Animal Advocacy - Most Important Focus? [POLL]

[TheVeganAtheist]

So for you, what do you think is of more important in furthering the animal rights/animal welfare/animal liberation movement? (and why)?

[brimstoneSalad]

I don't know.

I think I would have to say: research. Particularly into psychology. That way we can better determine which kinds of campaigns and methods are most effective.

Without research, I'd say a mixture of methods is probably the most prudent.
When there are enough ideas out there available, people get exposed to many different arguments, and there might be a better chance one sticks.

But at the same time, you never know if people see the diversity and division on those issues as an argument for just continuing the eat meat and exploit animals in any way possible, since the people who disagree with it can't agree with each other on method.

So yeah, we need more research, IMO.

[Neptual]

I feel that if we reduce animal consumption then that would lessen the chance of people wanting it animal products. It would become the new "norm" to not eat/wear animal products.

[Volenta]

I think you're right, Dan. Promoting a reduction of animal consumption could actually help, so people can see that meals are great without animal products in it.

I'm not really sure whether I'm on the welfare or abolitionism team. I've started to read and watch everything of Gary Francione and really get what he says. Promoting 'happy' meat, eggs and dairy IS turning (potential) veg*ns into 'happy' carnists and makes them feel good about it.

[brimstoneSalad]

I'm not really sure whether I'm on the welfare or abolitionism team. I've started to read and watch everything of Gary Francione and really get what he says. Promoting 'happy' meat, eggs and dairy IS turning (potential) veg*ns into 'happy' carnists and makes them feel good about it.

The problem is, that's an empirical claim- one that could be researched to provide evidence for it.

I just don't think it's true.

People will grapple onto any excuse to continue their habits. That just may provide slightly lower hanging fruit for them. Lacking that, most people won't shy away from even less rational excuses.

And when they run out of excuses, most people don't go vegan- they just change their moral views to accommodate eating meat, reducing their concern for animal suffering, and shrugging it away.

I think cognitive dissonance is more powerful than the likes of Francione assumes. People are strongly disinclined to change their behavior- it's the belief that changes (whether that's the belief that killing animals is wrong, or the belief that they are moral people).

So, I'd have to see some serious and rigorous studies to assume those claims are true.

I suspect the more we support welfare, and the less harm to animals people do, the more compassionate humans will become (because their habits allow it), and the more likely we'll be able to phase out animal agriculture in the future through regulation and dietary change.


Also: Being against animal welfare makes vegans look unreasonable, and crazy. Whether that's a mistaken assumption on the part of the public due to ignorance of the position or not, that kind of PR doesn't really help us.

[Volenta]

I'm not really sure whether I'm on the welfare or abolitionism team. I've started to read and watch everything of Gary Francione and really get what he says. Promoting 'happy' meat, eggs and dairy IS turning (potential) veg*ns into 'happy' carnists and makes them feel good about it.

The problem is, that's an empirical claim- one that could be researched to provide evidence for it.

I just don't think it's true.

People will grapple onto any excuse to continue their habits. That just may provide slightly lower hanging fruit for them. Lacking that, most people won't shy away from even less rational excuses.

And when they run out of excuses, most people don't go vegan- they just change their moral views to accommodate eating meat, reducing their concern for animal suffering, and shrugging it away.

I think cognitive dissonance is more powerful than the likes of Francione assumes. People are strongly disinclined to change their behavior- it's the belief that changes (whether that's the belief that killing animals is wrong, or the belief that they are moral people).

So, I'd have to see some serious and rigorous studies to assume those claims are true.

I'm all in favor of a study being conducted, hope it will happen sometime. The claim I made is hard to prove about the potential veg*ns, but I read about vegetarians going happy carnists a lot. But I off course don't know how many people turn vegetarian at the same time because of the reforms and promotion of happy stuff.

I suspect the more we support welfare, and the less harm to animals people do, the more compassionate humans will become (because their habits allow it), and the more likely we'll be able to phase out animal agriculture in the future through regulation and dietary change.

Well, I'm afraid that people and governments don't take the last step by stopping it all.

Also: Being against animal welfare makes vegans look unreasonable, and crazy. Whether that's a mistaken assumption on the part of the public due to ignorance of the position or not, that kind of PR doesn't really help us.

