tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-82303556806610179892024-03-13T07:57:35.340-07:00On the Road to LiberationDavid Sztybel, Ph.D.http://www.blogger.com/profile/01791831843665208484noreply@blogger.comBlogger167125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8230355680661017989.post-88095918773738129272017-05-13T05:39:00.002-07:002017-05-13T15:01:07.414-07:00Seeing Through a Judge's Moral Blindness: Anita Krajnc Cleared of All Charges<P>This is about the <A HREF="https://www.animalliberationcurrents.com/krajnc/r-vs-krajnc-decision/">judgment</A> in an internationally renowned case in which Anita Krajnc was charged with criminal mischief for giving water to pigs. She and her fellow Toronto Pig Save group would hold vigils focusing on animals being shipped to slaughter. They regularly offer water to the pigs, from bottles put through the slats of the slaughtertruck. In particular, Krajnc was charged with interfering with the use and enjoyment of property. I am very proud of Anita, as we have long been friends, and she gives me credit for converting her to animal rights by screening <I>The Animals Film</I> at the University of Toronto in the 1990s.
<P>Judge D. A. Harris' ruling on the case did clear away all charges. The judgment itself though can be charged with serious shortcomings, and has little to offer by way of substantive merit. This judge seems to be a procedural judge rather than a substantive one, or roughly one who goes by the letter rather than the spirit of the law.
<P>First of all, the dismissal of charges was purely mechanical: not being satisfied beyond a reasonable doubt that the relevant interference occurred. There is no evidence that anything other than water was being offered to the pigs: the trucker declined an offer to test the water; the truck did not turn back to the farm; the slaughterhouse took no precautions against contamination; [63] and no facility has ever rendered such precautions in the entire history of the Pig Save Movement.[75] Giving water is not tantamount to "interference" in Harris' judgment. So far, so good.
<P><B>Some of the Shortcomings</B>
<OL>
<LI>Harris dismissed Dr. Marino's expertise in neuroscience and animal behaviour as relevant for distinguishing who/what is person versus property. That is because her testimony was supposedly not based in Canadian common law, according to which pigs are property. [33] He is obviously not that substantive judge Steven Wise, author of <I>Rattling the Cage</I>, is hoping for who will be open-minded in recognizing that there is a clear overlap between certain human right-holders (such as some who are mentally disabled) and nonhuman rightless beings who are equally psychologically sensitive. In some sense, any judge falling short of a substantive recognition of that equality is not stepping up to the plate and exercising rational consistency as a requirement for moral-legal conceptions.
<LI>Personhood is one thing, but saying that Dr. Marino was not fit to judge <B><I>torture</I></B>, [38] in spite of her obvious expertise in animal lives and minds, is a calloused-conservative thing to say. In ethics we speak of those who are "morally blind." He is blind to conditions suffered by pigs that would immediately be considered torture if done to humans, or even to so-called "pets." Procedural law is often a case of entrenched and perpetuated irrationalism at a societal, legal level, and is being carried on in this vein here. There were procedural judges under Nazi Germany and Apartheid too.
<LI>In a speciesist fashion of equal moral blindness, he imputed to Dr. May the veterinarian that she had "coloured testimony" because her views opposing animal exploitation are known. [45] That is like saying that a medical doctor who opposes slavery would have had her findings dismissed after rendering an opinion on a stinking slave ship that just arrived over the Middle Passage. Were the entire set of expert opinions of the anti-slavery advocates of the world - during the era of more widespread slavery - to be dismissed before slavery was illegal?
<LI>He claimed that the video showed only a few out of the 190 pigs on the truck and thus discounted the footage. [46] It is as if activists zeroed in only on distressed pigs and ignored all of the others who were okay. A perverse form of bias - supposedly on the activists' part. Yet the bias of the judge is in evidence here: his moral blindness is part and parcel with an all-too-common blindness to suffering, which has been documented virtually as well as could be, as in Animal Alliance's expert <A HREF="https://www.animalalliance.ca/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/Anything-Goes.pdf">review</A> of "food animal" law and policy in Canada. Also, why do not individual pigs matter? Legally speaking, individual dogs matter.
<LI>Again his procedural bent is evident when he was disappointed that Dr. May provided no "objective assessment" of degrees of distress "and application...to the governing regulations." [49] First, it needs to be considered whether and to what extent suffering is so much a matter of objectivity in the first place, or rather taking subjects of experience - that is, experiencers - seriously. There is a tendency in general discourse to confuse subjective as in (1) a real subject of experience, or experiencer, which cannot seriously be doubted, with (2) subjective as in an unreliable opinion. If "objective" is likewise distinguished as referring to (1) an object of consciousness, or (2) a reliable assertion, we can reflect that it is a reliable assertion - or objective - that the pigs in relevant situations are subjects of experience who suffer egregiously. Second, Harris' morally blind lack of consideration of suffering has blocked a recognition of the <I>degree</I> of suffering here which would easily be reckoned torture for a dog - legally too I would have to guess. Procedurally that is. But substantively, this judgment is evidently lacking in moral-legal substance.
<LI>His moral blindness carried him on to stumble into his biased characterization that what he might call "animal industries" in Canada are "highly regulated." [53] We know that is false, as again Animal Alliance has demonstrated in its <A HREF="https://www.animalalliance.ca/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/Anything-Goes.pdf">review</A> by legal experts. And any "highly" is certainly not sharing of any moral high ground.
<LI>How about blindness to the pigs when ambulatory status is equated with lack of distress? [54] What about Holocaust concentration camp victims who were forced to go on the infamous death marches as the Allies were closing in? Were these prisoners okay because they could walk? He is "offended" by Holocaust comparisons, but in rational terms anyway, here is one that is plainly relevant.
<LI>Proceduralism versus substantivism clashed again when he appended that IF the law were broken (according to some other judge), it could not be excused because of a "higher social value." [84] Exceptions to letter-of-the-law-breaking need to be specified or rulings become "too subjective." This argument is excessively conservative. It wrongly assumes that the legal letter is always right and that the legal spirit could never <B>expand</B>, as it has repeatedly to include vulnerable, oppressed humans - but only when legislators and judges had the moral courage not to be morally blind any more. With enough judicial substance, prior listings of exceptions can readily be expanded.
<LI>Cynicism about Anita and her fellow activists was on display when Judge Harris conceded that Anita might believe as she declares, but on the other hand, it is possible that she is merely making statements to grab media attention, or "sound bites." [115] His judgment is the sound that bites. It is merely insulting to imply that Anita might be misrepresenting anyone or anything out of some kind of publicity-lust. Such degrading imputations should be seen as beneath the dignity of anyone sitting on the bench. I wonder if Justice Harris, when imputing cynical media-grabbing to Anita - which ironically proves his own cynicism - stopped to consider that maybe Anita did not cause the driver to exit his vehicle, execrate her, have her charged, and so on. She did none of these actions and so cannot coherently be charged as merely acting to seek publicity in this case. Yet he writes that the publicity from the trial is as never before for the Save Movement. [131] In any case, Anita seeks publicity as part of pursuing a just cause. It is a false dilemma to imply that one must choose between seeking media coverage and pursuing a just cause. All major just causes in furthering societal substance seek publicity, and so they must.
<LI>With typical narrow-minded proceduralism, Harris dismisses utterly any analogies drawn by the defence between Anita's case and cases pertaining to Mohandas Gandhi, Nelson Mandela, and Susan Anthony. [117] He notes that these "can all be distinguished from the present case." In these cases they did not argue that they should not be found guilty of a criminal offence because they were in pursuit of a just cause. True, but proceduralists often pick at any differences they can find to dismiss legal arguments drawing on the common law. Surely criminal mischief is logically incompatible with behaving with just cause - for the just person acts according to morality and the mischievous person acts immorally. Even if that standard of justice is not yet currently reflected in the law and other social practices, it arguably ought to be, and then any consideration of "mischief" evaporates. Note that the standard of justice here need not be veganism/animal rights. A simple standard of animal welfare forbidding animal torture would be enough to find Anita's actions to be just. If this last argument is conceded, then charges of criminal mischief could and should be thrown out by anyone who takes animals the least bit seriously. This reasoning justifies and so invites rather than forbids comparisons with Gandhi, Mandela, Anthony, and indeed others. For they too should not have been found <I>criminal</I> in their pursuit of just causes.
<LI>He is "offended" by the Holocaust comparison, [124] a note without magisterial grace for its naked opinional flavour. There is a great deal to consider here, and as noted the comparison is immediately salient in dismissing one of the judge's own misguided claims.
<LI>Finally, Harris offers the opinion that if Anita did break the law, she "did not act with legal justification or colour of right." [140] A substantive judge with the power to see beyond an existing incoherent societal substance to one that is sane in its reasoning would entirely disagree about colour of right. Speciesism stinks and has the colour of <B>rot</B>! That is both speciesism that withholds rights from animals, and also the radical speciesism which denies even any animal welfare to so-called "food" animals, "laboratory animals", and others.
</OL>
<P><B>Conclusion</B>
<P>In the substance of a society's morality, wrongful substance must give way to rightful substance. But Justice Harris is hindering rather than enabling this societal process at the judicial level. Judge Harris misspells "protester" as "protestor" [4]. But far more importantly, he misconceives:
<UL>
<LI>domains of expertise
<LI>the freedom to hold a moral position when rendering an expert opinion
<LI>evidence standards as to suffering
<LI>whitewashing an utterly corrupt set of animal industries
<LI>broad relevance of common law precedents
<LI>the requirements of civility forbidding the insulting of defendants
<LI>protesting and publicity-seeking - among other things.
</UL><P>The way Justice Harris proceeded is thus lacking in moral-legal substance.David Sztybel, Ph.D.http://www.blogger.com/profile/01791831843665208484noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8230355680661017989.post-6268653463061253272016-01-31T14:34:00.000-08:002016-01-31T14:36:16.116-08:00Nicole Sheth from Youth4Animals has requested that I post the group's website, which I am very happy to do:
<P><A HREF="www.youth4animals.ca">www.youth4animals.ca</A>
You would need to cut and paste the link.
<P>These are exciting initiatives aimed at helping the helpless and will also, I think, serve a great role in educating youths about animals.
<P>Bravo, Nicole!David Sztybel, Ph.D.http://www.blogger.com/profile/01791831843665208484noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8230355680661017989.post-69785931341531860112014-02-22T12:04:00.001-08:002014-02-22T12:06:41.874-08:00Denmark Claims Animal Rights Trumps Religious FreedomThe Danes have banned kosher and halal slaughter. The barbaric practice requires animals to be conscious while they are killed. As to be expected, Jews and Muslims have objected and denied there is any cruelty in slitting animals' throats while they are hanging upside down quite mindfully, often with flesh leaving the bone due to stress from the ankle shackle. When Minister of Agriculture and Food, Dan Jørgensen, was challenged, he replied: "animal rights comes before religion." Way to go, Minister Jørgensen! This is a huge increment forward which people of good sense will appreciate.
<P>For more details, see <A HREF="http://www.care2.com/causes/should-animal-rights-trump-religious-freedom-denmark-says-yes.html">article</A> David Sztybel, Ph.D.http://www.blogger.com/profile/01791831843665208484noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8230355680661017989.post-3621859336602864492013-09-08T12:41:00.002-07:002013-09-12T08:33:03.407-07:00Demolishing the Absurd Myth of Complacency with 10% Support<P>The Francionists always rely on faulty arguments. You just wonder which ones they will come out with next. In his recent essay, "A Simple Question", Gary Francione reports:
<BLOCKQUOTE>Scientists at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute have found that when just 10 percent of the population holds an unshakable belief, their belief will always be adopted by the majority of the society. The scientists, who are members of the Social Cognitive Networks Academic Research Center (SCNARC) at Rensselaer, used computational and analytical methods to discover the tipping point where a minority belief becomes the majority opinion. The finding has implications for the study and influence of societal interactions ranging from the spread of innovations to the movement of political ideals.</BLOCKQUOTE>
<P>And so Francione asks us all the following question:
<BLOCKQUOTE>Why is every animal advocate and every large animal organization not working to get to that 10% rather than promoting welfare reform, "compassionate" consumption, and "happy" exploitation?</BLOCKQUOTE>
<P>So we are all supposed to rush out and follow Gary based on this "research finding"?
<P>First of all, you have to wonder: what is the mental achitecture of the geniuses who came up with this this study's conclusions? The latter are falsifiable even by those who are not specialists in the field such as myself, so long as I give the matter a little thought using some commonplace facts that I happen to know.
<P>In recent years I read that 33% of Americans are Christian fundamentalists. They are highly convinced of their positions and are unlikely to change. At least for the most part. According to this "study", all of Americans are destined to become Christian fundamentalist. That is utter tripe and nonsense. The researchers have not "proved" their findings. It is unsupported speculation that goes contrary to current, widely available data, probably on any number of fronts.
<P>Take, for example, political parties. It used to be that a huge number of Canadians were Progressive Conservatives. Far more than 10%. They also won elections on a much greater electoral base. But they never become dominant. They went extinct, replaced by new conservative bodies. And many people would deny that conservatism is our evolutionary destiny. It would be foolhardy to assume that we all must become conservatives due to some false law posited by polytechnical researchers.
<P>All of the other political positions have more than 10% following too, by people who probably will not change much in their lifetimes (surely those unshakeable of conservatism will number more than 10% of society, and will not vary from being conservative <B>ever</B>, thus fulfilling the "law" supposed here), and it would be senseless to be complacent that any of them are going to take over society based on this "finding" by this polytechnical institute.
<P>Indeed, the liberals will have more than 10% of society too who are irrevocably of that persuasion. This means the research findings "prove" that society will eventually be all-conservative, and all-liberal. Really impressive findings! It is always impressive to do the impossible, such as an implicit self-contradiction, after all, isn't it? If we knew statistics as to how much of the population subscribes to certain philosophies, we could perhaps show that 10% are die-hards of one school. But determining who wins out in the end depends on real-world interrelationships at micro- and macro-levels, not polytechnical institute erroneous, statistical "laws". Probably again there is more than one school that can claim the "magical" staunch 10%. But you get the idea - that is, unless you are a rigid ideologist.
<P>How about a more relevant example? Many years ago, I heard that 10% of British people are vegetarian. After the mad cow disease scare, based in tainted beef, I was told that number jumped up to 25%. But does this mean that animal rights is a shoe-in, and animal rights laws are soon to come, so we do not need to abolish factory farming? <B>Complete nonsense.</B>
<P>Suppose we achieve 10% animal rights support. We cannot be complacent that the rest of society will "magically" follow due to some formula. It takes hard work and convincing appeals, not theories somehow "expressing themselves" in reality. Francione said even 20% is realistic to aim for. Eventually, yes. But even if achieved, animal rights laws are very far away. Look at how divided the United States was over slavery, with far more than 20% of the population actively favoring this misbegotten institution. It took a very long time for anti-racist laws to appear after slavery was abolished, 78 years in fact as I show in my paper, <A HREF="http://davidsztybel.info/x-increm.pdf">"Incrementalist Animal Law: Welcome to the Real World"</A>.
<P>So the "finding" in question is useless to the anti-incrementalist cause. There is still a very long time to go before we get to animal rights laws, no matter how you slice it, or how you attempt to spin it. And we should be ashamed of ourselves if we do not abolish factory farming, one of the worst inventions ever - an atrocity in itself - <B>long</B> before animal rights laws shine from the books.
<P>"A Simple Question", eh? Simple indeed.David Sztybel, Ph.D.http://www.blogger.com/profile/01791831843665208484noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8230355680661017989.post-86845299687772781762013-04-25T14:26:00.002-07:002013-04-25T14:26:35.573-07:00Holocaust Memoirs by Maria SztybelPlease read these <A HREF="http://davidsztybel.info/x-mariamemoir.pdf">excerpts</A> that are a new part of the <A HREF="http://davidsztybel.info/16.html">Holocaust Comparison Project</A>. I received the translation of my Aunt Maria's diary a few months ago from her daughter, Lola Drach, who let us learn what was said in the original Polish.
<P>This is not reading for enjoyment, but it is nevertheless important in my estimation.David Sztybel, Ph.D.http://www.blogger.com/profile/01791831843665208484noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8230355680661017989.post-75054202001077569002013-04-23T13:52:00.000-07:002013-04-23T13:52:50.635-07:00Great Britain Bans Wild Animal Acts in CircusesSignificant incremental progress thanks to effective single-issue campaigning.
Non-wild animals in circuses still need protection though.
See <A HREF="http://www.care2.com/causes/success-u-k-saves-wild-animals-from-kidnapping-and-circus-life.html">article</A> for more details.David Sztybel, Ph.D.http://www.blogger.com/profile/01791831843665208484noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8230355680661017989.post-17926599729759955642013-03-07T05:58:00.001-08:002013-03-07T11:14:50.548-08:00How I Became VeganI am an animal rights philosopher. My Ph.D. from University of Toronto is in animal ethics, and I also did a post-doctoral fellowship at Queen’s University. I have taught many animal rights courses at Brock University, have had several peer-reviewed journal and encyclopedia articles, and maintain a website at http://davidsztybel.info, which also links to my blog. Now I have been a vegan since 1988, nearly a quarter-of a century. What inspired me to go vegan? As is the case with many people, especially from around that generation, it was one particular book: <i>Animal Liberation</i>, by Peter Singer.
<P>I used to haunt the World’s Biggest Bookstore in downtown Toronto. One day I was unaccountably drawn to Singer’s book and decided to read it. I took in his lucid reasoning (although now I take issue with a number of his ideas), and his detailing of factory farming and vivisection. I stumbled out of my bedroom and said to my mother something like, "The way they treat these animals in factory-farming is so horrible…" She interrupted me and finished my sentence: "So you want to be a vegetarian? Okay." From then on she cooked such meals. My sister Miriam was already a vegetarian for many years, although she never breathed a word about it to me. My mother and father went vegetarian years later, and she said she was being vegetarian vicariously through her children prior to that time. The death of the family dog brought on my mother’s conversion, and she eventually persuaded my father to follow suit.
<P>Since I left the nest I have learned vegan cooking and offer a modest cookbook on my website with some of my family’s favorite recipes. The truth is I had not yet decided to be a vegetarian, but my mother finished my thought, and for the life of me I could not think of a more appropriate conclusion. Every animal product I learned about was mired in suffering and cruelty. My susequent conversion to veganism shaped my career as a philosophy student and scholar. The best reason to go vegan is for the animals, but the environmental and health reasons only make conditions better for all animals too, if only indirectly. There is an incredible array of reasons for going vegan, and only pathetic few excuses for omnivorism that give up the ghost on close examination. I hope that people will energize such life-giving transformation on an ever-broader scale.David Sztybel, Ph.D.http://www.blogger.com/profile/01791831843665208484noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8230355680661017989.post-21341008882328468882013-01-19T11:42:00.000-08:002013-01-25T09:08:30.450-08:00A Statement from the AnimalsWhat would the animals say if only they could? This short piece meditates on that very question:
<A HREF="http://davidsztybel.info/124.html"><B>A STATEMENT FROM THE ANIMALS</B></A>David Sztybel, Ph.D.http://www.blogger.com/profile/01791831843665208484noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8230355680661017989.post-30410986790405048582013-01-04T04:19:00.000-08:002013-01-25T09:09:26.556-08:00Israel Bans Commercial Products TestingAs of the end of 2012, Israel banned testing on animals of cosmetics and household products, including imports - even imports of animal-tested ingredients. It is being hailed as "a revolution in animal welfare". And the Francionists would have to condemn it because it resulted from a single-issue campaign, as opposed to the one Francionist campaign for veganism I suppose. For the full story, please see <A HREF="http://www.care2.com/causes/israel-bans-animal-tested-cosmetics-why-cant-we-do-the-same.html">HERE</A>.David Sztybel, Ph.D.http://www.blogger.com/profile/01791831843665208484noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8230355680661017989.post-18920632031062850502012-12-26T17:59:00.001-08:002013-01-25T09:11:00.517-08:00Love-Based versus Anger-Based ProtestingWhen Francione compares meat-eaters to psychopathic serial killers, that is anger-based - and logically baseless - activism. Meat-eaters assuredly have a conscience for the most part. Toronto Pig Save started their thrice-weekly vigils with some anger, but have now evolved to love-based activism. Please see the <A HREF="http://davidsztybel.info/122.html">table</A> contrasting the two approaches.David Sztybel, Ph.D.http://www.blogger.com/profile/01791831843665208484noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8230355680661017989.post-72565348850400811462012-10-25T05:08:00.003-07:002013-01-25T09:28:55.068-08:00Francione Flees Debating Me Again, Runs into the “Animal Jury”<P><B>Introduction: The Unlikelihood of Another Francione-Sztybel Debate</B>
<P>Recently, law graduate Spencer Lo noted how Professor James McWilliams originally offered to debate Professor Gary Francione, but then Dr. McWilliams withdrew. Spencer started floating around the idea online that perhaps Francione should debate me. This was not my idea. I do not even know if Mr. Lo was aware that I was actually engaged in an internet debate that was formally arranged for the Toronto Animal Rights Society (TARS) and that Francione fled (more on this below, including the tough questions I asked before Gary ran away). Francione responded that he was not prepared to take Lo <B>seriously</B> if I was suggested as a debating partner. Now Spencer’s request for a debate was a model of diplomacy:
<BLOCKQUOTE>As for David Sztybel, I have indeed visited his website and on his “Academic” and “General” pages, there are published writings where he interacts with your work. I believe his “Animal Rights Law: Fundamentalism versus Pragmatism” was peer-reviewed, so Sztybel is obviously familiar with your views. My suggestion—and that’s all it is—for a possible, civil debate to take place between you two, particularly on the ‘welfare reform’ issue that divides you and McWilliams, is grounded in the belief that direct scholarly interaction is a good thing. If not Sztybel, then maybe someone else, but it seems to me that Sztybel, with a PhD in analytic philosophy, who has interacted with your work in publications, is a unique candidate for defending the so-called ‘new-welfarist’ [<I>sic</I> - I do not conform with a single one of Francione’s stated criteria for “new welfarists”, and I reject the term as a mere insult] side of the issue. He has done so in several places, including over at AR Zone. Since his arguments have gained in popularity, it may be worthwhile to explain why people shouldn’t buy into them. So my suggestion that you consider engaging him isn’t ‘merely’ because he disagrees with you—no, I’m not that shallow—but because: (1) he apparently understands your work, as evidenced by his publications, both scholarly and nonacademic, (2) his position has gained in popularity, (3) his arguments are clear and rigorous, IMO, and therefore merit attention, and (4) he is a serious philosopher of some repute.
<P>Now perhaps you believe Sztybel’s arguments are very weak and so engagement would be a waste of time, but are they any less rigorous than the ones McWilliams advanced in his Slate article, which is the main publication of his criticizing your approach? Are they any less weak than the other ‘new-welfarists’ you’ve debated? I suspect most people looking forward to your McWilliams-debate were disappointed when he withdrew (as I was), mostly because they were hoping for clarity on a divisive issue, which the debate could have provided. But some debate (many debates) should happen because the issue is important. So I suggest that if not McWilliams, then Sztybel is a plausible choice (though not necessarily the only choice).
<P>As for his plagiarism charge, I have little knowledge of about [<I>sic</I>] that, though I note you said he issued a retraction (presumably with an apology). So perhaps forgiveness is in order. Past misbehavior, if genuinely regretted, should enable people to let bygones be bygones—and more civil dialogue (which is what I’m proposing) would certainly help clear out hostilities, in addition to moving the intellectual issues forward.</BLOCKQUOTE>
<P>I had earlier wondered in my blog, given a certain analysis, if Francione plagiarized Robert Garner’s argument that we can increasingly rule out unnecessary suffering for animals until we get to something approaching animal rights. Please note that I never accused Francione outright of plagiarism but just voiced the question and an argument, and wanted clarification, and rectification if need be. I have since fully retracted that blog entry. I will not have these facts distorted if I can help it. I could say more but I won’t.
<P>Despite his initially offering simply to dismiss Spencer Lo as “not serious” because he suggested me as a debating partner, eventually Francione condescended to explain why he would not debate with me:
<BLOCKQUOTE>I absolutely forgive Sztybel for his accusation [<I>sic</I> - as I noted, I <B>NEVER</B> outright accused him of plagiarism but merely raised the question in a serious way together with an argument] that I plagiarized Robert Garner. David retracted his accusation [<I>sic</I>] and apologized to me and to Professor Garner for what he admitted was his rash, irresponsible, and serious behavior.
<P>I also absolutely forgive Sztybel for his relentless ad hominem attacks on me over the years, including a blog essay in which he claimed that my always wearing black clothing (a fact that is itself false), is an indication that I am a “cult” leader.
<P>Although I do forgive him, I do hope you can understand both that I have no desire to have any contact with him and I am afraid that I can’t regard as serious any suggestion that I do so.
<P>I may disagree with Professor McWilliams but I regard him as a serious intellectual (his work on food history is superb and important) and I am quite sure that if we had the discussion that he had agreed to and from which he has now withdrawn, he would not have focused on the color of my shirts.
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<P>Clearly, Francione is suggesting that somehow I am not a “serious intellectual”. I’ve got to admit it is amusing to hear him offer that wholly pretentious assessment of my work. He is one of the most error-prone thinkers I have ever studied, and I am the one - by far - who has done the most to point out his factual errors and illogical leaps. Oh, but he tries to offer a “proof” that I am not to be taken seriously. His ad hominem and “black shirt” comments, which in a bit you will see will provide still more serious grounds for bemusement. You see, we need to <I>examine</I> his claims. A lot of quickly offered claims that Gary makes need to be examined – and rejected due to intellectual inadequacies.
<P>I do believe that in genuine debates there are winners and there are losers. Gary’s fleeing debate with me for the second time does not prove he is a loser, although it is certainly not a <B>winning</B> strategy either. We will contemplate his not taking a possible debate with me seriously in this essay, to see what it really amounts to. It is a very nice opportunity to look back at how I have “interacted” with Gary’s work over the years, to use Spencer’s neat term. I have covered a lot of interesting and important ground since my peer-reviewed essay, <A HREF="http://davidsztybel.info/x-arlaw.pdf">Animal Rights Law.</A>
<P>Francione himself, after one of my appearances on AR Zone, tried to show why he thinks my view loses in what I term the incrementalism versus anti-incrementalism debate. His broadside consisted of two straw man arguments – attacking two views I never voiced and never would – and an absurd stance on economics. The two misrepresentations are:
<OL>
<LI>I supposedly claim that animal welfarist laws will achieve the abolition of animal exploitation, even though I have quite explicitly maintained the exact <I>opposite</I> (Sztybel, 2007, p. 10-11).
<LI>He made the false claim that I reduce animal rights or abolition to “new welfarism”.
</OL>
<P>You can read the full <A HREF = "http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2011/12/franciones-three-feeble-critiques-of-my.html">explanation</A> as to just how he was misrepresenting my views here. At the same time, he claims that I do not understand “economics”. Yet Gary is the one who claims that “legal welfarism” – that is, the phenomenon of animal welfarist laws – just means that animals will be exploited more efficiently. In that blog entry I show, on the contrary, that anti-cruelty laws such as banning factory farming would cost producers <B>big money</B>, since each measure of factory farming is designed to <B>save</B> these “farmers” tons of money. Effective anti-cruelty would cost billions of dollars and better billions of lives. (I elaborate further on this key point below.) So Francione has tried to score debating points against me before. And he lost, as anyone can plainly enough perceive. My own critiques of his work are another matter.
<P><B>The First Excuse: Allegations of Relentless Ad Hominem Attacks</B>
<P>Now let’s <I>explore</I> his two apparent reasons why he will not debate me again: the claim that I have made ad hominem remarks against him, and that I commented on his “black shirts”. He is known for uttering false charges, such as when he <A HREF ="http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2011/12/d-day-for-francionists.html">
libeled</A> me that I am dishonest on his Abolitionist Approach Forum, saying I tell “outright lies”. Now <B>that</B> is ad hominem, as it was not only false and insulting, but used to urge people not to bother to examine my views.
<P>First of all, what is an ad hominem attack? <CITE>Wikipedia</CITE> has a commonplace analysis. It is “an attempt to negate the truth of a claim by pointing out a negative characteristic or unrelated belief of the person supporting it.” I have never engaged in ad hominem attacks against Francione. I dare him to produce even a <B>single</B> example. If he is labouring under a misconception of the very meaning of “ad hominem attack” (a term with which I would expect an academic who does law and philosophy to be familiar), that is his difficulty. Now I have commented in the past about Gary as a person on very rare occasions. But the fallacy is not committed if one makes negative claims about persons based on evidence. That is not insulting. It is not an ad hominem attack if one points out that a politician acts contrary to how he speaks. For a more relevant example, I have said it is <B>egotistical</B> - a vice just like hypocrisy in the politician example - for him to describe his position as “The Abolitionist Approach”, because anyone can prove intellectually that there are many abolitionist approach<B>es</B>.
<P>Now Gary would not like my saying that. But egotism is the only explanation for this self-elevation and diminishing of other positions – supposedly – to non-existence or non-significance. I do not regret telling it like it is. It is not an ad hominem attack because the egotism analysis is not used to dismiss any claims he makes. My proving that there are a variety of abolitionist approaches is my reason for negating his claim that he offers <B>"the"</B> abolitionist approach. The egotism part is merely the only conclusion unbiased observers could perhaps reach as to why Francione champions this false exclusivity. (Misleading people into thinking that his is the <I>only</I> option for “abolition” is another possible motive too though, just as he is seriously trying to mislead people about me and my work.) Egotism is a descriptive term, not an insult. I do not use any ad hominem attacks, never mind “relentless” ones. I only very rarely comment on Gary himself when I think that it is necessary to understand his discourse, as in the above-mentioned case.
<P>Indeed, I wrote a blog paper called “Negativism in Francione, and Avoiding Negativism towards Francione” (<A HREF = "http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2008/07/negativism-in-francione-and-avoiding.html">Sztybel blog Jul. 23/08</A>), in which I insist on avoiding being negative about Gary, and praise his:
<UL>
<LI>vegan activism
<LI>being assertive about animal rights
<LI>not wanting justice to be tainted by commercial interests
<LI>trying rationally to justify animal rights using the principle of equal consideration
<LI>using arguments to defeat speciesism
<LI>making pioneering contributions to animal law theory, and on and on.
</UL>
<P>In spite of Gary’s shortcomings – and they are many and substantial – he should always enjoy a very positive reputation as doing society a favour by staking out an important, pioneering position in a key debate, thus helping democracy to function. By a very long shot, I chiefly focus on <B>arguments</B>, not persons, as will be clear in today’s review. And there is no way even to assess the argument that he offers “the” abolitionist approach other than by saying it is egotistical presumption on his part rather than objective description. I never resort to character assassination as I noted he did with his libel. It was part of his explaining to his Abolitionist Approach followers why they should not take my work seriously, so he was indeed basing a negative claim on a “negative characteristic…of the person” – except it is a falsehood that I tell lies as he suggests. So it is a <B>bit</B> funny that <B>he</B> should talk about ad hominem attacks. I make a virtually inevitable – supposing one dares to speak the truth - and objectively justified negative remark about his person in the sample above, but he is the one who engages in true ad hominem attacks. And for the biggest irony about ad hominem attacks of all, I ask you – gentle reader - to read on until later in this paper.
