Animal Rights Community Online Forum Index Animal Rights Community Online
 Our mission is to Preserve, Promote and Advance respect for animals by discussing animal rights strategy and philosophy as well as encouraging the removal of animal usage from our diets and consumption. This by encouraging a pure vegetarian diet and a vegan lifestyle. 
 Users GalleryGallery CalendarCalendar  Live chatroomVegan Chat ARCO's Blogs summary pageBlogs FAQFAQ   SearchSearch   MemberlistMemberlist   UsergroupsUsergroups 
 ProfileProfile   You have no new messagesYou have no new messages   Log out [ David Olivier ]Log out [ David Olivier ] 

Vegan Essentials
You last visited on Today, at 3:06 am
The time now is Fri Feb 22, 2008 1:11 pm
All times are UTC + 1		 View posts since last visit
View unanswered posts
View your posts
Calendar
 Forum index » Activists » Animal Rights Talk
Joan Dunayer
Moderators: Sharon
Post new topic   Reply to topic View previous topicStop watching this topicMark the topic unreadView next topic
Page 1 of 3 [34 Posts]   Goto page: 1, 2, 3 Next
Author Message
sunkanrags
Senior Animal Rights Activist
Senior Animal Rights Activist

Joined: 31 Jul 2004
Posts: 811
Location: North Wales
  Joan Dunayer
the author has asked for this to be circulated to animal rights forums...

Published at the Journal of Animal Law website

http://www.animallaw.info/journals/jo_pdf/jouranimallawDunayer2007.pdf :
Joan Dunayer's "Advancing Animal Rights" is a response to a Journal of Animal Law piece on her book Speciesism: Jeff Perz's "Anti-Speciesism" (Volume 2, 2006). "Advancing Animal Rights" will be published in full or in part in Volume 3 of the Journal of Animal Law. Given the contents of "Anti-Speciesism," the Journal has deemed it appropriate to release "Advancing Animal Rights" before Volume 3 appears in 2007.

---Professor David Favre, Chair, Advisory Committee, Journal of Animal Law


In "Advancing Animal Rights," Joan Dunayer refutes Jeff Perz's charges that her book Speciesism appropriates and misrepresents the work of Gary Francione. She also critiques aspects of Francione's animal rights theory and discusses ways in which Speciesism represents progress beyond that theory. Dunayer demonstrates that Francione's guidelines for abolitionist action are needlessly complex and actually allow for "welfarism"; she proposes a different approach. In addition, Dunayer redefines speciesism, expanding and refining the concept by distinguishing between different types of speciesism. Finally, she outlines the legal rights that all nonhuman beings should possess.


Advancing Animal Rights: A Response to "Anti-Speciesism,"

Critique of Gary Francione's Work, and Discussion of Speciesism

Joan Dunayer*


I. Introduction

Defending one's self against unjust attack is, at best, an unpleasant task. I would much rather focus on defending nonhuman animals against injustice. Current circumstances, however, require that I write partly in my own defense. Volume 2 of the Journal of Animal Law contains a piece, "Anti-Speciesism,"[1] that maligns my animal rights book Speciesism.[2] I became aware of this piece, by Jeff Perz, only after its publication. According to Perz, Speciesism "appropriates and misrepresents" Gary Francione's work.[3] In this response I demonstrate the falsehood of Perz's charges; defend Speciesism's originality, integrity, and merit; and present arguments that I believe advance animal rights.

. . .

Full article: http://www.animallaw.info/journals/jo_pdf/jouranimallawDunayer2007.pdf
_________________
‘Where do sausages come from?’ asked my five-year-old son, recently.
‘Pigs’, I replied.
‘Yes’, he said, a little impatiently, ‘but where do the pigs get them from?’
Judy Rumbold (The Guardian, 28/02/2001).

PostPosted: Sat Nov 11, 2006 2:50 pm
  View user's profile Send private message Visit poster's website    Reply with quote Mark this post and the followings unread Back to top 
animalrightsmalta
Animal Guardian Angel


Joined: 07 Oct 2004
Posts: 3225
Location: Malta
 Having read parts of Jeff Perz's publication (online version) it will be interesting to read Joan Dunayer's reply when I have the time.

