By Tom Regan

Excerpted from ANIMAL RIGHTS AND HUMAN OBLIGATIONS

Edited by Tom Regan and Peter Singer. Second edition / Englewood Cliffs, NJ, Prentice Hall, 1989 ISBN # 0-13-036864-4

How to proceed? We begin by asking how the moral status of animals has been understood by thinkers who deny that animals have rights. Then we test the mettle of their ideas by seeing how well they stand up under the heat of fair criticism. If we start our thinking in this way we soon find that some people believe that we have no duties directly to animals, that we owe nothing to them that we can do nothing that wrongs them. Rather we can do wrong acts that involve animals and so we have duties regarding them though none to them. Such views may be called indirect duty views. By way of illustration — suppose your neighbor kicks your dog. Then your neighbor has done something wrong, but not to your dog. The wrong that has been done is a wrong to you. After all it is wrong to upset people and your neighbor’s kicking your dog upsets you so you are the one who is wronged not your dog Or again — by kicking your dog your neighbor damages your property. And since it is wrong to damage another person’s property, your neighbor has done something wrong — to you, of course, not to your dog. Your neighbor no more wrongs your dog than your car would be wronged if the windshield were smashed. Your neighbor’s duties involving your dog are indirect duties to you. More generally, all of our duties regarding animals are indirect duties to one another — to humanity.

Regan

How could someone try to justify such a view? Someone might say that your dog doesn’t feel anything and so isn’t hurt by your neighbor’s kick, doesn’t care about the pain since none is felt, is as unaware of anything as is your windshield. Someone might say this, but no rational person will, since, among other considerations, such a view will commit anyone who holds it to the position that no human beings feel pain either — that human beings also don’t care about what happens to them. A second possibility is that though both humans and your dog are hurt when kicked, it is only human pain that matters. But, again, no rational person can believe this. Pain is pain wherever it occurs. If your neighbor’s causing you pain is wrong because of the pain that is caused, we cannot rationally ignore or dismiss the moral relevance of the pain that your dog feels.

[dropcap]P[/dropcap][dropcap][/dropcap]hilosophers who hold indirect duty views — and many still do — have come to understand that they must avoid the two defects just noted: that is, both the view that animals don’t feel anything as well as the idea that only human pain can be morally relevant. Among such thinkers the sort of view now favored is one or another form of what is called contractarianism.

Here, very crudely, is the root idea: morality consists of a set of rules that individuals voluntarily agree to abide by, as we do when we sign a contract (hence the name contractarianism). Those who understand and accept the terms of the contract are covered directly; they have rights created and recognized by, and protected in, the contract. And these contractors can also have protection spelled out for others who, though they lack the ability to understand morality and so cannot sign the contract themselves, are loved or cherished by those who can. Thus young children, for example, are unable to sign contracts and lack rights. But they are protected by the contract nonetheless because of the sentimental interests of others, most notably their parents. So we have, then, duties involving these children, duties regarding them, but no duties to them. Our duties in their case are indirect duties to other human beings, usually their parents.

Click on image for best resolution.

As for animals, since they cannot understand contracts, they obviously cannot sign; and since they cannot sign, they have no rights. Like children, however, some animals are the object of the sentimental interest of others. You, for example, love your dog or cat. So those animals that enough people care about (companion animals, whales, baby seals, the American bald eagle), though they lack rights themselves, will be protected because of the sentimental interests of people. I have, then, according to contractaranism, no duty directly to your dog or any other animal, not even the duty not to cause them pain or suffering; my duty not to hurt them is a duty I have to those people who care about what happens to them. As for other animals, where no or little sentimental interest is present — in the case of farm animals, for example, or laboratory rats — what duties we have grow weaker and weaker, perhaps to the vanishing point. The pain and death they endure, though real, are not wrong if no one cares about them.

