I'm the kind of person that always has a book on the go, usually 2 or three, and I never seem to finish them. I'll admit, between the day job, working on the online store, writing articles, this blog, cooking vegan food for friends, and trying out new recipes, I don't know always find time to read. Or I read before bed and manage to get through 2 pages before falling asleep and dropping the book on the floor. I really want to read more! How does one make more time for stuff one wants to do....? Anyways, here's a list of the top vegan books I want to read. In no particular order:
1. The Joy of Vegan Baking by Colleen Patrick Goudreau
2. Diet for a New America by John Robbins
3. The China Study by Dr. T Colin Campbell
4. Thanking the Monkey by Karen Dawn
5. Striking at the Roots by Mark Hawthorne
6. The Ultimate Vegan Guide by Erik Marcus
7. Making a Killing by Bob Torres
8. The World Peace Diet by Will Tuttle, Ph.D.
9. The Sexual Politics of Meat by Carol J Adams
10. Animals As Persons by Gary L Francione
Showing posts with label animal rights. Show all posts
Showing posts with label animal rights. Show all posts
Thursday, February 12, 2009
Wednesday, November 19, 2008
Bob Torres essay for Opposing Views
I wanted to share Bob's essay with you guys... Bob is such an interesting writer and I always find his views really fascinating. Bob inspires me to think critically... I like that. Unfortunately, my writing is not half as interesting... at least not at the moment. I just got into a (very minor) accident and dented my front rim. Slid on some black ice. Ahhh Canada. I might have to get a new wheel tomorrow, we'll have to see if my tire is flat in the morning.
Anyway, don't want to focus on that. I want to focus on Bob's interesting piece of writing. You can find more Bob at veganfreak.net or blog.veganfreak.com.
Here we go:
I was approached by the folks over at OpposingViews.com to weigh in on the debate over whether or not animals should have the same rights as people. What follows below is the quick essay I submitted to them. You can find the full debate here if their site starts working correctly..there have been transient failures all weekend.
In one episode of the 1980s absurd British sitcom “The Young Ones,” Neil, the hippie of the group, famously quipped “vegetable rights and peace!” comically upping his hippie cred into the stratosphere. Hippies, of course, are presumed to be for rights for all kinds of things: trees, rocks, water, air, and, of course, animals. Not being a hippie myself, I can’t really speak to the arguments for granting non-sentient things like trees rights (though there is a rather compelling environmental case to be made for protecting them from what economists call the “externalities” of capitalist industrial production) but it is worth thinking about why animals should be accorded at least some of the rights that we bipedal primates called “humans” enjoy.
To begin with, despite the question as posed, I don’t think animals should have the same rights as humans in all cases. Granting the dogs I live with a right to free speech or the right to vote is pointless (insert your own joke here about the election and re-election of George W. Bush). Instead, I’m advocating for something that is much more simple. In the respects that animals are like us—most notably, in their ability to feel pain, have subjective experiences, and value their own continued existence—animals should have rights similar to the rights we have. In the broadest terms, this would mean that we’d have to stop eating and wearing them, experimenting on them, and bringing them into existence for our own ends.
Anyone who lives with a cat or a dog knows that animals not only have personalities, but that they also have memories, fears, wants, and desires. The dogs and cat that I live with seek out comfort, avoid pain, and desire companionship, and it is clear to me that they suffer as acutely as I do (if not more acutely) when they are hurt, or sick, or scared. Moreover, having spent time around animals ultimately destined for slaughter, I also know that pigs and cows and chickens are also capable of these same pleasures and pains, and what appears to be a subjective awareness of their surroundings, yet for reasons that no one can really justify, we snuggle up with one set of animals called “pets,” while we eat another set of animals called “livestock.”
When it comes down to it, the case for animal rights is really a case for adopting a thorough moral and ethical stance in favor of treating like cases alike. My own outlook has been shaped by the ethical theory of Gary L. Francione, who argues that though animals and humans are clearly different, they are alike in the sense that they both suffer, and are both sentient. For this reason, Francione argues, animals should receive equal moral consideration. Most importantly, this would mean extending to animals inherent value, or really bringing them into the moral community by recognizing that certain aspects of their personhood cannot be “sold away” or sacrificed for the benefit of another. Put most simply, because animals are like us in some relevant regards, they should be treated like we would be treated in those instances.
The tired objections that animals do not deserve rights because they lack rationality, or language, or human levels of intelligence, or whatever arbitrary characteristics anthropocentric philosophers decide are important are so self-serving as to be almost comical. The obvious problem with using qualities like these to exclude animals from moral consideration is that we can almost always find humans who also lack those qualities. A great many humans lack what we’d consider to be “normal” rational faculties, yet no one seriously suggests that the mentally disabled be enslaved, or that they should be used for food or medical experiments. Similarly, you may be smarter or more eloquent or stronger than I am, yet none of those attributes gives you the right to make me your property. Why? Because in the relevant regard that both you and I share in not being the chattel of another, no arbitrary criteria—not intelligence, rationality, language, eye color, skin color, gender, etc.—can be used to violate this basic right that guarantees our inherent value. Those of us who are for animal rights (and not simply for animal welfare) wish to make “species” another irrelevant criterion for deciding who does and does not get the basic rights accorded to members of our moral community.
Surely, the road ahead towards giving animals more thorough membership in our moral community is a long one. Veganism—not consuming animal products of any kind—is certainly the first step of many in this direction, and a step that everyone can take today. In spite of what Neil the hippie might think, vegetables don’t need rights, as they feel no pain, and have no sentience. Animals, however, are another story altogether.
By the way, you can get Bob & Jenna's book here.