Thanks for posting.
_________________
www.animalrightsmalta.blogspot.com
www.animalrightsmalta.com
www.myspace.com/animalrightsmalta

PostPosted: Sat Nov 11, 2006 3:01 pm
  View user's profile Send private message Visit poster's website    Reply with quote Mark this post and the followings unread Back to top 
Dave_81
Senior Animal Rights Activist
Senior Animal Rights Activist

Joined: 16 Aug 2006
Posts: 747
Location: London, UK
 Post deleted
_________________
http://abolitionistanimalrights.blogspot.com/index.html

PostPosted: Sat Nov 11, 2006 7:24 pm
  View user's profile Send private message    Reply with quote Mark this post and the followings unread Back to top 
stkaufman
The silent one

Joined: 16 Feb 2008
Posts: 3
 Jeff Perz's charges against Joan Dunayer
The charges are false
Preface: These comments are a response to a campaign to discredit Joan Dunayer's book Speciesism and to impugn her character. In particular, Jeff Perz has charged Joan Dunayer with appropriating Gary Francione's work, and both Perz and Francione have accused Dunayer of misrepresenting Francione's writings. These are very serious charges, particularly since writers such as Dunayer rely on their reputation for their personal, professional, and financial well-being. In addition, by obstructing open discussion and debate, such false changes harm the animal advocacy movement.

I would hope that those who have known Joan Dunayer for many years as a person and as an activist would be very doubtful that the charges against her have any merit. She has replied to Perz's defamatory article "Anti-Speciesism" with "Advancing Animal Rights" (http://www.animallaw.info/journals/jo_pdf/jouranimallawDunayer2007.pdf). I think Dunayer’s reply thoroughly refutes Perz's charges and totally discredits Perz. Undeterred, Perz has attempted to respond to Dunayer. My comments below are not an exhaustive response to Perz's latest attack, but they should illustrate Perz's habit of falsifying, and hopefully they will help vindicate Dunayer in the eyes of anyone who thinks that there might be an element of truth in Perz's charges.

Charges of Appropriation

1. "Welfarists"

In Speciesism, Dunayer wrote:

"Welfarists" seek to change the way nonhumans are treated within some system of speciesist abuse. They work to modify, rather than end, the exploitation of particular nonhumans. In effect, "welfarists" ask that some form of abuse be replaced with a less cruel form. In contrast, rights advocates oppose exploitation itself. As Francione has written, a rights advocate "rejects the regulation of atrocities and calls unambiguously and unequivocally for their abolition." [Francione, Rain Without Thunder, p. 2]

Perz has claimed that this paragraph appropriates because Dunayer removed a reference to Francione that appeared earlier in the paragraph in a draft manuscript of her book. First, Dunayer had the right to modify her work-in-progress. Second, her paragraph contains a quotation by Francione that summarizes the difference between "welfarists" and "speciesists," thereby acknowledging Francione's influence on her discussion of the subject. There was no appropriation.

Unethically citing Dunayer's unfinished manuscript, Perz basically has accused Dunayer of appropriation wherever he found that she had removed a reference to Francione. Again, Dunayer had a right to revise her manuscript, which included removing references when she changed content or wording, or when she decided that a particular reference had not been necessary in the first place. In any case, the charge of appropriation should stand or fall based on the published book.

2. Sanctuaries

Regarding what to do with emancipated domesticated animals if animals were freed from their property status, Perz asserted, "Dunayer borrows Francione's insight that any remaining non-human animals who could not be rehabilitated [into wild, natural settings] would be placed in sanctuaries that, in Dunayer's words, 'as much as possible . . . provide natural fulfilling environments.'" This is common sense, and I don't think any of us (even without the benefit of Francione, Dunayer, or anyone else) would have trouble recognizing sanctuaries as a solution to this hypothetical problem. Therefore, the requirement that Dunayer scour the literature in an attempt to see who first expressed this idea in writing is unreasonable.

3. Human Slavery’s Immorality

Perz charged Dunayer with appropriation because that the unpublished manuscript quoted Francione (2000): “We do not regard it as legitimate to treat any humans, irrespective of their particular characteristics, as the property of other humans”, and in the published version of Specieism, Dunayer removed the quotation and wrote, without reference to Francione, “We consider it immoral to treat any human, whatever their characteristics, as property.”