<P>He also engages in ad hominem attacks quite generally. He insults animal rights people who think that anti-cruelty laws are a good idea as “new welfarists”. He evidently thinks it would be suitably insulting to deny that they are genuine animal rights people, although rights for animals is just what they tirelessly and dearly advocate (see below for a reference to where I show how I do not fulfill even <B>one</B> of his criteria for “new welfarists”). This label is obviously part of his advocating that animal rights people not support anti-cruelty laws, otherwise they supposedly would not be genuine “animal rights” people. He insults all meat-eaters by comparing them to his fictional “Simon the Sadist” – who enjoys blow-torching dogs for fun (Francione, 2000, pp. 4, 9) – and to the psychopathic and cannibalistic mass murderer, Jeffrey Dahmer (Francione blog Apr. 18/07). This attack is offered as part of would-be-persuasive rhetoric, to get people to abandon meat-eating, so they won’t be compared by Gary to vicious psychopaths. Big incentive there.
<P>So much for his first reason for not taking me seriously or debating with me. It is utterly a false charge. His slur that I use ad hominem attacks is just a vicious attack on my reputation. Still, I have said some things about him as a person that I realize are stinging, unpleasant truths such as the egotism charge. And I think that it certainly comes across as a very respectable show of kindness that he is “forgiving” towards such comments, for whatever reasons he may have. People do not need to apologize for voicing unpleasant truths that are part of dealing with violations, such as egotistical aggressiveness in the world, but sometimes those responsible for violations are not mature enough to take negative criticism. And usually he is <B>not</B> as we will find extensively below. So there is something that I value about his “forgiveness” comment, but not in any sense that I have done anything that necessarily requires forgiveness. Perhaps <I>forbearance</I> would be a more accurate term.
<P><B>The Second Excuse: The Black Shirts</B>
<P>Now to the supposed “proof” of his position that I am not to be taken seriously: <B>the black shirt objection.</B> It refers to an essay comparing Francionism with cults. I never suggested that Francionism <B>is</B> a cult. This is an exaggeration and falsification of my research record just as he did in saying I accused him of plagiarism – I only asked some pointed questions given my analysis. With reference to cults, I conceded that he is an established scholar with many respected, peer-reviewed works out there. I just was considering the observation which many have frequently heard that there is something cult-like about how the Francionists carry on. This has been voiced many times. The only difference is that I set out to consider salient evidence on the question, which still <B>remains</B> a question, because it is tricky to draw black-and-white conclusions on a matter such as this. I do not think the answer is obvious, and we could not be talking about a paradigm example of a cult here, such as the Moonies. We can filter out any cult-comparison analysis and find <B>plenty</B> of fully legitimate activities from the Francionists. That should really be borne in mind here and is another reason why I took the cult essay down in the first place. Regardless of any concerns about “cultiness”, Francionist arguments should be considered in terms of facts and arguments like any other arguments, <B>unlike</B> the Francionists’ treatment of my own arguments.
<P>But what about aspects that can be compared to cults? I was interested to discover that a surprising lot of characteristics of cults may apply to the Francionists. These include:
<UL>
<LI>Controlling followers’ access to information in an authoritarian manner, such as his censoring people from the Abolitionist Approach forum and his Facebook page if they so much as question his views. It is inconsistent with non-violent discourse to stifle debate and cut people off in this way from a discussion forum.
<LI>Questioning, doubt, and dissent are discouraged and even punished, such as the excommunication of Roger Yates, one time, for “allowing” me to be featured on AR Zone. My dissent, of course, is punished by baseless smear remarks, libel, and many other forms of attack. All of these are inconsistent with non-violence.
<LI>A grandiose sense of self, such as him presuming to call his philosophy "The" Abolitionist Approach. See below where I reference my proof that there are truly <I>many</I> such approach<B>es</B>. It is a violation of discourse and dignity to deny that many others are abolitionists too.
<LI>The leader has a prideful, unteachable spirit, such as his not responding to my critiques even when clear textbook fallacies are pointed out, or his not correcting his misrepresentation of Peter Singer (see below) long after Singer himself confirmed Francione is misrepresenting him. That is obviously far from non-violent.
<LI>Uses buzz words, such as his unique sense of “property status” that means so much more than ownership (resulting in untold conceptual confusion, but that is another matter). Here, I won’t go again into how he violates truth and accuracy with such a buzz-term.
<LI>Using special labels to discount those who disagree, such as “new welfarist”. Again, not in keeping with non-violent discourse. If someone cannot see how this and other examples contravene non-violence, then they need some kind of help which – sorry - I cannot provide here.
<LI>Followers copying the leader in the way he speaks and acts. I have seen people mirror the way he expresses things in many internet forums, for example. It is inconsistent with non-violence for people merely to copy someone else, and not to think for themselves. Mindless following can lead to violations, as indeed it does for the Francionists. This is not just Gary’s fault however. He is not to blame if others choose slavishly to imitate him. But he cultivates conformity by censoring and excommunicating those who do not quite copy him, so he has a hand in this too.
<LI>Emotional abuse, such as comparing speciesists to Simon the Sadist, the psychopathic murderer Jeffrey Dahmer, and also his abuse of me, accusing me of committing “literally insane acts”, and approvingly allowing David Langlois to refer to me in the Abolitionist Approach Forum as acting “like a putz” (linked to in <A HREF ="http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2011/12/d-day-for-francionists.html">Sztybel blog Dec. 25/11</A>); Gary was in charge of the Forum (now defunct), and allowed this insult to pass without challenge. And he claims to be an <B>advocate</B> of “non-violence”. Right. A report on his followers’ abuse of me on an internet forum is also available. (<A HREF ="http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2010/10/insults-and-illusions-case-of-francione.html">Sztybel blog Nov. 21/07</A>) That abuse goes beyond just the emotions at times: a very prominent Francionist wrote to various officials at Brock University, apparently trying to get me debarred from teaching there.
<LI>Excessively zealous devotion to a living leader, who is treated as though he possess some kind of “special knowledge”. People follow along with his dogmas even when he changes them up, such as when he ditched much of <CITE>Rain without Thunder</CITE> with its quasi-incrementalist strategy. Now instead, he advocates simply abolishing all animal use, and not focusing on animal <B>treatment</B>. (More on this moral obscenity below.) I have seen no shortage of zeal on the part of Francionists. Zeal is inconsistent with non-violence, and means being pushy and aggressive by contrast. (Note that being aggressive is different from being <B>assertive</B> - I deliberately am the latter.)
<LI>Misquotations and statements take out of context from non-cult sources, such as my black shirt comment (please see below), his saying I accused him of plagiarism rather than pointedly raising the issue with an analysis, his two straw man critiques cited above, and his treatment of Singer, defending the misrepresentation even after Singer in effect disconfirmed Francione’s highly erroneous take on Singer’s stance (see below). That is not non-violent.
<LI><B>Dogma</B>, which is all that his key intuitions boil down to, as I have discussed elsewhere. Perhaps inconsistent with non-violent discourse that respects reasoning: evidence, and logic – or so I will argue on other occasions. I realize that this is a <I>highly</I> controversial point though.
<LI>Ideology over experience, observation, and logic, such as declaring that welfarism only delivers reforms that are profitable to humans, in defiance of the economic theory behind factory farming, and Swedish reforms as a clear counter-example which Francionists perpetually ignore, because their ideology seems to matter to them more than the facts to which they do violence. More on this below.
<LI>Uncompromising stances, such as <B>NEVER</B> engage in single-issue campaigns, even though I have shown in my history paper, “Incrementalist Animal Law”, that exactly such campaigns are what resulted in <B>most</B> of the legal rights for humans once literally or otherwise considered as property in Francione’s country of the United States: blacks, women, and children. This wrongful course of his will only disserve the cause of non-violence in the law.
<LI>Inconsistencies or contradictory messages, such as “non-violence” but censoring and excommunicating questioners or dissenters, resorting to libel and insults against me as I have presented in earlier documentary proofs, and so on. See also my point below about twenty-three hypocritical inconsistencies that I once catalogued in a blog entry entitled, “Francione’s Mighty Boomerang”. (<A HREF= "http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2008/07/franciones-mighty-boomerang.html">Sztybel blog Jul 15/08</A>). Hypocrisy is inconsistent with non-violence in a way, but I will not try to explain that here.
<LI>Intimidation, such as trying to foist the impression on people that my work is not to be taken “seriously”. That is hardly a “non-violent” move.
<LI>Oversimplifying answers to difficult questions, such as his focus on “use not treatment”. Doing violence to thought and language, although he might well not <B>intend</B> to do so. More on this slogan below.
<LI>Being closed intellectually, not open to new ideas except maybe the leader’s own. It seems to me that he sees himself <I>giving</I> intellectual direction, not <I>taking</I> it from anyone else. Inconsistent with non-violent dialogue and open-mindedly pursuing the <B>truth</B>.
<LI>No objective accountability, such as his refusing to debate me or to respond to my critiques. Again, again, and again.
<LI>The group presenting their own ideas as innovative, even if that is not the case. Consider, for example, his assertion that veganism is a baseline for animal rights. This has been, in effect, maintained by activists for <B>decades</B>. Inconsistent with non-violent discourse which gives due credit to others and does not try personally to “own” great ideas.
<LI>Personal attacks on critics, such as his altogether wrongly calling me dishonest.
</UL>
<P>These are all intriguing similarities. To deny this critique he could dispute whether these are genuine features of cults, or deny that the practices of Francionism meet the same conditions. I personally think that everyone is helpless to satisfy either burden, or at least that is my honest opinion. Individuals are in every way entitled to their opinions. I acknowledge, however, that there is clearly much room for controversy here. Let me be clear here: I do not think that Francionism is a cult. I rather think that what we are really talking about here is a matter of overlapping <I>style</I>, which in some respects can be fruitfully compared. Similarly, some of the Beatles' songs were influenced by Rhythm and Blues music, as a sometimes-style. But it would be a mistake overall to classify this band as R & B.
<P>Here is my main argument for Francionists not necessarily being cultists. The core of Francionism is that it is the most go-to movement for an important position in animal rights activism and academics. There should be peer-reviewed publications about it, and also debates involving professional thinkers. Don't get me wrong. It is not the <I>best</I> anti-incrementalist thinking has to offer by far, but still the most <I>robust</I> resource for people who agree with it and those who wish critically to reflect on these issues. It offers many resources for people both pro and con incrementalist animal law and activism. That is basically what Francionism is. I still dispatch university students to study Francionist material, which I would never do with, say, Scientology. As for the "culty" difficulty, these features appear concentrated when listed as they are above, but, in my opinion, they do not dominate what Francionism basically is, as I just described.
<P>Here I am <I>defending</I> Francionism against those who would dismiss it as an actual or full-fledged cult. Because I stand up for whatever I see as right. But we could not consider the other side without listing the similarities. Now perhaps in an ideal world, the answers would be absolute or crystal-clear. But then, in an ideal world, Francionism would have none of the above characteristics. Now I had taken down the cult comparison essay many months ago, because – among other concerns - I knew it would cause some people displeasure. I am <B>sorry</B> if I injured your feelings, Gary. That was not at all my intention. (He said above he wants no contact with me so I am content to communicate with him indirectly.) But at the same time – in all frankness - I think that it is a <I>sickness</I> in our culture that there is a widespread wish not to face up to significant, unpleasant truths.
<P>And I am quite balanced in my approach since, as I argued above, Gary should always enjoy a very positive reputation for his important, pioneering work, staking out a key position in animal law and ethics, as I indicated in the <A HREF = "http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2008/07/negativism-in-francione-and-avoiding.html">above-cited blog post from 2008</A>. That is leagues better, by the way, than <B>his</B> treatment of me: giving me credit for absolutely <B>nothing</B> after he started his smear campaign, and trying to get people to disregard me as “nonserious”, thereby seeking to reduce my repute to zero by dismissing <B>all</B> of my substantial contributions – only some of which are reviewed below - in what can only fairly be interpreted as a dirty smear tactic. That is in keeping with what was documented from the Abolitionist Approach forum, as I have noted (<A HREF ="http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2011/12/d-day-for-francionists.html">Sztybel blog Dec. 25/11</A>), his libelling me as dishonest, “disturbed,” claiming that: “he…says and does things that are, quite frankly, insane (and I am using that term literally)”; claiming I “misrepresent” his views without any evidence, and that my writing “rambles on in absolute incoherency”. He offers: “You can make up your own mind up about the quality of Sztybel’s analysis and whether Sztybel’s descriptions of my position bears any relationship to reality.” (in spite of my impeccable analysis and references, as in this blog essay). He is out to <B>destroy</B> my reputation with these baselessly negative depictions, whereas I always treat his material fairly, give him credit where it is due (see above), and emphasize that in <B>some</B> respects, anyway, he should <B>always</B> enjoy a positive reputation in the academic and activist communities. In a nutshell, he wishes to depict me as an unscrupulous, literally insane person who can only speak so incoherently that it is doubtful that my commentary “bears any relationship to reality”, whose work “cannot possibly be interpreted as serious remarks”. (<A HREF = "http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2011/12/d-day-for-francionists.html">Sztybel blog Dec. 25/11</A>)
<P>In any event, I think we should be very seriously concerned if a large and influential group in the animal rights movement manifests modalities comparable to what cults are known to do. Certainly my own approach manifests none of these “culty” characteristics. I also think it is rather worth noticing this publicly, and I am not in all respects sure I did the right thing in taking the essay in question down. Some things need to be said even if people find them unpleasant, especially if they are serious questions of non-violence. Actually, I think the observations that these traits are inconsistent with non-violence – even though these people are putatively <B>basing</B> their approach in non-violence – is <B>far</B> more interesting than any comparisons with cultism. I think it is far more rewarding to focus on individual actions to see if they accord with non-violence rather than trying to determine if Francionism overall has some sort of “cult” status, which as I said I do not think it has. Incidentally, in the original essay, I reference each characteristic of cults with at least one website for each, but I think they are common-sense enough that I do not need to do so. They are common in the literature and so do not need to be cited, especially for a blog essay. Indeed I don’t recall any of these points being cited from anywhere else on the websites I consulted, no doubt just because they are so commonplace and common-sense. If anyone wants a citation for any of the points, however, I can provide them.
<P>So the “black uniform” business was part of this discussion on similarities to cults. Here is the actual quotation Francione is so overwhelmingly misrepresenting:
<BLOCKQUOTE>Uncharacteristically stilted and seemingly programmed conversation, cloning the leader; many of his followers sound more or less alike on internet forums, and where they do not, it is because of lack of learning, not lack of intent to emulate the leader; it is interesting that Francione himself always wears black when I have seen him, a kind of uniform or “branding” of his image.</BLOCKQUOTE>
<P>Recall that Francione refers to my essay by supposedly citing:
<BLOCKQUOTE>…his relentless ad hominem attacks on me over the years, including a blog essay in which he claimed that my always wearing black clothing (a fact that is itself false), is an indication that I am a “cult” leader.</BLOCKQUOTE>
<P>The ad hominem business I have already dealt with. As for his “black shirts” move, he is completely inaccurate here. Let’s go through the inaccuracies sproinging out of this tiny statement of his, shall we? It’s amazing really that he can pack so much falsehood into a tiny statement of purported <I>truth</I>:
<UL>
<LI>First, get your facts straight about <B>facts</B>, Mr. Francione. Facts can’t be false, only <B>allegations</B> of facts.
<LI>Second, and far more importantly as to facts, he falsely reports I claim that he is “always wearing black clothing”, whereas you will recall that I only said that Francione himself “always wears black when I have seen him,…” I <I>never</I> said he always wears black <B>period</B>. So what I said is perfectly accurate, and what he said I said is perfectly <B>in</B>accurate. I never made the gross overgeneralization that Francione falsely imputes to me, in a distortive smear effort to make me look bad, or to appear as a crank who cannot be taken seriously.
<LI>Third, this is not an ad hominem attack. Recall the meaning of this term. I never said that people should reject any of Francione’s opinions based on a negative personal characteristic that he has, which is exactly the sort of thing that an ad hominem attack would do. I have <B>always</B> treated all of his arguments as worth taking seriously on their own terms. I never urged discarding his thoughts because of this controversial cult business. That road does not go both ways though. He just discards my arguments and would have others dismiss them too, based on putative negative characteristics that I am somehow not a serious thinker among other things. There is a world of difference there. So again, it is ironic that he accuses <B>me</B> of ad hominem attacks.
<LI>The fourth inaccuracy is that there are “relentless” such attacks when in fact there have been <B>none</B>. I can’t cite evidence for this – besides my entire literary output - because you cannot supply evidence for non-existent things. People will need to see for themselves if they wish to be satisfied on this point.
<LI>The fifth inaccuracy is that I <B>never</B> said he runs a cult. The essay left it up to the reader to decide this, and I only said there are <B>similarities</B>, which again seems to me true, based on the examples or evidence that I provide. In today's post I rather <B>deny</B> that Francionism is a cult.
<LI>The sixth inaccuracy or misrepresentation is that he is making it seem as though I was arguing that the black clothing I have witnessed alone indicates he is a cult leader. I see lots of people who wear black clothing, and I don’t think they’re cult leaders. Maybe they are just Johnny Cash fans. No, the similarities to cults listed above are much more serious, and my mentioning my seeing Gary wear black is actually an afterthought to the general point about people copying their leader, as you can see from the relevant quotation provided above. It makes sense in such a context to describe that I have always observed him to wear a black “uniform”, as it were. Francione asserts his own fiction as fact, and I must bear the brunt of his attack.
<LI>The seventh inaccuracy is that he says McWilliams would not have referred to Gary’s shirts in a debate over anti-cruelty laws, with the false implication that I would have. Only if he raised it again.
</UL>
<P>Here we have a whole <B>complex</B> of elaborate falsehoods that Francione has projected from the dark recesses of his own mind. What I wrote was typically precise and also relevant in considering similarities to cults. Anyone with the same experience would have similarly noticed this “uniform”.
<P>Now let me tell you why I thought the black uniform comment was worth making at the time, and is still remarkable in spite of Gary’s protestations - although we must accept he does not always wear black! I am a Canadian and Gary is an American, but I am sure that I have seen him speak publicly a great deal more than most Americans, and each time he wore his black “uniform”:
<OL>
<LI>1992 at an activist/academic animal rights conference at the University of Guelph
<LI>1993 at a conference at Francione’s home university, Rutgers, in New Jersey, which he co-organized along with his wife, Anna Charlton, and Tom and Nancy Regan
<LI>1994 I saw him speak at an animal semiotics conference at Victoria College, University of Toronto (my home university where I studied)
<LI>A debate with Alan Herscovici on the Discovery Channel, filmed at York University, also in Toronto in the 1990s
<LI>When he came to Summerfest in the 1990s at a university campus in Providence, Rhode Island
<LI>A U.S. conference in the 1990s. I recall there was a breakout session in a classroom. I cannot exactly recall which conference it was, as I have been to so many. It might have been one of the Washington meetings, that is, before Gary was banned from speaking at them
</OL>
<P>At <B>all</B> of these events, Gary wore not just a black shirt, but also a black belt, and black pants – and I don’t doubt he chose matching socks for each occasion! Now it would have been odd for someone who observed Gary <B>at least</B> six times, maybe more, who 100% of the time saw him wear the all-black uniform, not to hypothesize that he might be branding a kind of uniform. It would have been really <B>weird</B> to hypothesize otherwise. I gladly accept Francione’s great contribution to discourse here that he wears other colours. But he trivializes the serious issues in this debate by <B>him</B> choosing to focus on the colour of his shirts, as he puts it. And he shows here not only serious misrepresentations but a flair for the irrelevant as well. It is certainly not <B>my</B> significant focus as it is plain to see below. I need to discuss his clothing now only because Gary lit the issue up like a huge sign with flashing lights.
<P>So Gary wants to tell us that he does not always wear black? Fine. Who really <B>cares</B> all that much? If he does not want comments about projecting a uniform image, he should not engage in the practice. If he never wants Francionism to be compared to cult activity, he should stop carrying on in the way that I have exemplified with twenty-one points of comparison from my gatherings concerning both phenomena. Not counting the black uniform observation, since Gary is a man of <B>many colours</B>. Who could be more multi-faced than someone who excels at self-contradiction, as we will see proven below? (But there are other ways in which one can be a person of <B>many colours</B>.) Those twenty-one types of practices I am pretty sure do not cause him any concern, since he is responsible for a lot of it, but some of the rest of us <B>do</B> care about such similarities to cults. Particularly because of the <B>non-violence</B> dimensions at stake here.
<P><B>Getting Serious about Not Being Serious</B>
<P>In my perception, in most debates there is a winner and a loser. He did not lose the overall debate by fleeing debate with me once again. It was not a very winning strategy though. It’s funny, too, how he used to praise my work as “first-rate” before he started his smear campaign, and took me seriously enough to debate the first time, which he undertook – and then fled. Indeed, he fled it, I suppose, because I became too serious a threat to his sense of domination as an ideologue. He implies I am not a serious intellectual, but in fact he could not deal at all with the two seriously intellectual questions posed to him. I will duly substantiate this below when I reproduce the text that I think <B>really</B> caused him to flee, in spite of his lame excuses. <P>Now debating him for a second time was not my idea, unlike my first and only debate with Gary, which I arranged personally - with the latter’s erstwhile cooperation - for the TARS list-serve. Rather, it was Spencer’s idea to suggest another debate. I would need to study more of Francione’s works in recent years before I would be ready for such an event. But if Francione were willing, I would prepare accordingly. But no, I think he is not willing to admit that he is intimidated by my arguments – which again I will show below would have been <B>impossible</B> for him to answer convincingly – and also his feelings are hurt because I actually noticed aloud the similarities between Francionism and cultism. I guess that is understandable, which is why I indicated I am <B>sorry</B> I hurt his feelings. And that is part of why I took down the cult essay. I would not have blogged about it again normally. But since he dredged it up to try unfairly to use it against me . . . well, I simply had to respond. Still, although I do not think that warning Gary about these similarities is going to do any good, it remains that the warning <B>may</B> be somewhat useful for members of the animal rights movement and of the general public.
<P>It’s so ironic – and even unintentionally <B>comical</B> - that whenever he or his followers pick out points that are supposed to be damning against me, these arguments actually turn out to be perfectly fine upon inspection. Such as my mention of the black uniform I duly observed. Such as on the Abolitionist Approach Forum when he and his followers took it as proof of my “insane acts” when I wrote “The Red Carpet”, (<A HREF ="http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2011/12/d-day-for-francionists.html">Sztybel blog Dec. 25/11</A>); a favorite blog essay according to a former Francionist lawyer who was converted by my arguments. Something I demonstrate to contain a logically rigorous and challenging argument in the blog entry just linked to. And of course there are Francione’s three feeble, ignorant <A HREF ="http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2011/12/franciones-three-feeble-critiques-of-my.html">“critiques”</A> of my views that amounted to nothing in the end.
<P>Francione says I am not to be taken seriously on many occasions, as I document for example concerning his Abolitionist Approach Forum (see last cite). However, this is not really about <B>me</B> per se. I am a thinking person and a scholar. The issue here is my <B>arguments</B>, not me. Let’s review, in broad outline, my engagement with Francionism over the years, and look at just what Francione is refusing to take seriously.
<P><B>What Does Francione's Not Taking Me Seriously Really Mean?</B>
<P>In failing to take me/my work seriously, Francione does not take quite seriously:
<P><B>1. Non-Violence Theory in Relation to Anti-Cruelty Laws</B>
<P>He claims that animal welfarism is inconsistent with animal rights theory. (We will see how ironic this claim is when we examine below the two tough questions he fled from during the abortive – solely due to his actions - debate with me in the fall of 2006.) He complains that the theory of animal rights is not reflected in the “social phenomenon called the animal rights movement.” (Francione, 1996, p. 2) <B>Yet I – like he – base animal rights in non-violence</B>. I advocate absolute non-violence when that is possible. When violence is inevitable, as it is in the case of ongoing animal exploitation in all its forms, I invoke what I have dubbed <I>the principle of non-violent approximation</I>, which indicates that we should choose the lesser of violence, or the least victimization. (<A HREF= "http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2012/08/anti-cruelty-laws-and-non-violent.html">Sztybel blog Aug 20/12</A>) It is consistent with the basis of animal rights – in non-violence theory, at least the one I defend – to claim that pigs on Swedish farms (as I will discuss below) suffer far less violence than the hogs on factory farms. That is just one example. Francione himself grants there may be situations such as burning buildings in which one can only carry to safety one or two persons. In such cases, the <B>rights</B> of all cannot be adhered to in practice and we must choose the least harm. He has never reconciled such necessity with his rejection of animal welfarism though. If I am right, his <B>own</B> stance is therefore inconsistent with a sound theory that includes animal rights. The right to non-violence means <B>every single animal</B> is entitled to non-violent dignity as much as possible. Yet there are <B>billions</B> of animals in factory farms and other settings that Francione’s “abandonitionists” (wish I could recall who coined that fine phrase) would neglect. One day hence, though, completely non-violent <B>treatment</B> should be legally - and not just morally - a matter of <B>right</B>.
<P>In my peer-reviewed article for the <CITE>Journal for Critical Animal Studies</CITE>, instead of the principle of non-violent approximation, I invoked dilemma theory. When we cannot see to everyone’s rights, it presents a moral dilemma. I also then advocated choosing what is best for animals. (Sztybel, 2007, pp. 4-6) But the principle of non-violent approximation is more sharply defining of what is required in the dilemma case, and illuminates a bright concern with non-violence throughout <B>all</B> moral situations. Francione agrees there are such dilemmas as he must. But his eyes are afflicted with moral blindness to fail to see how such reasoning applies to legislation concerning animals. It is obvious that we have subideal options in the legislative near-term. It is obvious that we should choose what is best for the animals if they are really what this is all about. I have clearly explained the inevitability of my reasoning in terms of non-violence theory. He has merely dogmatically pronounced what non-violence supposedly requires, attending to “use not treatment”. In failing to take these central concerns of non-violence theory seriously, he is downright negligent.
<P>In failing to take me/my work seriously, Francione smugly dismisses the distinction between…
<P><B>2. The Best for Animals: in the Abstract and Actually</B>
<P>In the abstract, what is best for animals is animal rights. <B>Full</B> animal rights. That is what both Francione and I aim for in the legislative long-term. In the laws for the near-term, we <B>cannot</B> realize what is best in the abstract and so must choose the best that is really possible. (Sztybel, 2007, pp. 4-5) It is better for animals to suffer less cruelty and for fewer animals to be killed (see below for this last point in particular). In <B>ignoring</B> this distinction in my work, Francione is being just <B>that</B> in this case: <B>ignorant</B>.
<P>In failing to take me/my work seriously, Francione treats as though it were of no gravity the problem of:
<P><B>3. Nonsentientism</B>
<P>We need to clarify that seeking ultimately to act for <I>things</I>, such as concepts (e.g., animal rights, abolition, anti-speciesism, and so on), makes no sense. One cannot affect such <I>things</I> for better or worse. One can only affect sentient beings for better or worse. Now one can make a sentient being do better or worse by having an impact on things, so things can be very important. Francione’s stance would make sense if he were ultimately acting for abolition, or animal rights, or anti-speciesism. In that case, we should reject all laws that are inconsistent with these abstractions, quite simply. However, if we act ultimately for sentient beings – as we must if we are not deluded – it is simply not true that insisting on animal rights or nothing is best for animals in the legislative short-term. So he is in a <I>theoretical dilemma</I>: either make sense of his actions through an excessive focus on things, or abandon making such sense of his proposals because they are nonsentientist (focusing ultimately or excessively on things rather than sentient beings). And yet we cannot make sense of his ideas in terms of what is really best for sentient beings. So neither option works and ends in senselessness on his part. <B>We must act ultimately for sentient beings and honestly declare that less cruelty is better for sentient beings.</B> (Sztybel, 2007, pp. 4-5) Not taking acting ultimately for sentient beings seriously is not taking <B>animals</B> seriously, because sentient beings are what animals <B>are</B> – at least the ones we are concerned about for the purposes of law. He is evidently getting lost in abstractions. For he is calling for consistency with the abstract idea of animal rights – recall his quote above lamenting that the social phenomenon of the animal rights movement does not reflect animal rights theory (Francione, 1996, p. 2). However, in trying to bring everything up to the standard of this sort of abstraction, he is plainly not thinking about what is best for the collectivity of individual <B>animals</B>.
<P>In failing to take me/my work seriously, Francione vainly seeks to pass over…
<P><B>4. Sweden as Disproof of His Claim That Animal Welfarism Is Ineffective</B>
<P>I have successfully used the example of Sweden abolishing factory farming to <B>disprove</B> much of what Francione states about animal welfare laws. Pigs, for example, get plenty of room, freedom to go outdoors, straw, clean quarters, decent food, toys, and the chance to socialize. That is in contrast to being packed into tiny quarters where they can’t even turn around or socialize; they are always “indoors” (rather a euphemism for the hell of this kind of confinement), with no straw, plenty of filth all around – including in the air – and as well hogs are needlessly subject to diseases in this utterly barren environment, and literally <B>crappy</B> food. They feed the pigs their own shit. This utterly disproves Francione’s statement that “because animals are property, the prohibition of unnecessary suffering is wholly without meaning.” (Francione, 1996, p. 151) Also undone is his pessimistic exaggeration: “The status of animals as property renders meaningless our claim that we reject the status of animals as things.” (Francione, 2000, p. 79) You see, animals are still 100% property in Sweden.
<P>Now Francione defines <I>legal welfarism</I> as that “which comprehends animal welfare as that level of animal care that will efficiently facilitate the exploitation of nonhuman property.” (Francione, 1996, p. 10) For example, animals will be kept alive and “well” enough for slaughter. Francione’s concept of legal welfarism is a clear misnomer, however. And it is important to remember that Gary just made up this concept from out of his own head and into thin air. It is not somehow built into <I>any</I> actual legal system. It is not even a necessary truth in the United States, some democratic elements of which have abolished certain factory farming measures, such as the state of California outlawing <I>foie gras</I>. It was done because of the cruelty of force-feeding ducks and geese through a metal tube in order to produce a fatty liver. The ban was <B>not</B> done to save "producers" money. Such force-feeding was still the cheapest method and the most straightforward and <I>efficient</I> treatment of animals as objects and resources.
<P>This legislation should have been <B>impossible</B> if Gary's "legal welfarism" limited any lawful welfare measures that could emerge. Yet he writes that "...animal interests, because of animals' property status, are <I>necessarily</I> sacrificed in all cases except where the sacrifice is seen to serve only a gratuitous waste of animal resources." (Francione, 1996, p. 139) That is not what this case was about <B>at all</B> though. Rather, there was a <I>defeat</I> of industry, and their logic that Francione falsely decrees is somehow "necessarily" in operation in the United States of America. His comments on the actual bill do not challenge any of my assertions here. (Animal Voices, 2004) Rather his statements predicted the law would not come into effect (in keeping with his "legal welfarism" - the ban started this year, 2012, though), and complained on predictable grounds that advocates of the bill imply that they "approve" of animal exploitation (more on this falsity below), and so forth.
