spanish Baerlic Islands has gone ever farther and supports the Great Ape Project itself.

In contrast to the success of GAP-like initiatives, equal rights for all sentient beings are not viable in the legislative short-term. If we make great ape rights part of a general campaign for sentient beings only, then we might list great apes among the many diverse animals whom we wish to see protected by animal rights laws. Even having a special paragraph on the great apes would be seen, by this logic, as making a “special” appeal on behalf of apes because they are like us. I predict that such a weak and unfocused initiative would fail to win great ape rights by far. Or at least such a campaign would be much less effective than a focused campaign that moves all the levers it can on behalf of great apes, including calling people to be consistent with what they already believe, even if they cannot be made to embrace different fundamental beliefs. So option 1. would not bring rights for sentient beings in general any day sooner—I will now argue that this retardation of progress for great apes would set back animal rights in general. At most, a fundamentalist such as Francione might focus on freeing individual chimps from hellish enclosures, or seeking habitat protection or appropriate veterinary care for their species. Such campaigns would be weakened without the motive force of peoples' already cemented convictions.

Great ape rights make a noticeable dent in speciesism. Entrenching rights for great apes, even if some believe that is because they are humanlike, would further breach the species barrier in the granting of animal rights. As noted, we have already done this, or at least some nations have. Such a move only makes people take animal rights all the more seriously. And there is no reason to fear that we will stop short at great ape rights with no further progress if animal rights arguments and activists are worth their salt. Questions of animal rights generally have not died off in countries where great ape rights are granted. Such nations are regarded as advanced in animal rights, and that can only advance the animal rights cause. As I have argued in "Animal Rights Law," creating a kindness culture is conducive towards animal rights. However, it is also conducive to animal rights laws simply to build up animal rights in the lawbooks rather than their absence. Such an achievement suggests that animal rights are appropriate and feasible, and only invites further questioning as to what other extensions of animal rights may be right and possible.

The Great Ape Project itself is as positive as it can be expected to be towards rights for all sentient beings. Here I quote from "A Declaration on Great Apes", which prefaces the Great Ape Project collection of essays:

Our request [for great ape rights - DS] comes at a special moment in history. Never before has our dominion over other animals been so pervasive and systematic. Yet this is also a moment when, within that very Western civilisation that has so inexorably extended this dominion, a rational ethic has emerged challenging the moral significance of membership of our own species. This challenge seeks equal consideration for the interests of all animals, human and nonhuman. It has given rise to a political movement, still fluid but growing. The slow but steady widening of the scope of the golden rule - 'treat others as you would have them treat you' - has now resumed its course. The notion of 'us' as opposed to 'the other', which, like a more and more abstract silhouette, assumed in the course of centuries the contours of the boundaries of the tribe, of the nations, of the race, of the human species, and which for a time the species barrier had congealed and stiffened, has again become something alive, ready for further change.

The Great Ape Project aims at taking just one step in this process of extending the community of equals. We shall provide ethical argument, based on scientific evidence about the capacities of chimpanzees, gorillas and orang-utans, for taking this step. Whether this step should also be the first of many others is not for The Great Ape Project to say. No doubt some of us, speaking individually, would want to extend the community of equals to many other animals as well; others may consider that extending the community to include all great apes is as far as we should go at present. We leave the consideration of that question for another occasion.

Let us comment on this statement of the Great Ape Project on rights for animals in general:

1. it acknowledges utter dominion over all animals, not just great apes
2. it calls considering "equal consideration for the interests of all animals" a "rational ethic", which is surely praise
3. it challenges species-membership as a legitimate grounds for discrimination
4. it envisions the Great Ape Project as "just one step in this process of extending the community of equals." Clearly that leaves other steps as possible, and are praised by the project as according with "a rational ethic", as noted, and as extending the golden rule, perhaps leading to many steps for extending the community of equals, perhaps to other animals as well
5. it cites the golden rule, treat others as you would have them treat you, which justifies rights for more animals than great apes
6. it acknowledges that many people will want to extend animal equality more generally
7. it suggests some "other occasion" for considering animal rights more generally, which is perfectly appropriate, as this must come outside an alliance for great ape rights, given that not all allies - indeed most - are not animal rightists

There is a lot that is praiseworthy here. It comes across as positive about animal rights more generally, indicating it is "rational". Yet again, not all supporters of the GAP will agree with animal rights in general. So it cannot, as a political alliance, outright endorse animal rights. Yet it comes close to doing so.