First, Dunayer's point, that people regard any human slavery as wrong, did not originate with Francione, nor did Dunayer first learn of human slavery’s immorality from Francione. There was no reason to credit Francione for this idea. Second, Dunayer in rewriting this sentence, made several changes such that there was no reason to credit Francione for the wording.

Charges of Misrepresentation

Perz has falsely accused Dunayer of claiming that Francione supports regulations that would increase the size of caged hens. Francione has said that, under certain conditions, eliminating cages but maintaining certain systems of confinement “does not necessary undermine the incremental eradication of property status.” Dunayer has disagreed and argued that the difference between such a change and increasing cage sizes is “largely academic.” That is very different from saying that Francione actually endorses larger cages. The following passage is one of many in which Dunayer openly acknowledges her debt to Francione, and, here, she also points out areas of disagreement: “Throughout his work, Francione emphasizes that property status violates nonhumans’ moral rights [See, for example, Rain Without Thunder, p. 208]. Nonhuman advocacy, he states, shouldn’t compromise those rights [Ibid., p. 190]. I strongly agree. At the same time, Francione argues that an egg-industry prohibition on caging hens can be “consistent with rights theory.” [Ibid., p. 215] I hope I’ve shown that it can’t.” (Speciesism, p. 69)

Dunayer has described one of Perz's deceptive strategies: "My critique of Francione's work focuses primarily on contradictions within Francione's theory. For example, Francione writes that animal rights activists should not endorse alternative forms of exploitation but also writes that activists possibly should, in some cases, explicitly do so. He makes 'welfarist' and speciesist statements that contradict his abolitionist and nonspeciesist ones. In general, Perz acknowledges only the abolitionist and nonspeciesist statements. Faced with contradictory X and Y, Perz resorts to half-truths: Francione says X, but Dunayer claims that he says Y. In reality, Francione says both X and Y, and that's precisely what I indicate. I'm not the one who misrepresents."

Conclusion

I find it particularly ironic and painful that the campaign to discredit Dunayer has charged her with appropriation and misrepresentation, because she is one of the most careful, meticulous, and honest people I know. To those who might think that these words reflect loyalty to a friend, I have this to say: I have always liked and respected Dunayer, but we rarely communicate and she is not among my close friends. I wrote these comments for the same reason I am involved in animal advocacy: my sense of justice has been profoundly offended. For me, animal rights is about fairness, integrity, consideration of others, and freedom from bias-the antitheses of Francione/Perz's treatment of Dunayer and her work.

Stephen R. Kaufman, M.D.
Assistant Clinical Professor, Case Medical School
Chair, Christian Vegetarian Association
Cochair, Medical Research Modernization Committee
President, Vegetarian Advocates
Coauthor (with Nathan Braun) Good News for All Creation: Vegetarianism as Christian Stewardship
Author Living by the Faith of Christ: A Scientific and Christian Look at Violence and Scapegoating (in progress).

PostPosted: Sat Feb 16, 2008 5:39 pm
  View user's profile Send private message Send e-mail    Reply with quote Mark this post and the followings unread Back to top 
sunkanrags
Senior Animal Rights Activist
Senior Animal Rights Activist

Joined: 31 Jul 2004
Posts: 811
Location: North Wales
 Stephen,

It is odd that you dig up a 2006 post to make a point about some "campaign against Joan Dunayer". Does anyone know about this "campaign"? We are talking about an exchange between a couple of people, not a campaign.

I was happy in 2006 to post Joan's article in 2006 in the name of academic freedom and reflexive debate - but I did not see then any campaign against Dunayer's book and do not see one continuing now into 2008. Personally I have always been a big fan of Joan Dunayer's first book, Animal Equality, and have promoted it many times. I remain particularly impressed by Dunayer's attack on the language of speciesism - an important aspect of the social construction of exploitation.