<P>Imagine Governor Schwartzenneger having the sheer <B>nerve</B> to do what Gary said <I>"necessarily"</I>" cannot be done! The "governator" might not take kindly to some law professor from New Jersey saying what the former Mr. Universe <I>necessarily</I> must do or not do. "<I>Ah</I>-noldt" may follow directors and scripts at times, but he need not follow Francione's dark script for legal animal welfare as - <I>necessarily</I> - unrelentingly cruel and exploitive. Much as Gary's theory would "direct" otherwise - that is, misdirect. If only factory farming were just a movie about a possible distopian future. Regardless, Francione seems to regard these disproofs of his assertions as strangely...<B>unimportant</B>. You would not be alone in regarding that as <I>weird</I>. He acts as if, so long as he does not concede that he has been refuted, then he can just go on making discredited claims as ever before. Like a vegan ice-cream salesperson expecting money for passing out imaginary desserts. As though he lives in a fantasy world. As though self-righteousness has the power to confer rightness. And as though pointing to his many shirt-colours magically makes all of the critiques vanish as though they were never there. But now:
<P>Swedish legislators succeeded in passing robust laws, thereby nonsensicalizing his concept of “legal welfarism”. More specifically, the example of Sweden alone disproves his statements that:
<OL>
<LI>Property cannot have legal relations with owners, and therefore only the owners’ interests will be considered (Francione, 2000, p. 51)
<LI>”So long as animals are viewed as property, if they have no market value, then they have no value at all,” (Francione, 1996, p. 68) he argues, giving the poignant example that if a veterinarian negligently kills a cherished family “pet”, only the fair market value of the animal can be recovered. (<I>Ibid.</I>, p. 129)
<LI>As he says endlessly in talks, a pen cannot have rights against its owner and animals are also property, so animals likewise “cannot” have their interests balanced against owners’ interests.
<LI>There is a presumption that “animal property” owners “look after” animals or they would not be able to rear them for use. (Francione, 2000, p. 66)
<LI>Animal welfare laws are not adjudicated in the animals’ favour, penalties are minor, judgments in favour of animals are typically not enforced, anti-cruelty laws require proving cruel intent (it is almost impossible to prove a mental state) (Francione, 2000, p. 63) and many species of animals are legally exempt from lawful protection. (<I>Ibid.</I>, p. 56)
</OL>
<P>He brushes aside how Sweden has strong animal welfare that debunks all of these generalizations, for animals legally relate to owners, in a way that could not be more serious, with <B>obligations</B> imposed; are valued as sentient beings, respected a lot more than <B>pens</B>; have rights against owners; without the presumption that factory farmers “look after” animals; and this entirety against all of the conceivable failings of animal welfare law that Francione cares to raise.
<P>This is far more than whatever facilitates <B>profits</B> for factory farmers, since these more expensive welfarist measures strip away all the cost-saving factory farming torments:
<BLOCKQUOTE>It is usually thought that there is more money to be made in confining animals by cramming them into minimal indoor spaces (less rent or land costs), in feeding them awful food (which is cheaper), keeping them in filth (rather than paying for cleaning), letting them suffer stifling, toxic air and extremes of hot or cold (rather than pay for adequate regulation of the atmosphere in factory farms, transport vehicles, or slaughter facilities), failing to attend to their medical needs (to offset veterinary costs), and transporting and killing them forcefully and hurriedly (because workers are paid by the hour and meat is sold by the pound). (Sztybel, 2006, p. 28; quoted with minor modifications)</BLOCKQUOTE>
This disproves his primary dogma about economics in animal exploitation, since <B>factory farming is the single greatest menace to animals.</B> In ignoring the Sweden refutation, Francione would rather recite his falsehoods than faithfully reflect the facts.
<P>In failing to take me/my work seriously, Francione would not condescend to dignify:
<P><B>5. Conduciveness towards Animal Rights Law</B>
<P>He will not deal with my argument that animal welfarism promotes kinder culture, and lack of anti-cruelty legislation promotes cruel culture, and that the former but not the latter is conducive to <B>animal rights</B> laws some day. (Sztybel, 2007, p. 8) Animal rights seems ridiculous and contemptible in a cruel culture, (<I>Ibid.</I>) and this is important because people are very suggestible, and the vast majority – by far - do not base their ethics on impartial moral theory. Lawrence Kohlberg, the moral psychologist, clearly established that only quite a minority of society manifest such “post-conventional” moral thinking. (Kohlberg, 1973) Most people by far are “conventional” or followers. In a kind culture, animal rights will be taken seriously. And people will follow the conventions of their culture – the law above all else. If there are cruel laws, people will follow that. <P>Francione’s “abandonitionist approach” would leave cruel laws intact, with conventional followers generally mirroring that lead. My approach would have people following kinder laws and associated conventions, thus being apt to take animal rights more seriously. (Sztybel, 2007, pp. 10-11) Francione not taking these points of mine seriously suggests that he is not seriously concerned about a most serious factor in conducing towards animal rights law as soon as possible. Note too that I have said that anti-cruelty laws are <B>conducive</B> towards animal rights laws, not that animal welfarist laws <B>cause</B> animal rights laws. Yet Francione writes: “most [anti-cruelty law advocates] see reformist measures as causally related to abolishing animal exploitation.” (Francione, 1996, pp. 36-37) He has never so much as <B>mentioned</B> my conduciveness thesis – let alone refuted it. And he still attributes the faulty causation thesis to animal welfarists on a routine basis. He even ignorantly goes so far as to <A HREF="http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2011/12/franciones-three-feeble-critiques-of-my.html"><B>criticize</B></A> me for it, which is merely a straw man argument (arguing against a view one’s opponent does not even hold). Instead of a discourse of knowledge he therefore pursues a discourse of systematic ignoring – or <B>ignorance</B>.
<P>In failing to take me/my work seriously, Francione complacently ignores:
<P><B>6. Francionist Complacency about “Complacency”</B>
<P>Although Francione often claims that animal welfare laws would make people too “complacent” about animal use, he always passes over my counter-arguments:
<OL>
<LI>He seems to be implying that animal “illfare” rather than welfare would keep people “uncomplacent” in effect. But that would mean wishing animals to be treated miserably so as to undermine complacency, or treating animals as a mere means, to use Kant’s phrase. (Sztybel, 2007, p. 20)
<LI>It is worse to be complacent with factory farming - which he is leaving intact legislatively - than to be content to some <B>degree</B>, while discontented in other ways - that Swedish animals enjoy <B>some</B> substantive welfare. (<I>Ibid.</I>) No, killing someone is not a matter of things going “well” for them. But the essential point iterated above remains intact for all that.
<LI> I have <A HREF= "http://davidsztybel.info/11.html">shown unequivocally through detailed historical analysis</A> that even all <B>rights</B> progress for <B>humans</B> in the U.S. - for those once more or less considered property (blacks, women, and children) - is quite generally incrementalist. So animals would have to be treated better than these humans for us to skip all incrementalism and get to Francione’s anti-incrementalist affirmation of animal rights for both humans and nonhumans. So we can't skip incrementalism, and we should not talk of doing so in order to avoid "complacency".
<LI>He posts about not treating animals as a means, and yet he protects factory farming from legislative reform, thus "complacently" reinforcing some of the worst means <B>ever</B> devised.
<LI>Animals are also treated as a mere means to abolition by implicitly asking the question: "What use is my helping you –the factory-farmed animal – in achieving abolition? Helping you might result in an attitude that might impede abolition." (The animals are also – as noted above - treated as a mere means to anti-complacency.) (<A HREF ="http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2012/10/test.html">Sztybel blog Oct 8/12</A>)
</OL>
<P>Related to the complacency worry is the contention that people will consume more animal products if animals are freed from factory farming, thus resulting in more suffering and death. First of all, I <A HREF ="http://davidsztybel.info/34.html">show</A> that this worry is superficial, and that in fact we can reasonably project <B>less</B> suffering and death if we advocate macro-incrementalist animal welfare laws. If we cannot avoid incrementalism, best to get it done sooner so that we can move on to animal rights laws sooner – for as I indicate above, kinder culture is more conducive towards animal rights than cruel culture. The term “macro-incrementalist”, which describes my approach, was first introduced in my paper, <A HREF ="http://davidsztybel.info/11.html">“Incrementalist Animal Law”</A>, p. 3. It is in sharp contrast to micro-incrementalism, such as not really changing much and giving the impression that animals are treated “better”. Second, less cruel meat is more expensive and that will help to reduce consumption.
<P>In failing to take me/my work seriously, Francione is prepared to bracket as beside the point:
<P><B>7. Failing To Use Animals’ Property Status for Their Benefit</B>
<P>We need a much more positive model of legal property status for animals. It will be a long time until speciesism is abolished. As Francione says, animals as property is key to their existing legal status. Now as the example of Sweden unequivocally reveals, that status can have better treatment <B>built-in</B>, as laws define the content of that status through precedent, legal definitions, norms of principle and policy, and so on. The centrality of animal property status does not prove that animals’ interests will never be considered as Francione states. Rather, its centrality shows it needs to be made much more animal-positive - as the Swedes have accomplished contrary to Francionist dogma - long before abolition is a live possibility, including legislatively. (<A HREF = "http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2012/02/franciones-incoherent-understanding-of.html">Sztybel blog Feb 11/12</A>)
<P>In failing to take me/my work seriously, Francione would reduce to ridicule:
<P><B>8. The Incoherence of His “Use Not Treatment” Dogma</B>
<P>I show that his “abolitionist approach in a nutshell” ideas are all stuff-and-nonsense, merely reaffirming – falsely – that anti-cruelty laws accomplish nothing, continuing the nihilism of his “don’t confuse me with the facts” approach, and also that we should not <B>use</B> animals, even though he himself uses them as subjects for photos on his website, and as items of discussion. He does not seem to realize that non-violent use is not an issue, and rather it is <B>exploitation</B> that is the problem. Additionally, it is utter callousness to carry on the message that only animal <B>use</B> is the issue legislatively, not also <B>treatment</B>. It is speciesist because human treatment - <B>not</B> use per se - is at the heart of laws about unemployment insurance, social welfare, minimum wage, disability pensions, labour laws, retirement pensions, job security, and state-sponsored medical treatment. His approach is supposedly based on non-violence, but it is frankly incoherent not to be concerned with violent <B>treatments</B>. If use is finally abolished but we do not need to legislate that remaining animals be treated well on sanctuaries, we could have Holocaustian treatment of these residents instead. Indeed, use is an <B>aspect</B> of the treatment of others. (<A HREF = "http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2012/10/use-not-treatment-franciones-cracked.html">Sztybel blog Oct 1/12</A>) Use = instrumental treatment. Francione himself, in <CITE>Rain without Thunder</CITE> (1996) wrote on p. 194 that animals have a "claim against <B>instrumental treatment</B>." (my emphasis) But that would be "treatment", would it not? Someone can be treated as a means - or not.
<P>In failing to take me/my work seriously, Francione feels that after all there is no good reason to consider:
<P><B>9. The “Unnecessary Suffering” Equivocation</B>
<P>Perhaps his main argument for animal rights on his website is that speciesists say they are opposed to “unnecessary suffering”, and he says they are all hypocrites. Yet humanists say this key phrase to rule out suffering <B>that is not needed in order for them to enjoy their right of freedom as meat-eaters</B> – whilst nonhumans supposedly have no rights, according to humanism. They do not mean “unnecessary suffering” as eliminating all suffering not needed for human <B>survival</B>. So it is rather Francione who is two-faced in his use of the fallacy of equivocation here, leaning on the human survival sense of “necessary” when that is not what humanists even mean. It is not humanists who are necessarily self-contradictory as he suggests. (<A HREF = "http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2007/06/francione-on-unnecessary-suffering-not.html">Sztybel blog Jul 28/07</A>)
<P>In failing to take me/my work seriously, Francione finds it impossible to entertain as more than entertainment:
<P><B>10. Disproof of Law-Makers’ Loss of Radicalism</B>
<P>He falsely claims that animal rightists will lose their radicalism if they work with governments. (Francione, 1996, p. 171) Yet PETA still calls for an end to speciesism, veganism, and all the rest of it. (Sztybel, 2007, p. 11)
<P>In failing to take me/my work seriously, Francione feels contemptuous towards:
<P><B>11. A More Lucid and Productive Veganism as a Moral Baseline for Animal Rights</B>
<P>Francione affirms veganism as a baseline for animal rights. He is not distinctive in this claim. PETA, myself, and countless others do the same. Unfortunately for him, he states that we should not waste time with organizations that say some forms of animal abuse are worse than others. (Francione blog Apr 9/08) But that means that factory farming is no farther from respect for animals than Sweden’s kinder approaches to animal agriculture. And that is <B>wrong</B>: there is less affirmation of animal interests, and that is indeed the function of rights. To affirm rightful interests. We should be negative about what is negative, but positive about what is positive. Most people become vegan <B>gradually</B>. Encouraging people makes respect for animal interests grow. Condemning them all as being like psychopathic “Simon the Sadist” or Jeffrey Dahmer drives people away. (<A HREF= "http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2008/06/veganism-as-moral-baseline-for-animal.html">Sztybel blog Jun 13/08</A>) And it has been proven that the incrementalist approach to veganism is saving hundreds of millions of lives per year – lives which the Francionist approach would unwittingly, in effect, <B>destroy</B>. (<A HREF = "http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2012/09/startling-decline-in-meat-consumption.html">Sztybel blog Sep 14/12</A>)
<P>In failing to take me/my work seriously, Francione deigns to disregard:
<P><B>12. The False Dilemma of Veganizing versus Legalizing</B>
<P>He states that there is a constant question as to whether we should (a) be doing vegan outreach or (b) seeking legislative reforms. I have proved that this is a false dilemma, and that only utilitarian thinking would allow affirming only the dignity of animals who can be saved via veganism, but not also those whom vegan campaigns structurally cannot reach: the animals still trapped in so-called “agriculture”. (<A HREF= "http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2012/10/the-false-dilemma-veganizing-versus.html">Sztybel blog Oct 3/12</A>)
<P>In failing to take me/my work seriously, Francione treats as a joke:
<P><B>13. Attempted Sabotage of the Great Ape Project</B>
<P>Francione used to support the Great Ape Project, but now rejects it because it relies on the “similar minds” approach – rights for animals with similar minds to humans. However, the principle of non-violent approximation applied to this situation yields a different result. First of all, the Great Ape Project never says it is <B>necessary</B> to have a mind like a human to have legal rights, but only that having such a mind is certainly <B>sufficient</B> to have such rights, which is <B>true</B>. Second, not emphasizing great ape rights in any way will result in the genocide – extinction – of these animals, and more violence rather than less in the world. A familiar type of Francionist result from the legislative realm. Third, it is not unethical to ask people to be self-consistent in their beliefs (e.g., "Rational beings deserve rights."), but rather morally uplifts such individuals by delivering them from hypocrisy and lessening their violent impacts. Fourth, great ape rights would establish animal rights in the law – an unbelievably exciting prospect - and get people wondering what animal rights might be <B>next</B>, rather than being <B>negative</B> about animal rights as Francione assumes. No, as I cite in the link below, the Great Ape Project Declaration praises it as a “rational ethic” to have equal respect for <B>all</B> animals’ interests. (<A HREF ="http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2008/06/great-apes-activism-fending-off.html">Sztybel blog Jun 10/08</A>)
<P>In failing to take me/my work seriously, Francione trumpets as trivial:
<P><B>14. Attempted Sabotage of Animal Rights/Animal Welfarist Alliances</B>
<P>Francione’s approach not only harms animals by seeing that they remain in Holocaustian bondage, but dims hopes for these animals by creating infighting, undermining alliances with traditional animal welfarists, and spreading a bad image about animal rightists as negative and condemnatory beyond all need. (<A HREF ="http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2008/06/ways-in-which-animal-rights.html">Sztybel blog Jun 15/08</A>)
<P>In failing to take me/my work seriously, Francione would seek to dwindle into insignificance:
<P><B>15. Playing into the Hands of Animal Exploiters</B>
<P>His approach literally plays into the hands of animal exploiters since they do not want to pay the money to get rid of factory farming, especially cruel conditions in laboratories, and all the rest of it. If they were paying Francione to sabotage incremental progress, then he would handsomely earn every penny and then some. He “should” get voluminous bonuses. "Animal industrialists" would relish all of the infighting he causes, removing from reformism those who are most passionate about animal interests – animal rightists. And Francione in effect allows <I>industry</I> to define his concept of <I>legal welfarism</I>, as those welfarist measures that most benefit <B>industry</B> (<A HREF= "http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2008/06/playing-into-hands-of-animal-exploiters.html">Sztybel blog Jun 25/08</A>)
<P>In failing to take me/my work seriously, Francione treats with levity:
<P><B>16. The False Iteration of “The” Abolitionist Approach</B>
<P>I prove – with ten easy examples of mostly even <B>families</B> of abolitionist approaches - that there is more than one abolitionist approach – his – contrary to his arrogantly dubbing his own view “<B>the</B>” Abolitionist Approach. (<A HREF = "http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2012/10/the-abolitionist-approach-es.html">Sztybel blog Oct 8/12</A>)
<P>In failing to take me/my work seriously, Francione demotes to less than a mote:
<P><B>17. The False Accusation That I Am a “New Welfarist”</B>
<P>I do not conform to a single <B>one</B> of his own stated criteria of “new welfarism”, (Sztybel, 2007, pp. 22-23) although he wrongly <A HREF="http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2011/12/franciones-three-feeble-critiques-of-my.html">dismisses</A> me as one in his Abolitionist Approach Forum.
<P>In failing to take me/my work seriously, Francione finds the following matter does not matter:
<P><B>18. The Distinction between Animal Welfare and Animal Illfare</B>
<P>My point that what we call “animal welfare” in the law and elsewhere is actually animal illfare, using my Levels of Harmful Discrimination analysis. (Sztybel, 2007, p. 1; Sztybel, 2006, pp. 5-6). See also the <A HREF= "http://davidsztybel.info/x-levels.pdf">sheet</A> summarizing this analysis. Anyone who does not take this seriously has no respect for insight or the pointing out of hypocrisy, and is missing a key increment for proving the existence of speciesism.
<P>In failing to take me/my work seriously, Francione lifts his nose towards:
<P><B>19. The Backfiring of his Analogy with Child Abuse</B>
<P>I debunk his analogy with ending child abuse because calling for “normal” treatment of children is hostile to all human abuse in law circles, but calling for the normal treatment of animals just invites violence. (Sztybel, 2007, p. 6) His not taking this disanalogy seriously merely shows that he is supercilious and does not learn from his mistakes. Also, he used to have a quasi-incrementalist approach to animal law in <CITE> Rain without Thunder</CITE>, so he could not think that abolishing child abuse by degrees is immoral without considering <B>himself</B> to be immoral. This hypocrisy is further underlined when he ignores the twenty-three inconsistencies I expose in his own thoughts (<A HREF= "http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2008/07/franciones-mighty-boomerang.html">Sztybel blog Jul 15/08</A>). Not taking these points about self-contradiction seriously is not taking his own integrity – not to mention <I>logic</I> - quite seriously.
<P>In failing to take me/my work seriously, Francione disdains to comment on:
<P><B>20. “Incrementalist” Does Not Mean “Gradualist”</B>
<P>I point out how my approach is not gradualism, but achieving animal rights law <B>as soon as possible.</B> (Sztybel, 2007, p. 6)
<P>In failing to take me/my work seriously, Francione must think I am jesting when I speak of:
<P><B>21. The <I>Right</I> to Animal Welfare</B>
<P>He ignores how an animal right to animal welfare could be a <B>very</B> positive thing, instead speaking of a right to “bodily integrity” which he proposes instead (presumably because he is allergic to “animal welfarist” laws). His right does not even go so far as bodily <I>flourishing</I>. Nor even <I>mental</I> integrity – and <I>flourishing</I> - which are no less important. Not to take animal welfare in this sense seriously is to uncaringly just give them “bodily integrity” instead, a mean and stunted standard of care. (Sztybel, 2007, p. 7) This would also be speciesist because human welfare justifies literally the (human) welfare social safety net, (or what is thus so-called), unemployment insurance, disability supports, minimum wage legislation, old age pensions, standards for treatment of prisoners, labour arbitration, job security, and state-sponsored medical care. (<I>Ibid.</I>) Not taking this critique seriously is simply <B>speciesist</B>.
<P>In failing to take me/my work seriously, Francione merely smiles at:
<P><B>22. The Hypocrisy of Addressing Animal Cruelty on the Micro But Not Macro Level</B>
<P>Francione seriously proposed addressing animal cruelty at a micro versus macro level. He says it would not be wrong to give cows water in slaughterhouses individually as a “micro” move (although no one will be <B>allowed</B> on the grounds to do that virtually futile idea; it would be trespassing). Yet he rejects “macro” relief of this cruelty through the law. Yet if everyone gave water to thirsty cows, it would be a “macro” phenomenon. (Sztybel, 2007, p. 21-22) He resists macro anti-cruelty for all his reasons against animal welfarist laws, but he specifically says it would show “approval” of animal slavery and the like. Which brings us to:
<P>In failing to take me/my work seriously, Francione finds it is a finding without foundation that:
<P><B>23. Francionists Falsely Accuse Incrementalists of Approving of Speciesism</B>
<P>If PETA won a law giving water to thirsty cows at slaughterhouses, Francionists argue that this shows they “approve” of speciesism (<I>if</I> we accepted that, we would have to apply the same reasoning to his proposed law to ban dehorning of cattle without anesthetics, which he <B>used</B> to support – see below). But PETA does not approve of speciesism and denounces it. “It would show appallingly bad judgment or even insincerity to read this as a ‘sign’ that PETA ‘truly’ supports animal slavery” (Sztybel, 2007, p. 22) if they advocate such a law. It would be ignorant to claim this. Approving a law overall does not mean one approves of all aspects of it. Just enough aspects to warrant adoption. In this case because it dramatically lessens violence. Anyone who has ever been <B>grievously</B> thirsty - or has the slightest imagination towards those who are - would know what I am talking about here.
<P>In failing to take me/my work seriously, Francione rationalizes as miniscule:
<P><B>24. The Disproof of Hundred of Years as a “Test Period”</B>
<P>I disprove his statement that a test period has shown animal welfarism to fail after hundreds of years. For we have <B>not</B> coupled welfarist laws with animal rights advocacy until very recently in world-historical terms, (<A HREF ="http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2008/06/test-period.html">Sztybel blog Jun 26/08</A>) and also, recent data shows that incrementalist activism is starting to reduce animals being killed for food in <B>the hundreds of millions</B> per annum. (<A HREF= "http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2012/09/startling-decline-in-meat-consumption.html">Sztybel blog Sep 14/12</A>)
<P>In failing to take me/my work seriously, Francione only chuckles at:
<P><B>25. The “Happy Meat” Smear</B>
<P>I show that animal welfarism does not mean using phrases such as “happy meat” which he ascribes to all of us. (<A HREF= "http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2012/09/the-truth-versus-happy-meat.html">Sztybel blog Sept. 13/12</A>)
<P>In failing to take me/my work seriously, Francione finds no merit in critiques that others find bang-on:
<P><B>26. The Logical Flaws of the One Supposed Animal Right: Not To Be Property</B>
<P>Showing how his animal rights theory – based in animals having one right, not to be property – is logically faulty. (<A HREF ="http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2009/08/crisis-5a-taking-criticisms-of-ones-own.html">Sztybel blog Aug 26/09</A>) I will not go into detail here – not on this particular occasion.
<P>In failing to take me/my work seriously, Francione would give us the intelligence that there is no intelligence in my proving that:
<P><B>27. His Earlier Quasi-Incrementalism IS Animal Welfarist By His Own Definition</B>
<P>His previous quasi-incrementalist approach in <CITE>Rain without Thunder</CITE> is more animal welfarist than the welfarists because it approves of practices that regulate animal exploitation, but have a higher standard of doing so – which is <B>more</B> welfarist than traditional, weaker forms of welfarism (<A HREF ="http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2008/06/franciones-proposals-more-welfarist.html">Sztybel blog Jun 1/08</A>) He writes: “To oversimplify the matter a bit, the welfarists seek the <I>regulation</I> of animal exploitation; the rightists seek its <I>abolition</I>.” (Francione, 1996, p. 1) Well, banning dehorning – as he proposed in <CITE>Rain</CITE>, precisely <B>regulates</B> industry without <B>abolishing</B> it. Such a measure does not even fully secure any <B>one</B> animal right such as life, liberty of movement, or "bodily integrity", to use rights named by Francione in <CITE>Rain without Thunder</CITE>. Nor does it ban any area of animal exploitation. There is no real way to reconcile such a move with animal rights, or not treating the animal as mere property. There is even no way of this being consistent with proto-rights, or treating animals <I>as if</I> they have rights. Candidly, we have more blatant and quite severe hypocrisy on our hands here. He excoriates people for confusing animal welfare with animal rights, and that is precisely what he is doing with this dehorning example. By contrast, my analysis would <B>never</B> say that this practice is even "imperfectly" consistent with animal rights. He has such intellectual self-confidence, evidently, that he can contradict himself without batting an eye, and without alienating fanatical followers who soak up his overconfidence into their own insecure being.
<P>In failing to take me/my work seriously, Francione feels it is beneath him to correct:
<P><B>28. The Endlessly Repeated Singer Misrepresentation</B>
<P>I show that Francione totally misinterprets and misrepresents Peter Singer as holding that farmed animals lack all self-awareness and have no rights to life. (<A HREF= "http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2010/01/francione-totally-misinterprets-singer.html">Sztybel blog Jan 27/10</A>) Singer thanked me for the public correction. (<A HREF= "http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2010/02/singer-thanks-me-for-setting-record.html">Sztybel blog Feb 5/10</A>), confirming that Francione distorted Singer’s views on a great number of occasions. Yet although Francione has shown awareness of my work, he goes on with the misrepresentation still. See his <A HREF ="http://philosophybites.com/2012/10/gary-l-francione-on-animal-abolitionism.html">appearance</A> on <CITE>Philosophy Bites</CITE> for an example, where he was again confronted with my work by Mr. Lo, who also did his own work to counter Francione’s irresponsible distortions here.
<P>Now all of these points are a little more substantive - I happen to think - than the colour of Gary’s shirts. His reducing my work to intrigue about his shirt colours does indeed show – as he says – that he does not take me seriously. But that is due to a problematic attitude on his part, not due to problematic aptitude on my part. I do not measure my achievements by his <I>pretensions</I> at reckoning, you can be sure. I would be happy to take him on concerning any of these twenty-eight debating points - and more.
<P>Moreover, I earlier alluded to a <B>huge</B> irony in his saying I use relentless ad hominem attacks against him over the years – whereas in fact I use <B>none</B>. You see, he is stating that I as a person am not to be taken seriously, and on the basis of this – which he cannot substantively <I>justify</I> of course – he is saying that all of my claims over the years are to be discarded, disregarded. That is an enormous, relentless ad hominem attack, covering all the years of my labours on the incrementalism debate in animal law, only some of which is reviewed above. Such grand hypocrisy on his part – yet <B>again</B>.
<P>How is it taking animals seriously - which of course includes <B>thinking</B> about animals - to refuse to think about dilemmas in non-violence theory? To <B>IGNORE</B>: the whole country of Sweden? What is undeniably <B>conducive</B> towards animal rights? Explicit counter-points about “complacency”? The incoherencies and cruelties of “Use Not Treatment?” His fallacy of equivocation about “unnecessary suffering”? The fact that PETA – for example - <B>never</B> lost their radicalism, and always maintained veganism as a moral baseline for animal rights? The false dilemma of veganizing versus legalizing? The attempt wrongly to deep-six the Great Ape Project and alliances with traditional welfarists, altogether playing into the hands of the exploiters? Claiming falsely that there is only “the” abolitionist approach? Dismissing animals’ <B>right</B> to welfare? And misrepresenting Peter Singer? (This does not even summarize all that I discuss above.) All of this - he implies - is of no consequence. If he does not take my points – only some of the twenty-eight of which are briefly touched on here – seriously, then he does not take both sides of the <B>debate</B> here fully seriously. And I think that conclusion is quite right. He also does not take <B>the animals</B> fully seriously, since every part of what I argue is for their much greater benefit in being spared cruelty and even murder – as we saw with the dramatic reduction of numbers of deaths by the incrementalists’ hard efforts.
<P>And if all of this seems to Gary like ramblings of utter incoherency - as he was saying in general about my work - well then, he is having intellectual problems <B>all</B> his own there. The fact is, I need neither Francione’s permission nor cooperation to take down his misbegotten theories. I do not even expect his understanding that they are leveled. His opinions are so loud in his own mind that it seems he does not hear the quiet voice of reason. There are errors of commission in what he says and errors of omission in failing to address telling critiques, and also could-not-be-more-extreme animal illfare. Francione carries on with the overt pretension that he is the master of argumentation in this whole debate. The intellectual leader of the winning side. A more lucid account of his arguments and critiques though prove that he is only the master of disaster.
<P>He has no credible reason to flee debate – again – based on not taking me seriously. If my arguments are to be taken seriously, then so am I, because that is my role here – as an arguer. We are left with totally discredited rationalizations on his part. His “reasons” fail, and my actual material as “nonserious” is nonsensical as an evaluation. Obviously his reasons for not taking me seriously are not intellectual, but petty and personal. This state of affairs indicates that Francione has highly significant personal issues and is lacking in professional judgment. But I am not inclined to pity him, any more than I am disposed to pity schoolyard bullies who also resort to ridicule in the demeaning way that Francione does. I am glad his refusal, though, gave me this ideal opportunity to sum up many – though not all – of the important issues involved here. But this is not the first time Francione fled a debate with me. The first time he was right in the midst of one. In the next section, we will understand a major part of the reason <I>why</I>.
<P><B>Why Francione Really Fled a Debate with Me the First Time</B>
<P>Just before he fled my debate with him on the Toronto Animal Rights Society (TARS) list-serve in the autumn of 2006, he offered the unbelievable excuses that he did not realize the debate would be so much about my paper, and that he did not want to bore people by correcting my misinterpretations of his work. This in spite of the fact that I told him the debate would concern my paper as well as his own work. And that part of the purpose was to check my interpretations for accuracy. He agreed to all of this. Two of his closest “lieutenants” - each with an M.A. in philosophy - confirmed my interpretations were accurate with one exception. Amendation was needed with respect to Francione’s unclear and idiosyncratic sense of “property status”, a clear analysis of which is absent from Gary’s own work. I corrected the paper accordingly before it was published. Francione’s reasons for fleeing just don’t stack up.
<P>A better understanding of why he fled emerges from the last post I wrote before he left, entitled “TOUGH QUESTIONS” – Part 1. (I previously provided instructions on how any interested readers can access this online debate.) (<A HREF ="http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2012/02/who-fled-debate.html">Sztybel blog Feb. 11/12</A>). Here is what I posted, which is publicly accessible to anyone:
<BLOCKQUOTE>Dear TARS participants,
<P>So far, so good. We have begun to get our feet wet and have shown
exemplary diplomacy on both sides. Pleased to see it. Now I am going to
pose some tough questions, since I think my comment on dilemma theory was
all but ignored, whereas I think it needs to be addressed. Be it known
that these questions are asked in the best spirit of inquiry, concern for
animals, respect, admiration for Gary, and so forth [this is before Gary started running his smear campaign against me, after all – DS], but they are by
nature tough questions from a logical standpoint. Let's see what we can
make of them:
<P><B>TOUGH QUESTION #1: Can you show that I am ethically inconsistent in my reformism?</B>
<P>Gary argues that people who promote so-called "animal welfarist" reforms
are immoral because inconsistent with animal rights and therefore
self-inconsistent because animal rightists profess (of course) animal
rights.
<P>The burden of argument is now on the Francionist to demonstrate any
inconsistency whatsoever in my "dilemma reasoning" approach to reformism.