Not sure they are against welfare. They're just against the promotion of it, because they think the money is better spend at promoting veganism. But I don't agree with Gary Francione that the reforms will happen anyway—I think it does cost the industry a lot of money (or the consumer of course).

[brimstoneSalad]

I'm all in favor of a study being conducted, hope it will happen sometime. The claim I made is hard to prove about the potential veg*ns, but I read about vegetarians going happy carnists a lot. But I off course don't know how many people turn vegetarian at the same time because of the reforms and promotion of happy stuff.

Recidivism among vegans and vegetarians alike is very high. Sadly, I can hardly think of any vegetarians or vegans I have known well for more than a couple years who haven't reverted to eating meat now. It usually has nothing to do with them deciding meat is OK because they think animals are treated better now, and more to do with either an idiot General practitioner (I say idiot, because GPs are not dietitians and don't have training in nutrition, so have no business making such incompetent recommendations) telling them they should (and them blindly following orders without getting a second opinion because they wanted to eat meat and they thought it sounded like a good enough excuse), or a romantic partner eating meat, and them rationalizing (thanks to cognitive dissonance): "I love my partner, therefore my partner is a good person, my partner eats meat, therefore there's nothing wrong with eating meat". Others were just vegetarian for health reasons, and received bad nutritional advice (commonly raw foodists) and have jumped on the paleodiet bandwagon (or something else) now.

Well, I'm afraid that people and governments don't take the last step by stopping it all.

Well, it's certainly not going to happen out of the blue. Us as a society treating animals cruelly makes society care less about the treatment of animals, not more. See cognitive dissonance. When you do something, beliefs conform to fit actions, not the other way around. The more we improve animal welfare, and the more 'invisible' the animal agriculture industry becomes, the more compassion people will allow themselves to feel for animals.
The only way you'd get a majority to react against animal agriculture without a gradual change is by keeping them completely ignorant of where meat comes from, and then bringing it out and shocking them suddenly in a soilent green style revelation.

Not sure they are against welfare. They're just against the promotion of it, because they think the money is better spend at promoting veganism. But I don't agree with Gary Francione that the reforms will happen anyway—I think it does cost the industry a lot of money (or the consumer of course).

I've met a fair number who are outright against reform, because they think it makes abolition less likely in the future (not just against promoting reform).
It makes vegans look unreasonable in the eyes of omnivores, and I think makes them less likely to consider veganism. But maybe not.

All of this stuff, of course, is something we need more real research on. The lack of real marketing research is one of our greatest promotional deficiencies.

[cufflink]

As a new vegan, I'm just beginning to educate myself on the differences between abolitionism and welfarism. Judging from the videos I've watched, there seems to be a fair amount of vitriol between the two groups. Francione strikes me as a strongly divisive character. But I have a lot more to learn.

At this point I have a couple of questions I hope some of the more experienced members can help me out with.

1. I gather that many (most? almost all?) vegans want to discard cognition as a criterion for how we treat non-human animals. There should not be a hierarchy where, say, an orangutan has a higher value than a pig, which has a higher value than a chicken, which has a higher value than a snail . . . It's simply a question of status as a "sentient being." (I'm happy to be corrected if I'm wrong.)

My question is, what constitutes "sentient"? It's pretty clear that a dog is sentient while a carrot is not, but what about a mosquito? Are insects sentient? Should I hesitate to squash the mosquito buzzing around my head? If the answer is "No, it's fine to kill the mosquito," then where do we draw the line? Is it a question of neurology--whether or not the animal can experience pain? (Do insects feel pain? I have no idea.)

2. I get that sentient beings have a right to their lives. But does that mean we shouldn't assign different weights and values to different kinds of lives? I don't want any more chickens killed on my behalf, but at the same time I don't assign the same value to a chicken life as I do to a human life. In the burning-building scenario, with a human on one side of the building and a chicken on the other, I wouldn't have to think for a second about which one to save. Is that standard thinking in the vegan community (I would hope so), or would some consider it speciesism and therefore invalid?

[Volenta]

As a new vegan, I'm just beginning to educate myself on the differences between abolitionism and welfarism. Judging from the videos I've watched, there seems to be a fair amount of vitriol between the two groups. Francione strikes me as a strongly divisive character. But I have a lot more to learn.

At this point I have a couple of questions I hope some of the more experienced members can help me out with.