Speciesism has proved to be a much more problematic text, not least for its advocacy of the rights of insects. I do think Dunayer properly acknowledges her intellectual debt to Francione. She is on far weaker grounds naming Francione as a welfarist, which is absurd. Indeed, and I'm sure I'll be corrected if I'm wrong about this, the parts in Francione's text suggested to be "welfarist" were presented as ideas to initiate discussion, rather than put forth as definitive suggestions.

Stephen - I do wonder why you have chosen this time to rekindle this ember.

Rags.
_________________
‘Where do sausages come from?’ asked my five-year-old son, recently.
‘Pigs’, I replied.
‘Yes’, he said, a little impatiently, ‘but where do the pigs get them from?’
Judy Rumbold (The Guardian, 28/02/2001).

PostPosted: Sat Feb 16, 2008 11:47 pm
  View user's profile Send private message Visit poster's website    Reply with quote Mark this post and the followings unread Back to top 
Dave_81
Senior Animal Rights Activist
Senior Animal Rights Activist

Joined: 16 Aug 2006
Posts: 747
Location: London, UK
sunkanrags wrote:
I do think Dunayer properly acknowledges her intellectual debt to Francione. She is on far weaker grounds naming Francione as a welfarist, which is absurd.


Dunayer claims that Francione is welfarist and speciesist. As such, if Dunayer acknowledges her intellectual debt to Francione, then this would imply that she is welfarist and speciesist, or, at any rate, that she is influenced by welfarist and speciesist thinking. But this is precisely what Dunayer denies. Alternatively, if, as you say, Rags, Dunayer’s interpretation of Gary – that he is welfarist and speciesist – is absurd, then it would not constitute a serious acknowledgment of anything.
_________________
http://abolitionistanimalrights.blogspot.com/index.html

PostPosted: Sun Feb 17, 2008 1:25 am
  View user's profile Send private message    Reply with quote Mark this post and the followings unread Back to top 
stkaufman
The silent one

Joined: 16 Feb 2008
Posts: 3
 Replies re: Dunayer and Francione
Dunayer asserts that Francione's program is welfarist
1. The campaign against Dunayer in active in that last fall Jeff Perz responded to Joan Dunayer's reply to his original article, and he has been actively disseminating his charges against Dunayer at other animal rights discussion lists.
2. I don't object to those who disagree with Dunayer's views on insects, and in fact I disagree with Dunayer on several important points. I have commented because I am convinced that the campaign against Dunayer has been dishonest and unfair. I have no problem with animal advocates disagreeing with each other -- that's how we learn and grow -- but animal rights is about respect, truthfulness, and compassion.
3. To my reading, Dunayer does not accuse Francione of being a welfarist by intent. Her debt to Francione resides in his articulating reasons for being an abolitionist and for showing problems with welfarism. However, Dunayer argues that Francione's plan for incremental abolitionism is invariably welfarist, and consequently she objects to that plan.

Steve

PostPosted: Mon Feb 18, 2008 12:49 pm
  View user's profile Send private message Send e-mail    Reply with quote Mark this post and the followings unread Back to top 
Karin
Animal Friend
Animal Friend

Joined: 06 Nov 2007
Posts: 31
 Excerpt from "Adulterating Animal Rights..." by Jeff Perz:

>>In Introduction to Animal Rights, Francione states: "We do not regard it as legitimate to treat any humans, irrespective of their particular characteristics, as the property of other humans."(note 30) Without citation, Dunayer's published version of Speciesism states: "We consider it immoral to treat any human, whatever their characteristics, as property." (note 31) With respect to this pair of quotations in the conclusion ot "Anti-Speciesism", Dunayer remarks, "I didn't cite Francione because the similarity was unintentional." (note 32) It is perplexing how the extreme similarity between the above-juxtaposed quotations of Dunayer and Francione could be unintentional when Dunayer quoted Francione's statement "We do not regard it as legitimate to treat any humans, irrespective of their particular characteristics, as the property of other humans," verbatim in the original manuscript of Speciesism, in exactly the same section and paragraph as in the final published draft of Speciesism. (note 33) In the final draft, however, Dunayer removes her original verbatim quotation of Francione and replaces it with a weak unreferenced paraphrase: "We consider it immoral to treat any human, whatever their characteristics, as property." (note 34) Will Dunayer claim that her original insertion of the above quotation of Francione – which expresses exactly the same idea as Dunayer expresses – was an accident? Will Dunayer then claim that her removal of this same quotation, and her replacing it with an equivalent but unreferenced paraphrase, was also unintentional? <<

Of course, like everybody else, Dunayer has the right to "modify her work-in-progress" (stkaufmann), and to "revise her manuscript" (id.), even if she does so unintentionally. I only can't help wondering what might have caused that revision...