[dropcap]W[/dropcap]hen it comes to the moral status of animals, contractarianism could be a hard view to refute if it were an adequate theoretical approach to the moral status of human beings. It is not adequate in this latter respect, however, which makes the question of its adequacy in the former case, regarding animals, utterly moot. For consider: morality, according to the (crude) contractarian position before us, consists of rules that people agree to abide by. What people? Well, enough to make a difference — enough, that is, collectively to have the power to enforce the rules that are drawn up in the contract. That is very well and good for the signatories but not so good for anyone who is not asked to sign. And there is nothing in contractarianism of the sort we are discussing that guarantees or requires that everyone will have a chance to participate equally in framing rules of morality. The result is that this approach to ethics could sanction the most blatant forms of social, economic, moral, and political injustice, ranging from a repressive caste system to systematic racial or sexual discrimination. Might, according to this theory, does make right. Let those who are the victims of injustice suffer as they will. It matters not so long as no one else — no contractor, or too few of them — cares about it. Such a theory takes one’s moral breath away . . . as if, for example, there would be nothing wrong with apartheid in South Africa if few white South Africans were upset by it. A theory with so little to recommend it at the level of the ethics of our treatment of our fellow humans cannot have anything more to recommend it when it comes to the ethics of how we treat our fellow animals.

The version of contractarianism just examined is, as I have noted, a crude variety, and in fairness to those of a contractarian persuasion, it must be noted that much more refined, subtle, and ingenious varieties are possible. For example, John Rawls, in his A Theory of Justice, sets forth a version of contractarianism that forces contractors to ignore the accidental features of being a human being — for example, whether one is white or black, male or female, a genius or of modest intellect. Only by ignoring such features, Rawls believes, can we ensure that the principles of justice that contractors would agree upon are not based on bias or prejudice. Despite the improvement a view such as Rawls’s represents over the cruder forms of Contractarianism, it remains deficient: it systematically denies that we have direct duties to those human beings who do not have a sense of justice — young children, for instance, and many mentally retarded humans. And yet it seems reasonably certain that were we to torture a young child or a retarded elder, we would be doing something that wronged him or her, not something that would be wrong if (and only if) other humans with a sense of justice were upset. And since this is true in the case of these humans, we cannot rationally deny the same in the case of animals.

[dropcap]I[/dropcap]ndirect duty views, then, including the best among them, fail to command our rational assent. Whatever ethical theory we should accept rationally, therefore, it must at least recognize that we have some duties directly to animals, just as we have some duties directly to each other. The next two theories I’ll sketch attempt to meet this requirement.

The first I call the cruelty-kindness view. Simply stated, this says that we have a direct duty to be kind to animals and a direct duty not to be cruel to them. Despite the familiar, reassuring ring of these ideas, I do not believe that this view offers an adequate theory. To make this clearer, consider kindness. A kind person acts from a certain type of motive —compassion or concern, for example. And that is a virtue. But there is no guarantee that a kind act is a right act. If I am a generous racist, for example, I will be inclined to act kindly towards members of my own race, favoring their interests above those of others. My kindness would be real and, so far as it goes, good. But I trust it is too obvious to require argument that my kind acts may not be above moral reproach — may, in fact, be positively wrong because rooted in injustice. So kindness, notwithstanding its status as a virtue to be encouraged, simply will not carry the weight of a theory of right action.

Cruelty fares no better. People or their acts are cruel if they display either a lack of sympathy for or, worse, the presence of enjoyment in another’s suffering. Cruelty in all its guises is a bad thing, a tragic human failing. But just as a person’s being motivated by kindness does not guarantee that he or she does what is right, so the absence of cruelty does not ensure that he or she avoids doing what is wrong. Many people who perform abortions, for example, are not cruel, sadistic people. But that fact alone does not settle the terribly difficult question of the morality of abortion. The case is no different when we examine the ethics of our treatment of animals. So, yes, let us be for kindness and against cruelty. But let us not suppose that being for the one and against the other answers questions about moral right and wrong.

[dropcap]S[/dropcap]ome people think that the theory we are looking for is utilitarianism. A utilitarian accepts two moral principles. The first is that of equality: everyone’s interests count, and similar interests must be counted as having similar weight or importance. White or black, American or Iranian, human or animal — everyone’s pain or frustration matters, and matters just as much as the equivalent pain or frustration of anyone else. The second principle a utilitarian accepts is that of utility: do the act that will bring about the best balance between satisfaction and frustration for everyone affected by the outcome.