If you cannot show any inconsistency, then you need to discard your claim
that animal rightists are inconsistent and morally suspect to advocate
reformism that some call "welfarist." Some points to consider:
<P>(a) To re-iterate, I say that someone with an animal rights *position* can
and should perform both rights reasoning and rights-overriding reasoning.
I am arguing that we should use rights reasoning whenever possible and so
we should all be vegan as individuals. However in the legislative
short-term we cannot apply rights reasoning because such rights will not
be taken up by society. So we face a dilemma on the *legislative* front:
<P>(i) do nothing legislatively or
<P>(ii) do cosmetic or inadequate changes re
animal treatment or
<P>(iii) make changes, such as abolishing factory
farming, which will relieve woeful suffering on the part of animals today
and in the near future.
<P>It is best to choose (iii) in my argument.
<P>(b) It is therefore not appropriate always to require consistency with
rights reasoning if rights-overriding reasoning or dilemma reasoning is
called for. Gary himself agrees with this. In a burning building he
grants we must choose to save someone as Gary writes. That is
inconsistent with rights reasoning (although not with advocating a rights
position) because everyone has a right to life, and we would not
ordinarily let die anyone we could easily save who is right beside us, but
in the burning building we *may* let die someone we could save who is
right beside us (IF we choose to save that person over the other person).
<P>If you cannot show any inconsistency in my position then you must retract
the statement that animal welfare laws are immoral to support.
<P>. . .
<P><B>TOUGH QUESTION #2: Can the incremental criteria and examples you give be justified by respecting the inherent value of animals, or by chipping away
at their property status and truly treating them as if they have rights
(the meaning of your "proto-rights")?</B>
<P>Gary writes: “the basic right not to be treated as property is a right
that does not and cannot admit of degrees.” (Rain 178) Yet you say your
criteria of acceptable legislative reform, at least incrementally, does
not remove the property status of animals. You support eliminating
dehorning and castration (Rain 214). Great. But those animals are still
property. You say the criteria recognize "proto-rights," which treat
animals *as if* they are not property, however, in all of your examples
above animals are still commodities, slaves, and are bought and sold and
owned.
<P>I think a genuine proto-right which treat [<I>sic</I>] animals as if they have animal
rights in the sense that we mean would involve liberating them but not
using the language of rights, e.g., using the language of duty instead.
Your conditions of legal reform would have to involve conditions that free
animals from being commodities, slaves, and property to treat animals *as
if* they are not property. I realize you said the incremental criteria
are not "perfect," but I do not think they are even consistent with the
idea of animal rights. That is too imperfect for any philosophical
position to be self-contradictory.
<P>I argue that none of your examples are truly consistent with full animal
rights [or even a <B>single</B> animal right, as I note earlier in this blog posting - DS] and so we need a *different* framework for justifying incremental
reforms. Maybe such as my dilemma framework.
<P>In my paper I also argue that the examples you provide of acceptable legal
incremental changes are inconsistent with your five criteria, but let that
be a separate question. Two tough questions are enough for now.
<P>Thank you for being open to this debate. [<B><I>Ha!</I></B> - DS] I think it is vital to the
movement and I would not wish my paper to take on only a "straw person"
version of your arguments. I apologize in advance if I have
misinterpreted you in any way; I did not find your comments on hen
enclosures in _Rain_ to be clearly something you would not accept a legal
reformer to take up, but maybe that is bad reading rather than anything
else.
<P>Best wishes to everyone,
<P>David
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<P>It is perhaps not <B>too</B> surprising that Francione turned tail and ran. He was challenged to show any inconsistency in my ethical framework using dilemma theory. And you know what? He was doomed to <B>fail</B>, because there <B>is</B> no inconsistency. If he denied the framework of rights + dilemma theory, he would have been inconsistent <B>with himself</B>, because he uses the same conceptual apparatus. (Francione, 2000) The legislative near-term meets all of the conditions of dilemma theory: a choice between very unideal options, and choosing the best one for animals, or the least violence, as I iterate more recently. He was totally helpless to answer this. <B>ANYONE</B> would be. And the implications are huge: if he could not answer it, he would have to “discard”, as I put it, his claim that animal welfare laws are inconsistent with theory for someone who accepts animal rights, the measure of ethics for our purposes here. Yet that is half of his big claim: that anti-cruelty laws are to be rejected because they are both <B>immoral</B> and <B>ineffective</B>.
<P>He absolutely could not answer the second question any better. It was calculated to stump, to defeat my opponent in debate. And I knew exactly what I was doing, utilizing my professional training in logical argument. I basically asked if the incrementalist reforms he proposed at the time were consistent with animal rights. Because that is one of his chief objections to anti-cruelty laws. Yet examples of what he approved of in <CITE>Rain without Thunder</CITE> include banning pain experiments without anesthesia, although this would leave pain experiments <B>with</B> anesthesia. He also approved on a ban of dehorning bulls – a standard factory farming practice – but this leaves animal agriculture essentially intact. He punishes the welfarists for being inconsistent with animal rights, recalling the quote above that the theory of animal rights is not reflected in the “social phenomenon called the animal rights movement.” (Francione, 1996, p. 2) He also noted it is a defining feature of “new welfarists” that they believe there is no moral or logical inconsistency perceived in “reinforcing an instrumentalist view of animals.” (Francione, 1996, 36-37) He objects to allowing laws to give water to thirsty cows in slaughterhouses because that would condone animal slavery and exploitation (Francione, 1996, p. 176) and no doubt also speciesism. Yet his examples do all of this as well - <B>if</B> other supporters of animal welfarism are guilty of these things too, as he says they are. (I noted above PETA does not <B>really approve of slavery</B>, etc., but fair’s fair. What goes for the “welfarist” goes for the Francionist too.)
<P>In my posting I noted that in the case of all of his examples, “animals are still commodities, slaves, and are bought and sold and owned.” Of <B>course</B> his approved examples are inconsistent with animal rights! And I pointed out he also wrote that: “the basic right not to be treated as property is a right
that does not and cannot admit of degrees.” (Francione, 1996, p. 178) So he could not argue - consistently at least – that his examples achieve <B>part</B> of animal rights. In other words, I was successfully making the point that his animal rights theory <B>cannot</B> support his examples but that my dilemma theory can. My intellectual framework has a fundamental power that his altogether lacks, in terms of capability for justification and “making sense” of things. And I was illuminating the darkness of self-contradiction in more than one facet of his research model. Inconsistency is the most damning flaw that is also incontrovertible upon demonstration. That is why I chose the debating line that I did as my first decisive salvo. And he could <B>never</B> show any different. There was not just a fleeing from the debate, but <B>an opening round</B>, and however he might have tried to respond he would have lost.
<P>He must have felt helpless facing both of these damning questions. Anyone would have. I had shown he was inconsistent and that he could not fault my own consistency. So rather than try to answer, where every other move besides concession would have been a blunder, he decided to offer a few lame excuses and to cut and run. He did not wish to end up looking quite so much like he did not know what he is talking about. That his work shows inferior intellectual adequacy. First in that TARS forum and then spreading around the animal rights internet, if not like wildfire, then like something else. So he <B>took off</B>. “Bye-bye Gary.” He suspects at some level that any debate with me will similarly make him look bad and he won’t be able to answer points such as the two devastating questions from the TARS debate. It is actually perfectly normal for those who argue illogically to flee debates with those who have the power to expose muck-rakers and muddy reasoners for what they are. For this is no game. You can’t bluff your way through unlike poker.
<P>But I wouldn’t have fled. Constitutionally and morally I could not have. In his place, I would have conceded and learned something, and shown myself to be honourable. I also would also have tried to honour the earlier agreement to clarify my work to another scholar – another doctor of philosophy – so this other person will get it right <B>for everyone’s sakes</B> in his peer-reviewed, academic publication in a major animal rights ethics journal. Not claim it is too “boring” to do what I already promised to do, as he did. But so it is done.
<P><B>Conclusion: Taking Francione's Non-Seriousness Seriously</B>
<P>Francione can refuse to debate me in person, but not refuse to debate at the level of impersonal ideas, which has been going on already for some time. Why is it that the other side has <B>never</B> been able to find a single chink in my incrementalist armour? But I have been able to land critique after critique after critique that they are helpless to answer, and that reveal fundamental factual and logical flaws? They would thrill and crow and dance for some length of time if they could even make <B>one</B> major critique of the magnitude that I make. They only offer misinterpretations as I have proved (not just indicated without evidence as the Francionists generally do), and pathetically poor reasoning about economics at which even a Grade 6 teacher would totally balk. And he seems to be forming a pattern here of fleeing debate while offering a couple of completely inane excuses each time. Different excuses. But nevertheless, this is not what I had in mind when I used to hope that Gary would turn over a new <B>leaf</B>.
<P>I take his side infinitely more seriously than he does mine because I answer all of their known key objections, take down most <B>every</B> aspect of their theories in the major works that I cite. I never ignore points or evade - unlike them. Rather, I am the opposite: <B>thorough-going</B>. I never resort to insults or bullying kinds of ridicule as they do, mixed with degradation that I am “insane”, or “not serious”, or whatever insults they care to dream up. (Amusement at how their demonstrably faulty assertions are implied to be decisively triumphant is well-earned mirth, rather than demeaning or insulting ridicule.) I take deep justification in ethics seriously, as Francione’s superficial approach to moral philosophy never has. I do not run and hide from debates. I do not “discard” people who question or disagree with me.
<P><B>Other</B> people are wise enough to take me seriously. The burgeoning and super-active group, the Northwest Animal Rights Alliance adopted my “Animal Rights Law” as a position paper for their group. (<A HREF= "http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2011/04/northwestern-animal-rights-alliance.html">Sztybel blog Apr 19/11</A>) A Fellow with the Oxford Centre for Animal Ethics, Dr. Carlos Naconecy, publicly <A HREF ="http://davidsztybel.info/4.html">defended</A> the findings of that paper at a conference in Brazil in 2009. A number of former Francionists have told me they switched sides because of my papers. Anyone who does not take my academic credentials and achievements seriously is silly – or <B>worse</B>, as is the case with Gary.
<P>Francione whines that his position in the animal rights movement is “marginal”. Perfectly true. But that will only deepen as perceptions spread that he cannot respond to the most serious of critiques. He has fled again, but it has cost him. Cost him something <B>priceless</B>. Something you can’t buy, or even bring about – if you are on the wrong side – with endless hours of toil and sweat. That is: <B>credibility</B>. He is acting as though no one is paying any attention to his gaffes. We must resist the temptation to say he could not be more mistaken though. He will likely find a way. He comes out with new and unfortunate, horribly deformed babies of argument on a frequent basis.
<P>I take seriously enough – but not <B>too</B> seriously – Francione’s not taking me seriously. One cannot take a claim that is fully lacking credibility in every way too seriously, you see. His lack of professional judgment is just about evident to everyone but him and his cronies, who side with his dismissals of my work that use child-like rather than professional-adult reasoning. I am assuming here that if someone refuses to take serious claims seriously, it is merely a manifestation of bullying. I have essentially proved that not taking my ideas seriously amounts to not taking <B>the animals</B> seriously, which is precisely part of the problem with the anti-incrementalists. They delay addressing the cruelty now. They have better things to do. They would rather conform to crude abstractions than consider <B>living</B> animals. They are utterly unaccountable to the silently pleading, much-pained eyes of animals in society, now being ruled by tyrants of consummate cruelty.
<P>He is merely exhibiting a primate dominance display in saying I am not “serious”, in defiance of all facts and logic. Well, he may be able to dominate certain groups of people who are not the sharpest knives in the drawer, but you cannot dominate a serious, academic and activist debate based on falsehood and fallacies. The multiple errors in the little pictures amount to a mountain of wrong in the big picture. So he is an illusionist of sorts, and one must presume that he has taken himself in too. And I am not intimidated by his claim that he does not take me seriously. And I am not writing for Gary, or his cronies. I am writing for <B>them</B>. The animals. I have great credibility with all of the people who matter to me in that respect. Including – in a special sense as we will soon see - the animal persons. I know the animals would love all that my approach has to offer, and hate the atrocious lack of relief they get from Francionists. Those people, who can’t work up the intellectual know-how to justify less horrible suffering. And less needless death.
<P><B>Post-Script: Animal Jurors Give the Antis the Thumbs-Down</B>
<P>Francione is a serious threat to animals. These creatures say in innumerable ways that they do not wish to be tortured and killed. They want less suffering and death. The Francionists are virtually Holocaust enablers because they would and do make the torture and mass murders worse by <B>far</B>. It has been proven that incrementalist approaches to “animal consumption” – more of a euphemism – save hundreds of millions of animal lives per year. And even if anti-cruelty laws resulted in temporary spikes in animal consumption, my modeling of the future linked to above charts this as a constant, <B>unless</B> people will care far more about animals than the U.S. did about black people and give animal rights all at once, without incrementalist anti-cruelty measures.
<P>So the animals – if we enlarge democracy to include their preferences, as we sometimes laudably do with mentally disabled humans - vote down the Francionists. This democracy can take the form of an imaginary jury, or of the will of the animal people taken more broadly. In terms of the inevitable results, the exact form of our thought experiment here hardly matters. Because the animals <B>do</B> want less suffering and death, and they don’t care to affirm Francione’s theories nor his logical tangles, not if his ideas are hindrances to the hearts’ desires of these sensitive beings. The silent majority of animal rights people are, by far, on my side. But a silent <B>consensus</B> of animals rejects their own greater suffering and death. The silent majority of animal rights people is only treading quietly because they do not wish to become objects of Francionist smear campaigns, and do not wish to be swarmed by fanatics on the internet who do not listen to reason. The silent majority already know that the animals want relief from cruelty as <B>much</B> as possible. And they don’t want to waste time with nay-sayers, although I think that my own time in expertly countering this unwittingly pro-violent menace is very well spent indeed.
<P>Gary can run, but he cannot hide his views. He can try to hide their flaws by seeking to ridicule and conceal my work for example. But it’s not working. My approach is starting to get through to people, even as my sort of stance has always captured the majority with their – bless them – <B>common sense</B>. Yet all of this is more about the animals than my fine, fellow comrades. If not for the cause of non-violence, I would have nothing to do with this consummately unpleasant person who libels me, ridicules me, and insults me. He can run and seek comfort. But he looks weak and ineffective by refusing to debate me - again. And he will look weak and ineffective – again – if he actually <B>does</B> debate me.
<P><B>Works Cited</B>
<P>Animal Voices radio show. 2004. CIUT 89.5 FM on University of Toronto Radio. Transcript of interview with Gary Francione on <I>foie gras</I>. <A HREF="http://animalvoicesradio.files.wordpress.com/2010/06/20041102_gary_francione.pdf">http://animalvoicesradio.files.wordpress.com/2010/06/20041102_gary_francione.pdf</A>
<P>Francione, Gary L. 1996. <CITE>Rain without Thunder: the Ideology of the Animal Rights Movement.</CITE> Philadelphia: Temple University Press.
<P>Francione, Gary L. 2000. <CITE>Introduction to Animal Rights: Your Child or the Dog?</CITE> Philadelphia: Temple University Press.
<P>Kohlberg, Lawrence. 1973. <CITE>Collected Papers on Moral Development and Moral Education.</CITE> Cambridge: Harvard University Laboratory for Human Development.
<P>Sztybel, David. 2007. “Animal Rights Law: Fundamentalism versus Pragmatism”. <CITE>Journal for Critical Animal Studies</CITE> 5 (1) (2007) 1-35.
<P>Sztybel, David. 2006. “The Rights of Animal Persons”. <CITE>Animal Liberation Philosophy and Policy Journal</CITE> 4 (1) (2006): 1-37.
<P>Sztybel, David. 2007 - present. <CITE><A HREF ="http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/">On the Road to Liberation</A></CITE>. Blog.
<p><b>FURTHER READING ON ANIMAL RIGHTS INCREMENTALISM</B><br />
<p><i><b>A Selection of Related Articles</B></I><br />
<p>Sztybel, David. "Animal Rights Law: Fundamentalism versus Pragmatism". <cite>Journal for Critical Animal Studies</CITE> 5 (1) (2007): 1-37. <br />
<p ALIGN="RIGHT"><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.info/x-arlaw.pdf"><font COLOR = "FF3300" FACE="TIMES"><i>go there</I></FONT></A><br />
<br />
<p>Short version of "Animal Rights Law". <br />
<p ALIGN="RIGHT"><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.info/33.html"><font COLOR = "FF3300" FACE="TIMES"><i>go there</I></FONT></A><br />
<br />
<p>Sztybel, David. "Incrementalist Animal Law: Welcome to the Real World". <p ALIGN="RIGHT"><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.info/11.html"><font COLOR = "FF3300" FACE="TIMES"><i>go there</I></FONT></A><br />
<br />
<p>Sztybel, David. "Sztybelian Pragmatism versus Francionist Pseudo-Pragmatism". <br />
<p ALIGN="RIGHT"><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.info/34.html"><font COLOR = "FF3300" FACE="TIMES"><i>go there</I></FONT></A><br />
<p><i><b>A Selection of Related Blog Entries</B></I><br />
<p><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2012/08/anti-cruelty-laws-and-non-violent.html">Anti-Cruelty Laws and Non-Violent Approximation</A><br />
<p><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2012/10/use-not-treatment-franciones-cracked.html">Use Not Treatment: Francione’s Cracked Nutshell</A><br />
<p><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2012/10/francione-flees-debating-me-again-and_25.html">Francione Flees Debate with Me Again, Runs into the “Animal Jury”</A><br />
<p><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2012/10/the-false-dilemma-veganizing-versus.html">The False Dilemma: Veganizing versus Legalizing</A><br />
<p><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2008/06/veganism-as-moral-baseline-for-animal.html">Veganism as a Baseline for Animal Rights: Two Different Senses</A><br />
<p><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2011/12/franciones-three-feeble-critiques-of-my.html">Francione's Three Feeble Critiques of My Views</A><br />
<p><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2012/09/startling-decline-in-meat-consumption.html">Startling Decline in Meat Consumption Proves Francionists Are Wrong Once Again!</A><br />
<p><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2008/06/great-apes-activism-fending-off.html">The Greatness of the Great Ape Project under Attack!</A><br />
<p><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2010/01/francione-totally-misinterprets-singer.html">Francione Totally Misinterprets Singer</A><br />
<p><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2009/08/crisis-5a-taking-criticisms-of-ones-own.html">Francione's Animal Rights Theory</A><br />
<p><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2007/06/francione-on-unnecessary-suffering-not.html">Francione on Unnecessary Suffering</A><br />
<p><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2011/02/my-appearance-on-ar-zone.html">My Appearance on AR Zone</A><br />
<p><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2011/12/d-day-for-francionists.html">D-Day for Francionists</A><br />
<p><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2012/02/franciones-incoherent-understanding-of.html">Sztybel versus Francione on Animals' Property Status</A><br />
<p><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2008/01/red-carpet.html">The Red Carpet</A><br />
<p><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2008/06/playing-into-hands-of-animal-exploiters.html">Playing into the Hands of Animal Exploiters</A><br />
<p><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2012/10/the-abolitionist-approach-es.html">The Abolitionist ApproachES</A><br />
<p><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2008/07/franciones-mighty-boomerang.html">Francione's Mighty Boomerang</A><br />
<br />
<br />
<p><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.info">Dr. David Sztybel Home Page</A>
David Sztybel, Ph.D.http://www.blogger.com/profile/01791831843665208484noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8230355680661017989.post-83882253359599701072012-10-09T09:11:00.002-07:002013-01-25T09:30:13.205-08:00Addendum to Earlier Post Regarding Great Ape Project<P>On June 10, 2008, I <A HREF="http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2008/06/great-apes-activism-fending-off.html">parried</A> Francione's thrusts against the Great Ape Project. Today I added the following (plus a few minor addendums elsewhere needed for continuity, that are not featured in the followng except):
<P>#############################
<P>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 <CITE>Great Ape Project</CITE> collection of essays:
<BLOCKQUOTE>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.
<P>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.
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<P>Let us comment on this statement of the Great Ape Project on rights for animals in general:
<OL>
<LI>it acknowledges utter dominion over <B>all</B> animals, not just great apes
<LI>it calls considering "equal consideration for the interests of all animals" a "rational ethic", which is surely praise
<LI>it challenges species-membership as a legitimate grounds for discrimination
<LI>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
<LI>it cites the golden rule, treat others as you would have them treat you, which justifies rights for more animals than great apes
<LI>it acknowledges that many people will want to extend animal equality more generally
<LI>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
</OL>
There is a lot that is praiseworthy here. It comes across as <B>positive</B> about animal rights more generally, indicating it is "rational". Yet not all signatories to the Great Ape Project - indeed probably <B>most</B> supporters - will not agree with animal rights in general. So it cannot, as a political alliance, outright endorse animal rights. Yet it comes close to doing so.
<P>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 <B>necessary</B> and <B>sufficient</B>. This sufficiency, anyway, is the basis for great ape rights. It is actually not speciesist and is morally unexceptionable. It is <B>true</B> that great apes have sufficient minds to be awarded rights. It is a good place to start in fully 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 <B>needed</B> to have rights. The statement leaves it open that <B>other</B> kinds of nonhumans also have sufficient minds - say, in the form of <B>sentience</B> - to be awarded rights. The only speciesist ethic would be to assert that it is <B>necessary</B> for beings to have humanlike cognitive characteristics to be awarded rights. The GAP <B>never</B> endorses this speciesist, exclusive doctrine. So it asserts part of animal rights that is unexceptionable. True, it <B>emphasizes</B> human-like qualities. But again, why not pull a lever that will deliver uncounted thousands of animals from <B>violence</B>?
<P>#############################
<P>Thank you, and have a great day!
<p><b>FURTHER READING ON ANIMAL RIGHTS INCREMENTALISM</B><br />
<p><i><b>A Selection of Related Articles</B></I><br />
<p>Sztybel, David. "Animal Rights Law: Fundamentalism versus Pragmatism". <cite>Journal for Critical Animal Studies</CITE> 5 (1) (2007): 1-37. <br />
<p ALIGN="RIGHT"><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.info/x-arlaw.pdf"><font COLOR = "FF3300" FACE="TIMES"><i>go there</I></FONT></A><br />
<br />
<p>Short version of "Animal Rights Law". <br />
<p ALIGN="RIGHT"><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.info/33.html"><font COLOR = "FF3300" FACE="TIMES"><i>go there</I></FONT></A><br />
<br />
<p>Sztybel, David. "Incrementalist Animal Law: Welcome to the Real World". <p ALIGN="RIGHT"><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.info/11.html"><font COLOR = "FF3300" FACE="TIMES"><i>go there</I></FONT></A><br />
<br />
<p>Sztybel, David. "Sztybelian Pragmatism versus Francionist Pseudo-Pragmatism". <br />
<p ALIGN="RIGHT"><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.info/34.html"><font COLOR = "FF3300" FACE="TIMES"><i>go there</I></FONT></A><br />
<p><i><b>A Selection of Related Blog Entries</B></I><br />
<p><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2012/08/anti-cruelty-laws-and-non-violent.html">Anti-Cruelty Laws and Non-Violent Approximation</A><br />
<p><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2012/10/use-not-treatment-franciones-cracked.html">Use Not Treatment: Francione’s Cracked Nutshell</A><br />
<p><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2012/10/francione-flees-debating-me-again-and_25.html">Francione Flees Debate with Me Again, Runs into the “Animal Jury”</A><br />
<p><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2012/10/the-false-dilemma-veganizing-versus.html">The False Dilemma: Veganizing versus Legalizing</A><br />
<p><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2008/06/veganism-as-moral-baseline-for-animal.html">Veganism as a Baseline for Animal Rights: Two Different Senses</A><br />
<p><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2011/12/franciones-three-feeble-critiques-of-my.html">Francione's Three Feeble Critiques of My Views</A><br />
<p><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2012/09/startling-decline-in-meat-consumption.html">Startling Decline in Meat Consumption Proves Francionists Are Wrong Once Again!</A><br />
<p><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2008/06/great-apes-activism-fending-off.html">The Greatness of the Great Ape Project under Attack!</A><br />
<p><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2010/01/francione-totally-misinterprets-singer.html">Francione Totally Misinterprets Singer</A><br />
<p><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2009/08/crisis-5a-taking-criticisms-of-ones-own.html">Francione's Animal Rights Theory</A><br />
<p><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2007/06/francione-on-unnecessary-suffering-not.html">Francione on Unnecessary Suffering</A><br />
<p><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2011/02/my-appearance-on-ar-zone.html">My Appearance on AR Zone</A><br />
<p><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2011/12/d-day-for-francionists.html">D-Day for Francionists</A><br />
<p><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2012/02/franciones-incoherent-understanding-of.html">Sztybel versus Francione on Animals' Property Status</A><br />
<p><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2008/01/red-carpet.html">The Red Carpet</A><br />
<p><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2008/06/playing-into-hands-of-animal-exploiters.html">Playing into the Hands of Animal Exploiters</A><br />
<p><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2012/10/the-abolitionist-approach-es.html">The Abolitionist ApproachES</A><br />
<p><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2008/07/franciones-mighty-boomerang.html">Francione's Mighty Boomerang</A><br />
<br />
<br />
<p><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.info">Dr. David Sztybel Home Page</A>
David Sztybel, Ph.D.http://www.blogger.com/profile/01791831843665208484noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8230355680661017989.post-59110281285694509332012-10-08T10:33:00.001-07:002013-01-25T09:31:07.390-08:00The Abolitionist ApproachESProfessor Gary Francione maintains a website called "the Abolitionist Approach". The definite article, "the", is very telling here. It implies there is only one abolitionist approach: <B>his</B>. Others either do not exist or are not worth taking seriously - the latter of course is completely at odds with <b>non-violent discourse</b>. And yet there are many approaches to what I would call the abolition of speciesism, and what he might prefer to call abolishing the property status of animals:
<OL>
<LI>The hyperegalitarian abolitionist approaches of Joan Dunayer and Paola Cavalieri, which passionately argue for equal rights across the board for insects
<LI>The radical ethic of care abolitionist approaches. This feminist type of ethic may reject rights in favour of getting rid of speciesism on the basis of compassion, empathy, or sympathy
<LI>The incrementalist non-violence abolitionist approach that I advocate
<LI>The violentist abolitionist approaches urged by those who accept violence to humans as a part of animal liberation activism (which I am known to condemn)
<LI>The Francionist abolitionist approach
<LI>The Marxist abolitionist approaches
<LI>The anarchist abolitionist approaches
<LI>The virtue ethics abolitionist approaches which, like the ethic of care, may eschew rights
<LI>Deep ecology approaches to abolishing speciesism
<LI>Post-modernist ideologies that are critical of speciesism and conclude it should be entirely avoided
</OL>
<P>There are many other conceivable approaches, and note how the above are generally families of views that themselves permit a variety of stances.
<P>In the past I have <A HREF="http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2012/02/franciones-incoherent-understanding-of.html">indicated</A> that Francione's approach to property status of simply <B>negating</B> it is short-sighted, and long before we can free animals from being property, we ought to make the best of the property status they have. Francione, as those familiar with his ideas know, argues unsuccessfully that if animals are property they cannot enjoy any substantial protection. Sweden, of course, is a real-world refutation of that wrongful assertion. I have argued that before we can bring animal rights about, it would be wise to promote ideas of "responsible ownership", rather than passing up any chance to make animals be subject to less violence. There is no doubt that revising ownership has a contribution to make. Indeed, it is <B>crucial</B>, since animal law revolves around nonhuman status as property, so unless we can affect that status it would be very difficult to affect the legal status of animals in society. We must not throw out the Swedish - among other places - babies of constructive property status along with speciesist bathwater. So far from his being the <B>only</B> abolitionist approach, by speaking only of abolishing property status, his is one of the least tenable or helpful among our options.
<P>In the past I have characterized as egotistical Francione's calling his approach alone "the" abolitionist approach. I can think of no other, more apt term. It is certainly not <B>humble</B> for him to declare in this manner. Nor is it even <B>average</B> or middle-of-the-road in terms of egocentricity. I mean, who else would <B>dare</B> do such a foolish and wrongful thing? No, it is singularly <B>arrogant</B>. This is no insult directed at him but fair comment based on the evidence. Someone could call me egotistical and arrogant if I started a website called "the Non-Violence Approach". It would be equally silly, vain, and baseless. I do not use <I>ad hominem</I> argumentation, though. An example would be: Francione seems arrogant and egotistical because of the name of his website, therefore his approach must be wrong. No, any person merely having disagreeable traits such as egotism does not logically entail that anything they say is false. I think it is ground for suspicion that a good deal more than ordinary scholarship is occurring here...but nothing more. Let us fairly consider <B>all</B> approaches before deciding - in all fairness - our own take on the matter.
<p><b>FURTHER READING ON ANIMAL RIGHTS INCREMENTALISM</B><br />
<p><i><b>A Selection of Related Articles</B></I><br />
<p>Sztybel, David. "Animal Rights Law: Fundamentalism versus Pragmatism". <cite>Journal for Critical Animal Studies</CITE> 5 (1) (2007): 1-37. <br />
<p ALIGN="RIGHT"><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.info/x-arlaw.pdf"><font COLOR = "FF3300" FACE="TIMES"><i>go there</I></FONT></A><br />
<br />
<p>Short version of "Animal Rights Law". <br />
<p ALIGN="RIGHT"><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.info/33.html"><font COLOR = "FF3300" FACE="TIMES"><i>go there</I></FONT></A><br />
<br />
<p>Sztybel, David. "Incrementalist Animal Law: Welcome to the Real World". <p ALIGN="RIGHT"><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.info/11.html"><font COLOR = "FF3300" FACE="TIMES"><i>go there</I></FONT></A><br />
<br />
<p>Sztybel, David. "Sztybelian Pragmatism versus Francionist Pseudo-Pragmatism". <br />
<p ALIGN="RIGHT"><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.info/34.html"><font COLOR = "FF3300" FACE="TIMES"><i>go there</I></FONT></A><br />
<p><i><b>A Selection of Related Blog Entries</B></I><br />
<p><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2012/08/anti-cruelty-laws-and-non-violent.html">Anti-Cruelty Laws and Non-Violent Approximation</A><br />
<p><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2012/10/use-not-treatment-franciones-cracked.html">Use Not Treatment: Francione’s Cracked Nutshell</A><br />
<p><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2012/10/francione-flees-debating-me-again-and_25.html">Francione Flees Debate with Me Again, Runs into the “Animal Jury”</A><br />
<p><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2012/10/the-false-dilemma-veganizing-versus.html">The False Dilemma: Veganizing versus Legalizing</A><br />
<p><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2008/06/veganism-as-moral-baseline-for-animal.html">Veganism as a Baseline for Animal Rights: Two Different Senses</A><br />
<p><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2011/12/franciones-three-feeble-critiques-of-my.html">Francione's Three Feeble Critiques of My Views</A><br />
<p><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2012/09/startling-decline-in-meat-consumption.html">Startling Decline in Meat Consumption Proves Francionists Are Wrong Once Again!</A><br />
<p><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2008/06/great-apes-activism-fending-off.html">The Greatness of the Great Ape Project under Attack!</A><br />
<p><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2010/01/francione-totally-misinterprets-singer.html">Francione Totally Misinterprets Singer</A><br />
<p><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2009/08/crisis-5a-taking-criticisms-of-ones-own.html">Francione's Animal Rights Theory</A><br />
<p><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2007/06/francione-on-unnecessary-suffering-not.html">Francione on Unnecessary Suffering</A><br />
<p><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2011/02/my-appearance-on-ar-zone.html">My Appearance on AR Zone</A><br />
<p><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2011/12/d-day-for-francionists.html">D-Day for Francionists</A><br />
<p><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2012/02/franciones-incoherent-understanding-of.html">Sztybel versus Francione on Animals' Property Status</A><br />
<p><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2008/01/red-carpet.html">The Red Carpet</A><br />
<p><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2008/06/playing-into-hands-of-animal-exploiters.html">Playing into the Hands of Animal Exploiters</A><br />
<p><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2012/10/the-abolitionist-approach-es.html">The Abolitionist ApproachES</A><br />
<p><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2008/07/franciones-mighty-boomerang.html">Francione's Mighty Boomerang</A><br />
<br />
<br />
<p><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.info">Dr. David Sztybel Home Page</A>
David Sztybel, Ph.D.http://www.blogger.com/profile/01791831843665208484noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8230355680661017989.post-11297965242546051452012-10-08T07:08:00.001-07:002013-01-25T09:32:27.931-08:00Francionist Means Are Inconsistent with the End of Maximally Negating Violence<P>Gary Francione <A HREF="http://www.abolitionistapproach.com/means-and-ends/">states</A>, in a blog entry on "Means and Ends" for October 6, 2012, that some activists indicate that there is no real difference between:
<OL>
<LI>Those who say we ought to abolish animal use, rejecting "happy" exploitation but campaigning for veganism, and
<LI>Ones who say that they wish to abolish animal use and the means is "happy" exploitation and animal welfare regulation.
