A large number of people signing something that means whatever anyone wants it to mean and can accommodate vegans and nonvegans, is not only not helpful, but is positively counterproductive. What is needed — desperately — is a clear call for the abolition of aninal use and for veganism as a moral imperative.
GARY L. FRANCIONE: I was invited on several occasions to sign the Montreal Declaration on Animal Exploitation. I appreciate that the drafters asked me to sign but, for the following reasons, I am unable to do so.
First, the Declaration Does Not Reject All Animal Use. What is the end — the ultimate goal — envisaged by the Declaration? The Declaration purports to seek “the end of animal exploitation.” But what does that mean? Just about every animal charity condemns “animal exploitation.” But just about all of these charities also promote various types of supposedly higher-welfare animal use…
To say that one opposes “animal exploitation,” without saying more, is meaningless and may — and almost always does — mean nothing more than that one is opposed to some practice that one finds immoral or unjust. For precisely this reason, it has been and remains my view that we must be unequivocally clear that we seek the end of animal use. We must be clear that all use is exploitation.
The Declaration does not do that — and could not do that — because many of the signers have in various ways explicitly rejected the idea that all animal use is exploitation. Therefore, I cannot sign the Declaration…
Second, the Declaration Does Not Promote Veganism as a Moral Imperative… As we saw above, the Declaration does not seek the end of all animal use. So it should not come as any surprise that it does not promote veganism as a means to end animal use. The Declaration does not propose that we adopt veganism now as a moral imperative as a means to that end. Indeed, the Declaration says nothing specific about individual obligations.
I suspect that the problem here is that many of the signers are not vegans. Moreover, some actively promote nonvegan strategies such as reducetarianism, or supposedly higher-welfare animal products; some have been very critical of consistent veganism. The Declaration really could not have proposed veganism as a moral imperative without putting many of the signers in a most uncomfortable spot.
What does the Declaration propose as to what we should do? What is its normative message? The Declaration claims that we need to develop “plant-based food systems.” But what does that mean?… what the Declaration, which explicitly states that change cannot happen “in the short term,” is doing is calling for incremental measures short of veganism now to get to some morally better position later. Because the Declaration does not promote veganism as a moral imperative, I cannot sign it…
Third, the Declaration is Not Clear About “Necessity”… I have argued now for several decades that even if we do not embrace an animal rights position, our conventional wisdom — that it is wrong to inflict “unnecessary” suffering on animals — means that we should at least reject imposing any level of suffering, or death, on animals pursuant to any use that does not involve a true compulsion — where there is no meaningful choice.
The problem is that without a very clear and explicit compulsion component, a necessity requirement may be satisfied by mere inconvenience… The “inconvenience” approach to necessity is suggested by the claim that the “future development of a vegan economy” will make it easier to do without animal foods in the future. But it’s perfectly easy for us to avoid animal foods now…
Moreover, given that the signers condemn “unnecessary harm and violence” but not all signers are vegan, and very few promote veganism as a moral imperative, one is left to wonder about what is meant by “unnecessary.” Because the Declaration is not clear as to what is meant by “unnecessary,” I cannot sign it.
Fourth, Necessity Cannot Tell the Whole Story in Any Event: The Problem of Animals as Property… The Declaration claims to “condemn the practices that involve treating animals as objects or commodities.” Animals used to supply heart valves for humans, or for basic or applied research, or for other supposedly scientific purposes are all commodities or objects. The only reason why we can use them for these purposes is because they are commodities or objects. They are property…
But if the Declaration was intending to propose the abolition of the status of animals as property, and, in effect, to recognize that all sentient nonhumans have a moral right not to be used as property, then why didn’t it just say that?
I suppose that the answer is that, as mentioned above, a number of the signers of the Declaration have explicitly rejected the abolition of all institutionalized animal use that would be entailed by a rejection of the property status that makes that use possible in the first place.
As long as animals are property, it will not be possible to accord their interests equal consideration because their interests must weigh less than the interests of property owners. That is what it is to have an institution of animal property. Because the Declaration does not promote the abolition of the status of animals as property, I cannot sign it…
Fifth, the Declaration Does Not Recognize Nonhuman Personhood. The Declaration recognizes that sentience is sufficient to have a morally significant interest in not suffering but does not recognize that sentience is sufficient to have a morally significant interest in continuing to live. That is, the Declaration does not recognize that sentient nonhumans are persons.
I suspect that the reason for this is that a number of the signers maintain explicitly that sentience is not sufficient for personhood and that painlessly killing a merely sentient animal does not harm that animal because the animal lives in an eternal present and is not connected to a future self…
The Declaration claims that it is wrong to differentiate between the more and less cognitively sophisticated for purposes of evaluating an interest in not suffering. I agree. But we also cannot justify differentiating between the more and less cognitively sophisticated for the purpose of evaluating an interest in continuing to live. And some of the signers do exactly that in their work. In any event, the Declaration does not recognize that sentience is sufficient for nonhuman personhood and I cannot sign it…
I recognize that the Declaration was deliberately written with a high degree of ambiguity that can be read to support just about any position and can be signed by vegans and non-vegans alike. But in my view, a large number of people signing something that means whatever anyone wants it to mean and can accommodate vegans and nonvegans, is not only not helpful, but is positively counterproductive. What is needed — desperately — is a clear call for the abolition of animal use and for veganism as a moral imperative. If animals matter morally, veganism is the only rational response…
I cannot support the Declaration in its current form. In the spirit of collaboration and movement building, I offer the following brief paragraph as an addendum to the Declaration, to serve as its final paragraph:
In light of the foregoing, we the undersigned agree that animals, in virtue of their sentience alone, are full moral persons who have a morally significant interest in not suffering and in continuing to live. We agree that we must end animal exploitation, by which we mean that we must end all animal use and abolish the legal status of animals as property. Finally, we agree that veganism is both morally obligatory in the present and crucial to cessation of animal exploitation so described.
If that were added, I would sign most enthusiastically. SOURCE…
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