PostPosted: Mon Feb 18, 2008 6:19 pm
  View user's profile Send private message Send e-mail    Reply with quote Mark this post and the followings unread Back to top 
stkaufman
The silent one

Joined: 16 Feb 2008
Posts: 3
 Re: Dunayer's dropped citation of Francione
I can't speak for Ms. Dunayer's reasons for choosing to not cite Francione in the section in question, but I can offer a rationale which I think is very reasonable. In a draft of her book (a draft that was sent privately to Gary Francione and was never meant for public distribution), Dunayer quoted Francione saying that we agree that human slavery is immoral. In revising the draft, Dunayer likely recognized that Francione was not the first to make this observation, nor did Dunayer learn of slavery's immorality from reading Francione's work. There was no reason to quote or cite Francione. Dunayer changed the wording to avoid the potential change of plagiarizing Francione's words. Naturally, the two sentences are similar, and to the degree that their similarity might encourage some people (like Perz) to charge her with plagiarism, the similarity was unintentional. In my view, there are no reasonable grounds to claim that Dunayer plagiarized Francione's words, and there is certainly no reason to credit Francione for recognizing slavery's immorality. Notably, Francione has made some important insights related to animal rights, and Dunayer dutifully gave him proper credit when she made similar observations. Her book has over two dozen favorable citations of Francione's work. The charge of appropriation is a very serious one -- serious writers' careers have been ruined by such charges -- and in my view it is totally false.
Steve Kaufman

PostPosted: Mon Feb 18, 2008 7:27 pm
  View user's profile Send private message Send e-mail    Reply with quote Mark this post and the followings unread Back to top 
benio
Animal Guardian
Animal Guardian

Joined: 11 Feb 2008
Posts: 83
Location: France
 Re: Dunayer's dropped citation of Francione
stkaufman wrote:
Dunayer likely recognized that Francione was not the first to make this observation, nor did Dunayer learn of slavery's immorality from reading Francione's work.


This observation is so commonplace nowadays that almost anyone who, before Dunayer, uttered the phrase "slavery is bad" could accuse Dunayer of plagiary.

Actually, it seems to me that there is much fuss in the States about intellectual property rights of very general and - if you allow me to say - commonplace concepts that are evident in Europe. Take the abolition, for example: every European vegan perfectly recognizes that all animal products have to be abolished. I have been in the movement for ten years: the first vegans I met in Italy in 1998 were perfectly aware, without ever having heard of Francione. And already in 1989, when Francione had not published anything of renown, the French activists who published the booklet "Nous ne mangeons pas de viande pour ne pas tuer d'animaux" critized all uses of animal products (meat, fish, eggs, dairy products, honey, fur, leather, wool, pet food, cosmetics, gelatin in photographic film...).

There is a poster that is very popular in France showing a pig who says "Ma chair m'appartient" (My flesh is mine), and is inspired from a German poster (look here). Will there be a "campaign" against French and German activists for "plagiarizing" Francione's idea about the abolition of the property status?

PostPosted: Mon Feb 18, 2008 8:30 pm
  View user's profile Send private message Send e-mail Visit poster's website    Reply with quote Mark this post and the followings unread Back to top 
Karin
Animal Friend
Animal Friend

Joined: 06 Nov 2007
Posts: 31
 Mr. Kaufmann and Benio, your replies to my excerpt from "Adulterating AR" are missing the point; the point was not whether or not Francione must be given credit for what Dunayer in her original draft of Specisism quoted verbatim and then omitted in the published version, but why she did so. She has not provided an explanation herself, and unless either of you performs as a spokesperson on her behalf, I assume no reason relevant to the subject accounted for her decision to change the text. That's all I wanted to point out.