As a utilitarian, then, here is how I am to approach the task of deciding what I morally ought to do: I must ask who will be affected if I choose to do one thing rather than another, how much each individual will be affected, and where the best results are most likely to lie — which option, in other words, is most likely to bring about the best results, the best balance between satisfaction and frustration. That option, whatever it may be, is the one I ought to choose. That is where my moral duty lies.

The great appeal of utilitarianism rests with its uncompromising egalitarianism: everyone’s interests count and count as much as the like interests of everyone else. The kind of odious discrimination that some forms of contractarianism can justify — discrimination based on race or sex, for example — seems disallowed in principle by utilitarianism, as is speciesism, systematic discrimination based on species membership.

The equality we find in utilitarianism, however, is not the sort an advocate of animal or human rights should have in mind. Utilitarianism has no room for the equal rights of different individuals because it has no room for their equal inherent value or worth. What has value for the utilitarian is the satisfaction of an individual’s interests, not the individual whose interests they are. A universe in which you satisfy your desire for water, food, and warmth is, other things being equal, better than a universe in which these desires are frustrated. And the same is true in the case of an animal with similar desires. But neither you nor the animal have any value in your own right. Only your feelings do.

Here is an analogy to help make the philosophical point clearer: a cup contains different liquids, sometimes sweet, sometimes bitter, sometimes a mixture of the two. What has value are the liquids: the sweeter the better, the bitterer the worse. The cup, the container, has no value. It is what goes into it, not what they go into, that has value. For the utilitarian, you and I are like the cup; we have no value as individuals and thus no equal value. What has value is what goes into us, what we serve as receptacles for; our feelings of satisfaction have positive value, our feelings of frustration negative value.

Serious problems arise for utilitarianism when we remind ourselves that it enjoins us to bring about the best consequences. What does this mean? It doesn’t mean the best consequences for me alone, or for my family or friends, or any other person taken individually. No, what we must do is, roughly, as follows: we must add up (somehow!) the separate satisfactions and frustrations of everyone likely to be affected by our choice, the satisfactions in one column, the frustrations in the other. We must total each column for each of the options before us. That is what it means to say the theory is aggregative. And then we must choose that option which is most likely to bring about the best balance of totalled satisfactions over totalled frustrations. Whatever act would lead to this outcome is the one we ought morally to perform — it is where our moral duty lies. And thar act quite clearly might not be the same one that would bring about the best results for me personally, or for my family or friends, or for a lab animal. The best aggregated consequences for everyone concerned are not necessarily the best for each individual.

[dropcap]T[/dropcap]hat utilitarianism is an aggregative theory — different individuals’ satisfactions or frustrations are added, or summed, or totalled — is the key objection to this theory. My Aunt Bea is old, inactive, a cranky, sour person, though not physically ill. She prefers to go on living. She is also rather rich, I could make a fortune if I could get my hands on her money, money she intends to give me in any event, after she dies, but which she refuses to give me now. In order to avoid a huge tax bite, I plan to donate a handsome sum of my profits to a local children’s hospital. Many, many children will benefit from my generosity, and much joy will be brought to their parents, relatives, and friends. If I don’t get the money rather soon, all these ambitions will come to naught. The once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to make a real killing will be gone. Why, then, not kill my Aunt Bea? Oh, of course I might get caught. But I’m no fool and, besides, her doctor can be counted on to cooperate (he has an eye for the same investment and I happen to know a good deal about his shady past). The deed can be done . . . professionally, shall we say. There is very little chance of getting caught. And as for my conscience being guilt ridden, I am a resourceful sort of fellow and will take more than sufficient comfort — as I lie on the beach at Acapulco — in contemplating the joy and health I have brought to so many others.

Suppose Aunt Bea is killed and the rest of the story comes out as told. Would I have done anything wrong? Anything immoral? One would have thought that I had. Not according to utilitarianism. Since what I have done has brought about the best balance between totalled satisfaction and frustration for all those affected by the outcome, my action is not wrong. Indeed, in killing Aunt Bea the physician and I did what duty required.

This same kind of argument can be repeated in all sorts of cases, illustrating, time after time, how the utilitarian’s position leads to results that impartial people find morally callous. It is wrong to kill my Aunt Bea in the name of bringing about the best results for others. A good end does not justify an evil means. Any adequate moral theory will have to explain why this is so. Utilitarianism fails in this respect and so cannot be the theory we seek.

