Help from Philosophy: Responding to the Animal Rights Challenge

Bioscience, 1998

Society & Animals 2011, 19:4

Recently, many pro-animal thinkers have expressed critical views on the animal rights movement. In particular, the movement has been criticized for being philosophically uninformed, politically regressive, and practically unpersuasive. This paper investigates these criticisms and seeks to map out the philosophy behind the grassroots animal rights movement, specifically. It concludes that the criticism presented by animal studies scholars is often misplaced due to a lack of understanding of the philosophical notions within the movement, but that the critics are right to argue that the movement needs to place more emphasis on persuasion.

The twentieth century has witnessed a bewildering array of ethical revolutions, from civil rights to environmentalism to feminism. Often ignored is the rise of massive societal concern across the world regarding animal treatment. Regulation of animal research exists in virtually all western countries, and reform of "factory farming" is regnant in Europe and rapidly emerging in the United States. Opponents of concern for animals often dismiss the phenomenon as rooted in emotion and extremist lack of appreciation of how unrestricted animal use has improved human life. Such a view totally ignores the rational ethical basis for elevating legal protection for animals, as explained in this essay.

2010

Defining Critical Animal Studies: An Intersectional Social Justice Approach for Liberation, 2013

This was published both as a book chapter and journal article: Grubbs, Jennifer, and Michael Loadenthal. “From the Classroom to the Slaughterhouse: Animal Liberation By Any Means Necessary.” In Defining Critical Animal Studies: An Intersectional Social Justice Approach for Liberation, edited by Atsuko Matsuoka, Anthony Nocella, Kim Socha, and John Sorenson, Studies in the Postmodern Theory of Education. New York, NY: Peter Lang Publishing Inc., 2013. Grubbs, Jennifer, and Michael Loadenthal. “From the Classroom to the Slaughterhouse: Animal Liberation by Any Means Necessary.” Counterpoints 448 (2014): 179–201. ABSTRACT: The advancement of a critical animal pedagogy is predicated on the examination and eradication of speciesist pedagogies. Academics who challenge these oppressive pedagogies are mapped within a spectrum of discourses that examine power, and subsequently labeled within a binary of “good scholar/bad scholar.” The hegemonic animal welfarists enjoy the privileges of being the “good academic,” while those who adopt an anti-speciesist methodology and endorse confrontational tactics are rhetorically constructed as the latter. There are those who critique speciesism but do not support direct action, and those who do nothing with the species binary but would illegally remove a dog or cat from abusive homes. Regardless, activists and academics in support of confrontational tactics are constructed as the ideological-other and tactically “radical.” Similar to the intersectionality of systems of oppression, systems of repression intersect at the juncture of academia and activism. The experiences of leftist academics are stratified within neoliberal academic capitalism, the individualistic knowledge-as-commodity corporate university. The political landscape of dissent is manipulated through the architecture of industry-sponsored legislation. Thus, the ghettoization (symbolically and respectfully referring to the removal and isolation of Jews to an island in Venice called ghèto) of critical animal scholars coincides with the terrorization of animal liberationists. The rhetoric used to redefine dissent as terrorism in the 2006 U.S. Animal Enterprise Terrorist Act (AETA) makes no distinction between the quantitative research churned out by anarchist anti-speciesist academics and the torched leather factory in Salt Lake City, Utah—both can, in the language of the law, “damage or interfere with the operations of an animal enterprise.” Through an interrogation of these processes, we define our roles as academics committed to defending animal liberation by whatever means necessary. The following chapter takes on the challenge of bridging the personal with the political. It attempts to do so by interrogating an investigative tradition and praxis not yet solidified within “The Academy.” Personal experiences, told through anecdotal tales, contextualize the terrain of academic and activist repression. We attempt to remedy the jargon-ridden theoretical groundings of this chapter with a satirical conclusion: a communiqué. The communiqué captures our disdain for oppressive pedagogies and capital-driven legislation that marginalize and silence animal liberationists. Despite the inspiring and lengthy history of animal liberation actions in the last half-century, there remains a gaping hole in academic literature on this storied past. There are a plethora of government-sponsored treaties that attempt to define property destruction and animal rescues as terrorism, and heaps of publishers anxious to print yet another animal studies paper praising the contradictory practice of “humane” exploitation. But the theoretical articulations sympathetic with animal liberation are systematically excluded through the channels of academic capitalism. Scholars face a disincentive to devote serious analytical attention to defining and defending animal liberation. This chapter, as part of the larger critical animal studies efforts, recognizes the revolutionary significance of animal liberation. Although it may make us a bit unpopular, and solidifies our typecast roles as “radical,” we unabashedly encourage and endorse the theoretically significant methodologies of animal liberation by whatever means necessary. In academia, the endorsement of both legal and illegal direct action in opposition to speciesism is certainly not smiled upon. Universities serve animal products in their cafeterias, many have animals in vivisection labs, and further use animal cadavers in medical school classrooms. Sure, other “radical” challenges to hegemony are frowned upon. But the holistic, intersectional critiques of ideology we promulgate call into question the very essence of contemporary academia: capitalism, speciesism, classism and privilege, systemic racism, gender and sexual normativity, and so on. We support a revolution that challenges all of these structures of oppression in the name of total liberation. It is not about who is labeled the most “radical” or which “radicals” are most repressed. It is about how the structure of academia marginalizes those challenging its modern-day form.

Journal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics, 2009

Do not judge this book by its cover. Richard Haynes's remarkably well-researched, philosophically reflective, and thought-provoking book is by no means a discussion of animal welfare alone, welfare conventionally meaning the pursuit of reforms in the way animals are now treated, rather than animal rights advocacy, which focuses on the abolition of using nonhuman animals for human ends (although the concept of animal rights is a complicated matter, as this book demonstrates). Haynes suggests that a more integrity-laden definition of animal welfare, freed from the prejudicially vested interests of scientific and commercial organizations, entities and individuals that control the defining of what constitutes animal welfare, as well as its moral legitimacy as currently ''practiced'' in laboratories and agriculture, would fall far closer to a rights (or abolitionist) position than what now passes for animal welfare. Haynes argues that the ''animal welfare science community'' has ''illegitimately appropriated the concept of animal welfare'' and created the assumption in the public mind that it is ''ethically acceptable'' to use animals in agriculture and scientific research, even though the animals thus utilized all too frequently suffer tortured lives and deaths. Haynes tackles emotionally charged issues, but while admitting that he is in the abolitionist camp, his approach is dispassionate, philosophically comprehensive, and impressively meticulous. The author has gone to great lengths to inform readers of the origins and history of animal welfare activities in both England and the United States, and in so doing makes a persuasive case that laboratory animal 1 scientists have historically and unjustifiably ''responded to critics of their use of animals by claiming to have a more

Journal of Social Philosophy, Vol. 45/1 (2014): 116-135.

Journal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics , 2005

I argue that animals have rights in the sense of having valid claims, which might turn out to be actual rights as society advances and new scientific-technological developments facilitate finding alternative ways of satisfying our vital interests without using animals. Animals have a right to life, to liberty in the sense of freedom of movement and communication, to subsistence, to relief from suffering , and to security against attacks on their physical existence. Animals' interest in living, freedom, subsistence, and security are of vital importance to them, and they do not belong to us; they are not the things we have already possessed by virtue of our own nature.

Journal of Bioethical Inquiry, 2011