Benio (do you, by the way, happen to be the same Benio from the abolition-of-meat-movement blog?), you are very right in stating that the theory of the property status of animals as developed by Gary Francione has not yet reached Europe, at least not Germany, as far as I can judge. I have been in the "movement" for about eight years now, and I have yet to see a German speaking writer who claims to be an animal rights theorist who deals with Francione's work (sociologist Günther Rogausch mentiones him in some footnotes). The reason for that can be seen in a general attitude towards theory that is very illustratively reflected in your framing the matter as "much fuss in the States about intellectual property rights": the fact that, as Gary once put it on the Vegan Freaks forum, "(t)he animal movement is, without doubt, the most anti-intellectual movement in the history of movements..."

Quote Benio: "(E)every European vegan perfectly recognizes that all animal products have to be abolished."

I don't know about the state of affairs in Great Britain, France, or Italy; in Germany, most of the vegan activists I know (in fact all of them with one or two exceptions) seek abolition 'incrementally' in that they focus on certain single issues which they think should be abolished first before dealing with other issues: flesh, for example. Or fur. Or atrocities in factory farming. And they do so because they have never heard or never bothered to occupy themselves with abolitionist theory which makes clear that focusing on certain forms, practices, or products of exploitation
a) deals with the issue of how animals are being treated rather than with the issue of using animals at all, and/ or
b) unavoidably sends the message to the public that certain forms, practices, or products are morally worse than others which implies that others are morally more acceptable.

That and why exactly this attitude and message is anti-abolitionist has been compellingly argued by Francione, and originally so, as well as the logical implication of animals' being property: that animal advocacy is abolitionist only if it challenges and is suited to incrementally eradicate the property status of animals by presenting and representing nonhumans as rightholders, judging their exploitation as rights violatons, and NOT making any moral distinctions between the forms, practices, and products of exploitation. I concede that in order to understand this, intellectual activity to a certain extent is required. But when animal advocates refuse to afford this – perhaps because they are too engaged in the practice of working – doing anything – "for the animals" – they can't blame their failure to understand on the theorist.

I know the "My flesh is mine" poster very well; I used to take it to demos, and stickers with that motive were a large part of my equipment of outreach activism before I became acquainted with abolitionism. The editor of "My flesh is mine", Bernd Höcker, is a "vegetarian" who publishes welfarist literature in which until now I have failed to come across the word "vegan".

PostPosted: Mon Feb 18, 2008 11:50 pm
  View user's profile Send private message Send e-mail    Reply with quote Mark this post and the followings unread Back to top 
Gary L. Francione
Rookie Animal Activist
Rookie Animal Activist

Joined: 16 Nov 2007
Posts: 104
 Re: Dunayer's dropped citation of Francione
benio wrote:
stkaufman wrote:
Dunayer likely recognized that Francione was not the first to make this observation, nor did Dunayer learn of slavery's immorality from reading Francione's work.


This observation is so commonplace nowadays that almost anyone who, before Dunayer, uttered the phrase "slavery is bad" could accuse Dunayer of plagiary.

Actually, it seems to me that there is much fuss in the States about intellectual property rights of very general and - if you allow me to say - commonplace concepts that are evident in Europe. Take the abolition, for example: every European vegan perfectly recognizes that all animal products have to be abolished. I have been in the movement for ten years: the first vegans I met in Italy in 1998 were perfectly aware, without ever having heard of Francione. And already in 1989, when Francione had not published anything of renown, the French activists who published the booklet "Nous ne mangeons pas de viande pour ne pas tuer d'animaux" critized all uses of animal products (meat, fish, eggs, dairy products, honey, fur, leather, wool, pet food, cosmetics, gelatin in photographic film...).

There is a poster that is very popular in France showing a pig who says "Ma chair m'appartient" (My flesh is mine), and is inspired from a German poster (look here). Will there be a "campaign" against French and German activists for "plagiarizing" Francione's idea about the abolition of the property status?