What to do? Where to begin anew? The place to begin, I think, is with the utilitarian’s view of the value of the individual — or, rather, the lack of value. In its place, suppose we consider that you and I, for example, do have value as individuals — what we’ll call inherent value. To say we have such value is to say that we are something more than, something different from, mere receptacles. Moreover, to ensure that we do not pave the way for such injustices as slavery or sexual discrimination, we must believe that all who have inherent value have it equally, regardless of their sex, race, religion, birthplace, and so on. Similarly to be discarded as irrelevant are one’s talents or skills, intelligence and wealth, personality or pathology, whether one is loved and admired or despised and loathed. The genius and the retarded child, the prince and the pauper, the brain surgeon and the fruit vendor, Mother Teresa and the most unscrupulous used-car salesman — all have inherent value, all possess it equally, and all have an equal right to be treated with respect, to be treated in ways that do not reduce them to the status of things, as if they existed as resources for others. My value as an individual is independent of my usefulness to you. Yours is not dependent on your usefulness to me. For either of us to treat the other in ways that fail to show respect for the other’s independent value is to act immorally, to violate the individual’s rights.

Some of the rational virtues of this view — what I call the rights view — should be evident. Unlike (crude) contractarianism, for example, the rights view in principle denies the moral tolerability of any and all forms of racial, sexual, or social discrimination; and unlike utilitarianism, the view in principle denies that we can justify good results by using evil means that violate an individual’s rights — denies, for example, that it could be moral to kill my Aunt Bea to harvest beneficial consequences for others. That would be to sanction the disrespectful treatment of the individual in the name of the social good, something the rights view will not — categorically will not — ever allow.

The rights view, I believe, is rationally the most satisfactory moral theory. It surpasses all other theories in the degree to which it illuminates and explains the foundation of our duties to one another — the domain of human morality. On this score it has the best reasons, the best arguments on its side. Of course, if it were possible to show that only human beings are included within its scope, then a person like myself, who believes in animal rights, would be obliged to look elsewhere.

But attempts to limit its scope to humans only can be shown to be rationally defective. Animals, it is true, lack many of the abilities humans possess. The can’t read, do higher mathematics, build a bookcase, or make baba ghanoush. Neither can many human beings, however, and yet we don’t (and shouldn’t) say that they (these humans) therefore have less inherent value, less of a right to be treated with respect, than do others. It is the similarities between those human beings who most clearly, most noncontroversially have such value (the people reading this, for example), not our differences, that matter most. And the really crucial, the basic similarity it simply this: we are each of us the experiencing subject of a life, a conscious creature having an individual welfare that has importance to us whatever our usefulness to others. We want and prefer things, believe and fee things, recall and expect things. And all these dimensions of our life including our pleasure and pain, our enjoyment and suffering, our satisfaction and frustration, our continued existence or our untimely death — all make a difference to the quality of our life as lived, as experienced, by us as individuals. As the same is true of those animals that concern us (the ones that are eaten and trapped, for example), they too must be viewed as the experiencing subjects of a life, with inherent value of their own.

Some there are who resist the idea that animals have inherent value. “Only humans have such value,” they profess. How might this narrow view be defended? Shall we say that only humans have the requisite intelligence, or autonomy, or reason? But there are many, many humans who fail to meet these standards and yet are reasonably viewed as having value above and beyond their usefulness to others. Shall we claim that only humans belong to the right species, the species Homo sapiens? But this is blatant speciesism. Will it be said, then, that all — and only — humans have immortal souls? Then our opponents have their work cut out for them. I am myself not ill-disposed to the proposition that there are immortal souls. Personally, I profoundly hope I have one. But I would not want to rest my position on a controversial ethical issue on the even more controversial question about who or what has an immortal soul. That is to dig one’s hole deeper, not to climb out. Rationally, it is better to resolve moral issues without making more controversial assumptions than are needed. The question of who has inherent value is such a question, one that is resolved more rationally without the introduction of the idea of immortal souls than by its use.