</OL>
(Notice how, quite ridiculously, he does not include the promotion of veganism in the second option, as if only <B>he</B> does that.) Of <B>course</B> there is a difference. But the biggest difference of all that he never touches on is the difference between how he characterizes incrementalism versus what I would argue is its best version. The best version:
<UL>
<LI>does <B>not</B> agree that exploitation could ever be fully “happy”
<LI>does not say that the means to abolishing animal exploitation is animal welfare laws.
</UL>
I have repeated the latter point so often and it is spelled out so clearly in “Animal Rights Law” that I will not much repeat myself here. Anti-cruelty laws contain no abolitionist language, so how <B>could</B> they “cause” abolition? And no one says they do. Francione is boxing with his own shadow here. Now what do you think of someone who always misrepresents the other side, even though he has been corrected <I>ad nauseum</I> only because he persists in this misrepresentation or straw man argument? (A straw man argument attacks a false and weak version of what an opponent says, leaving their best arguments untouched.) What do you think of such outrageous behaviour that goes totally against non-violent discussion, seemingly deliberately distorting the opponents' arguments as a matter of routine?
<P>In addition, my side is not less – but <B>far more</B> - implementing of vegan, abolitionist, anti-exploitation education as our own means to abolishing speciesism. <B>Millions</B> or perhaps <B>billions</B> of people have been exposed to PETA’s vegan campaigns, or their slogan that animals are not ours to eat, wear, experiment on, or exploit for entertainment. But let’s face reality here, hardly <B>anyone</B> has heard of Francione and his crowd by comparison. He is <B>marginal</B> in contrast to PETA. Yet he acts as if he is the only one advocating an end to speciesism. He tries to create this impression by not giving our side any credit at all for that kind of campaigning. Even though we do far <B>more</B> of it. Gee, now, what should we make of that? As I have explained before too, <A HREF=http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/search?q=baseline>veganism <B>is</B> a moral baseline for my side</A>, and we also are <A HREF=http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2012/09/startling-decline-in-meat-consumption.html>far more successful</A> in ridding the world of animal product consumption through our incrementalist approach.
<P>Then Francione switches gears from misrepresenting the incrementalists. Oh, sorry. He switches gears as to the <B>particular way</B> in which he misrepresents the incrementalists. He says that there is a difference between someone who advocates world peace and non-violent dealings as a way of getting to peace, and someone who says they want world peace but advocates the use of war to get to the state of peace. Yes, there is a difference there too. Please wait just a little bit to see how Francione abuses this distinction that everyone agrees to.
<P>He asserts that we are not here contemplating questions of “mere strategy” but that moral questions are involved too. He enjoins us to agree that our means must be consistent with our ends. I could not agree more with the last two statements. If our end is non-violence, then it is wholly consistent with that end either to see that absolute non-violence is realized if that is possible, or if violence is inevitable, then to negate violence as much as possible. I have shown how the incrementalist strategy uses this principle of non-violent approximation – approximating non-violence as much as can be when its absolute form is unattainable. That is because effective anti-cruelty laws clearly <B>lessen</B> violence in the world, whereas the Francionist do-nothing approach to legislation <B>allows far more violence to persist and proliferate</B>. So my means are consistent with my end: they negate violence. It is the <B>Francionists</B> who are not consistent with this end of non-violence, because they allow far more of it to exist.
<P>The comparison of animal rights incrementalists to those who are willing to go to war to get to peace implies that people such as myself advocate violence. That is totally insulting, false, and misleading. How is it “violent” to ask for a <B>reduction</B> in violence? The Francionists not only permit more violence – which could be a passive allowance - but <B>actively campaign</B> to leave factory farming legislatively intact as one example. Now that is exercising violent agency in the name of so-called “non-violence”. It is violent to block effective and radical reduction in violence. Similarly, it is violent of "enablers" of domestic abuse of children to turn a blind eye or to defend the abuser. Francionists are "abuse enablers" of a different sort, enabling animal cruelty by trying to stall or negate the fight against it. And getting rid of factory farming like Sweden did negates monstrously cruel – Holocaustian - forms of violence. Make no mistake about it.
<P>Why would Francione think that incrementalists are “violent”? Does he think that anti-cruelty laws “reinforce” speciesism, as he has often said in the past? How does it make speciesism more powerful if we remove key components of it such as gross cruelty? Francionists leaving this cruelty intact is rather what <B>reinforces</B> actual speciesism, empowering it more than ever. And leaving factory farming alone conduces towards a more cruel society that is less inclined to take animals’ interests seriously, and therefore will not treat <B>animal rights</B> respect for interests with full gravity.
<P>Does he think that incrementalists “approve” of speciesism by advocating anti-cruelty laws? That is again false. Animal rights incrementalists approve of anti-cruelty laws relieving speciesism. But they disapprove of the ongoing speciesism of, say, animal agriculture that is obviously not abolished due to anti-cruelty laws. And the latter persists only <B>in spite</B> of incrementalist demands which PETA overtly makes, not <B>because</B> of anything that PETA advocates. It is <B>other</B> people who effectively insist on speciesist practices. So parts of anti-cruelty laws I approve, and other parts I <B>dis</B>approve. Do the Francionists think that one cannot both approve and disapprove different aspects of the same thing at the same time? Has there never been a political party one approves of in some respects but not others? Should child discipline be approached with the simplistic attitude that one either entirely approves or entirely diapproves of a given child’s conduct? This is nonsense. When we minimize violence, we approve of the reduction in violence, not the part that remains due to others who are violent. Still, animal laws may be overall accepted by incrementalists just because they have the approvable overall goal of minimizing violence. They are not permanently approved but only as a temporary solution, until full anti-speciesism can be enacted.
<P>Rather, one could argue that doing <B>nothing</B> by way of law reform constitutes tacit approval for what is going on, or rather that there is no difference in behaviour between those who tacitly approve and the Francionists. I do not say the Francionists approve of speciesism though, only that again they defend the cruel status quo in effect, which is what those who approve of all animal exploitation want. (And that the anti-incrementalists approve of speciesism perhaps if we use the Francionist nonsensical standards for deciding who approves of what.) Oh, no, I stand corrected by myself. They not only resemble those who happen to approve of speciesism in terms of what results, but <B>go out of their way</B> to preserve the legislative status quo by aggressively defending against these vital anti-cruelty changes.
<P><B>The Francionists crow about means to ends, but they in effect defend the speciesist means of factory farming against anti-cruelty initiatives, thus vigorously helping the “animal industrialists” to keep going some of the most cruel means ever devised.</B> And as I indicated <A HREF="http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2012/10/the-false-dilemma-veganizing-versus.html">last blog entry</A>, I honour all sentient beings as "ends in themselves" (to use Immanuel Kant's immortal phrase), whereas the Francionists treat contemporary animals under the law as mere means. They ask: "What good is my helping you going to do for my goal of total abolition of animals' property status?" As I illuminated last time, that is a utilitarian regard for animals more than a truly <B>animal rights</B> respect for them. It also uses animals as a mere means to say, as he does, that animal welfare laws promote complacency among citizens. This claim clearly implies that keeping conditions legally cruel would <B>prevent</B> complacency. Such a contention constitutes treating animals as a mere means to the end of anti-complacency as well, not just as means to the end of abolishing speciesism as noted previously. Animal rights dignifies <B>all</B> individuals as much as possible, contrary to his indignant defence of indignity for the billions of satanically tormented animals. To understand Francionism is to see clearly what is wrong with it. To think it is "all right" is to fail to grasp either it or its implications. Fully to refute Francionist pro-cruelty - in effect - is to expose its hyperbolic hypocrisy. Francione has said his Abolitionist Approach website is the go-to place for information about his approach. Actually, my own site not only outlines a better abolitionist strategy, but shows how his relies on falsehoods, fallacies, and is morally destructive.
<P>Yet despite the fact that the incrementalists do not deal in violence, Francione goes on to compare people who just want anti-cruelty laws – and anti-speciesism and non-violence as much as possible - to Joseph Stalin and his waging of wars of imperial aggression. That is just an ugly smear on Francione’s part. But if he is saying that he is a pacifist like Gandhi, then I will indeed gladly part company with Francione once again. It did not negate violence as much as possible when American Quakers did not physically resist attacks by some natives who developed a hatred for so-called “white” people in vicious and genocidal wars over lands. (The aboriginals’ fury against so-termed “caucasian” people was at least understandable.) It would not have minimized - but rather <B>entrenched</B> - violence if the Nazis were not physically fought. Yet Gandhi explicitly demanded that the Nazis not be physically resisted in a famous letter to the Jewish philosopher, Martin Buber, written during the Second World War. Francione is a Jain, but a great many Jains agree, in principle, not only to forceful defence of the innocent, but also defensive wars. They – Jain householders and not monks that is - even enlist to fight in defensive wars as common practice. The Jains also use a variation of the “lesser of evils” argument. If people did <B>not</B> fight the Nazis, then Francione would not have the freedom to type away, trying desperately to protect animals from – yes – <B>anti-cruelty laws</B>.
<p><b>FURTHER READING ON ANIMAL RIGHTS INCREMENTALISM</B><br />
<p><i><b>A Selection of Related Articles</B></I><br />
<p>Sztybel, David. "Animal Rights Law: Fundamentalism versus Pragmatism". <cite>Journal for Critical Animal Studies</CITE> 5 (1) (2007): 1-37. <br />
<p ALIGN="RIGHT"><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.info/x-arlaw.pdf"><font COLOR = "FF3300" FACE="TIMES"><i>go there</I></FONT></A><br />
<br />
<p>Short version of "Animal Rights Law". <br />
<p ALIGN="RIGHT"><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.info/33.html"><font COLOR = "FF3300" FACE="TIMES"><i>go there</I></FONT></A><br />
<br />
<p>Sztybel, David. "Incrementalist Animal Law: Welcome to the Real World". <p ALIGN="RIGHT"><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.info/11.html"><font COLOR = "FF3300" FACE="TIMES"><i>go there</I></FONT></A><br />
<br />
<p>Sztybel, David. "Sztybelian Pragmatism versus Francionist Pseudo-Pragmatism". <br />
<p ALIGN="RIGHT"><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.info/34.html"><font COLOR = "FF3300" FACE="TIMES"><i>go there</I></FONT></A><br />
<p><i><b>A Selection of Related Blog Entries</B></I><br />
<p><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2012/08/anti-cruelty-laws-and-non-violent.html">Anti-Cruelty Laws and Non-Violent Approximation</A><br />
<p><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2012/10/use-not-treatment-franciones-cracked.html">Use Not Treatment: Francione’s Cracked Nutshell</A><br />
<p><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2012/10/francione-flees-debating-me-again-and_25.html">Francione Flees Debate with Me Again, Runs into the “Animal Jury”</A><br />
<p><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2012/10/the-false-dilemma-veganizing-versus.html">The False Dilemma: Veganizing versus Legalizing</A><br />
<p><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2008/06/veganism-as-moral-baseline-for-animal.html">Veganism as a Baseline for Animal Rights: Two Different Senses</A><br />
<p><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2011/12/franciones-three-feeble-critiques-of-my.html">Francione's Three Feeble Critiques of My Views</A><br />
<p><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2012/09/startling-decline-in-meat-consumption.html">Startling Decline in Meat Consumption Proves Francionists Are Wrong Once Again!</A><br />
<p><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2008/06/great-apes-activism-fending-off.html">The Greatness of the Great Ape Project under Attack!</A><br />
<p><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2010/01/francione-totally-misinterprets-singer.html">Francione Totally Misinterprets Singer</A><br />
<p><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2009/08/crisis-5a-taking-criticisms-of-ones-own.html">Francione's Animal Rights Theory</A><br />
<p><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2007/06/francione-on-unnecessary-suffering-not.html">Francione on Unnecessary Suffering</A><br />
<p><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2011/02/my-appearance-on-ar-zone.html">My Appearance on AR Zone</A><br />
<p><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2011/12/d-day-for-francionists.html">D-Day for Francionists</A><br />
<p><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2012/02/franciones-incoherent-understanding-of.html">Sztybel versus Francione on Animals' Property Status</A><br />
<p><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2008/01/red-carpet.html">The Red Carpet</A><br />
<p><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2008/06/playing-into-hands-of-animal-exploiters.html">Playing into the Hands of Animal Exploiters</A><br />
<p><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2012/10/the-abolitionist-approach-es.html">The Abolitionist ApproachES</A><br />
<p><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2008/07/franciones-mighty-boomerang.html">Francione's Mighty Boomerang</A><br />
<br />
<br />
<p><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.info">Dr. David Sztybel Home Page</A>
David Sztybel, Ph.D.http://www.blogger.com/profile/01791831843665208484noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8230355680661017989.post-16516955802457194522012-10-03T16:48:00.003-07:002013-01-25T09:34:24.220-08:00A False Dilemma: Veganizing vs. Legalizing<P>In his latest <A HREF="http://www.abolitionistapproach.com/our-choice/">blog entry</A> of October 3, 2012, Francione rehearses another old argument that <B>might</B> seem philosophically compelling – if you don’t think about it, especially from an individual rights perspective. He suggests we can either spend time legislating or engage in vegan education. He does not hesitate to repeat falsehoods that aiming for legislation results in insignificant changes (even though Sweden completely disproves that among other examples); will be phased out anyway (unlike Sweden’s 24 years plus); will not be enforced (even though that is just what Swedes do). See my last blog entry for more details. Now I wonder: what do <B>you</B> make of someone who knowingly repeats proven falsehoods over and over again? What do you make of a side in a debate that feels obliged to lean on falsehood as a best friend? I responded in my last blog entry to his false claims that such laws do nothing to change thinking about animals in an animal rights way. Kinder culture is more receptive to animal rights, and he misrepresents myself and my comrades as if we don’t promote animal rights at every opportunity. He says we will ask people to support industry but that’s another falsehood: we promote veganism. I dealt with the complacency objection last blog entry and Francione appears inept because he will not answer my arguments that are <B>way</B> advanced over his repetitive, throw-away remarks about “complacency”.
<P>Now a <B>false dilemma</B> occurs when some slick arguer says that you have to choose one thing or the other but not both, when in fact both may be not only possible, but also desirable. You end up destructively pitting one thing versus the other rather than considering the strength of both together. People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) models how you can promote veganism (millions of times more effectively than the Francionists, who spend most of their time mercilessly <B>attacking</B> other vegans) <B>and</B> legislative activity at the same time.
<P>Let me utterly refute, philosophically, this endlessly repeated argument of the Francionists. We need to repeat the rebuttals just as frequently until these dangerous dogmas are driven into the ground. It is not only <B>possible</B> to choose both, but <B>obligatory</B> from an animal <B>rights</B> perspective, as opposed to an animal <B>utilitarian</B> perspective. Francione, on the surface, rejects utilitarianism. But he makes a number of moves that are far more in accord with utilitarianism than individual rights.
<P>For a bit of philosophical background here, individual rights as an ethic attends to each individual animal as being infinitely valuable, or at least we cannot place a limit on it. The dignity of <B>everyone</B> must be attended to as much as possible, no matter what. No matter if it is time-consuming. No matter if it takes precious resources. No matter if it costs money. That’s what rights are and what they do in the lives of those who are totally committed to them. The utilitarian philosophy, by contrast, promotes “the greatest good for the greatest number”. It is content with promoting a “great good” for <B>many</B> animals, even if not all are benefitted, but perhaps only the majority. An example is the common thinking with medical vivisection: animals are harmed in experiments, but this is supposedly “outweighed” by the allegedly greater harm prevented through treatments and cures that will result. By contrast, an individual rights perspective says that each and every animal has a right to non-violence, and therefore is immune to medical vivisection. They are not “outweighed”. Nothing is more weighty than the collectivity of <B>all</B> rights holders.
<P>In the past I have introduced the principle of non-violent approximation. Whenever we <B>can</B> realize animals’ rights to non-violence, we <B>should</B> - simply. But when we <B>cannot</B> protect animals against violence, we need to look at all the animals involved and try to choose the lesser violence for each and every animal involved. Because they <B>all</B> have a right to non-violence. Because <B>each and every one</B> of the animals have a dignity. We only do not help some of the animals if there is no other option, as in the burning building scenario in which you can only save one animal, but not both, say. The animal rights movement, though, is in no such situation. We can work to help all animals as true animal rights supporters strive to do as much as possible.
<P>Francione is quite right to say that approximating animal rights is not animal rights - simply - as he in effect did in his feeble <A HREF="http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2011/12/franciones-three-feeble-critiques-of-my.html">critique</A> of my views. As I pointed out, though, his was a straw man argument, or critiquing an argument that I never made. I can add that non-violent approximation is not non-violence - simply. It is merely approximating non-violence to the highest degree, which is the usual with legal rights. As I show <A HREF="http://davidsztybel.info/11.html">elsewhere</A>, the history of legal rights in the U.S. shows nothing but approximations of rights, incrementally. Nobody has full rights over there, even though it is still a rights approach, approaching rights themselves only gradually, through often painful evolution. Tom Regan introduced the notion of proto-rights. These are not full rights, but are parts of rights. (That said, Regan is an anti-incrementalist like Francione, but his concept may still be pressed into the service of animal rights law incrementalism.) But if animals are stuck in violent conditions, it is still a matter of rights - of non-violence - that they be dignified with as much non-violent protection as possible. It is their right. It still <B>pursues</B> non-violence to try to reach that state of affairs as much as possible. That is no "weak" analysis of proto-rights, because it advocates the <B>strongest possible</B> realization of the right to non-violence. No, non-violent approximation is <B>not</B> the same as non-violence - simply - but we certainly need the former when we cannot obtain the latter.
<P>Now let me tell you what a <B>utilitarian</B> approach to campaign strategy would be like. It would not be committed to helping each and every animal from the clutches of violators as much as possible. It would feel free only to help <B>some</B> animals while abandoning others. A classic example are utilitarians who say that we should <B>only</B> help animals in agriculture, because 95% of animals who die at human hands are murdered for food. PETA, by contrast, takes a <B>rights</B> approach in this respect by affirming, in effect: “We leave <B>no</B> animal behind.” This is in contrast to the Francionists, who take on the trust of rights for animals, but then treacherously <B>betray</B> that trust. PETA not only educates about a vegan diet, but also focuses on animals in laboratories, on the traplines, in the woods that hunters invade, at the pathetic zoos, aquaria, and circuses, and so on. This problem we are discussing is as invalid a false dilemma as a parent being told only to care for <B>one</B> child of two, and then the person who obediently goes along with this suggestion starts asking which child is easiest to look after in terms of time, resources, and money, and so on. It becomes a perverse sort of competition. The animal neglect in this case is tellingly analogous.
<P>Francione can <B>call</B> himself an animal rights supporter. But this false dilemma is inconsistent with rights philosophy. His “abolitionist approach” (in contrast to ones such as mine) has rightly been called the “abandonitionist approach” by some witty person whose name I cannot recall. It is a fact that <B>whatever</B> success we have with vegan campaigning, it cannot reach the animals still stuck in “agriculture” (read: murder for flesh-foods). As I pointed out last blog entry of mine, they are the ones vegan campaigning fails to reach. If they have rights, <B>they</B> need help too, to have violence towards them minimized as much as possible. PETA does this. Francione does not. “Animal rights” is not just a phrase. It is a <B>philosophy</B>. Francionists can use the words as much as they like, but they cannot make their strategy consistent with rights ethics because as I have clearly indicated it is <B>contrary</B> to genuine rights thinking. Unless they want to go way out onto the branch of the claim that rights advocates do not affirm the dignity of everyone. The branch will break and they will fall.
<P>They also exercise utilitarian thinking in a related vein (as I have commented on elsewhere) because they hold out for rights for animals in the future, and are prepared to ignore the rights of animals today. In fact, they dismiss contemporary and nearer-future animals’ rights by saying, “What good is my helping you going to do for realizing the long-term goal of abolition?” (That should be the abolition of speciesism, instead he misguidedly and confusedly spins rhetoric about the abolition of “property status”. ) In other words, animals today are regarded as a “mere means” to the goal of abolition. Their instrumental value for the long-term goal of abolition alone is considered, and they suffer violence as part of this exploitation. They evidently don’t matter enough - to the Francionists - to merit such protection as we can muster <B>now</B>. No. As if the fact that we cannot award them full rights means it is not worth our trouble to help them. In fact, these animals under Holocaustian conditions more desperately need <B>some</B> relief more than practically <B>anybody</B>. That said, we should still avoid utilitarian thinking and try to dignify <B>everybody</B>.
<P>This question of veganizing versus legalizing is treated as a purely empirical question. We supposedly need to determine which path is better in terms of resources. That is, <B>if</B> we cooperate with the false dilemma. Now leaving animals unaided legislatively is an evil. And Gandhi urged what he termed "noncooperation with evil". (Notice I am calling certain practices an evil, and not saying the Francionists are evil.) Abandonitionists do not mean to be violent - but they are. Being violent means doing actions or omissions to act that directly or indirectly lead to the violation of sentient beings. These empirical factors are virtually irrelevant if we are <B>not</B> driven (with our own consent, mind you) to such thinking.
<P>It's like a young student being told he can only use one of two pencils resorting to measuring them by placing them side-by-side, when really, he could use one or the other without feeling compelled to indulge in such foolishness. In rhetorical terms this is called being "railroaded". In real terms, we can metaphorically compare insistent advocacy of leaving animals in Holocaustian conditions of factory farming to the death camp railway of Fortress Europe under the Third Reich. The metaphor works because we have extreme violence in both cases. What is usually missed in answering the Francionists' tired argument here is that the problem is <B>not</B> fundamentally empirical. It is <B>philosophical</B>. I don't see anyone much looking to the ethical - or perhaps <B>un</B>ethical - assumptions at work here. Let alone do they enunciate the critique that is needed from a genuine rights perspective. Yet they need to. Most every time. This false dilemma is an influential line of unreasoning, and so its confutation needs to get out there. Do help to get it out there, please.
<P>There should be no doubts about supporting animal rights for the animal rights movement. We should not slide into a form of utilitarian thinking that corrupts not only our ideals, but neglects the very real animals who are the ones who <B>matter</B> in the end. But not to the Francionists. Not all the animals at any rate. Otherwise, you see, they would treat the animals languishing under factory farming <B>as if</B> they matter. Which they don’t on the Francionist worldview, for all that their <B>actions</B> - theoretical and practical - demonstrate. Abandonitionists even go so far as dismissing nonhuman animal suffering as “insignificant”, as I documented from Francione’s blog in my last blog entry.
<P>True, he says it is reformism that is insignificant, but again, he has been proven wrong. Francionists ignore what we can do, like the Swedes. It is not just welfarism that is deemed insufficiently significant. Remember, Francione says abolishing measures of factory farming is "insignificant" anyway. But we know hot-iron branding without anesthetics - to take just one of dozens of examples - is highly significant to nonhumans if like torture to humans is significant. So Francione dismissing <B>relief</B> of such torture as "insignificant" implies that torture to animals is not "significant", which in effect treats animals as if they matter not. As I say, each animal is of infinite value. The false dilemma posed here by Francione is also <B>false to animal rights</B>, whereas I have clearly demonstrated that my own approach is true to the spirit - anyway - of such rights. Let nobody tell us that animal rights is about <B>neglecting</B> billions of animals suffering under avoidably bad laws, rather than attending to their needs as universally as possible. Animal rightists, <B>support animal rights</B>. Period.
<p><b>FURTHER READING ON ANIMAL RIGHTS INCREMENTALISM</B><br />
<p><i><b>A Selection of Related Articles</B></I><br />
<p>Sztybel, David. "Animal Rights Law: Fundamentalism versus Pragmatism". <cite>Journal for Critical Animal Studies</CITE> 5 (1) (2007): 1-37. <br />
<p ALIGN="RIGHT"><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.info/x-arlaw.pdf"><font COLOR = "FF3300" FACE="TIMES"><i>go there</I></FONT></A><br />
<br />
<p>Short version of "Animal Rights Law". <br />
<p ALIGN="RIGHT"><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.info/33.html"><font COLOR = "FF3300" FACE="TIMES"><i>go there</I></FONT></A><br />
<br />
<p>Sztybel, David. "Incrementalist Animal Law: Welcome to the Real World". <p ALIGN="RIGHT"><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.info/11.html"><font COLOR = "FF3300" FACE="TIMES"><i>go there</I></FONT></A><br />
<br />
<p>Sztybel, David. "Sztybelian Pragmatism versus Francionist Pseudo-Pragmatism". <br />
<p ALIGN="RIGHT"><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.info/34.html"><font COLOR = "FF3300" FACE="TIMES"><i>go there</I></FONT></A><br />
<p><i><b>A Selection of Related Blog Entries</B></I><br />
<p><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2012/08/anti-cruelty-laws-and-non-violent.html">Anti-Cruelty Laws and Non-Violent Approximation</A><br />
<p><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2012/10/use-not-treatment-franciones-cracked.html">Use Not Treatment: Francione’s Cracked Nutshell</A><br />
<p><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2012/10/francione-flees-debating-me-again-and_25.html">Francione Flees Debate with Me Again, Runs into the “Animal Jury”</A><br />
<p><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2012/10/the-false-dilemma-veganizing-versus.html">The False Dilemma: Veganizing versus Legalizing</A><br />
<p><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2008/06/veganism-as-moral-baseline-for-animal.html">Veganism as a Baseline for Animal Rights: Two Different Senses</A><br />
<p><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2011/12/franciones-three-feeble-critiques-of-my.html">Francione's Three Feeble Critiques of My Views</A><br />
<p><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2012/09/startling-decline-in-meat-consumption.html">Startling Decline in Meat Consumption Proves Francionists Are Wrong Once Again!</A><br />
<p><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2008/06/great-apes-activism-fending-off.html">The Greatness of the Great Ape Project under Attack!</A><br />
<p><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2010/01/francione-totally-misinterprets-singer.html">Francione Totally Misinterprets Singer</A><br />
<p><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2009/08/crisis-5a-taking-criticisms-of-ones-own.html">Francione's Animal Rights Theory</A><br />
<p><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2007/06/francione-on-unnecessary-suffering-not.html">Francione on Unnecessary Suffering</A><br />
<p><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2011/02/my-appearance-on-ar-zone.html">My Appearance on AR Zone</A><br />
<p><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2011/12/d-day-for-francionists.html">D-Day for Francionists</A><br />
<p><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2012/02/franciones-incoherent-understanding-of.html">Sztybel versus Francione on Animals' Property Status</A><br />
<p><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2008/01/red-carpet.html">The Red Carpet</A><br />
<p><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2008/06/playing-into-hands-of-animal-exploiters.html">Playing into the Hands of Animal Exploiters</A><br />
<p><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2012/10/the-abolitionist-approach-es.html">The Abolitionist ApproachES</A><br />
<p><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2008/07/franciones-mighty-boomerang.html">Francione's Mighty Boomerang</A><br />
<br />
<br />
<p><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.info">Dr. David Sztybel Home Page</A>
David Sztybel, Ph.D.http://www.blogger.com/profile/01791831843665208484noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8230355680661017989.post-41367756619705777592012-10-01T10:54:00.001-07:002013-01-25T09:35:18.161-08:00Use Not Treatment: Francione's Cracked NutshellOn April 21, 2011, Gary Francione wrote a <A HREF ="http://www.abolitionistapproach.com/the-abolitionist-approach-in-a-nutshell/">blog entry</A> entitled, "The Abolitionist Approach in a Nutshell." A nutshell statement for a position that is right you would expect to be rock-solid or impregnable. This is what he wrote:
<BLOCKQUOTE>As long as we think the issue is the treatment of animals, we will seek to make that treatment more “humane.” But because animals are property, that goal is unreachable as a practical matter. The treatment of animals will always constitute torture under the most “humane” circumstances. And the “treatment” (or welfarist) approach ignores that it is morally wrong to kill animals even if we treat them “humanely,” which we cannot do anyway. Welfare “reforms” not only fail to provide any significant protection for animals; such reforms actually make matters worse because they encourage the public to feel more comfortable about animal exploitation and to continue to consume animals and animal products. The problem is use, not treatment. The goal is to abolish animal use, not to regulate treatment. The means to the goal? Go vegan and educate others about veganism.</BLOCKQUOTE>
It is possible to disprove every single statement here:
<OL>
<LI><I>Since animals are property, we can never make the treatment of animals "more humane".</I> In Sweden, where they have abolished factory farming - although animals absolutely remain property there - the treatment there is <b>much</b> more humane by any sane standard. Perhaps Francione wants us to accept "the Swede Principle". That is, if the Swedes pull it off, we can't in other Western nations. The nutshell has a line on it. Is it a crack?
<LI><I>Animals will always be tortured "under the most 'humane' circumstances".</I> The Swedish animals are <B>not</B> tortured most of their lives, or if they are it is illegal. I am against killing the animals too so that point cannot be used against my sort of "abolitionist approach". Wait - that hairline is a <b>crack</b>.
<LI><I>The welfarist - that is to say anti-cruelty-law - approach "ignores that it is morally wrong to kill animals even if we treat them 'humanely'..."</I> This is a straw man argument, addressed to non-existent arguers. Only <b>traditionalist</b> welfarists ignore that it is wrong to kill animals. My silent majority fellow supporters of anti-cruelty laws campaign against killing animals individually and as a society, and are eager to adopt laws against the murder of animals a.s.a.p. How is such a well-developed position against killing "ignoring" the issue of killing? There's <b>more than one</b> definite crack in the nutshell.