Anyway, don't want to focus on that. I want to focus on Bob's interesting piece of writing. You can find more Bob at veganfreak.net or blog.veganfreak.com.
Here we go:
I was approached by the folks over at OpposingViews.com to weigh in on the debate over whether or not animals should have the same rights as people. What follows below is the quick essay I submitted to them. You can find the full debate here if their site starts working correctly..there have been transient failures all weekend.
In one episode of the 1980s absurd British sitcom “The Young Ones,” Neil, the hippie of the group, famously quipped “vegetable rights and peace!” comically upping his hippie cred into the stratosphere. Hippies, of course, are presumed to be for rights for all kinds of things: trees, rocks, water, air, and, of course, animals. Not being a hippie myself, I can’t really speak to the arguments for granting non-sentient things like trees rights (though there is a rather compelling environmental case to be made for protecting them from what economists call the “externalities” of capitalist industrial production) but it is worth thinking about why animals should be accorded at least some of the rights that we bipedal primates called “humans” enjoy.
To begin with, despite the question as posed, I don’t think animals should have the same rights as humans in all cases. Granting the dogs I live with a right to free speech or the right to vote is pointless (insert your own joke here about the election and re-election of George W. Bush). Instead, I’m advocating for something that is much more simple. In the respects that animals are like us—most notably, in their ability to feel pain, have subjective experiences, and value their own continued existence—animals should have rights similar to the rights we have. In the broadest terms, this would mean that we’d have to stop eating and wearing them, experimenting on them, and bringing them into existence for our own ends.
Anyone who lives with a cat or a dog knows that animals not only have personalities, but that they also have memories, fears, wants, and desires. The dogs and cat that I live with seek out comfort, avoid pain, and desire companionship, and it is clear to me that they suffer as acutely as I do (if not more acutely) when they are hurt, or sick, or scared. Moreover, having spent time around animals ultimately destined for slaughter, I also know that pigs and cows and chickens are also capable of these same pleasures and pains, and what appears to be a subjective awareness of their surroundings, yet for reasons that no one can really justify, we snuggle up with one set of animals called “pets,” while we eat another set of animals called “livestock.”
When it comes down to it, the case for animal rights is really a case for adopting a thorough moral and ethical stance in favor of treating like cases alike. My own outlook has been shaped by the ethical theory of Gary L. Francione, who argues that though animals and humans are clearly different, they are alike in the sense that they both suffer, and are both sentient. For this reason, Francione argues, animals should receive equal moral consideration. Most importantly, this would mean extending to animals inherent value, or really bringing them into the moral community by recognizing that certain aspects of their personhood cannot be “sold away” or sacrificed for the benefit of another. Put most simply, because animals are like us in some relevant regards, they should be treated like we would be treated in those instances.
The tired objections that animals do not deserve rights because they lack rationality, or language, or human levels of intelligence, or whatever arbitrary characteristics anthropocentric philosophers decide are important are so self-serving as to be almost comical. The obvious problem with using qualities like these to exclude animals from moral consideration is that we can almost always find humans who also lack those qualities. A great many humans lack what we’d consider to be “normal” rational faculties, yet no one seriously suggests that the mentally disabled be enslaved, or that they should be used for food or medical experiments. Similarly, you may be smarter or more eloquent or stronger than I am, yet none of those attributes gives you the right to make me your property. Why? Because in the relevant regard that both you and I share in not being the chattel of another, no arbitrary criteria—not intelligence, rationality, language, eye color, skin color, gender, etc.—can be used to violate this basic right that guarantees our inherent value. Those of us who are for animal rights (and not simply for animal welfare) wish to make “species” another irrelevant criterion for deciding who does and does not get the basic rights accorded to members of our moral community.
Surely, the road ahead towards giving animals more thorough membership in our moral community is a long one. Veganism—not consuming animal products of any kind—is certainly the first step of many in this direction, and a step that everyone can take today. In spite of what Neil the hippie might think, vegetables don’t need rights, as they feel no pain, and have no sentience. Animals, however, are another story altogether.
By the way, you can get Bob & Jenna's book here.
Sunday, April 29, 2007
Animal Rights
I don't know if you've noticed... but there are A LOT of groups out there fighting for animal rights. There are protests all the time. Anti-Fur, KFC Boycott, Against the Ring-Ling Circus. I don't necessarily have anything against protests, but I believe that we can accomplish so much more with a positive demonstration. Instead of seeing an Anti-Fur rally, I'd love to see a PRO-faux fur rally. So maybe I should start a group that is based more on positive actions (I'll call it... SpiderLove... what else?). Wasn't it Mother Theresa that said that she would never attend an Anti-war protest, but she would definately attend a pro-peace demonstration? I think Mother Theresa was onto something there. It's the LAW. If we all think peace, we'll get peace. I have never been interested in attending a protest, and pushing my beliefs on other people. The people that I come in contact with in my life, quickly get to know that I am passionate about veganism and animals. If those people are interested in animal rights, I love to share my thoughts and ideas with them, and listen to what they believe. If however, they ask me idiotic questions like "Don't vegetables have feelings too?" or if their first response is about whether or not my shoes are leather (almost as if they can catch me "cheating"), then I know that there is little point trying to have a discussion. I am going to build a community for positive-minded people, who want to make a change by thinking about love, peace, compassion (no negative words here). I think this community will be huge! Most people want to help, and they end up joining protests because they believe that that can make a difference. However, I think, when you spray red paint on someone's fur coat, you not only give off a negative agressive impression, but you also piss that person off! What are the chances that the person is going to completely change their minds about fur? Is it not better to promote the good things the fur-wearer would be doing by supporting faux fur, or other materials... I don't know... just a thought.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
