Animal Rights: The Abolitionist Approach

Animal Rights: The Abolitionist Approach

This book is about a revolution--a revolution of the heart.

The exploitation of animals is pervasive, entrenched, and horrific. In this book, the authors reject the idea that animal use is morally acceptable if we treat animals â€œhumanely.â€ They reject the campaigns for â€œcompassionateâ€ exploitation promoted by virtually all large animal protection organizations. These campaigns, the authors argue, reinforce the notion that we can consume our way out of injustice and trade one form of exploitation for another. They are morally wrong and they are, as a practical matter, ineffective.

The central argument of this book is that we need a paradigm shift. We must see nonhuman animals as nonhuman persons.

This paradigm shiftâ€”this revolution of the heartâ€”starts with our own veganism, not as some sort of â€œflexitarian lifestyleâ€ issue, but as a basic, fundamental, and non-negotiable commitment to justice and fairness for nonhuman animals. Veganism, as a moral imperative, recognizes that we have no moral justification for using animalsâ€”however â€œhumanelyâ€â€”for our purposes. It continues with our daily efforts to educate others in creative, positive, and nonviolent ways about veganismâ€”something that each of us can do if we want to. Every day, we have opportunities to educate family, friends, colleagues at work, and people whom we encounter in a store or on a bus. Is it easier to write a check to someone else than do the work ourselves? Of course it is. But it wonâ€™t work because the large advocacy organizations are not seeking to end animal exploitation; they are, by promoting the idea of â€œcompassionateâ€ animal use, seeking instead to make the public feel more comfortable about continuing to exploit animals.

Francione and Charlton, both attorneys and professors at Rutgers University School of Law, have the dual perspective of working on animal issues for 30 years, while developing the abolitionist theory of animal rights. In this book, they discuss six principles that make up the Abolitionist Approach:

I. Principle One: Abolitionists maintain that all sentient beings, human or nonhuman, have one rightâ€”the basic right not to be treated as the property of others.

II. Principle Two: Abolitionists maintain that our recognition of this one basic right means that we must abolish, and not merely regulate, institutionalized animal exploitation, and that abolitionists should not support welfare reform campaigns or single-issue campaigns.

III. Principle Three: Abolitionists maintain that veganism is a moral baseline and that creative, nonviolent vegan education must be the cornerstone of rational animal rights advocacy.

IV. Principle Four: The Abolitionist Approach links the moral status of nonhumans with sentience alone and not with any other cognitive characteristic; all sentient beings are equal for the purpose of not being used exclusively as a resource.

V. Principle Five: Abolitionists reject all forms of human discrimination, including racism, sexism, heterosexism, ageism, ableism, and classismâ€”just as they reject speciesism.

VI. Principle Six: Abolitionists recognize the principle of nonviolence as a core principle of the animal rights movement.

On the bedrock of these six principles, Francione and Charlton maintain that we can end animal exploitation.

About the authors:

Gary L. Francione is Board of Governors Distinguished Professor of Law and the Nicholas deB. Katzenbach Scholar of Law and Philosophy at Rutgers University School of Law.

Anna Charlton is Adjunct Professor of Law at Rutgers University School of Law. She was the co-founder and co-director (with Gary L. Francione) of the Rutgers Animal Rights Law Clinic from 1990-2000.
Country USA
Manufacturer Exempla Press
Binding Kindle Edition
ReleaseDate 2015-12-03
Format Kindle eBook

Country	USA
Manufacturer	Exempla Press
Binding	Kindle Edition
ReleaseDate	2015-12-03
Format	Kindle eBook

Animal Rights: The Abolitionist Approach

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