<LI><I>Anti-cruelty laws do not provide "any significant protection for animals".</I> So Francione would consider it "insignificant" if he were forced to eat cancerous carcasses, cement dust, shit, and other things instead of his usual good food? He would say "it does not matter" if he were confined in a tiny space for the rest of his life? If he were never again allowed outdoors? Or he would say it is a matter of no weight if he is required to shit and piss where he lives, without so much as straw? Or if he were denied any medical treatment? What's that, Gary, I can't hear you? Oh, you're saying these things matter to you after all and you don't want anyone to mess with you in these respects? These are all examples of treatments provided to Swedish pigs, unlike American pigs. If you can't say it's true for humans, you often can't say it is right for nonhumans. It would be downright speciesist to count the same considerations as <B>highly significant</B> for a human but as what he terms <B>"insignificant"</B> for a nonhuman sentient being. These fissures in the nutshell are slowly widening.
<LI><I>Complacency means more animal consumption.</I> The complacency argument is treated at length in my <A HREF="http://davidsztybel.info/x-arlaw.pdf">article</A>, "Animal Rights Law", pp. 19-21. I show that kinder culture as in Sweden is more conducive to taking animal rights seriously than crueler culture as in the States. But apart from his failure to show how anti-cruelty-laws would retard animal rights laws in the future, I have shown that even if there is a temporary spike in animal consumption once animals are treated less cruelly, animals would still be subject to less suffering and death in the big scheme of things. See my carefully articulated and defended <A HREF="http://davidsztybel.info/34.html">model</A> that shows Francione is wrong yet again. Indeed, given the pervasive dominance of the incrementalist approach to animal law, it has been conclusively been <A HREF="http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2012/09/startling-decline-in-meat-consumption.html">shown</A> that this very approach is saving hundreds - over many years <b>thousands</B> - of millions of nonhuman animal lives which the anti-incrementalist approach, universalized, would have meant <B>killing</B> by failing to save. The nutshell is starting to fall apart.
<LI>Then Francione tells us the nutshell of his nutshell: <I>"The problem is use, not treatment."</I> The largest animal rights group in the world is called People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA). If Francione had his way, I suppose they would have to be renamed as "People for the Ethical Non-Use of Animals". (As if that is going to happen.) But animals are being used even now as part of discourse. Not just concepts of animals, which would have no point if they did not refer to real beings. Animals are used as subjects of photographs, a wonderful alternative to hunting and confining them. Francione himself implicitly uses many animals as photo-subjects on his website that supposedly advocates the abolition of animal-use. Animals are used to study how amazing their abilities are in non-invasive wilderness studies. They are used by ecosystems to help promote natural vitality. They are used at the post office, where the nice human animals will try to help you out if you can pay for it. To say the issue is "use" is <B>silly</B>. It gets away from the more fundamental Kantian notion that we should not treat rights-holders as "mere means", and postal workers if they are respected are not mere means.
<P>The issue is <b>violent use</b>, not use per se. <B>Violent usage</B> is in fact an excellent definition of <B>exploitation</B>. It is wonderful when we can be non-violently useful. <B>The question is not use but abuse.</B> If animal use <B>is</B> one day finally abolished - at least for some legal realm - but we do not feel the need, on account of Francionist urgings, to legislate that remaining animals be <B>treated</B> well on sanctuaries...we could have Holocaustian treatment of these sensitive beings instead. Experience shows that harsh treatment tends to result - at least in many cases - when such practices are not legislatively and explicitly ruled out.
Additionally: <B>use is not separable from treatment</B>. Little is the glimmering within him that use is indeed an ASPECT of treatment. Use = instrumental treatment. Indeed, Francione himself, in <CITE>Rain without Thunder</CITE> (1996) wrote on p. 194 that animals have a "claim against <B>instrumental treatment</B>." (my emphasis) But that would be "treatment", would it not? Someone can be treated as a means - or not. Rather than his slogan, "use <B>not</B> treatment", this would be a case of "use <B>and</B> treatment." So would eventual laws not only abolishing use but ensuring good treatment. Utter incoherence, I tell you.
<P>Not only is use not something we should "abolish" if we are sane, but to say "treatment" does not matter is speciesist. Even when humans used as slaves is no longer an issue, we still say their treatment matters when we legislate:
<UL>
<LI>unemployment insurance
<LI>the minimum wage
<LI>welfare assistance
<LI>disability pensions
<LI>retirement pensions
<LI>labour laws for conditions of work
<LI>job security
<LI>state-sponsored medical care
</UL>
<P>None of these programs is about protecting humans from being "used". Even the minimum wage and labour laws only are meant to eliminate <B>exploitation</B>, but not the usefulness of labour.
<P>So "use not treatment" is both incoherent and speciesist. The nut itself is shrivelled and inedible. Hmmm. It even <B>stinks</B> a little bit.
<LI><I>The means to abolishing the <b>enslavement</b> - let us say instead of use - of animals is going vegan and persuading others to do the same.</I> This is <B>part</B> of our means. But abolishing speciesism means abolishing speciesist cruelty whenver possible too, and vegan education cannot address that at all the way the Swedes have, since the vegan population for a long time to come will leave animals in agriculture still as a matter of fact. Anyone who argues we should not address speciesist cruelty when we can do so might as well say someone should be allowed - legally - to beat a dog since interfering with that would not abolish the "use" of animals. "Use not treatment", so might argue a lawyer for the animal abuser? The issue is <B>not</B> just abolishing use as Francione proclaims. And again, not just straight vegan education, but also much more highly publicized anti-cruelty laws and campaigns are helping people to take animals more seriously. And many individuals are going vegan as a direct or indirect result of such campaigns. This is easy enough to explain. Once you crack the shell of speciesism, thorough <B>anti-speciesism</B> can result in many people's minds. Francione's "nut" - the core of his view - is cracked too. Vegan education as a panacea is part of the essence of his simplistic approach.
</OL>
<P>He now indicates that his fundamental approach is non-violence. But look at his "theory" of non-violence in action! We are asked to conclude with him that how you <B>treat</B> someone has nothing to do with a non-violence approach. That is one of the most ludicrous things you will ever read. It would be hard even to make up a more wildly deficient non-violence theory. If I wrote in a fictional story that someone embraced and promoted a non-violence theory according to which treatment does not matter, I would be accused of violating my artistic license, because the suspension of disbelief would have been destroyed. But with respect to Francione: <B>believe</B> it, folks! Imagine a "non-violence" specialist going around to schools and telling students it does not matter how they treat each other, but only whether they use each other - such as for <I>learning</I>! Yet he says his approach is based in non-violence, and is entitled to ignore treatment, instead looking to use. So this must be his view by force of logic, or <B>illogic</B> in his case. His only other option is to say that non-violence <B>does</B> include treatment, but that his approach to animal law is not <B>thoroughly</B> based in non-violence for some mysterious reason. Every insult of factory farming is a separate piece of violence working together in infernal concert. His "new" theory of non-violence seems to be that merely "using" someone is violence - or the only "significant" form of violence - and that is not only nonsense, but <B>dangerous</B> nonsense. Its adoption will and does result in countless multitudes of animals failing to be meaningfully protected from the violence of <B>ill-treatment</B>.
<P>Francione says he is Jain, but I think no Jain could agree that how you treat someone is irrelevant to non-violence. Countless examples - such as using civil speech - are given about the non-violent treatment of others. Also, they absolutely revere the use-value of persons. There is a distinction, in Jainism, between the monks and the "householders" as they are termed. The monks live supported by the laity, and this using of the rest of the community is considered extremely honorable on both sides. Jains would <B>wonder</B> about any person asserting the contrary about treatment being irrelevant and use of persons unacceptable. I say nothing in particular about any individuals, but I am prepared to make the generalization that anyone for whom how animals are treated is not an issue is offering a study in cruelty. It is hard for me to imagine anyone discounting "treatment" with a straight face. And yet, if someone does so, I can only evision it as being a very <B>cold</B> face.
<P>Perhaps he thinks the only way to end cruelty is to end use, but such a view is scarcely tenable. The Swedes made <B>huge</B> inroads against cruelty for over twenty-four years in an arena veganism never touched: their ban of factory farming in 1988. Whatever animals remain in agriculture are literally the animals that the vegans could not save. Now if a Francione-type had defeated their anti-cruelty campaign, billions of animals would have lived hellish - Holocaustian - rather than more bucolic lives.
<P>It can conclusively be proven that the new, self-so-called "nutshell" for <B>Francione's</B> abolitionist approach is seriously and fundamentally <B>cracked</B>. We will not indicate that it is "nuts", let us say - it is not <b>insane</b> people necessarily who adhere to this doctrine. Nevertheless the "nutshell" is just as intellectually and morally untenable as the more elaborated version.
<P>Francione has the unenviable trait of being on the wrong side of the debate. In such a case, arguments on the wrong side can usually be refuted in clear enough terms to be embarrassing for normal people. And even to cause them to switch sides. But some people prefer to shield themselves with a cracked nutshell from facts, logic, and compassion. It is <B>not</B> a strategy that is destined to survive in the evolution of ideas. Ignoring disproving facts and arguments is already a dead-end in ideological discourse - because that will <B>always</B> be the case. The most <B>useful treatment</B> for Francionist, indirectly violent dogmas is to discard them. Sometimes a nutshell just needs a good nutcracker.
<p><b>FURTHER READING ON ANIMAL RIGHTS INCREMENTALISM</B><br />
<p><i><b>A Selection of Related Articles</B></I><br />
<p>Sztybel, David. "Animal Rights Law: Fundamentalism versus Pragmatism". <cite>Journal for Critical Animal Studies</CITE> 5 (1) (2007): 1-37. <br />
<p ALIGN="RIGHT"><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.info/x-arlaw.pdf"><font COLOR = "FF3300" FACE="TIMES"><i>go there</I></FONT></A><br />
<br />
<p>Short version of "Animal Rights Law". <br />
<p ALIGN="RIGHT"><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.info/33.html"><font COLOR = "FF3300" FACE="TIMES"><i>go there</I></FONT></A><br />
<br />
<p>Sztybel, David. "Incrementalist Animal Law: Welcome to the Real World". <p ALIGN="RIGHT"><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.info/11.html"><font COLOR = "FF3300" FACE="TIMES"><i>go there</I></FONT></A><br />
<br />
<p>Sztybel, David. "Sztybelian Pragmatism versus Francionist Pseudo-Pragmatism". <br />
<p ALIGN="RIGHT"><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.info/34.html"><font COLOR = "FF3300" FACE="TIMES"><i>go there</I></FONT></A><br />
<p><i><b>A Selection of Related Blog Entries</B></I><br />
<p><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2012/08/anti-cruelty-laws-and-non-violent.html">Anti-Cruelty Laws and Non-Violent Approximation</A><br />
<p><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2012/10/use-not-treatment-franciones-cracked.html">Use Not Treatment: Francione’s Cracked Nutshell</A><br />
<p><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2012/10/francione-flees-debating-me-again-and_25.html">Francione Flees Debate with Me Again, Runs into the “Animal Jury”</A><br />
<p><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2012/10/the-false-dilemma-veganizing-versus.html">The False Dilemma: Veganizing versus Legalizing</A><br />
<p><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2008/06/veganism-as-moral-baseline-for-animal.html">Veganism as a Baseline for Animal Rights: Two Different Senses</A><br />
<p><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2011/12/franciones-three-feeble-critiques-of-my.html">Francione's Three Feeble Critiques of My Views</A><br />
<p><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2012/09/startling-decline-in-meat-consumption.html">Startling Decline in Meat Consumption Proves Francionists Are Wrong Once Again!</A><br />
<p><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2008/06/great-apes-activism-fending-off.html">The Greatness of the Great Ape Project under Attack!</A><br />
<p><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2010/01/francione-totally-misinterprets-singer.html">Francione Totally Misinterprets Singer</A><br />
<p><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2009/08/crisis-5a-taking-criticisms-of-ones-own.html">Francione's Animal Rights Theory</A><br />
<p><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2007/06/francione-on-unnecessary-suffering-not.html">Francione on Unnecessary Suffering</A><br />
<p><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2011/02/my-appearance-on-ar-zone.html">My Appearance on AR Zone</A><br />
<p><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2011/12/d-day-for-francionists.html">D-Day for Francionists</A><br />
<p><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2012/02/franciones-incoherent-understanding-of.html">Sztybel versus Francione on Animals' Property Status</A><br />
<p><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2008/01/red-carpet.html">The Red Carpet</A><br />
<p><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2008/06/playing-into-hands-of-animal-exploiters.html">Playing into the Hands of Animal Exploiters</A><br />
<p><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2012/10/the-abolitionist-approach-es.html">The Abolitionist ApproachES</A><br />
<p><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2008/07/franciones-mighty-boomerang.html">Francione's Mighty Boomerang</A><br />
<br />
<br />
<p><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.info">Dr. David Sztybel Home Page</A>
David Sztybel, Ph.D.http://www.blogger.com/profile/01791831843665208484noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8230355680661017989.post-47391715057337886812012-09-15T04:18:00.001-07:002013-01-25T09:38:20.766-08:00My Personal Influences towards Non-ViolenceI have commented a little on this question on AR Zone. Here we have something a good bit more thorough:
<OL>
<LI>I had known about Jainism - an ancient religion that essentially <B>originated</B> the non-violence principle - since the 1980s. I knew a number of Jains back then, in my hometown of Toronto, Canada, including an aspiring monk, a so-called "white guy" named Bruce Costain, who was also writing a doctoral thesis on non-violence ethics. As well, I knew his mentor: Irena Upenieks. Another "white" person as that odd and unscientific term is used. Irena was also <B>the</B> biggest early influence on Gary Francione towards Jainism I was told by Irena herself, who had gone to a conference Gary attended. I was not there myself. I was also friends with another disciple of Irena's who was Jain, another so-termed "white" guy named Michael Proudfoot, who was not a scholar but just very nice and lucidly intelligent. You could just see the insightfulness sparkling from his eyes with that guy. I additionally, through these people, met other more traditionally ethnic Jain adults and youth. I hung out with the Jain Youth Group that existed at the time. This familiarity with Jainism gave me the basic principle of non-violence as a structure, although the Jains never convinced me to emphasize non-violence as <B>the</B> central principle.
<LI>I had researched Jainism, including writing the article on that religion for the <CITE>Encyclopedia of Animal Rights and Animal Welfare</CITE> (1998), and so I have elaborated my knowledge of Jainism and non-violence over the years.
<LI>Tom Regan's <CITE>The Case for Animal Rights</CITE> was highly influential on me, and he posited <B>the harm principle</B>, which of course is stringent about avoiding harm. (Never liked the name for that idea though: nonharming or something of that nature - indeed non-violence - would have been better.) Regan confessed in certain writings such as his autobiography in <CITE>The Struggle for Animal Rights</CITE> that he was heavily influenced by one of the #1 writers and proponents concerning non-violence, namely Mohandas Gandhi.
<LI>I wrote about non-violence (using that term explicitly), such as in the flyer I composed for the University of Toronto Students for the Ethical Treatment of Animals group I was active with starting from the late 80s, and led for a time. My own ethical theory of best caring has long had a right to non-violence (in those words) too. Anyway, the most key practical principle of my theory was non-harming, or minimizing harm in dilemmas, so the theory was very key to my thinking, though it still was not <B>the</B> central ethical principle at the same time. The best caring principle was. And I did not always use the label, "non-violence".
<LI>I was generally convinced by arguments that I myself came up with to make non-violence overarching, but there was a personal experience pertaining to an animal rights activist that I did find influential. I listened to Gary Yourofsky's much-touted <A HREF="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=es6U00LMmC4">"Best Speech Ever"</A>, on January 7, 2011, as my personal diary records. It was indeed very powerful and really highlighted to me the <B>violence</B> to which animals are routinely subjected. It got me all freshly fired up, beyond my usual strong motivation for animal rights and so on. However, I also noted a <A HREF="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jUjYMfaH8Gs">video</A> in which he said he agreed with killing "the direct abusers of animals". Sounds a lot like murdering vivisectors, doesn't it? A type of tactic I find disturbing, repellent and wrong, although the publicizing of my case for this conclusion will have to wait. I respect that this other Gary wishes to defend the innocent and I agree with him that violence such as self-defence is sometimes justified, but I believe he goes too far and that this sort of thing is highly detrimental to the animal rights cause.
<LI>Given fresh activation somehow by GY's first talk mentioned, I started seeing how nonharming could account for more than I previously thought. Then a good friend of mine, Michael Schwab - over dinner at his apartment with his wife, JoAnne - told me I should use the term "non-violence" . I resisted with many objections and counter-arguments. I thought minimizing harm was better. I thought about it deeply and extensively and then got back to him and agreed he was right in the end, for reasons I cannot go into here. Michael was also, obviously, a key influence here. The Schwabs first inducted me into animal rights activism with their group, Canadian Vegans for Animal Rights (C-VAR). Bruce Costain, the Jain (gee, I never noticed that rhymes perfectly before!), was a founding member along with the Schwabs and some others. They organized protests around the city; attracted a lot of print, TV, and radio media, including appearances on various talk shows; ran a radio show on University of Toronto radio called "The Extended Circle" (after Albert Schweitzer's saying about humans expanding the circle of their compassion); led campus activism; did a lot of talks such as at universities and elsewhere; brought a ton of speakers up here, including Tom Regan; prepared a very detailed and interesting newsletter called <CITE>Conscience</CITE>; ran ad campaigns; pushed for legislation such as banning the veal crate in Ontario; and <B>so</B> on. <B>Wow</B>, right? I am honoured and privileged to have been influenced by Michael Schwab again in this recent case. I recall how, way back in the 1980s, I began with reservations about so-called "medical" vivisection, one of Michael's keen specialties besides factory farming. I first became an <B>anti</B>-vivisectionist right in their presence, as it suddenly dawned on me at one of the social gatherings they had organized. This is parallel to Regan, who defended some medical vivisection in a published paper that later became completely overridden by <CITE>The Case</CITE>.
</OL>
<P>Those I suppose were my big influences, besides more amorphous ones such as my parents and teachers.
<P>"Kaufman", whoever that is, wondered in a comment on my blog entry for September 10, 2012, if I "leaned on" Francione as an inspiration for non-violence. I don't believe so, and I can clearly explain how and why. As I noted earlier, I was not as conversant with Francione on non-violence as was "Kaufman", but that is not really the point here. I knew when I made the principle my central emphasis in 2011 that Gary was a Jain and that he, as any Jain must, considers the non-violence principle to be central to his thinking, as I have said all along, although I continue to wonder where it is in his technical writing.
<P>There are only two ways Francione could have been an influence on me towards non-violence:
<OL>
<LI>A <B>personal influence</B>, such as Tom Regan and, somewhat indirectly, Gary Yourofsky were on me
<LI>An <B>intellectual influence</B>, such as again Regan provided with <CITE>The Case for Animal Rights</CITE>
</OL>
<P>In order: I used to look up to Gary Francione and admire him a great deal before he <A HREF="http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/search?q=debate">fled</A> that debate with me rather than clarify his stance in relation to my essay, "Animal Rights Law". Thus he failed to provide me with the academic assistance he said he would in that on-line debate - which involved that essay in draft. And he went from being extremely positive about my academic work - and I mean "first-rate" positive quite literally - to being so negative that he describes me as "committing literally insane acts", "incoherent", completely out of touch with reality, dishonest, and so on. From these descriptions by Gary, you would think that I am a morally decrepit, mentally disabled person who cannot even string together coherent speech. That is highly insulting, unobjective, and completely different from the appraisals of other leading scholars in this movement - including Gary himself in the early years when he read a book draft of mine plus my doctoral thesis. I utterly document all of the abuses mentioned in my <A HREF="http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2011/12/d-day-for-francionists.html">blog entry</A> that secretly peeked into his private Abolitionist Approach Forum. There, both myself and my work were extensively abused by himself and his cronies. That blog entry links to the telling proof of a transcript, complete with participant photos and so forth, leaked by a friend. As I've mentioned before, too, Francionism became less appealing to me when a very prominent Francionist wrote to various officials at Brock University in an unsuccessful bid to block my being rehired - I blocked that move myself when I caught wind of it, including with the support of some very powerful allies in the animal rights scholarly movement. There was a lot more garbage, frankly, that I will not enter into here.
<P>So no, just because Gary embraces a view, I have <B>zero</B> inclination to agree with him, since I do not trust his judgment and have posted ever so many critiques where I try to show how his critical thinking goes astray. What about what he gets <B>right</B>, such as respect for sentient beings, animal rights, anti-speciesism, and so forth? Fine and well, but I had all of these assets quite independently of Francione. Regan influenced me in all of these respects except for the matter of sentient beings, which other people emphasized such as Peter Singer and others. Come to think of it, Singer first got me going as an anti-speciesist too, and credit must go where it is due.
<P>What about subconscious influences? Well, how can anyone know about their subconscious without the subconscious bit disappearing and being replaced with consciousness? Suffice it to say I do not dream about GF leading rallies and swooning over his words, obsessively following his march to that different drum.
But seriously now, <B>deep down</B>, why would I regard him as a personal influence towards non-violence when he baselessly insults my intelligence, integrity, and even sanity, not honouring his offer to clarify his view against the "Animal Rights Law" paper I wrote, suddenly cuts off a debate with me, villifies my work, and more? I do not regard any of this, nor much besides that I have witnessed or heard about, as consistent with non-violence. So how could he, <B>personally</B>, stand as a credible model of non-violence to me? So much for GF as a <B>personal influence</B>.
<P>Did you know that the <I>ad hominem</I> fallacy, meaning looking to the person rather than the evidence in general, actually has not only the negative, attacking form, but also a positive, potentially flattering form? This is an obscure but very interesting tidbit of philosophy trivia, in the areas of logic and rhetoric. Just because Hitler can be put down as a person in various ways, does not logically entail that anything he says is false. The positive version is: just because someone is admirable does not logically entail that their view is correct. Interesting, isn't it? Nevertheless, there are people whose judgment we might trust in the sense that we can be confident they are authoritative about some things, and that we would do well to pay attention to their judgments in other matters, although we must always rely on our own powers of critical thinking as well. To me, GF is not one of those trusted souls. Few people are, to me.
<P>As for the matter of any possible <B>intellectual influence</B> from Gary Francione, that is zero too. Unless you count my writing against his theories as exhibiting an intellectual influence, which is fair. However, I am not writing here about <B>overall</B> intellectual influence. I'm reflecting on whether he influenced my positive views in general, and my favoring of non-violence in particular. Now Regan had a <B>great</B> influence on me, and I will always be indebted to him. <CITE>The Case for Animal Rights</CITE> was a masterpiece that influenced a lot of people, including GF. I will be honoured to give an invited talk at the University of Vienna next year at a conference reflecting on Regan's classic thirty years later. I'm ever so glad that they are paying my way, because I am something of a pauper. Regan and Francione were bosom buddies for many years, co-organizers of a conference called A New Generation for Animal Rights at Francione's academic home base of Rutger's University in 1993 (myself and some friends/comrades attended this), and so on.
<P>However, GF and TR fell out over a March for the Animals, in the summer of 1996, because Regan was going to join in, even though - horror of horrors! - animal welfarists also participated. You see, Regan had a change of heart, as he was originally going to boycott the walk along with Francione. Then Francione <B>turned</B> on Regan. Rather like I described he turned on me, a far cry from when he wrote "with affection and respect" in my copy of his <CITE>Introduction to Animal Rights</CITE>. Gary went from touting Regan very powerfully and extensively in GF's early talks I attended, to considering Regan's work rather rudely and crudely (e.g., dismissing it as too "complicated"), as in the latter book. I really didn't like that. It seemed clear that Gary's personal feelings were very likely interfering with his professional judgment. I was not influenced <B>at all</B> by the arguments in Gary's aforementioned book, except unequivocally to reject them as a specious case against speciesism. (Other animal rights theorists such as Evelyn B. Pluhar, <B>did</B> have a positive influence on my animal rights views to some extent though, such as her emphasis on individual rights to liberty and welfare, after Alan Gewirth.)
<P>I do not know that Francione has <B>ever</B> convinced me of anything important through argumentation, except that he was wrong. I thought his arguments were generally so poor that I found it hard to look up to him intellectually. I tried to be open-minded, but I started to see that he had very questionable judgment, and that if he came out with an argument, it was probably errant, and I should be able to use standard academic critical thinking tools such as fallacies to show the errors for those who have the training to perceive them - and many lack this. But of course you cannot prejudge, and you have to admit that someone could be right until shown to be wrong. In any event, I found that Francione was not normally receptive to these sorts of critiques. He did not learn or admit mistakes like other people I have known. I attribute that to an impairment of his objectivity in some way - as his hostile floundering about with Regan and myself seemed to me to exhibit - although I will not venture to speculate on this matter.
<P>Certainly I was not convinced by Gary Francione, nor indeed Jainism, to embrace non-violence as an overarching principle. Their arguments for this conclusion, to the extent that they exist (in Jainism, but nothing that Gary has produced to my knowledge), failed to convince me. I had to come up with those particular arguments on my own, although clearly, I was also deeply influenced by the people and works that I have acknowledged above. In the end, it is always <B>arguments</B> that influence or indeed determine what I will conclude on any intellectual matter, although people and other factors do orient me, as they do other people, in ways that are not always easy to trace out. Such are the sources for this river of non-violence I am now riding in my little boat, still endeavouring to make my way to open sea.
<p><b>FURTHER READING ON ANIMAL RIGHTS INCREMENTALISM</B><br />
<p><i><b>A Selection of Related Articles</B></I><br />
<p>Sztybel, David. "Animal Rights Law: Fundamentalism versus Pragmatism". <cite>Journal for Critical Animal Studies</CITE> 5 (1) (2007): 1-37. <br />
<p ALIGN="RIGHT"><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.info/x-arlaw.pdf"><font COLOR = "FF3300" FACE="TIMES"><i>go there</I></FONT></A><br />
<br />
<p>Short version of "Animal Rights Law". <br />
<p ALIGN="RIGHT"><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.info/33.html"><font COLOR = "FF3300" FACE="TIMES"><i>go there</I></FONT></A><br />
<br />
<p>Sztybel, David. "Incrementalist Animal Law: Welcome to the Real World". <p ALIGN="RIGHT"><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.info/11.html"><font COLOR = "FF3300" FACE="TIMES"><i>go there</I></FONT></A><br />
<br />
<p>Sztybel, David. "Sztybelian Pragmatism versus Francionist Pseudo-Pragmatism". <br />
<p ALIGN="RIGHT"><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.info/34.html"><font COLOR = "FF3300" FACE="TIMES"><i>go there</I></FONT></A><br />
<p><i><b>A Selection of Related Blog Entries</B></I><br />
<p><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2012/08/anti-cruelty-laws-and-non-violent.html">Anti-Cruelty Laws and Non-Violent Approximation</A><br />
<p><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2012/10/use-not-treatment-franciones-cracked.html">Use Not Treatment: Francione’s Cracked Nutshell</A><br />
<p><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2012/10/francione-flees-debating-me-again-and_25.html">Francione Flees Debate with Me Again, Runs into the “Animal Jury”</A><br />
<p><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2012/10/the-false-dilemma-veganizing-versus.html">The False Dilemma: Veganizing versus Legalizing</A><br />
<p><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2008/06/veganism-as-moral-baseline-for-animal.html">Veganism as a Baseline for Animal Rights: Two Different Senses</A><br />
<p><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2011/12/franciones-three-feeble-critiques-of-my.html">Francione's Three Feeble Critiques of My Views</A><br />
<p><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2012/09/startling-decline-in-meat-consumption.html">Startling Decline in Meat Consumption Proves Francionists Are Wrong Once Again!</A><br />
<p><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2008/06/great-apes-activism-fending-off.html">The Greatness of the Great Ape Project under Attack!</A><br />
<p><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2010/01/francione-totally-misinterprets-singer.html">Francione Totally Misinterprets Singer</A><br />
<p><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2009/08/crisis-5a-taking-criticisms-of-ones-own.html">Francione's Animal Rights Theory</A><br />
<p><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2007/06/francione-on-unnecessary-suffering-not.html">Francione on Unnecessary Suffering</A><br />
<p><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2011/02/my-appearance-on-ar-zone.html">My Appearance on AR Zone</A><br />
<p><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2011/12/d-day-for-francionists.html">D-Day for Francionists</A><br />
<p><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2012/02/franciones-incoherent-understanding-of.html">Sztybel versus Francione on Animals' Property Status</A><br />
<p><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2008/01/red-carpet.html">The Red Carpet</A><br />
<p><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2008/06/playing-into-hands-of-animal-exploiters.html">Playing into the Hands of Animal Exploiters</A><br />
<p><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2012/10/the-abolitionist-approach-es.html">The Abolitionist ApproachES</A><br />
<p><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2008/07/franciones-mighty-boomerang.html">Francione's Mighty Boomerang</A><br />
<br />
<br />
<p><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.info">Dr. David Sztybel Home Page</A>
David Sztybel, Ph.D.http://www.blogger.com/profile/01791831843665208484noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8230355680661017989.post-16615484494491881332012-09-14T21:12:00.000-07:002013-01-25T09:39:08.804-08:00P.S. Re Francione's TalksI said I've seen a number of talks by Francione and he did not mention non-violence. Perfectly true. But I have not heard him speak in the last decade. These were early days, before he was banned from certain venues apparently. Perhaps "Kaufman" heard Gary more recently and might assume that I would have heard like talks. Alas, that is not the case. If I had had "Kaufman's" knowledge-base then what is obvious to him would have obviated my own wondering in this case. But it should never be assumed that others share the same knowledge-base.
<p><b>FURTHER READING ON ANIMAL RIGHTS INCREMENTALISM</B><br />
<p><i><b>A Selection of Related Articles</B></I><br />
<p>Sztybel, David. "Animal Rights Law: Fundamentalism versus Pragmatism". <cite>Journal for Critical Animal Studies</CITE> 5 (1) (2007): 1-37. <br />
<p ALIGN="RIGHT"><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.info/x-arlaw.pdf"><font COLOR = "FF3300" FACE="TIMES"><i>go there</I></FONT></A><br />
<br />
<p>Short version of "Animal Rights Law". <br />
<p ALIGN="RIGHT"><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.info/33.html"><font COLOR = "FF3300" FACE="TIMES"><i>go there</I></FONT></A><br />
<br />
<p>Sztybel, David. "Incrementalist Animal Law: Welcome to the Real World". <p ALIGN="RIGHT"><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.info/11.html"><font COLOR = "FF3300" FACE="TIMES"><i>go there</I></FONT></A><br />
<br />
<p>Sztybel, David. "Sztybelian Pragmatism versus Francionist Pseudo-Pragmatism". <br />
<p ALIGN="RIGHT"><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.info/34.html"><font COLOR = "FF3300" FACE="TIMES"><i>go there</I></FONT></A><br />
<p><i><b>A Selection of Related Blog Entries</B></I><br />
<p><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2012/08/anti-cruelty-laws-and-non-violent.html">Anti-Cruelty Laws and Non-Violent Approximation</A><br />
<p><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2012/10/use-not-treatment-franciones-cracked.html">Use Not Treatment: Francione’s Cracked Nutshell</A><br />
<p><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2012/10/francione-flees-debating-me-again-and_25.html">Francione Flees Debate with Me Again, Runs into the “Animal Jury”</A><br />
<p><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2012/10/the-false-dilemma-veganizing-versus.html">The False Dilemma: Veganizing versus Legalizing</A><br />
<p><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2008/06/veganism-as-moral-baseline-for-animal.html">Veganism as a Baseline for Animal Rights: Two Different Senses</A><br />
<p><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2011/12/franciones-three-feeble-critiques-of-my.html">Francione's Three Feeble Critiques of My Views</A><br />
<p><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2012/09/startling-decline-in-meat-consumption.html">Startling Decline in Meat Consumption Proves Francionists Are Wrong Once Again!</A><br />
<p><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2008/06/great-apes-activism-fending-off.html">The Greatness of the Great Ape Project under Attack!</A><br />
<p><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2010/01/francione-totally-misinterprets-singer.html">Francione Totally Misinterprets Singer</A><br />
<p><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2009/08/crisis-5a-taking-criticisms-of-ones-own.html">Francione's Animal Rights Theory</A><br />
<p><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2007/06/francione-on-unnecessary-suffering-not.html">Francione on Unnecessary Suffering</A><br />
<p><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2011/02/my-appearance-on-ar-zone.html">My Appearance on AR Zone</A><br />
<p><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2011/12/d-day-for-francionists.html">D-Day for Francionists</A><br />
<p><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2012/02/franciones-incoherent-understanding-of.html">Sztybel versus Francione on Animals' Property Status</A><br />
<p><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2008/01/red-carpet.html">The Red Carpet</A><br />
<p><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2008/06/playing-into-hands-of-animal-exploiters.html">Playing into the Hands of Animal Exploiters</A><br />
<p><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2012/10/the-abolitionist-approach-es.html">The Abolitionist ApproachES</A><br />
<p><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2008/07/franciones-mighty-boomerang.html">Francione's Mighty Boomerang</A><br />
<br />
<br />
<p><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.info">Dr. David Sztybel Home Page</A>
David Sztybel, Ph.D.http://www.blogger.com/profile/01791831843665208484noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8230355680661017989.post-81417674041189634162012-09-14T14:02:00.001-07:002012-11-02T04:11:02.619-07:00Startling Decline in Meat Consumption Proves Francionists Are Wrong Once Again!Please read this article by Paul Shapiro in <CITE>VegNews</CITE> (September 10, 2012): <A HREF="http://vegnews.com/articles/page.do?pageId=4916&catId=1">"Why US Meat Consumption Is Falling".</A>
<P>It contains several facts that are of interest for the incrementalism versus anti-incrementalism debate:
<OL>
<LI>U.S. meat consumption used to be on the rise every year until about five years ago
<LI>Now it has declined by a whopping 12.2% (<B>great</B> news!)
