Thursday, March 3, 2011

New Paper on Animal Law: Incrementalism versus Anti-Incrementalism

A few people have commented on the incrementalist nature of laws for blacks, women, and children. I decided to investigate this myself with more thoroughness. This is a history paper, so it is outside my area of expertise which is philosophy. Nevertheless, it has been a neglected area, so I thought I would try to do something anyway, and wait for some real history experts do more rigorous and elaborate work at some later date.

Here is a LINK

The paper tries to accomplish a number of things:

  1. Come up with a new terminology for this debate: incrementalism versus anti-incrementalism, with reasons given assessing many choices for terminology
  2. Showing that most forms of oppression could not possibly be based in an extended form of property status as Professor Gary L. Francione states
  3. Providing an outline of the history of post-property-status legislation on behalf of African Americans, women, and children, and showing that it is ALL incrementalist legislation
  4. Commenting on the sheer improbability, if not impossibility, that animal law will be nonincrementalist, unlike laws on behalf of humans;
  5. Explaining why it is virtually impossible to go beyond incrementalism
  6. Assessing the value of single-issue campaigns
  7. Further addressing the complacency problem pegged onto incrementlist approaches
  8. Outlining some key increments of animal laws that have already come to pass
  9. The implications of accepting historical incrementalism for anti-cruelty laws...and more!

Bruce Friedrich writes and speaks widely on this topic on behalf of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. He recently blogged in the Huffington Post on this debate, and linked to this essay of mine, calling it essential reading. See his article and the comments. Another commenter favorably referred to my "Animal Rights Law" essay and mentioned the incrementalist nature of progress for women's rights. HuffPo has been called the world's most influential blog site. This reference by Mr. Friedrich has resulted in an all-time high of page views, yesterday, on my website. Enjoy!


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

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