Well, perhaps some will say that animals have some inherent value, only less than we have. Once again, however, attempts to defend this view can be shown to lack rational justification. What could be the basis of our having more inherent value than animals? Their lack of reason, or autonomy, or intellect? Only if we are willing to make the same judgment in the case of humans who are similarly deficient. But it is not true that such humans—the retarded child, for example, or the mentally deranged — have less inherent value than you or 1. Neither, then, can we rationally sustain the view that animals like them in being the experiencing subjects of a life have less inherent value. All who have inherent value have it equally, whether they be human animals or not.

Inherent value, then, belongs equally to those who are the experiencing subjects of a life. Whether it belongs to others — to rocks and rivers, trees and glaciers, for example — we do not know and may never know. But neither do we need to know, if we are to make the case for animal rights. We do not need to know, for example, how many people are eligible to vote in the next presidential election before we can know whether I am. Similarly, we do not need to know how many individuals have inherent value before we can know that some do. When it comes to the case for animal rights, then, what we need to know is whether the animals that, in our culture, are routinely eaten, hunted, and used in our laboratories, for example, are like us in being subjects of a life. And we do know this. We do know that many — literally, billions and billions — of these animals are the go subjects of a life in the sense explained and so have inherent value if we do. And since, in order to arrive at the best theory of our duties to one another, we must recognize our equal inherent value as individuals, reason — not sentiment, not emotion — reason compels us to recognize the equal inherent value of these animals and, with this, their equal right to be treated with respect.

That, very roughly, is the shape and feel of the case for animal rights. Most of the details of the supporting argument are missing. They are to be found in the book that bears the same title as this essay.* Here, the details go begging, and I must, in closing, limit myself to two final points.

The first is how the theory that underlies the case for animal rights shows that the animal rights movement is a part of, not antagonistic to, the human rights movement. The theory that rationally grounds the rights of animals also grounds the rights of humans. Thus those involved in the animal rights movement are partners in the struggle to secure respect for human rights — the rights of women, for example, or minorities, or workers. The animal rights movement is cut from the same moral cloth as these.

Second, having set out the broad outlines of the rights view, I can now say why its implications for farming and science, among other fields, are both clear and uncompromising. In the case of the use of animals in science, the rights view is categorically abolitionist. Lab animals are not our tasters; we are not their kings. Because these animals are treated routinely, systematically as if their value were reducible to their usefulness to others, they are routinely, systematically treated with a lack of respect, and thus are | their rights routinely, systematically violated. This is just as true when they are used in trivial, duplicative, unnecessary or unwise research as it is when they are used in studies that hold out real promise of human benefits. We can’t justify harming or killing a human being (my Aunt Bea, for example) just for these sorts of reason. Neither can we do so even in the case of so lowly a creature as a laboratory rat. It is not just refinement or reduction that is called for, not just larger, cleaner cages, not just more generous use of anesthesia or the elimination of multiple surgery, not just tidying up the system. It is complete replacement. The best we can do when it comes to using animals in science is — not to use them. That is where our duty lies, according to the rights view.

As for commercial animal agriculture, the rights view takes a similar abolitionist position. The fundamental moral wrong here is not that animals are kept in stressful close confinement or in isolation, or that their pain and suffering, their needs and preferences are ignored or discounted. All these are wrong, of course, but they are not the fundamental wrong. They are symptoms and effects of the deeper, systematic wrong that allows | these animals to be viewed and treated as lacking independent value, as resources for us — as, indeed, a renewable resource. Giving farm animals more space, more natural environments, more companions does not right the fundamental wrong, any more than giving lab animals more anesthesia or bigger, cleaner cages would right the fundamental wrong in their case. Nothing less than the total dissolution of commercial animal agriculture will do this, just as, for similar reasons I won’t develop at length here, morality requires nothing less than the total elimination of hunting and trapping for commercial and sporting ends. The rights view’s implications, then, as I have said, are clear and uncompromising.

BY WOLF GORDON CLIFTON | ANIMAL PEOPLE FORUM

(Featured image: free-roaming pigs in India. Credit Kim Bartlett – Animal People, Inc.)

Last week, I took the opportunity to represent the Animal People Forum at the Humane Society of the United States’ annual Expo conference in Las Vegas. While I have very mixed feelings about the location in which it was held – a surreal hybrid of Sodom & Gomorrah, Disneyland, and Dante’s Inferno – the conference itself was excellent, with many valuable sessions and plenty of great opportunities for networking.

