‘Out of Sight, Out of Mind’: Wild animals deserve rights, too
‘Out of Sight, Out of Mind’: Wild animals deserve rights, too
A large part of animal advocacy centers around animals raised for human consumption. ‘Animal lovers’, ranging from vegans to pet-lovers, rarely advocate or think much about wild animals. Wild animals that end up in zoos or sanctuaries occasionally capture public interest for brief periods, but the interest is often fleeting. This is indefensible. Wild animals deserve our attention and respect, for the same reasons that we should care about any creature: they are sentient, with recognizable social behaviors and emotions, and just like humans their lives have intrinsic value. But they should not be ignored: our ideology and laws dictate […]
LOOK AND SEE: Reputation doesn’t matter with the animal rights movement; attention does
LOOK AND SEE: Reputation doesn’t matter with the animal rights movement; attention does
PETA is likely the most effective animal rights organization of all time despite its disruptive and often unpopular tactics. The organization created a real movement when nothing existed in the 1970s. Doing unpopular things is often necessary to create change. There are two important explanations. The first is that unpopular activism overcomes social desirability bias (this bias suggests that most people will be inclined towards avoiding unpopular tactics precisely because they are unpopular, regardless of their effectiveness). The second and related explanation is that movements, particularly in their early stages, are mostly about mobilizing activists rather than directly winning over […]
DEBUNKED: Logically consistent replies to twenty common anti-vegan arguments
DEBUNKED: Logically consistent replies to twenty common anti-vegan arguments
When it comes to arguments surrounding the moral and legal status of nonhuman animals, what is at stake is not merely the theoretical coherence of our beliefs, but the suffering and death of the 60,000 sentient beings who were slaughtered since you began reading this entry, and those victims who follow them every minute of every day. ROBERT C. JONES: This article from the ‘Encyclopedia of Veganism and Animal Ethics’ addresses twenty anti-vegan arguments, some quite familiar, some novel. Te arguments are divided into conceptual arguments and empirical arguments. Broadly speaking, conceptual arguments involve a philosophical analysis of ideas, concepts, […]