I have never claimed to be the first person to articulate the notion that veganism means the abolition of all animal products. I am not a historian, but I think that the credit for that idea goes to Donald Watson of Britain, who, as far as I am aware, articulated this idea in 1944 when he coined the term "vegan" and promoted the exclusion of all animal products (and not just flesh) from diet and other consumption. In any event, the foundational work on the meaning of veganism was done well before the French did whatever they did in 1989. What I added to that discussion, beginning in the early 1990s, was that the abolition of animal use would not, for a variety of social, political, legal, philosophical, and economic reasons, be achieved through the regulatory reform that is promoted by virtually every animal organization, whether in the U.S., U.K., or Europe. I may be mistaken, and I would greatly appreciate your correcting me if I am wrong here, but I do not think that any French writer articulated such a position in 1989 or at any other previous time.

Moreover, with respect to my theory on the status of nonhumans as chattel property, I do not think that any French or German theorist has proposed the view that the property status of nonhumans means that animal interests will be protected only to the extent that there is an economic value for humans. That is, the interests of animals as economic commodities have no intrinisic or inherent value; their value is only extrinsic or conditional. I have also argued that animal welfare laws failed in the same way that slave welfare laws failed. To the extent that you think that this position is any way reflected by the poster that states "Ma chair m'appartient," then I believe that you are dreaming.

I do understand that you are part of this "abolition of meat" campaign and that you are hostile to my work. That is fine, but it does not excuse you from misrepresenting my views.

Thank you.

GLF

PostPosted: Tue Feb 19, 2008 12:46 am
Last edited by Gary L. Francione on Tue Feb 19, 2008 2:50 am; edited 1 time in total
  View user's profile Send private message Send e-mail    Reply with quote Mark this post and the followings unread Back to top 
Dave_81
Senior Animal Rights Activist
Senior Animal Rights Activist

Joined: 16 Aug 2006
Posts: 747
Location: London, UK
Quote:
Dunayer argues that Francione's plan for incremental abolitionism is invariably welfarist, and consequently she objects to that plan.


Measures that pass Francione's five criteria for abolitionist change would impose significant opportunity costs on exploiters that reflect inherent valuation of animal interets. By contrast welfarist regulation reinforces the property status of animals (by, among other things, making exploitation more efficient). Therefore, measures that pass Francione's critreria are qualitatively different from welfarist regulation. I don't see the point of saying that something that is different in kind from welfarism, is welfarist. And this leads on to my next point.

The point of saying that Francione's criteria are welfarist must be to reveal his abolitionist criteria and welfarist regulation to be the same in important respects relative to an unstated but accepted sense of what welfarism is. Now as I said, measures that satisfy Francione's criteria would be qualititavely different from welfarist regulation. As such anyone who claims that Francione's criteria are welfarist must appeal to a sense of what welfarism is that is not continuous with what welfarism actually is like. But then the claim that Francione's criteria are welfarist can be secured only at the cost of the point of the argument -- which is surely to show that the criteria are bad because they are the same as welfarism in important respects.

Also, Francione's criteria are more rigorous than Dunayer's single criterion for abolitionist change.
_________________
http://abolitionistanimalrights.blogspot.com/index.html

PostPosted: Tue Feb 19, 2008 12:56 am
  View user's profile Send private message    Reply with quote Mark this post and the followings unread Back to top 
benio
Animal Guardian
Animal Guardian

Joined: 11 Feb 2008
Posts: 83
Location: France
 Re: Dunayer's dropped citation of Francione
Karin wrote:

Benio (do you, by the way, happen to be the same Benio from the abolition-of-meat-movement blog?)


I did join this discussion in Antoine Comiti's personal blog about the abolition of meat. Thanks for having reminded me of it: there are some objections that I made there about the "property-status theory" which still stands unanswered. I will open a new thread for restarting that discussion, because I'm really interested in it.

As for the rest of your post:

Quote:
as Gary once put it on the Vegan Freaks forum, "(t)he animal movement is, without doubt, the most anti-intellectual movement in the history of movements..."


The traditional approach to the animal question, in which Gary Francione's theory fits comfortably, is idealistic and abstract. Like Idealist philosophy, it assumes that a changing in ideas (fighting "speciesism" or, in our case, "presenting and representing nonhumans as rightholders", as you said) will automatically have an effect on reality. And, as an adaptation to the animal question of Liberal thought, it is only aimed at obtaining the legal equality of individuals. These are the reasons why I don't consider Gary's work worth studying: I'm not interested in a new edition of bourgeois ideology.