Another factor that is key here is that the GAP, in the Declaration just cited, declares that great apes "have mental capacities and an emotional life sufficient to justify their inclusion within the community of equals." It is vital to distinguish logically between necessary and sufficient. This sufficiency, anyway, is the basis for great ape rights. It is actually not speciesist and is morally unexceptionable. It is true that great apes have sufficient minds to be awarded rights. It is a good place to start in full moral argumentation - when asking who deserve rights - to begin first with those whom we agree have sufficient characteristics for rights, and then to investigate from there what is needed to have rights. The statement leaves it open that other kinds of nonhumans also have sufficient minds - say, in the form of sentience - to be awarded rights. The only speciesist ethic would be to assert that it is necessary for beings to have humanlike cognitive characteristics to be awarded rights. The GAP never endorses this speciesist, exclusive doctrine. So it asserts part of animal rights that is unexceptionable to animal rightists. True, it emphasizes human-like qualities. But again, why not pull a lever that will deliver uncounted thousands of animals from violence?

Animal rights pragmatists, in the legislative short-term, face a choice between goods and evils:

1. advocate sentient being rights in general, and great ape rights only as a part of that general advocacy, but then lose the momentum of a focused, maximally effective campaign on behalf of great apes, or
   
   
2. support not only sentient being rights, but campaigns specifically for great apes, using not only sentientist arguments, but also citing humanlike cognitive capacities; such an appeal to humanlike characteristics we do not regard as ideally correct or just, but many others do, and such a tactic will convince many to back great ape rights.
   

Pragmatists should recognize that 2. is the lesser of evils, and indeed the greater of benefits, for sentient beings. Both 1. and 2. permit and encourage critiques of speciesist favoritism for more humanlike beings, so that is not a distinctive advantage for either approach. However, consider the four advantages of the pragmatist approach which the fundamentalist does not share:

1. is more conducive to animal rights more generally, as I argued above;
   
2. wins rights for great apes, preventing their exploitation and perhaps extinction;
   
3. promotes self-consistency, which helps to make logical progress in the development of views; it also encourages critical thinking skills leading to animal rights (which is yet another factor that might conduce towards animal rights more generally);
   
4. it makes people less hypocritical, or promotes the virtue of integrity in the world, which is beneficial to the character of the one with integrity and to the community at large.
   

So it seems to me really a matter of fact which is the better approach, or which best approximates the best. One advantage is moot between approaches, and four key advantages, on any reasonable view, are enjoyed only by the pragmatist option as against the minority position of the futilitarians.

Francione needs to establish that it is best for sentient beings if animal rightists refuse to support the GAP. (Dunayer needs to show it is best to restrict ourselves solely to arguments regarding sentience—which I will soon discuss.) We cannot intelligibly argue that it is “better” for apes to languish without liberation, let alone “best” for them. Francione’s approach would be too little, too late, and the the upshot is that great apes might very well go extinct without adequate protection in the near future, a near future road marked by horrifically unmitigated exploitation and neglect of these magnificent creatures.

Let us now consider and rebut Francione’s specific objections to great apes activism in his blog entry for December 20, 2006:

Objection 1: He rejects “the similar minds position,” or trying to base rights for great apes on the premise that these beings are like us.

Reply: I reject such an argument too in terms of its being illogical, or untrue, and not ideally best for all animals. However, as said, there are two ways to convince people, and one of them is to persuade them with reference to what they already believe. That is not immoral if it is crucial to securing the best we can for sentient beings. Most humans now believe that only humanlike beings deserve rights. That assumption provides plenty of leverage for winning rights for great apes. Francione’s “generalist approach” which would seem to mean simply listing great apes among the sentient beings who need rights would be weak, unfocused and certainly would not have won the legislative breakthroughs such as New Zealand’s law to end experiments on great apes. Again, we do not have to think the “similar minds” position is right. Other people do that. We need only recognize that humanist assumptions are useful towards getting the most that we can for sentient beings in the short-term, in terms of increments of progress. That is what matters to animals in the end: securing their good. They do not much actually care what humans believe, I would have to guess. I am not however arguing that peoples' beliefs are irrelevant to the cause of animal rights. We would be at least one increment short of what is possible without great apes activism, since neither they nor any other sentient being would have legal rights in the wake of a successful anti-great-apes-activism-campaign, for a very long time to come. Francione writes that we should not link “moral status of nonhumans to the possession of humanlike cognitive characteristics.” True, but great apes activists need not do this, but only recognize and make use of the fact that other people do so even in the face of protests from animal rightists such as myself. In any case, the GAP only says the great apes have that which is sufficient for rights. It never says you need human-like characteristics for rights. So the GAP is not immoral in what it says.