<LI>This means the killing of "several hundred million" fewer animals every year
<LI>The drop is attributed to animal, health and environmentalist concerns, and the higher cost of meat (feed prices have increased and this is passed onto consumers)
<LI>The next key part of our analysis is worth quoting directly from the article:
<BLOCKQUOTE>Interestingly, the numbers and headlines aren’t being driven by an influx of new vegetarians and vegans. Last year, a national poll found that the number of vegetarians in America remained at about 5 percent. But the same poll found that a whopping 16 percent of people now eat vegetarian more than half time. In other words, take 50 million people and put them on a so-called “flexitarian” diet, and the shrinking figures for meat consumption start making sense.</BLOCKQUOTE>
<LI>there have also been successful animal welfarist initiatives during this time (the article goes into more detail here)
</OL>
Now, back on June 13, 2008, I <A HREF="http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/search?q=baseline">posted</A> about my essentially incrementalist approach to veganism as the moral baseline for animal rights. I said:
<BLOCKQUOTE>[Gary Francione] 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.</BLOCKQUOTE>
<P>So Francione is equally negative towards everybody, no matter if they are cutting down meat-consumption, or curbing their animal abuse by supporting reformist initiatives. No matter if they are animal rights incrementalists, or if he is quietly infusing negative energy into his followers. I say we need to be vegan as a matter of duty. But if someone only manages an increment of that, we should praise the positive and criticize the negative, because every bit counts. And that will not only be more truthful, or reflective of objective reality which is composed of increments as well as wholes. Positive incrementalism will encourage people to go along further on the road to liberation. Being negative and condemnatory, comparing them to mass murderers as Francione does (in particular, Jeffrey Dahmer, and his "Simon the Sadist" hypothetical) would not only be pop psychology at its crudist and most vicious - most meat-eaters are <B>not</B> genuinely sadistic, let alone psychopathic. This approach (and we could amplify on the negativity they spread around here ) <B>repels</B> people from the animal rights message, makes them avoid it, and thus have less of a chance of being pro-animal-transformative.
<P>Let's get the implications of this recent study out on the table now:
<OL>
<LI>Francione cannot take credit for the decline in meat consumption, because this is not attributed to people becoming vegetarian and vegan. Mostly, it is people <B>reducing</B> meat consumption. That is an incrementalist approach that he disdains, disuses, and indeed disavows. I wish people would just go vegan, but we need to live in the real world. It's the only one we've got. Myself and my fellow incrementalists are very positive about progressive steps and it is <B>working</B>. Those who would kill pro-incrementalism, as the Francionists are trying to do, would <B>cause</B> a lot of suffering and death. If there were no "meat-free" Monday campaigns and slogans to cut it out or cut it down (not that I've heard that slogan), and only the super-negative Francionist approach, we would have a chilly climate of the same amount of vegans (because anti-incrementalists have been pushing for that along with my pro-vegan comrades, who in general have <B>never</B> failed to promote veganism), but not this saving of hundreds of millions of animal lives, and preventing the same number of miserable, factory-farmed existences. That is like an enormous phantom Holocaust in <B>itself</B> that never came to be with these prevented, murdered and mangled lives!
<LI>Francionists say that meat-consumption being on the rise proves that the incrementalist approach is not working. Well, the incrementalist approach of PETA and the rest is and always has been quite dominant. The Francionists are just a fringe group, quite frankly, who go contrary to all common-sense that substantive anti-cruelty laws are better for animals than no change in legally allowable factory farming - to take just one example. As Shapiro notes, there have been a number of successful animal welfarist initiatives. So meat-consumption being on the <B>decline</B> proves the exact <B>opposite</B> of what Francione always used to say. It is the <B>incrementalist</B> approach that is working because gains are attributable to incrementalist actions far more than purely animal rights/vegan action.
<LI><P>These statistics provide what we might call a <B>reduction premise</B> for animal protection incrementalism (which encompasses the law but also pro-vegetarian campaigns). The premise is <B>most</B> promising for the future. If there are countries which are not yet at the U.S.’s stage of seeing a very significant drop in meat-consumption due to activism – actually, decline in the U.K. is much <I>more</I> dramatic – they should eventually get there due especially to incremental forms of activism. Such activism and its results will only spike higher and higher, as more and more people are drawn into its inevitably and abundantly well-reasoned conclusions. For there is no truthful disguising of the fact – although industries attempt to subvert this tendency - that animal agriculture is disastrous for both our health, and the environment that we all share. All of this seems to imply projected progress for reducing animal-product-consumption as a steady tendency. Still, such progress will not be enough to satisfy many activists – for<B> good reason</B>. For <B>all</B> oppressed animals matter, and most of them receive wholly inadequate attention and treatment. But we can take <B>some</B> satisfaction in <B>progress</B>, even if we are not left fully satisfied, as we should <B>not</B> be. Complacency in the life of one can mean death and suffering in the lives of others.
<P>The reduction premise also seems to be <B>robust</B> in its significance. It is not just a <I>slight</I> reduction in animal-destruction, but a <I>very significant</I> difference. There is a margin of hundreds of millions of lives per year, each individual being infinitely valuable. If speciesism decreases, even more lives will be saved than just by appeals to self-interest, since the incrementalists support anti-speciesism too, in a way that is a great many times more effective than the comparatively marginal anti-incrementalists. Greater anti-speciesism can still use all the help it can get from human-interested reasons for vegetarianism. Or if speciesism increases – which is perhaps unlikely - it will be even <B>more</B> important than ever to rely on reduction strategies based on appeals to human self-interest. The latter is where most of our gains would be made, recalling that recent consumption-reduction was mostly on an incrementalist basis. Even if there is only a temporary spike in consumption, in the long run there will be less suffering and death, as I note in our next point:
<LI>I offered an <A HREF="http://davidsztybel.info/34.html">analysis,</A> showing that even if welfarist campaigns resulted in a temporary spike in meat consumption, the incrementalist advocacy would <B>still</B> result in less suffering and death overall in the long-term. These new figures suggest that incrementalist approaches can result in a <B>decline</B> in animal suffering and death, even well before animal rights could ever be achieved in legislation. Even if there <B>is</B> an upswing in meat consumption, there would only be much worse hills on our graphs if reductionist appeals to lessen meat consumption were eliminated as the Francionists propose.
<LI>It is interesting how incremental progress can save <B>whole animal lives!</B> In Judaism we say that to save a life is to save a <B>world</B>.
</OL>
<P>This is just like my <A HREF="http://davidsztybel.info/119.html">debate</A> with Katherine Perlo, in which I proved that her approach of only advocating animal rights results in more suffering and death or violence. It was a different debate, although related because it concerns stubborn, all-or-nothing approaches. Francionism fails on similar grounds. It could only be otherwise if he could successfully argue that more nonhuman animal agony and dying is somehow more "pro-animal". I want to thank all of the activists responsible for these great changes. And I want to condemn afresh the people who are "marching backwards", to use a colourful phrase that Francione penned in his literary-philosophical debacle, <CITE>Rain without Thunder</CITE>. If you are <B>positive</B> about progressive change, well...it might just <B>happen!</B>
<p><b>FURTHER READING ON ANIMAL RIGHTS INCREMENTALISM</B><br />
<p><i><b>A Selection of Related Articles</B></I><br />
<p>Sztybel, David. "Animal Rights Law: Fundamentalism versus Pragmatism". <cite>Journal for Critical Animal Studies</CITE> 5 (1) (2007): 1-37. <br />
<p ALIGN="RIGHT"><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.info/x-arlaw.pdf"><font COLOR = "FF3300" FACE="TIMES"><i>go there</I></FONT></A><br />
<br />
<p>Short version of "Animal Rights Law". <br />
<p ALIGN="RIGHT"><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.info/33.html"><font COLOR = "FF3300" FACE="TIMES"><i>go there</I></FONT></A><br />
<br />
<p>Sztybel, David. "Incrementalist Animal Law: Welcome to the Real World". <p ALIGN="RIGHT"><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.info/11.html"><font COLOR = "FF3300" FACE="TIMES"><i>go there</I></FONT></A><br />
<br />
<p>Sztybel, David. "Sztybelian Pragmatism versus Francionist Pseudo-Pragmatism". <br />
<p ALIGN="RIGHT"><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.info/34.html"><font COLOR = "FF3300" FACE="TIMES"><i>go there</I></FONT></A><br />
<p><i><b>A Selection of Related Blog Entries</B></I><br />
<p><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2012/08/anti-cruelty-laws-and-non-violent.html">Anti-Cruelty Laws and Non-Violent Approximation</A><br />
<p><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2012/10/use-not-treatment-franciones-cracked.html">Use Not Treatment: Francione’s Cracked Nutshell</A><br />
<p><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2012/10/francione-flees-debating-me-again-and_25.html">Francione Flees Debate with Me Again, Runs into the “Animal Jury”</A><br />
<p><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2012/10/the-false-dilemma-veganizing-versus.html">The False Dilemma: Veganizing versus Legalizing</A><br />
<p><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2008/06/veganism-as-moral-baseline-for-animal.html">Veganism as a Baseline for Animal Rights: Two Different Senses</A><br />
<p><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2011/12/franciones-three-feeble-critiques-of-my.html">Francione's Three Feeble Critiques of My Views</A><br />
<p><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2012/09/startling-decline-in-meat-consumption.html">Startling Decline in Meat Consumption Proves Francionists Are Wrong Once Again!</A><br />
<p><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2008/06/great-apes-activism-fending-off.html">The Greatness of the Great Ape Project under Attack!</A><br />
<p><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2010/01/francione-totally-misinterprets-singer.html">Francione Totally Misinterprets Singer</A><br />
<p><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2009/08/crisis-5a-taking-criticisms-of-ones-own.html">Francione's Animal Rights Theory</A><br />
<p><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2007/06/francione-on-unnecessary-suffering-not.html">Francione on Unnecessary Suffering</A><br />
<p><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2011/02/my-appearance-on-ar-zone.html">My Appearance on AR Zone</A><br />
<p><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2011/12/d-day-for-francionists.html">D-Day for Francionists</A><br />
<p><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2012/02/franciones-incoherent-understanding-of.html">Sztybel versus Francione on Animals' Property Status</A><br />
<p><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2008/01/red-carpet.html">The Red Carpet</A><br />
<p><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2008/06/playing-into-hands-of-animal-exploiters.html">Playing into the Hands of Animal Exploiters</A><br />
<p><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2012/10/the-abolitionist-approach-es.html">The Abolitionist ApproachES</A><br />
<p><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2008/07/franciones-mighty-boomerang.html">Francione's Mighty Boomerang</A><br />
<br />
<br />
<p><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.info">Dr. David Sztybel Home Page</A>
David Sztybel, Ph.D.http://www.blogger.com/profile/01791831843665208484noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8230355680661017989.post-38691894391250046832012-09-14T04:53:00.002-07:002013-01-25T09:40:06.958-08:00More Statements Concerning Francione on Non-Violence<P>In addition to my partial retraction and explanation of why I erroneously wrote what I did in my blog, I would like to add the following positive statements:
<OL>
<LI>Gary Francione has done pioneering work in putting forward non-violence as a central principle in the animal rights movement. I think he should be applauded for that. I wonder if other animal rights philosophers have also done so in ways that are not reflected in their academic or technical writing? Certainly Tom Regan, in his informal collection of essays (<CITE>The Struggle for Animal Rights</CITE> and autobiographical writings), gives credit to Gandhi, one of the premier non-violence writers and proponents. But like Francione, non-violence is absent from Regan's technical writings. Except maybe implicitly. The closest thing in <CITE>The Case for Animal Rights</CITE> is what Regan labels "the harm principle". (How infelicitous: "nonharming principle" or something like that would have been more sensible.) Notes about Francione being "pioneering" need to be qualified by indicating that the non-violence tradition regarding animals extends back thousands of years in the Jain tradition, and there are a great many Western Jains besides Francione who have supported animal rights in the name of non-violence for a very long time. Long before Francione even converted to animal rights. I have met such people in Toronto as far back as the 1980s.
<LI>I think the Jains Francione has known deserve the credit for Francione's emphasis on non-violence, although Francione himself deserves credit for adopting that already pre-existing idea which has a firmly entrenched tradition, complete with many arguments in favour of non-violence (towards animals). That said, Francione's own arguments for what he sometimes calls non-violence are distinctive, even though traditional Jainism has for centuries spoken of avoiding suffering for sentient beings, treating them equally, and so on. But they have not emphasized the property status of animals, as Francione does in dizzyingly erroneous ways, as I argue elsewhere.
<LI>That Francione considers non-violence to be a central principle is well substantiated in materials such as an interview with Friends of Animals, on his website in some blog entries, and certainly it is a very major factor in the fourth item in his mission statement. Those iterations go back a substantial length of time of at least a decade. I have "Kaufman" - whoever that may be - to thank for doing what needed to be done: opening my eyes to this material.
<LI>Non-violence is curiously absent as being treated as a central concept in much of Francione's writing such as his books that I have researched. He does compare ordinary meat-eaters with "Simon the Sadist" in his <CITE>Introduction to Animal Rights</CITE> for example, but still this non-violence discourse is oddly missing. (I have not yet read <CITE>Animals as Persons</CITE> - I wonder if that is any different in this respect). I view this as non-violence emerging as a central concept only nascently in his technical writings, although not in his less formal literature.
<LI>If or when I do academic writing about Francione’s non-violence assertions, which I have not yet set out to do, I will or would thoroughly research the question of Francione’s indications about non-violence.
<LI>People should not exaggerate what was going on here, which was:
<UL>
<LI>A person explicitly conceding that Francione has thought of non-violence as a central principle going back a long time, not least since his adoption of Jainism, which I indicated preceded my own starting to give non-violence a central emphasis; I indicated animals have a central right to non-violence in my published article of 2006, "The Rights of Animal Persons," and the rest of my work there can be regarded in part as an elaboration of that, but even so it was not a central emphasis as a term in the way that I am writing presently.
<LI>That person wondering aloud in his blog why non-violence was not emphasized as such in Francione's writing as well as that writing could be recalled. Keep in mind that this is still a serioius question. When a philosopher, and I concede Francione is one of sorts, makes something emphasized as a central principle, it comes up not as <B>absent</B> from their technical writings as is the case with Gary, but very much present <B>explicitly</B> and virtually <B>countless times</B>. That is the way Kant regarded the categorical imperative as a central principle, and duly emphasized it as such. This principle Kant would not merely assert as a sideline, but it would consistently be his main focus. Also, <B>explicit</B> arguments for the central principle would be provided. But if the principle is not even mentioned in the technical writings, we can only <B>extrapolate</B> how the given arguments support the given principle, which I have done in Francione's case. Researchers who emphasize something as a central principle also account for the research tradition regarding the principle, in a thorough way if indeed it is their central point. Perhaps these phenomena are yet to come in Francione's work. But they are not there now. When I said I predict he will more centrally emphasize non-violence than he has done, I am indicating he will probably start to discourse in the way I just outlined above. At least, the scholarly community should hope that he will do so.
<LI>That person saying in December 2011 that Jainism is sufficient to account for Francione's evolution of thought towards Jainism and its non-violence (Francione is a Jain after all).
<LI>That person explicitly and only asking questions about <B>central emphasis</B> in Francione's writings, not taking any credit for definitely inspiring Francione in his growing emphasis on non-violence, and explicitly stating as much.
</UL></OL>
<P>I apologize for not being fully knowledgeable about Francione on non-violence in earlier blog entries.
<P>That said, I wish people would be as concerned with Francione's errors - and not just in his theories. I merely dared to ask a question in my personal blog, to which I did not know the answer, on a topic that I have not academically researched yet in Francione's literature. Francione seriously misrepresented Peter Singer's view for many years in a number of <B>peer-reviewed</B> publications that are supposed to be thoroughly and technically researched, unlike mere questions asked in blog entries. The point never should have passed peer review but was never caught till I publicized the matter. The blog is not formal academic writing but I make assertions relevant to that domain, and Kaufman helped me out. Anyway, returning to our point, Francione said Singer believes animals used for food are neither self-aware nor do they have the right not to be killed. I proved Singer maintains the <B>exact opposite</B> in materials that Francione cites as having researched. See <A HREF="http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2010/01/francione-totally-misinterprets-singer.html">here</A> for that blog entry, and <A HREF="http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2010/02/singer-thanks-me-for-setting-record.html">here</A> for Singer's thanking me for the correction of Francione's misrepresentations. Did Francione ever publicly apologize for the extensive misrepresentation? He never even recognized it, let alone apologized for it.
<P>Also, Francione went way beyond asking questions about my views when he <A HREF="http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2011/12/franciones-three-feeble-critiques-of-my.html">critiqued</A> my theories about animal welfarism and showed he had virtually no understanding of those views. Not only did he not reflect the arguments I actually make, but gave two complete misrepresentations of my views, saying that I think animal welfarism is a moral and practical way of achieving abolition, when I said pretty much the exact opposite. Such laws do not need to achieve abolition at all. Abolitionist campaigns do that, although compassionate laws <B>will</B> make for kinder culture. He also said I am trying to reduce animal rights/abolition to animal welfarism, which is also the opposite of what I say. He wasn't just asking questions about my beliefs, folks, he was actively "reporting" my assertions but in reality was doing nothing of the kind. He totally failed to show any understanding of my main arguments, let alone any reply to them and my objections to his own view. He remains <B>unaccountable</B> by normal academic standards.
<P>I continue to move forward researching on non-violence and animals. I am aware of the arguments Francione has offered for animal ethics, since that is my job. Although they favorably impress some people, I believe that I have identified irreparable logical problems with those views. Also, asserting non-violence is central to animal rights is not an argument but an assertion. His other arguments can be taken to support this assertion though. But Francione, like most ethicists, is an intuitionist, who believes it is legitimate to make assertions without justification. Whether he will admit as much is less relevant and a matter of his own personal psychology. But analysis of his writings can identify which assertions of his are intuitions or basic assumptions. No one will stop him from asserting non-violence as yet another intuition, but again, it is plain that he also has other arguments meant to support his non-violence approach.
<P>I hope to do better than Francione has done. But quite apart from Francionism, I am not complacent that I will succeed in this extremely difficult task of trying to entrench animal ethics in a thoroughly liberationist and rationalist manner.
<p><b>FURTHER READING ON ANIMAL RIGHTS INCREMENTALISM</B><br />
<p><i><b>A Selection of Related Articles</B></I><br />
<p>Sztybel, David. "Animal Rights Law: Fundamentalism versus Pragmatism". <cite>Journal for Critical Animal Studies</CITE> 5 (1) (2007): 1-37. <br />
<p ALIGN="RIGHT"><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.info/x-arlaw.pdf"><font COLOR = "FF3300" FACE="TIMES"><i>go there</I></FONT></A><br />
<br />
<p>Short version of "Animal Rights Law". <br />
<p ALIGN="RIGHT"><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.info/33.html"><font COLOR = "FF3300" FACE="TIMES"><i>go there</I></FONT></A><br />
<br />
<p>Sztybel, David. "Incrementalist Animal Law: Welcome to the Real World". <p ALIGN="RIGHT"><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.info/11.html"><font COLOR = "FF3300" FACE="TIMES"><i>go there</I></FONT></A><br />
<br />
<p>Sztybel, David. "Sztybelian Pragmatism versus Francionist Pseudo-Pragmatism". <br />
<p ALIGN="RIGHT"><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.info/34.html"><font COLOR = "FF3300" FACE="TIMES"><i>go there</I></FONT></A><br />
<p><i><b>A Selection of Related Blog Entries</B></I><br />
<p><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2012/08/anti-cruelty-laws-and-non-violent.html">Anti-Cruelty Laws and Non-Violent Approximation</A><br />
<p><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2012/10/use-not-treatment-franciones-cracked.html">Use Not Treatment: Francione’s Cracked Nutshell</A><br />
<p><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2012/10/francione-flees-debating-me-again-and_25.html">Francione Flees Debate with Me Again, Runs into the “Animal Jury”</A><br />
<p><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2012/10/the-false-dilemma-veganizing-versus.html">The False Dilemma: Veganizing versus Legalizing</A><br />
<p><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2008/06/veganism-as-moral-baseline-for-animal.html">Veganism as a Baseline for Animal Rights: Two Different Senses</A><br />
<p><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2011/12/franciones-three-feeble-critiques-of-my.html">Francione's Three Feeble Critiques of My Views</A><br />
<p><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2012/09/startling-decline-in-meat-consumption.html">Startling Decline in Meat Consumption Proves Francionists Are Wrong Once Again!</A><br />
<p><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2008/06/great-apes-activism-fending-off.html">The Greatness of the Great Ape Project under Attack!</A><br />
<p><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2010/01/francione-totally-misinterprets-singer.html">Francione Totally Misinterprets Singer</A><br />
<p><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2009/08/crisis-5a-taking-criticisms-of-ones-own.html">Francione's Animal Rights Theory</A><br />
<p><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2007/06/francione-on-unnecessary-suffering-not.html">Francione on Unnecessary Suffering</A><br />
<p><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2011/02/my-appearance-on-ar-zone.html">My Appearance on AR Zone</A><br />
<p><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2011/12/d-day-for-francionists.html">D-Day for Francionists</A><br />
<p><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2012/02/franciones-incoherent-understanding-of.html">Sztybel versus Francione on Animals' Property Status</A><br />
<p><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2008/01/red-carpet.html">The Red Carpet</A><br />
<p><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2008/06/playing-into-hands-of-animal-exploiters.html">Playing into the Hands of Animal Exploiters</A><br />
<p><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2012/10/the-abolitionist-approach-es.html">The Abolitionist ApproachES</A><br />
<p><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2008/07/franciones-mighty-boomerang.html">Francione's Mighty Boomerang</A><br />
<br />
<br />
<p><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.info">Dr. David Sztybel Home Page</A>
David Sztybel, Ph.D.http://www.blogger.com/profile/01791831843665208484noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8230355680661017989.post-22391242449508694222012-09-13T17:08:00.001-07:002013-01-25T09:40:57.261-08:00The Truth and Non-Violence versus "Happy Meat"I use the principle of non-violent approximation in my <A HREF="http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2012/08/anti-cruelty-laws-and-non-violent.html">blog entry</A> on anti-cruelty laws, from August 20, 2012. I argue simply that it minimizes violence to animals to eradicate factory farming. However, it does not minimize violence to animals to use a deceptive euphemism such as “happy meat”. We need to push back against such commercial slogans.
<P>Here are some violations associated with the phrase "happy meat":
<OL>
<LI>It is designed to pump consumers to buy meat, which is wrong to encourage as eating meat is ethically wrong: it violates animals.
<LI>It violates the truth to say that animals are “meat”. That is like saying a human being is "meat" which people do when they have oppressive attitudes: cynical contempt for those killed in war, oppressive comments on women, and so on. Thinking of animals as "meat" only conduces towards their violation as though it is already a done deal or after the fact. Yet many animal murders for flesh-eating are impending.
<LI>The truth is violated once again because meat is part of a corpse and can be neither happy nor unhappy. It is a logically incoherent notion.
<LI>Finally, Gandhi's twin chief beloved ideals of truth and non-violence are transgressed because the animals themselves are not happy in slaughterhouses, whatever innovations Temple Grandin may have leveraged on some "industries".
</OL>
So "happy meat" is neither happy nor could meat even intelligibly <B>be</B> happy. This is corporate garbage-talk of the first order. When the Francionists try to associate such language with anti-cruelty law advocates, they are creating a straw man argument (technically: an argument attributed to an opponent that the latter does not really hold). Guess what? The straw man you've created is smiling back at you. But I myself do not smile at linguistic abominations such as "happy meat". I'm grateful to Spencer Lo for asking me about this slogan as he is writing his own very thoughtful <A HREF="http://animalblawg.wordpress.com/2012/09/13/further-thoughts-on-happy-meat/">commentary</A> on this topic.
<P>P.S. Some people will have well-intended concerns about spikes in meat consumption leading to more suffering and death. But such concerns do not map out a long-term, comparative pattern. To see how this pans out, please read my article linked to <A HREF="http://davidsztybel.info/34.html">here</A>.
<p><b>FURTHER READING ON ANIMAL RIGHTS INCREMENTALISM</B><br />
<p><i><b>A Selection of Related Articles</B></I><br />
<p>Sztybel, David. "Animal Rights Law: Fundamentalism versus Pragmatism". <cite>Journal for Critical Animal Studies</CITE> 5 (1) (2007): 1-37. <br />
<p ALIGN="RIGHT"><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.info/x-arlaw.pdf"><font COLOR = "FF3300" FACE="TIMES"><i>go there</I></FONT></A><br />
<br />
<p>Short version of "Animal Rights Law". <br />
<p ALIGN="RIGHT"><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.info/33.html"><font COLOR = "FF3300" FACE="TIMES"><i>go there</I></FONT></A><br />
<br />
<p>Sztybel, David. "Incrementalist Animal Law: Welcome to the Real World". <p ALIGN="RIGHT"><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.info/11.html"><font COLOR = "FF3300" FACE="TIMES"><i>go there</I></FONT></A><br />
<br />
<p>Sztybel, David. "Sztybelian Pragmatism versus Francionist Pseudo-Pragmatism". <br />
<p ALIGN="RIGHT"><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.info/34.html"><font COLOR = "FF3300" FACE="TIMES"><i>go there</I></FONT></A><br />
<p><i><b>A Selection of Related Blog Entries</B></I><br />
<p><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2012/08/anti-cruelty-laws-and-non-violent.html">Anti-Cruelty Laws and Non-Violent Approximation</A><br />
<p><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2012/10/use-not-treatment-franciones-cracked.html">Use Not Treatment: Francione’s Cracked Nutshell</A><br />
<p><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2012/10/francione-flees-debating-me-again-and_25.html">Francione Flees Debate with Me Again, Runs into the “Animal Jury”</A><br />
<p><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2012/10/the-false-dilemma-veganizing-versus.html">The False Dilemma: Veganizing versus Legalizing</A><br />
<p><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2008/06/veganism-as-moral-baseline-for-animal.html">Veganism as a Baseline for Animal Rights: Two Different Senses</A><br />
<p><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2011/12/franciones-three-feeble-critiques-of-my.html">Francione's Three Feeble Critiques of My Views</A><br />
<p><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2012/09/startling-decline-in-meat-consumption.html">Startling Decline in Meat Consumption Proves Francionists Are Wrong Once Again!</A><br />
<p><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2008/06/great-apes-activism-fending-off.html">The Greatness of the Great Ape Project under Attack!</A><br />
<p><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2010/01/francione-totally-misinterprets-singer.html">Francione Totally Misinterprets Singer</A><br />
<p><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2009/08/crisis-5a-taking-criticisms-of-ones-own.html">Francione's Animal Rights Theory</A><br />
<p><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2007/06/francione-on-unnecessary-suffering-not.html">Francione on Unnecessary Suffering</A><br />
<p><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2011/02/my-appearance-on-ar-zone.html">My Appearance on AR Zone</A><br />
<p><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2011/12/d-day-for-francionists.html">D-Day for Francionists</A><br />
<p><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2012/02/franciones-incoherent-understanding-of.html">Sztybel versus Francione on Animals' Property Status</A><br />
<p><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2008/01/red-carpet.html">The Red Carpet</A><br />
<p><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2008/06/playing-into-hands-of-animal-exploiters.html">Playing into the Hands of Animal Exploiters</A><br />
<p><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2012/10/the-abolitionist-approach-es.html">The Abolitionist ApproachES</A><br />
<p><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2008/07/franciones-mighty-boomerang.html">Francione's Mighty Boomerang</A><br />
<br />
<br />
<p><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.info">Dr. David Sztybel Home Page</A>
David Sztybel, Ph.D.http://www.blogger.com/profile/01791831843665208484noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8230355680661017989.post-48659599742177412982012-09-13T05:17:00.004-07:002013-01-25T09:41:54.372-08:00Partial Retraction about Francione on Articulating the Centrality of Non-Violence<P>A quasi-anonymous person going only by "Kaufman," whom I thought at first was Dr. Steve Kaufman, but it is not him, left a comment on <A HREF=http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2012/09/non-violence-in-rights-of-animal-persons.html>a recent blog entry</A> (September 10, 2012). In particular, I wrote in my <A HREF=http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2012/08/anti-cruelty-laws-and-non-violent.html>August 20, 2012 blog entry</A> which Kaufman refers to in the aforementioned comment:
<BLOCKQUOTE>Francione as a theorist may well have followed me in terms of starting to rely on non-violence theory as a central emphasis. (He never did before, and then suddenly after I did so, I heard about him doing so. History has shown that he is well aware of my writings.)</BLOCKQUOTE>
<P>Kaufman writes by way of response (starting with quoting the above passage):
<BLOCKQUOTE>Anyone who has known Gary Francione since the 1990s knows has been writing and speaking about non-violence publicly the the entire time. For well over a decade, Francione has had a list of six principles of the abolitionist movement. The sixth principle is the principle of nonviolence. You can see him list the principles, including the principle of nonviolence, in 2002. See here: http://www.friendsofanimals.org/programs/animal-rights/interview-with-gary-francione.html. Indeed, not only does Francione list the principle of non-violence, but he calls it "the guiding principle" of the movement. To emphasize: he uses the definite article ("THE guiding principle"). For over a decade, Francione has publicly explained that the principle of non-violence is the central principle of his abolitionist theory. And he's been speaking about non-violence for much, much longer.</BLOCKQUOTE>
<BLOCKQUOTE>It looks like you've got things precisely the wrong way around. It looks to me like you're leaning on him.</BLOCKQUOTE>
<BLOCKQUOTE>Why do you maintain otherwise? I want to believe that it is neither due to a lack of care and attentiveness, nor due to a lack of honesty.</BLOCKQUOTE>
<P>To reply to Kaufman’s remarks, I would like to begin first by conceding something he brought to light. He refers to an <A HREF="http://www.friendsofanimals.org/programs/animal-rights/interview-with-gary-francione.html">interview</A> of Francione by the activist group, Friends of Animals from 2002. In that article, Francione calls non-violence the guiding principle of the animal rights movement. That does indeed conceive of non-violence given a “central emphasis”. As a result, I retract the assertion that Francione <B>might</B> have followed me in publicly asserting the principle of non-violence in a way that gives it central emphasis. Note that I never made a categorical assertion, but only wondered if he followed me.