On the contrary, in France and in Italy (and in Germany too, I'm quite sure) there are significant experiences of approaching the animal question in new ways: we are exploring other paths. After having read Marx and Foucault, it is impossible for me to believe that a changing on the legal level will imply a changing in the conditions of living of the oppressed. If for you the fact that my approach is inspired by other authors than Gary means that I'm anti-intellectual, well, as you like.

Quote:

focusing on certain forms, practices, or products of exploitation
a) deals with the issue of how animals are being treated rather than with the issue of using animals at all, and/ or
b) unavoidably sends the message to the public that certain forms, practices, or products are morally worse than others which implies that others are morally more acceptable.


I see. Only Gary has the right to propose «prohibitions of significant institutional activities, as opposed to regulation or relatively minor prohibitions». Other people have not this same right, simply because they are other than he. And voilà another example of the amoeba word "coherence".

Quote:

I know the "My flesh is mine" poster very well; I used to take it to demos, and stickers with that motive were a large part of my equipment of outreach activism before I became acquainted with abolitionism. The editor of "My flesh is mine", Bernd Höcker, is a "vegetarian" who publishes welfarist literature in which until now I have failed to come across the word "vegan".


Therefore, you recognize that the idea that non-humans are not humans' properties is so commonplace that even a welfarist vegetarian can think of it.

PostPosted: Wed Feb 20, 2008 12:53 am
  View user's profile Send private message Send e-mail Visit poster's website    Reply with quote Mark this post and the followings unread Back to top 
benio
Animal Guardian
Animal Guardian

Joined: 11 Feb 2008
Posts: 83
Location: France
Gary L. Francione wrote:

I do understand that you are part of this "abolition of meat" campaign and that you are hostile to my work. That is fine, but it does not excuse you from misrepresenting my views.


I do understand that you are hostile to any person who thinks freely and is reluctant to recognize you as the supreme leader of the animal movement. The movement for the abolition of meat is off topic here, but of course you had to mention it. Indeed, all these interventions of yours here and there, to slander the people in the movement for the abolition of meat and to misrepresent their strategy, show that you are simply trying to hold back dangerous political rivals. If your main interest was theory and advancement, you would have been glad to meet other people interested in discussion on theoretical and strategical issues. Unfortunately, it is clear that it is not so and that you have a different political agenda - an autocratic agenda, if I may say so.

And, your obsession for copyright is curious. I find it contradictory. If, as you say, all the animal people and all organizations except for you and those who strictly adhere to your ideas are welfarist, why are you so obsessed with protecting your writings? If all other existing theoretical and political currents are "welfarist", they cannot be interested in stealing "abolitionist" theories, isn't it?

As for me, you have nothing to fear about: as I said in my answer to Karin, your Idealistic "abolitionist" theory does not interest me. Nor does your primacy in "discovering" that revolution is other than reformism.

PostPosted: Wed Feb 20, 2008 12:57 am
  View user's profile Send private message Send e-mail Visit poster's website    Reply with quote Mark this post and the followings unread Back to top 
Display posts from previous:   Sort by:   
Page 1 of 3 [34 Posts]   Goto page: 1, 2, 3 Next
Post new topic   Reply to topic View previous topicStop watching this topicMark the topic unreadView next topic
 Forum index » Activists » Animal Rights Talk
:  


You can post new topics in this forum
You can reply to topics in this forum
You can edit your posts in this forum
You cannot delete your posts in this forum
You can vote in polls in this forum
You cannot attach files in this forum
You cannot download files in this forum
You cannot post calendar events in this forum
Download the ARCO toolbar

Loan | 0 Credit Cards | Mobile Phones | Mortgage Calculator | Refinance

Copyright © 2005, 2008 ARCO
Powered by phpBB © 2001, 2005 phpBB Group
Bringing Animal Rights closer. Offering support for a pure vegetarian, fruitarian or raw food (plant based) diet and a vegan lifestyle.

[ Time: 0.8210s ][ Queries: 12 (0.0119s) ][ Debug on ]