1. I gather that many (most? almost all?) vegans want to discard cognition as a criterion for how we treat non-human animals. There should not be a hierarchy where, say, an orangutan has a higher value than a pig, which has a higher value than a chicken, which has a higher value than a snail . . . It's simply a question of status as a "sentient being." (I'm happy to be corrected if I'm wrong.)

My question is, what constitutes "sentient"? It's pretty clear that a dog is sentient while a carrot is not, but what about a mosquito? Are insects sentient? Should I hesitate to squash the mosquito buzzing around my head? If the answer is "No, it's fine to kill the mosquito," then where do we draw the line? Is it a question of neurology--whether or not the animal can experience pain? (Do insects feel pain? I have no idea.)

2. I get that sentient beings have a right to their lives. But does that mean we shouldn't assign different weights and values to different kinds of lives? I don't want any more chickens killed on my behalf, but at the same time I don't assign the same value to a chicken life as I do to a human life. In the burning-building scenario, with a human on one side of the building and a chicken on the other, I wouldn't have to think for a second about which one to save. Is that standard thinking in the vegan community (I would hope so), or would some consider it speciesism and therefore invalid?

I had very similar questions, which I discussed here (the topic title was pretty badly chosen ). It's too bad that the discussion there ended so quickly, I wasn't done yet.

There is no need for a hierarchy when talking about the right to live, the right to have no suffering being inflicted on you (by humans) and the right to be owned. Morally you can't justify any of it, it's always better to avoid all these practices altogether.

I think you can justify killing a mosquito, since it can do / does harm onto you (they want to suck out your blood). I think self-defense is justifiable.

[thebestofenergy]

My question is, what constitutes "sentient"? It's pretty clear that a dog is sentient while a carrot is not, but what about a mosquito? Are insects sentient? Should I hesitate to squash the mosquito buzzing around my head? If the answer is "No, it's fine to kill the mosquito," then where do we draw the line? Is it a question of neurology--whether or not the animal can experience pain? (Do insects feel pain? I have no idea.)

'Sentience is the ability to feel, perceive, or to experience subjectivity'
Yes, insects are sentient. They do feel pain. If you take a spider (please don't) and you tear apart one of his leg, he's going to suffer and twist. Same if you do that to a mosquito. Same if you do that to a worm.
Pretty much anything that has a neurological activity (brain) and has a nervous system is sentient. And anything that has those properties feels pain.

Should I hesitate to squash the mosquito buzzing around my head? If the answer is "No, it's fine to kill the mosquito," then where do we draw the line?

I'd not kill it (unless it's opposing a serious threat; e.g. malaria). It's sentient: that means it feels pain and it has the desire to avoid suffering and death (in fact, I shouldn't use 'it'). I'd just blow it away with my breath, or I'd just use anti-mosquito products, to keep them away; not in a lethal way: there are oils and sprays that contain a liquid that keeps them away from you, since mosquitos detest the smell of it (you just need a few drops on your arms and legs for it to function efficiently).
But you have the right to defend yourself. If you feel the need to kill it because it's sucking blood from you, you're not killing it without a justification. However, once you notice it has already stung you, what you want to do is to make it stop. Killing it is one way, the most brutal one, but another way is to just blow it away. Keep in mind that this situation can be easily prevented by spraying natural products that keeps them at distance because of their smell, if you have a mosquito problem.

I don't want any more chickens killed on my behalf, but at the same time I don't assign the same value to a chicken life as I do to a human life. In the burning-building scenario, with a human on one side of the building and a chicken on the other, I wouldn't have to think for a second about which one to save. Is that standard thinking in the vegan community (I would hope so), or would some consider it speciesism and therefore invalid?

It's normal that you put your specie at a higher level. That's because you have more compassion towards humans. You can relate to them more easily, and you also grew up in a society that told you that humans are more important.
You should check how mirror neurons work. To explain it briefly, when someone else is doing something or feeling pain/happiness, those neurons fire. It means that we prove the same emotions watching someone else doing something/suffer, in the same way they prove it, but with less intensity of course (that's why, for example, we smile when watching kids playing football; and when one of them scores, if we're interested in the match, adrenaline is released in our body, in the same way it's released in his, by the same type of neurons). Those mirror neurons fire with much more intensity and in a bigger number when that action is done by humans/done upon humans, instead of other kind of animals.