<P>Kaufman's assertion caused me to do a bit more research on the Abolitionist Approach website. You see, I am mostly familiar with Francione's peer-reviewed academic writings which some of my own academic work focuses on. (Needless to say, this blog is not peer-reviewed academic work.) I am only superficially familiar with Francione's website. Anyway, I now feel sure that further findings will back up Kaufman's claim that Francione has centrally emphasized non-violence in the past. Here is another sample I found in Francione's August 13, 2007 <A HREF="http://www.abolitionistapproach.com/a-comment-on-violence/">blog entry</A> entitled "A Comment on Violence". He now uses the same language in the <B>elaborated version</B> of his mission statement, so maybe he changed the mission statement after the blog entry in question. I do not recall reading this before, but it states:
<BLOCKQUOTE>...in my view, the animal rights position is the ultimate rejection of violence. It is the ultimate affirmation of peace. I see the animal rights movement as the logical progression of the peace movement, which seeks to end conflict between humans.</BLOCKQUOTE>
<P>This provides more early evidence such as what Kaufman produced that Gary is thinking about non-violence...which I already knew, as I explained in my <A HREF="http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2011/12/francione-adopts-central-focus-on-non.html">blog post of December 11, 2011</A>.
<P>Further evidence that he is recently featuring non-violence now more than ever is in his <A HREF="http://www.abolitionistapproach.com/veganism-and-nonviolence/">blog entry</A> entitled "Veganism and Nonviolence" from July 23, 2012. It provides more evidence of his recent shift after the time I noted when I first did likewise, including with my essay published in October 2011 (<A HREF="http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2011/10/new-essay-veganism-versus-violence.html">introduced</A> in my blog on the 20th of that month), before the blog entry just noted, which I had entitled "Veganism versus Violence". In Francione's blog entry, for its part, he writes:
<BLOCKQUOTE>If the principle of nonviolence means anything, it means that you cannot justify any killing or suffering for transparently frivolous reasons such as pleasure, amusement, or convenience. And doing something “with compassion” that is not morally justifiable does not change the fact that it’s morally unjustifiable.</BLOCKQUOTE>
<P>Gary might never have been aware of my essay for all I know for absolute sure, and I am not claimiing that he copied my title or anything. His is different and of course that is on the up-and-up. And he is not copying me in thinking about non-violence. I hardly take credit for that principle!!!
<P>However, I wish to state that my guess that he <B>might</B> have followed me with a recent change of emphasis was based on facts that in fact I introduced in an earlier <A HREF="http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2011/12/francione-adopts-central-focus-on-non.html">blog post</A> on this topic on December 11, 2011.
<P>In that post I go over some interesting and relevant facts which led to my speculation which I will elaborate on here:
<OL>
<LI>In <B>none</B>, a word I could repeat, not a one of Francione’s books such as <CITE>Animals, Property and the Law</CITE>, <CITE>Rain without Thunder</CITE>, and <CITE>Introduction to Animal Rights</CITE> does Francione emphasize the principle of non-violence as the central principle of the animal rights movement. My recollection, which might be fallible, is that he does not mention non-violence <B>at all</B>, although perhaps there may be some remarks about tactics. As a scholar, I look to his peer-reviewed publications as the key indicator of what a theorist maintains. Doing so leads to a justifiable conclusion that no, Francione did not consider the principle of non-violence to be a central principle. Rather, he relied on:
<UL>
<LI>anti-speciesism
<LI>a certain argument that we should avoid unnecessary suffering and that all animal usages are cases of this
and <LI>the related arguments based on the principle of equal consideration and his right for animals not to be considered property.
</UL>
<LI>similar remarks apply to the many journal articles by Francione I have read, as well as more informal articles, pamphlets, and so forth
<LI>On Francione’s website, the Abolitionist Approach, I remember reading a list of his central principles, and they mentioned non-violence in a subsidiary capacity, so that our tactics should be non-violent, but not using it to defend his central thinking. It turns out from research of today, September 13, 2012, that my memory did not deceive me. At that time, the #1 argument highlighted on the site was the unnecessary suffering argument, with the other arguments more in the background for those familiar with his books. Memory told me it was a shorter list from the one you reproduced. My memory was right. It turns out I was recalling the <A HREF="http://www.abolitionistapproach.com/">Mission Statement</A> of the Abolitionist Approach website:
<BLOCKQUOTE>The mission of this website is to provide a clear statement of an approach to animal rights that (1) promotes the abolition of animal exploitation and rejects the regulation of animal exploitation; (2) is based only on animal sentience and no other cognitive characteristic, (3) regards veganism as the moral baseline of the animal rights position; and (4) rejects all violence and promotes activism in the form of creative, non-violent vegan education.</BLOCKQUOTE>
<P>The last statement I took to be about activism and education, as the fourth principle indicates. But I see now how it would be interpreted as being about non-violence generally since it declares an opposition to "all violence". I'm not sure if this is the exact same wording as what I read back in 2007. I thought that was mainly about activism, not a new articulation of his animal rights approach based in non-violence.
<P>I had not clicked on his <A HREF="http://www.abolitionistapproach.com/about/mission-statement/">elaboration</A> of his mission statement which does indeed start with non-violence towards all animals...as again I knew he affirmed for a long time. I was unaware of this elaboration, and thought his fourth statement was mainly about activism. I believe I was wrong in taking away that, since it seems equally about non-violence to animals as I read it now. But I was not wrong that his central <B>arguments</B> for animal rights at the time in 2007 were not based in non-violence as research shows. I saw a side-show, saying that, another way of articulating animal rights is non-violence, but Gary does not rely on that in his arguments. And he didn't. I think he will start to argue differently now, which will go beyond just making <B>assertions</B> about non-violence as central. I think subsequent books will see them featured in his academic arguments, not just general-audience remarks on his website. As an academic, I am mainly interested in his academic arguments, although of course his other remarks on his website are of some interest.
<LI>I heard <B>many</B> of his talks since the 1990s. Close to half a dozen. Again, not a whisper about non-violence as a central principle.
</OL>
<P>Then suddenly, soon after I shifted gears and let non-violence have truly central emphasis in what I articulate, although it has long been a key component of my view, the following came to light, as I <A HREF="http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2011/12/francione-adopts-central-focus-on-non.html">wrote</A> in this blog on December 11, 2011:
<BLOCKQUOTE>In Boston two weeks ago [that would be early May--DS], Gary Francione synopsized his view as 'committing ourselves to the greatest possible reduction in overall violence'</BLOCKQUOTE>
<P>Note that this is different from <B>anything</B> I heard in any of his talks. In that earlier blog post, I also wrote that I knew Francione considered himself a Jain for many years prior to my big highlighting of non-violence, acknowledging that non-violence <B>is</B> central according to Jainism. So I wondered <B>why</B> does he not make it central in the four ways listed above: books, paper articles, site, talks? I never said he depended on me for <B>thinking</B> non-violence is in some way central, because I acknowledged this Jainism track. I was talking about what he <B>publicly articulated</B> as central. I could only rely on the evidence known to me. I was always open to new evidence such as what you, thankfully, introduced. I heard many of his talks but do not pretend to be familiar with all that he has typed into the internet nor all his many interviews that he has had with various parties.
<P>In the earlier post, which really clarifies the off-hand remark you are commenting on, I also wrote:
<BLOCKQUOTE>The main inspiration [for his shift in emphasis in public iterations], though, would have to have been his by now long commitment to Jainism. In fact that would be sufficient on its own to account for the evolution of his thought.</BLOCKQUOTE>
<P>So clearly I never gave myself all the credit, nor necessarily any credit at all, for inspiring Francione, and conceded I might have had nothing to do with it. At most, I thought I <B>might</B> have stimulated him to bring to the fore ideas I acknowledged, last year, that he already <B>had</B>, as part of his professed Jainism. You wonder if I am “dishonest” or “insensitive”. How could there be dishonesty since I based my questions on the evidence in my awareness, and it is still important evidence that <B>might</B> occasion anyone not perfectly familiar with Francione’s work to think that non-violence is <B>not at all</B> articulated as a central principle in his public remarks. It is such powerful evidence that frankly, it cannot be said without ambiguity that non-violence is articulated as his central principle. On the one hand, in the vast majority of cases, it has never been portrayed that way. On the other individuals such as yourself are aware of instances in which Francione offers non-violence as a central principle and that is news to me. So there should be no question about dishonesty. I also think it is wrong to call me “insensitive” since I engage with specifics in Francione’s writings more than the vast majority of other animal rights scholars, and my wondering was based on important evidence that I already introduced in a previous blog entry. That said, I do not expect you or others to be familiar with a blog entry of less than a year ago, nor indeed with any other blog entry. And I do not claim to be an expert on all that Francione says. I am not necessarily "insensitive", but more like not perfectly learned.
<P>You also said it looks to you as though I am leaning on Francione for featuring non-violence as a central principle. Kaufman, whoever you are, how could I do so when I was unaware of any instances in which he features the principle explicitly in this way, although I was aware of his calling himself Jain long before I started writing more focally on non-violence? I guess someone might say I should give Gary credit for Jainism. But then again, maybe not. In the December 11 post I also document how non-violence has been articulated by me as a central principle for a long time, since the 1990s, where I have literature for University of Toronto Students for the Ethical Treatment of animals stating that, and I have it featured in other writings as well, long before I ever saw Gary mention it, and apparently before he did, given my friend, Irena Upeniek's influence which I wrote about on December 11th 2011, cited above.
<P>I think the best way to characterize Francione’s evolution of ideas, by way of a revisionist interpretation, is this:
<OL>
<LI>In by far the most prominently featured public articulations by Francione in his books, talks, and on his website, to the best of my knowledge, he has not featured non-violence as a central principle, and this fact makes it only true with important qualifications that he has articulated the principle as central, <B>BUT</B>
<LI>Some people are aware of some instances in which Francione has suggested that non-violence is a central principle, and to these people it is quite evident that he has articulated this, although to other people who are familiar even with a large bulk of Francione’s work it has not always been so evident, and the evidence is therefore obscure to those unfamiliar with it unless it is somehow brought to light. But obscurity is a relative concept. What is part of the long-time light of understanding to one person may be, or have been, obscure to another. It would be too black-and-white to say that "Francione articulates non-violence as a central principle in his public remarks," although it is true to a degree. It would be more accurate to say: "In some places, he articulates non-violence as a central principle in his public remarks, but thus far and by far, mostly not." It's funny because in the micro, the remark you mentioned emphasizes non-violence as a central principle. But in the macro, or his work as a whole, there is hardly any emphasis of non-violence as a central principle. As I said in the 2011 post already cited, I predicted this would shift and indeed there are signs that this is starting to occur, so that there will be this emphasis both in the micro <B>and</B> macro. We will have to wait and see though.
</OL>
<P>Kaufman, I very much thank you for bringing evidence to light that was unknown to me. It is valuable for interpretation concerning the history of ideas in Francione’s public articulations. I only offered a possible question, as we do in science, which calls for evidence to settle it. You have provided evidence that is new to me, and so my scientific knowledge (I think awareness of what people say can be characterized as a science) has increased as a result. Thanks again.
<p><b>FURTHER READING ON ANIMAL RIGHTS INCREMENTALISM</B><br />
<p><i><b>A Selection of Related Articles</B></I><br />
<p>Sztybel, David. "Animal Rights Law: Fundamentalism versus Pragmatism". <cite>Journal for Critical Animal Studies</CITE> 5 (1) (2007): 1-37. <br />
<p ALIGN="RIGHT"><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.info/x-arlaw.pdf"><font COLOR = "FF3300" FACE="TIMES"><i>go there</I></FONT></A><br />
<br />
<p>Short version of "Animal Rights Law". <br />
<p ALIGN="RIGHT"><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.info/33.html"><font COLOR = "FF3300" FACE="TIMES"><i>go there</I></FONT></A><br />
<br />
<p>Sztybel, David. "Incrementalist Animal Law: Welcome to the Real World". <p ALIGN="RIGHT"><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.info/11.html"><font COLOR = "FF3300" FACE="TIMES"><i>go there</I></FONT></A><br />
<br />
<p>Sztybel, David. "Sztybelian Pragmatism versus Francionist Pseudo-Pragmatism". <br />
<p ALIGN="RIGHT"><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.info/34.html"><font COLOR = "FF3300" FACE="TIMES"><i>go there</I></FONT></A><br />
<p><i><b>A Selection of Related Blog Entries</B></I><br />
<p><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2012/08/anti-cruelty-laws-and-non-violent.html">Anti-Cruelty Laws and Non-Violent Approximation</A><br />
<p><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2012/10/use-not-treatment-franciones-cracked.html">Use Not Treatment: Francione’s Cracked Nutshell</A><br />
<p><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2012/10/francione-flees-debating-me-again-and_25.html">Francione Flees Debate with Me Again, Runs into the “Animal Jury”</A><br />
<p><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2012/10/the-false-dilemma-veganizing-versus.html">The False Dilemma: Veganizing versus Legalizing</A><br />
<p><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2008/06/veganism-as-moral-baseline-for-animal.html">Veganism as a Baseline for Animal Rights: Two Different Senses</A><br />
<p><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2011/12/franciones-three-feeble-critiques-of-my.html">Francione's Three Feeble Critiques of My Views</A><br />
<p><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2012/09/startling-decline-in-meat-consumption.html">Startling Decline in Meat Consumption Proves Francionists Are Wrong Once Again!</A><br />
<p><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2008/06/great-apes-activism-fending-off.html">The Greatness of the Great Ape Project under Attack!</A><br />
<p><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2010/01/francione-totally-misinterprets-singer.html">Francione Totally Misinterprets Singer</A><br />
<p><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2009/08/crisis-5a-taking-criticisms-of-ones-own.html">Francione's Animal Rights Theory</A><br />
<p><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2007/06/francione-on-unnecessary-suffering-not.html">Francione on Unnecessary Suffering</A><br />
<p><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2011/02/my-appearance-on-ar-zone.html">My Appearance on AR Zone</A><br />
<p><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2011/12/d-day-for-francionists.html">D-Day for Francionists</A><br />
<p><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2012/02/franciones-incoherent-understanding-of.html">Sztybel versus Francione on Animals' Property Status</A><br />
<p><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2008/01/red-carpet.html">The Red Carpet</A><br />
<p><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2008/06/playing-into-hands-of-animal-exploiters.html">Playing into the Hands of Animal Exploiters</A><br />
<p><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2012/10/the-abolitionist-approach-es.html">The Abolitionist ApproachES</A><br />
<p><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2008/07/franciones-mighty-boomerang.html">Francione's Mighty Boomerang</A><br />
<br />
<br />
<p><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.info">Dr. David Sztybel Home Page</A>
David Sztybel, Ph.D.http://www.blogger.com/profile/01791831843665208484noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8230355680661017989.post-67916925463819747832012-09-10T06:05:00.002-07:002013-01-25T09:43:36.121-08:00Non-Violence in "The Rights of Animal Persons"I now emphasize non-violence much more in my current writings as many have noticed, but as I said in my AR Zone interview, it was a feature of my past writings as well. Here is a quote from my 2006 essay, "The Rights of Animal Persons", p. 15:
<BLOCKQUOTE>...non-violence is the norm on my form of rights reasoning, and I assert that this follows logically. If one objects that what is best full-out is too demanding, it should not be too
taxing to insist on that minimal component of what is best or ideal which is not-harming, as we generally require when human interests are at stake. Interestingly, I have suggested that we would call using mentally disabled humans for meat, skins, or experiments “violent,” but the only standard justification for violence is defense, and we do not defend ourselves against animals when we use them in these very ways. No one has thought of a brilliant alternative justification for violence besides defense in the case of animals. Speciesists are hard-pressed to justify their violence in any way. Just because animals are different from humans does not give us a license to harm these other creatures. I also argue at length in my book that in addition to being rightfully entitled to non-violence, sentient beings have rights to respect, life, welfare, and freedom since these are important goods for all sentient
beings.</BLOCKQUOTE>
And also on p. 16:
<BLOCKQUOTE>Vivisection however is not best for any sentient being who is
subjected to such treatment, and is contrary to the principle of non-violence. Therefore vivisection is not consistent with what is best in general given best caring ethics.</BLOCKQUOTE>
<P>And there are any number of relevant passages discussing the related concept of harm as well. This is just a matter of some interest with respect to the history of my ideas.
<p><b>FURTHER READING ON ANIMAL RIGHTS INCREMENTALISM</B><br />
<p><i><b>A Selection of Related Articles</B></I><br />
<p>Sztybel, David. "Animal Rights Law: Fundamentalism versus Pragmatism". <cite>Journal for Critical Animal Studies</CITE> 5 (1) (2007): 1-37. <br />
<p ALIGN="RIGHT"><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.info/x-arlaw.pdf"><font COLOR = "FF3300" FACE="TIMES"><i>go there</I></FONT></A><br />
<br />
<p>Short version of "Animal Rights Law". <br />
<p ALIGN="RIGHT"><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.info/33.html"><font COLOR = "FF3300" FACE="TIMES"><i>go there</I></FONT></A><br />
<br />
<p>Sztybel, David. "Incrementalist Animal Law: Welcome to the Real World". <p ALIGN="RIGHT"><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.info/11.html"><font COLOR = "FF3300" FACE="TIMES"><i>go there</I></FONT></A><br />
<br />
<p>Sztybel, David. "Sztybelian Pragmatism versus Francionist Pseudo-Pragmatism". <br />
<p ALIGN="RIGHT"><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.info/34.html"><font COLOR = "FF3300" FACE="TIMES"><i>go there</I></FONT></A><br />
<p><i><b>A Selection of Related Blog Entries</B></I><br />
<p><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2012/08/anti-cruelty-laws-and-non-violent.html">Anti-Cruelty Laws and Non-Violent Approximation</A><br />
<p><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2012/10/use-not-treatment-franciones-cracked.html">Use Not Treatment: Francione’s Cracked Nutshell</A><br />
<p><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2012/10/francione-flees-debating-me-again-and_25.html">Francione Flees Debate with Me Again, Runs into the “Animal Jury”</A><br />
<p><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2012/10/the-false-dilemma-veganizing-versus.html">The False Dilemma: Veganizing versus Legalizing</A><br />
<p><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2008/06/veganism-as-moral-baseline-for-animal.html">Veganism as a Baseline for Animal Rights: Two Different Senses</A><br />
<p><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2011/12/franciones-three-feeble-critiques-of-my.html">Francione's Three Feeble Critiques of My Views</A><br />
<p><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2012/09/startling-decline-in-meat-consumption.html">Startling Decline in Meat Consumption Proves Francionists Are Wrong Once Again!</A><br />
<p><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2008/06/great-apes-activism-fending-off.html">The Greatness of the Great Ape Project under Attack!</A><br />
<p><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2010/01/francione-totally-misinterprets-singer.html">Francione Totally Misinterprets Singer</A><br />
<p><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2009/08/crisis-5a-taking-criticisms-of-ones-own.html">Francione's Animal Rights Theory</A><br />
<p><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2007/06/francione-on-unnecessary-suffering-not.html">Francione on Unnecessary Suffering</A><br />
<p><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2011/02/my-appearance-on-ar-zone.html">My Appearance on AR Zone</A><br />
<p><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2011/12/d-day-for-francionists.html">D-Day for Francionists</A><br />
<p><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2012/02/franciones-incoherent-understanding-of.html">Sztybel versus Francione on Animals' Property Status</A><br />
<p><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2008/01/red-carpet.html">The Red Carpet</A><br />
<p><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2008/06/playing-into-hands-of-animal-exploiters.html">Playing into the Hands of Animal Exploiters</A><br />
<p><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2012/10/the-abolitionist-approach-es.html">The Abolitionist ApproachES</A><br />
<p><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2008/07/franciones-mighty-boomerang.html">Francione's Mighty Boomerang</A><br />
<br />
<br />
<p><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.info">Dr. David Sztybel Home Page</A>
David Sztybel, Ph.D.http://www.blogger.com/profile/01791831843665208484noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8230355680661017989.post-53184553834594411522012-08-20T14:37:00.003-07:002013-01-25T09:44:35.181-08:00Anti-Cruelty Laws and Non-Violent ApproximationReaders have seen a principle I coined in my recent writings. It is called <B>non-violent approximation</B>. One could see it in action in my <A HREF="http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2012/08/non-violence-and-doubtful-meaning-of.html">recent blog entry</A> on the definition of veganism. Does this principle also relate to the incrementalist question, that is, whether animal rightists should support anti-cruelty laws? <B>You can be sure of it.</B> First, let us review. On the ethic I defend, if non-violence is possible then it should be practised absolutely. Nobody should be a bully, for example. Yet what if it is not quietly preventable? In a case in which violence seems inevitable, it can be said to <B>approximate</B> non-violence as much as possible to choose the option with the least violence. That might mean the forceful defence of the innocent.
<P>Okay. Now let's apply this principle to our case of anti-cruelty laws. In the legislative near-term, we cannot have absolute non-violence. That would mean laws, for example, against eating animals, and in favour of the remaining creatures being given a suitable home in sanctuaries. The most we can have is some imperfect state of affairs compared to absolute non-violence. We should ask ourselves how this might apply to gas-stunning for birds as opposed to an electrocution system that lets the animals often be scalded alive and have their throats cut while fully conscious. (For more detailed discussion bringing in Ingrid Newkirk and Peter Singer, see relevant blog entries from January and February 2010.) Being scalded alive is one kind of violation. And having one’s throat cut while conscious is another. Non-violence is about the negation of violations. Now tell me, which approximates absolute non-violence more, a world where there are these two violations, or a world where they are no longer permitted to exist? The answer is obvious. It is like: which is better, surgery without anesthetics or with? If you have to put up with surgery, as you have to put up with animal exploitation for some time to come, the humane solution beckons quite clearly, thank you very much.
<P>[Please note: in the original blog entry here I wondered aloud if "Francione as a theorist may well have followed me in terms of starting to rely on non-violence theory as a central emphasis. (He never did before, and then suddenly after I did so, I heard about him doing so. History has shown that he is well aware of my writings.)" In a comment on my September 10, 2012 blog post, an unidentified "kaufman" left a comment proving clearly that there are some cases in which Francione articulated non-violence as a central principle. So I have issued a <A HREF="http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2012/09/partial-retraction-about-francione-on.html">partial retraction</A> of my speculative question, although the bulk of Francione's articulations have not at all thus far featured non-violence as a central principle: not at all in his books, nor the journal articles of his that I have read, not in the web material that I recall, nor in the many talks of his I heard.]
<P>Francione cannot claim his non-violence stance is either more faithful to absolute non-violence, which is not possible in the legislative near-term, nor indeed greater approximation of non-violence. As a non-violence theory proponent he has failed. As miserably as the animals he would have suffer these unnecessary miseries.
<P>He has succeeded though in echoing what he has learned about animal rights from others: not to accept animals as property, to give them rights, combat speciesism, and the rest of the conventional animal rights talk that is to be found in his writings. I will not say that Francionism has <B>fallen</B> though. Apart from the successful aspects that just parrots other animal rights ideas, his own distinctive right not to be property and opposition to anti-cruelty laws (and more) never got off the ground in the first place … except in the imaginations of those animal rights sign-ons who remain hardened to legally preventable cruelties or violations.
<P>These obstructers of relief from utter cruelty think they "know better". They assure us that after all it is "best" not to legally oppose the cruelties in question with every resource we can spare. Yet in all their supposed years of "knowing better", they have mounted arguments that have been burst like balloons (which they continue to wave around as though full), oily-tongued objections that fail to stick, and sheer <B>evasion</B> of honest concerns such as: how can we <B>most</B> approximate non-violence? They know "better" and yet they have no answers. Their continued evasion will all be a part of success always eluding that camp, and people in droves avoiding its invitations to participate in the active furtherance and entrenchment of cruelties on an unimaginable scale. Common-sense has known better than this camp all along, and theory can practically <B>prove</B> what is closer to absolute non-violence: less cruelty rather than more.
<p><b>FURTHER READING ON ANIMAL RIGHTS INCREMENTALISM</B><br />
<p><i><b>A Selection of Related Articles</B></I><br />
<p>Sztybel, David. "Animal Rights Law: Fundamentalism versus Pragmatism". <cite>Journal for Critical Animal Studies</CITE> 5 (1) (2007): 1-37. <br />
<p ALIGN="RIGHT"><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.info/x-arlaw.pdf"><font COLOR = "FF3300" FACE="TIMES"><i>go there</I></FONT></A><br />
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<p>Short version of "Animal Rights Law". <br />
<p ALIGN="RIGHT"><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.info/33.html"><font COLOR = "FF3300" FACE="TIMES"><i>go there</I></FONT></A><br />
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<p>Sztybel, David. "Incrementalist Animal Law: Welcome to the Real World". <p ALIGN="RIGHT"><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.info/11.html"><font COLOR = "FF3300" FACE="TIMES"><i>go there</I></FONT></A><br />
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<p>Sztybel, David. "Sztybelian Pragmatism versus Francionist Pseudo-Pragmatism". <br />
<p ALIGN="RIGHT"><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.info/34.html"><font COLOR = "FF3300" FACE="TIMES"><i>go there</I></FONT></A><br />
<p><i><b>A Selection of Related Blog Entries</B></I><br />
<p><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2012/08/anti-cruelty-laws-and-non-violent.html">Anti-Cruelty Laws and Non-Violent Approximation</A><br />
<p><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2012/10/use-not-treatment-franciones-cracked.html">Use Not Treatment: Francione’s Cracked Nutshell</A><br />
<p><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2012/10/francione-flees-debating-me-again-and_25.html">Francione Flees Debate with Me Again, Runs into the “Animal Jury”</A><br />
<p><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2012/10/the-false-dilemma-veganizing-versus.html">The False Dilemma: Veganizing versus Legalizing</A><br />
<p><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2008/06/veganism-as-moral-baseline-for-animal.html">Veganism as a Baseline for Animal Rights: Two Different Senses</A><br />
<p><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2011/12/franciones-three-feeble-critiques-of-my.html">Francione's Three Feeble Critiques of My Views</A><br />
<p><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2012/09/startling-decline-in-meat-consumption.html">Startling Decline in Meat Consumption Proves Francionists Are Wrong Once Again!</A><br />
<p><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2008/06/great-apes-activism-fending-off.html">The Greatness of the Great Ape Project under Attack!</A><br />
<p><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2010/01/francione-totally-misinterprets-singer.html">Francione Totally Misinterprets Singer</A><br />
<p><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2009/08/crisis-5a-taking-criticisms-of-ones-own.html">Francione's Animal Rights Theory</A><br />
<p><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2007/06/francione-on-unnecessary-suffering-not.html">Francione on Unnecessary Suffering</A><br />
<p><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2011/02/my-appearance-on-ar-zone.html">My Appearance on AR Zone</A><br />
<p><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2011/12/d-day-for-francionists.html">D-Day for Francionists</A><br />
<p><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2012/02/franciones-incoherent-understanding-of.html">Sztybel versus Francione on Animals' Property Status</A><br />
<p><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2008/01/red-carpet.html">The Red Carpet</A><br />
<p><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2008/06/playing-into-hands-of-animal-exploiters.html">Playing into the Hands of Animal Exploiters</A><br />
<p><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2012/10/the-abolitionist-approach-es.html">The Abolitionist ApproachES</A><br />
<p><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2008/07/franciones-mighty-boomerang.html">Francione's Mighty Boomerang</A><br />
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<p><a HREF="http://davidsztybel.info">Dr. David Sztybel Home Page</A>
David Sztybel, Ph.D.http://www.blogger.com/profile/01791831843665208484noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8230355680661017989.post-81260731720085271862012-08-08T11:02:00.004-07:002013-01-25T09:45:45.856-08:00A Commentary on My Holocaust Comparisons<I><B>Note to the Reader:</B> I am pleased and honoured that my friend, Dena Pezet, is allowing me to highlight a comment she made on the <A HREF="http://davidsztybel.blogspot.ca/2012/04/holocaust-remembrance-day.html">Holocaust Remembrance Day blog article</A>. Dena is a lawyer, researcher, and a published fiction writer. Here is her statement:</I>
<P>I am a Vegan. I am a Jew. And I am no shrinking violet: my work in law and fiction has exposed me to the depths of human depravity and its concomitant suffering. Yet I have historically avoided the dreaded comparison of the Holocaust and the oppression of animals. My reaction to it has always been visceral and unpleasant and so it was when I read David Sztybel’s article <A HREF="http://virtueethicsinfocentre.blogspot.ca/2008/02/can-treatment-of-animals-be-compared-to.html">“Can the Treatment of Animals Be Compared to The Holocaust?”</A> in short bouts, keen minutes of intense focus punctuated with sips of very cold water. Alone and in silence.
<P>I should preface this: David Sztybel is a highly intelligent, sensitive, well-read and effective communicator. An expert in Animal Ethics: the guy knows his shit, right. Which is why I trusted to his words.
<P>Sztybel utilizes the front foot with his opening gambit “Although nothing occurring in the realm of oppression is ever quite the same as anything else, I hold that, in certain relevant respects, both broad and detailed comparisons can be made between the Holocaust and what I refer to as the oppression of animals.” In the same proactive style he clearly addresses what for me anyway, were my key concerns apropos the comparison: making the comparison in question is a moral offence against Holocaust victims; it trivializes the Holocaust and all of the immeasurable suffering that its victims lived through and died from. Sztybel addresses other concerns just as effectively, but for me, the former were the deal breakers.
<P>As he says, the real question is not whether the comparison can be made. He does it; it is done. The real question is whether we should dare to make the comparison. I am not going to pick through the article point by point, suffice to say that its reading was an emotional and intellectual watershed for me which finally convinced me that we should. You should read it for yourself: take your own journey.
There will be those who focus on pitting the value of an animal life against the life of a human. Don’t. Start with the tangible and less abstract truths here: Sztybel also has a <A HREF="http://davidsztybel.info/16.html">photo essay</A> to accompany the above article: start with this. Like the written text piece it focuses more on the methodology, discourse and apparatus of both oppressions, the comparable modus operandi and bloody corporeal results of these two evils. All too evident in his words, the truth, in pictures, is even more easily assimilated.
<P>Potter Stewart was an Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court. He is famously quoted from his opinion in the obscenity case of Jacobellis v. Ohio (1964). He wrote that "hard-core pornography" is hard to define, but that "I know it when I see it."
<P>So too with comparable oppressions.David Sztybel, Ph.D.http://www.blogger.com/profile/01791831843665208484noreply@blogger.com0