During the welcome session, HSUS President and CEO Wayne Pacelle gave a talk promoting his new book, The Humane Economy. He presented numerous examples of how public concern for non-human animals, and outrage over cruelty and neglect, has driven companies in various industries to reform their treatment of other species. These range from Ringling Bros. Circus agreeing to retire its performing elephants, to numerous airlines refusing to transport hunting trophies out of Africa following mass outcry over Cecil the lion’s illegal killing.

Pacelle’s thesis, further elaborated in his book, is twofold: that activists can best promote animal protection by leveraging market forces as a catalyst for change, and that companies act in their own best interests by taking consumers’ ethical demands seriously. He summarized this thesis in his talk by declaring,

“Animal protection shouldn’t be a sacrifice. It should be an opportunity.”

Pacelle’s distinctly pro-capitalist approach to animal protection will undoubtedly rankle more radical activists, who see capitalism not as a potential ally, but as an intrinsically exploitative system and one of the foremost obstacles to meaningful change for animals. While I do not myself dispute the use of economic incentives as a tactic to advance animal welfare in certain situations, such as those cited in The Humane Economy, I am nonetheless extremely wary of any approach that conflates moral principles with business pursuits. In some cases, defending animals may present economic opportunities; but in others, it may indeed require sacrifice. Either way, compassion for all sentient beings must remain our highest value and foremost priority, and be pursued regardless of the profit or cost it may bring corporate interests.

‘The Humane Economy’ by Wayne Pacelle

That said, accepting Pacelle’s thesis for the sake of argument, another important issue arises. When it comes to eating animals, Pacelle offered in his talk multiple examples of companies in the food industry working to make their practices more “humane:” pork producers agreeing to phase out gestation crates for pigs, and restaurants and grocery outlets committing to sell only eggs from “cage free” chickens. Yet he gave no mention at all to the production of high-quality alternatives to meat, eggs, and dairy – now a thriving industry whose products herald a possible end to animals’ exploitation and slaughter for food altogether. Despite being vegan himself, he didn’t even mention the words “vegetarian” or “vegan” once.

Why the omission? In his book, Pacelle actually does devote considerable attention to the creation of veg alternatives to meat, eggs, and dairy. The Humane Economy describes both plant-based substitutes, such as Beyond Meat, Gardein, and Hampton Creek’s Just Mayo, and projects like Maastricht University’s Cultured Beef, which grows animal protein directly from stem cells rather than by harming living animals. (This article will bypass the philosophical debate over whether in vitro meat is technically vegetarian or vegan, as the end result in sparing animals is effectively the same.)

There is no disputing either the profitability of such enterprises, or their massive potential to benefit animals. According to Pacelle’s book, Gardein products are now available in 22,000 stores, and in 2014 the company that produces them was bought by Pinnacle Foods for $174 million. The Humane Economy quotes Josh Balk, cofounder of Hampton Creek, as stating that if just a single line of pasta produced by Michael Foods were to switch to his company’s vegan egg replacer, it would spare 115,000 hens from miserable lives in battery cages.

From the perspective of animals raised for food, the manufacture of veg alternatives to meat, eggs, and dairy is infinitely preferable to the adoption of slightly less cruel farming standards. “Humane” certification programs may curtail some of the worst abuses, but still permit branding, castration without anesthesia, unnatural crowding, require little if any access to the outdoors, and ultimately consign animals to die – usually in the same industrial slaughterhouses as their more cruelly raised brethren. Veg foods remove animal exploitation from the equation altogether.

Conditions inside a “free range” chicken farm (photo credit: steve p2008, used under CC BY 2.0)

From an economic viewpoint, such products are also far more sustainable in the long term than are meat, dairy, or eggs produced by animals under any conditions. The United Nations has recognized emissions from animal agriculture as one of the leading causes of climate change, rivaling or exceeding all transportation combined. According to a recently leaked report commissioned by Nestlé, if meat production continues at current rates, a third of the human population will face water shortages by 2025, with “catastrophic” global consequences by 2050. Given that factory farming has prevailed due to its relative efficiency in utilizing resources of food, water, and space, adopting more “humane,” resource-intensive forms of agriculture will only hasten the catastrophe – and an end to corporate profits – unless demand for animal products is drastically reduced at the same time.

