On Human-Nonhuman Relations: On Rights and Animal Rights (Par...

Regan also articulates his firm belief that ‘moral philosophy is no substitute for political action’, but insists, ‘still, it can make a contribution. Its currency is ideas’. This assertion was made many years ago in 1983. However, it appears that large sections of the animal advocacy movement was not (and is not) listening to this important message. Many factions in the modern animal protection movement do not agree that a well worked out philosophical position assists in the furtherance of altering the moral standing of nonhuman animals. Moreover, many of those that do seem to agree with the general point that social movements require a solid basis for claims-making, appear not to accept the case for animal rights in the first place.

Recent developments in the animal movement tends to confirm such a view. For example, Francione [4] states that ‘the modern animal “rights” movement has explicitly rejected the doctrine of animal rights’. In fact, it might be tempting to claim, analogous to Gilroy’s [5] declaration that ‘there ain’t no black in the Union Jack’, that there ain’t much rights in ‘animal rights’ either. This tends to beg the question, if not rights violations, what do modern animal advocates substantially rely upon in order to make claims on behalf of nonhuman animals? Francione argues that the contemporary animal movement appears content to rely on a new formulation of traditional ideas, which he labels ‘new welfarism’. He describes this conception of new welfarism as a ‘hybrid position’ which may be understood to be a more progressive, or in Francione’s terms, a ‘modified’ welfare position compared with traditional animal welfarism, especially in the sense that this ‘version of animal welfare…accepts animal rights as an ideal state of affairs that can be achieved only through continued adherence to animal welfare measures’.

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However, for Francione, new welfarists – despite what sets them apart from traditionalists of the genre - should be regarded as committed to the endorsement of measures ‘indistinguishable’ from policies put forward by those ‘who accept the legitimacy of animal exploitation’.

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Advocates who wish to pursue a position based on rights thinking are very few in number and, furthermore, do not often feature in ‘leadership’ positions within the current animal protection movement.

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Francione’s work, especially because it includes a strong critique of new welfarism, has not so much been regarded as a source of philosophical clarity within a social movement, nor helpful in terms of strategic thinking, but rather labelled ‘disruptive’, ‘divisive’ and ‘elitist’.

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For understandable psychological reasons, ‘victories’ on any scale tend to be loudly trumpeted within social movements.

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Why, since the modern animal protection movement has rarely if ever pursued an abolitionist agenda for any prolonged period, are many advocates apparently and unequivocally so sure that it is doomed to failure? Why are they so convinced that it will take hundreds of years? Why, moreover, that a philosophical grounding in widely accepted ideas of rights undoubtedly represent demands that unrealistically call for ‘too much’?

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Francione agrees with Regan that philosophy and political action go together.

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Indeed, in contrast to many in the movement, he claims the latter requires the former to inform its direction:

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it is my view that the explicit goal must be abolition and that abolition must shape incremental change.

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basic rights

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a paradoxical situation in which the so-called ‘animal rights movement’ virtually rejects genuine rights theories while embracing a non-rights animal liberation position as its main philosophical stance.

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‘as a practical matter, [animal welfarism] does not work. We have had animal welfare laws in most western countries for well over a hundred years now, and they have done little to reduce animal suffering and they have certainly not resulted in the gradual abolition of any practices… As to why welfarism fails…the reason has to do with the property status of animals. If animals are property, then they have no value beyond that which is accorded to them by their owners.

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Benton and Redfearn write: ‘Peter Singer’s Animal Liberation is…within the utilitarian tradition, and it may be that the animal welfare movement’s concern with animal suffering is a measure of the pervasiveness of utilitarianism as the ‘common sense’ of secular morality’

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