Is there a fear that such campaigns after all “imply” that anthropocentrism is correct? Any such loose implications can be swept aside if the campaign explicitly rejects anthropocentrism, while still calling on humanists to be self-consistent in the interests of the apes themselves.

Objection 2: Great apes activism does not challenge speciesist hierarchy but reinforces it in that

(a) it suggests that only beings such as great apes have certain characteristics such as intelligence, emotions, and complex social relationships, and other sentient beings do not; and

(b) it suggests that such cognitive characteristics have moral value.

Reply: I have already refuted (b) from an animal rights pragmatist perspective. My campaign does not affirm higher intelligence as a criterion of moral standing, for example. As for (a), this is in no way claimed by even one single author in The Great Ape Project. It is merely argued that great apes have higher cognitive abilities than many other animals, which is true. It does not deny that many other animals have very high levels of cognition. This is merely an unfair and unsubstantiated imputation of Francione’s, much like his false claim that the Oxford Centre for Animal Ethics promotes a view of animals as things (see my blog entry for April 25/07).

Objection 3: Humans who are mentally challenged do not deserve less rights than normal humans.

Reply: True, but the animal rights pragmatist is not saying otherwise, so this objection is irrelevant. Again, practical use is being made of a humanistic assumption, without any endorsement of its truth or ethical rectitude—just the contrary, ableism against the mentally challenged and speciesism are uniformly denounced by animal rights pragmatists.

Objection 4: Francione writes that great apes activism is “like having a human rights campaign that focuses on giving rights to the ‘smarter’ humans first….We would certainly reject that elitism where humans are concerned.”

Reply: It is true we would not make such appeals in the case of humans. But the case is disanalogous. The world cultural climate is more or less receptive to universal human rights appeals, even as it is increasingly receptive to great apes rights campaigns. It is not receptive to sentient being rights appeals at the legislative level, so the analogy utterly breaks down. It is not “elitist” to advocate rights for all sentient beings in the long-term, and to secure whatever increments we can for sentient beings in the short-term. Rather it is neglectful to fail to fight for great ape rights and to just watch while these animals go extinct, while smugly handing out fliers about rights for all sentient beings that give no special mention to the great apes—except perhaps to poo-poo promising campaigns focused on their liberation.

An additional concern that I can foresee is that the secondary appeal can be viewed as cynically manipulative, rather than calling people to believe what is right. However, an appeal to embrace what is right is already being made, and indeed to extend what others already view as right. Furthermore, it is not unduly "manipulative" to find common ground with others to make progressive legislation, in the way that consistent humanists and animal rightists will tend to share common ground as GAP proponents. These parties should work that way together, not just with one side "manipulating" the other. Any further concessions to animal rights can be left to the long-term workings of democracy. What could be wrong with that picture?

Francione and I agree that we already know great apes are similar and do not need to fund more research on the apes. Many know of the similarities, but many do not, as my course amply demonstrates to me. My students learned huge amounts of data about the amazing abilities of great apes other than humans. I do not advocate experimenting on great apes against their will, nor indeed does the GAP. I am as ever an anti-vivisectionist. That research on apes has been done and I agree that their amazing cognitive abilities have been well documented. No more invasive research should be done, and that is not an implication of supporting the GAP. But many need to be educated about these facts if it will help result in rights for these great apes. Peoples' awe over ape minds from these experiments should ironically help to inspire antivivisection with respect to apes. Research could be funded that just collects together amazing facts about primates that have already been established to "wow" many into supporting the GAP.

Francione speaks in Rain without Thunder of banning areas of animal exploitation, including I would imagine marine animal acts. Yet part of what will win further protection for dolphins, beluga whales, and killer whales in particular is their advanced cognitive capacities. This has already won some progress. Would he oppose focused campaigns of this sort too? Perhaps he is “obliged” to in light of what he believes about the GAP. Moreover, as my friend and long-time animal rights activist JoAnne Schwab points out, a lot of sympathy with whales' advanced minds generated the admittedly imperfect moratorium on whaling that exists. If researchers just mentioned that whales suffer that would not have inspired the same victory, any more than citing the suffering of fish has stopped fishing. People thought, "Oh my gosh! Aside from their different bodies, the whales are so much like us!" People often do not think the same thing of fish. Thinking of whales as very similar to us naturally more easily inspires similar treatment of both humans and "humanlike" creatures. (Of course, again, I am not saying that rights should be awarded based on intelligence.)