By contrast, it takes 99% less water, and produces 78-95% fewer greenhouse emissions, to produce a pound of grain protein than a pound of animal protein. Oxford University estimates that growing meat directly from stem cells would require 99% less land, 96% less water, and produce 96% fewer greenhouse gas emissions than raising and slaughtering animals for it.

That Pacelle evidently knows these facts, touching on most of them in The Humane Economy, only makes his omission of them in public talks all the more striking. In a guest appearance on Real Time With Bill Maher, he doesn’t mention vegetarianism at all, except in the context of congratulating Seaworld (!) for agreeing to offer more plant-based food options at their parks in addition to “humanely” produced meat. In an interview with Nicholas Kristof of the New York Times, he even dismisses it, saying,

“Animals jammed into cages and crates cannot wait for the world to go vegan. I’m quite sure they want out of this unyielding life of privation right now, and once that question is settled, then sensible people can debate whether they should be raised for the plate at all.”

That even at HSUS’ own conference, preaching to a choir of animal protection activists with no risk of backlash for advocating a vegetarian or vegan diet, Pacelle chose to promote “humane” meat and not veg alternatives is extremely bewildering. Moreover, it entirely contradicts the logic of his own argument, that “Animal protection shouldn’t be a sacrifice. It should be an opportunity.”

On the one hand, encouraging consumers to eat “humane” meat, eggs, and dairy sacrifices the overall welfare of animals. It may prevent a few particularly egregious forms of cruelty, but leaves the overall system of brutal exploitation and killing intact, now sanitized in the public eye through the endorsement of high-profile animal welfare organizations like HSUS. (it is worth noting that S 820, which HSUS lobbied unsuccessfully to include in the 2014 Farm Bill, would have implemented larger cages for laying hens nationwide yet also prohibit further reforms in the future, preserving the egg industry in perpetuity in the name of animal welfare.) And if such a “reformed” industry is to be sustainable, it demands sacrifice on the part of the consumer as well, for it is only by drastically reducing their consumption of meat and animal products that animal agriculture can continue without causing global environmental devastation. In the long term, “humane” farming of animals is a lose-lose for everyone concerned.

Vegan cheeseburger made with Gardein’s Beefless Burger, Hampton Creek’s Just Mayo, and Field Roast’s Chao cheese slices.

On the other, vegan meat alternatives and lab-grown in vitro meat can be made without farming or slaughtering animals at all, eliminating their suffering entirely. And as their production becomes more and more advanced, such products will become indistinguishable from animal meat in taste, texture, nutrition, and even their basic biochemical structure. By choosing non-violent alternatives to meat, eggs, and dairy, consumers can continue to enjoy their favorite dishes in the same quantities as before, without exploiting animals or placing unbearable stress upon the Earth’s environment. Nothing, and no one, is sacrificed, and everyone wins – humans, animals, and the planet alike.

Admittedly, promoting meat alternatives to people used to eating slaughtered animals may be more difficult than simply offering “humane” versions of the same product. But animal protection organizations like HSUS owe it to the animals to seek the greatest good, not the path of least resistance… particularly if the short-term gains they achieve serve to perpetuate dietary choices that cause immense unnecessary suffering, and will ultimately devastate the planet and civilization with it. If Wayne Pacelle and HSUS can plug “humane” meat in the New York Times, and even sponsor tours for foodies to eat meat at humane-certified restaurants, think what the same time, energy, and resources could accomplish if used to support projects like Beyond Meat, Gardein, and Cultured Beef instead.

If we are to accept Wayne Pacelle’s capitalist approach to animal protection, the logical conclusion is clear: a “humane economy” must by definition be a veg economy. That he so adamantly seeks to evade this conclusion is mystifying and disturbing.