Now, unlike Francione, Joan Dunayer supports great ape rights activism—qualified support though. In brief, she argues that it would be “easy” to win great ape rights: “If someone thinks that a great-ape campaign is more winnable than others, they should go ahead. However, they shouldn’t argue based on the shared characteristics (other than sentience) of humans and other great apes.” (Speciesism, pp. 117-118) Why are such campaigns, which are by no means "easy," more winnable? Because they implicitly play upon humanist assumptions about rights. Why not play upon that more explicitly then for even greater success?”[1] Such rights are indeed winnable as Dunayer observes and foresees. However, we would not be as likely to win them, or do so as quickly, if we do not make use of the humanist assumptions that people already have. If we advocate great apes rights purely on the basis of their ability to suffer, that will no more move people than appeals that other animals suffer—which is an appeal with only limited success thus far. Yet appeals to apes’ ability to reason, use language, etc. dramatically win public sympathy and thus increase “winnability” exponentially.

A pragmatist will denounce speciesism, and favoring animals on the basis of intelligence, but they will still criticize humanists that they should at least be consistent with what they already believe. Anyone can legitimately be criticized on that score, quite apart from whatever new beliefs they should acquire. That is standard practice in academics where it is accepted that a diversity of opinion prevails, and implications of others' views are routinely spelled out, whether they like it or not (I do that a lot in this blog!). Indeed, we are much more likely to persuade others of implications of a belief they already hold than to adopt a brand new belief of rights for all sentient beings. Francione entitles his blog entry, “The Great Ape Project: Not so Great.” I say rather that the GAP is a momentous idea whose time has come, and it is a legislative proposal that should be implemented with full force, in the greatest possible way, using whatever legal arguments are most effective. Rejecting the GAP, or strait-jacketing it as only allowed to appeal to sentience, is a way to lose rather than to win achievable animal rights. An exclusively sentientist great apes campaign will convince fewer people, and as Steven Wise demonstrates in Rattling the Cage, the restriction will not enable us to connect as well with existing legal precedents. Wise himself mentions in a later book, Drawing the Line, p. 34: "If I were Chief Justice of the Universe, I might make the simpler capacity to suffer, rather than practical autonomy [which requires advanced cognitive capacities], sufficient for personhood and dignity-rights." However he points out that sentientism is irrelevant to common law judges. Still, Wise models how one can advocate both sentientism and progress for great apes that uses appeal to higher cognition as a campaign mechanism. Let us be winners rather than losers of winnable battles on behalf of animal rights—for the animals’ sakes. And let us not be ashamed to identify great apes as having sufficiency for rights, leaving it open and praised as "rational" that we extend rights to animals more generally.

Notes

1. Animal “welfarist” laws are also more “winnable” than truly nonspeciesist laws, but in fairness, she is not committed to supporting “welfarist” laws just because they are winnable. She thinks, anyway, that she can self-consistently reject “welfarist” laws just because they are speciesist. “Animal Rights Law,” my essay, I think puts to rest the idea that anti-speciesists morally must reject “welfarist” laws in the short-term, but let us continue to focus on great apes rights in this blog paper.

FURTHER READING ON ANIMAL RIGHTS INCREMENTALISM

A Selection of Related Articles

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

go there

Short version of "Animal Rights Law".

go there

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

go there

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

go there

A Selection of Related Blog Entries

Anti-Cruelty Laws and Non-Violent Approximation

Use Not Treatment: Francione’s Cracked Nutshell

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

The False Dilemma: Veganizing versus Legalizing

Veganism as a Baseline for Animal Rights: Two Different Senses

Francione's Three Feeble Critiques of My Views

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

The Greatness of the Great Ape Project under Attack!

Francione Totally Misinterprets Singer

Francione's Animal Rights Theory

Francione on Unnecessary Suffering

My Appearance on AR Zone

D-Day for Francionists

Sztybel versus Francione on Animals' Property Status

The Red Carpet

Playing into the Hands of Animal Exploiters

The Abolitionist ApproachES

Francione's Mighty Boomerang

Dr. David Sztybel Home Page