About the author

Born and raised within the animal rights movement, Wolf Gordon Clifton, currently serving as Executive Director of Animal People Inc, publisher of the Animal People Forum (animalpeopleforum.org) has always felt strongly connected to other creatures and concerned for their well-being. Beginning in childhood he contributed drawings of animals for publication in Animal People News, and traveled with his parents to attend conferences and visit animal projects all over the world. During high school he began writing for the newspaper and contributing in various additional ways around the Animal People office. His first solo trip overseas, to film a promotional video for the Bali Street Dog Foundation in Indonesia, led him to create the animated film Yudisthira's Dog, retelling the story of an ancient Hindu king famed for his loyalty to a street dog. It also inspired lifelong interests in animation and world religion, which he went on to study for college at Vanderbilt University. Wolf graduated in 2013 with a Bachelor of Arts in Religious Studies and minors in Film Studies and Astronomy. In 2015, he received a Master of Arts in Museology and Graduate Certificate in Astrobiology from the University of Washington. His thesis project, the online exhibit Beyond Human: Animals, Aliens, and Artificial Intelligence, brings together animal rights, astrobiology, and AI research to explore the ethics of humans' relationships with other sentient beings, and can be viewed on the Animal People Forum. His diverse training and life experiences enable him to research and write about a wide variety of animal-related issues, in a global context and across the humanities, arts, and sciences. In his spare time, he does paleontological work for the Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture, and writes for the community blog Neon Observatory.

BY MARCOS POLANCO

SODOPRECA (D.R.)
Originally Published on Animal People Forum

The biodiversity sub ministries have big issues with these squalid conditions, yet SODOPRECA has raised this issue to the authorities to no avail. The problem in the Dominican Republic, as in many third world countries, is that they are very politically corrupt and don’t want or care to do anything, even though they are in violation of National Legislation and international treaties, including DR-CAFTA.

There is no budget for food or medical care at the Moca Zoo. It is so bad that the residents of this small town, out of desperation and compassion, are trying to gather food for the animals – often inappropriate – just to keep them alive. Sometimes the lions are given rotten meat or dead or dying horses, cows and donkeys.

Based on information obtained from reliable sources, we believe the real motivation for keeping this hellhole running is that the zoo’s owners are breeding and selling endangered turtle species. The only way they can continue to breed and sell these turtles is to have “Zoo Status”.

This suffering needs to stop now. We have started the proceedings with lawyers, but connections, public awareness, and other forms of help are always welcomed and desperately needed. Please click on our link below to see how you can help the Zoo Animals of Moca and spread the word.

https://www.facebook.com/sodopreca/timeline

[metaslider id=73595]

THE EDITORS OF THE GREANVILLE POST ENDORSE THE FOLLOWING MESSAGE

PLEASE SUPPORT THE WORK OF SODOPRECA!
SUGGESTED ACTION
Write a letter to your local newspaper, radio and tv station. Tell them about this situation in the Dominican Republic and remind them that animal suffering has no boundaries or nationalities. Also contact animal organizations, including PETA, HSUS, IFAW, FoA (Friends of Animals) and other major groups requesting immediate help with this case of gross neglect in our own hemisphere.

About the author

 Marcos Polanco has served as President of the Executive Council of SODOPRECA (Dominican Republic) since 2011. Marcos, who has been working with SODOPRECA as a volunteer for more than 13 years, has gained considerable experience in all areas of animal defense and liberation, from rescuing animals in distress, to serving as technical medical assistant, animal handling in various situations, etc. He has also led an international rescue operation, right after the earthquake in Haiti, and has collaborated with many organizations, at home and overseas. 

This talk is by John McDougall MD from the VegSource Healthy Lifestyle Expo 2010. You can purchase a copy of all 14 fascinating and life-saving talks from the Expo on DVD.

NOTE: The Greanville Post is not a paid endorser of this product.

by
Jan Creamer, ADI

Note to Commenters
Due to severe hacking attacks in the recent past that brought our site down for up to 11 days with considerable loss of circulation, we exercise extreme caution in the comments we publish, as the comment box has been one of the main arteries to inject malicious code. Because of that comments may not appear immediately, but rest assured that if you are a legitimate commenter your opinion will be published within 24 hours. If your comment fails to appear, and you wish to reach us directly, send us a mail at: editor@greanvillepost.com

We apologize for this inconvenience. 

=SUBSCRIBE TODAY! NOTHING TO LOSE, EVERYTHING TO GAIN.=
free • safe • invaluable

Nauseated by the
vile corporate media?
Had enough of their lies, escapism,
omissions and relentless manipulation?