The conversation with Tim Gier continues. As in my previous entry I explained, I took Tim's blog entry Saving the World in a kind of interview/dialogue. It was mind flexing and fun, but I ran out of steam before I ran out of Tim's questions and thoughtful responses.

TG's Question: Is there another reason that would obligate you to try to convince others to stop using animals?

TG: Perhaps it is the case that since human beings have created the problem relative to the misuse of animals, we are all obligated to work to solve the problem.

I don’t think this is true either. You did not personally create the systems that misuse animals. If you are currently abstaining from all uses of animals, then you are not now contributing to the continued misuse of animals. You cannot be required to ameliorate the harms that are caused by others, when you have had no part in their perpetuation.

Otherwise, for example, it could just as easily be said that since you had a home mortgage once that benefited you greatly, and even though you no longer have any mortgage at all, because you are part of a system that still uses mortgages, you are obligated to personally assist any current mortgage holders who are in crisis. That makes no sense.

SW: Tim, I'm finding it difficult to apply that analogy. That said, can I have permission to rephrase the analogy to something I think might make it clearer for me to answer?

Take the case of those who call themselves homeless. I see them at the base of the Interstate exit three or four times a day. One guy has a sign with "Visa & Mastercard accepted here" on one side, and on the other, "Try and hit me with a quarter. EYE dare you too."

Do I have an obligation to sling a quarter or two at him? Did he not have the same opportunities for making life decisions that I do? Did he perhaps make some really bad selections? Who knows? But just because I have a job am I obligated to give him  some of my money? I don't, not because I don't think he needs it, or because I'm judging him. I don't because I see the same group eating fried chicken under the overpass.

The way I see it is that the current animal production "system" has morphed over the last hundred or so years, with the most far reaching negative impacts in the last fifty or so. Maybe I am not "obligated" to ameliorate the harm by abstaining from animal use, but I am obligated to the collective soul of all beings to try to improve the planet so it can continue to support any/all life forms.

TG: So, again, while maybe it would be a good thing that you take it upon yourself to work for the cause of animal rights, you are not obligated to.

SW: Let me interrupt for a second, Tim. Perhaps I'm overlooking the use of obligation as you mean it. Perhaps I'm choosing to take on the mantle of obligation as an act of restitution for all those years that I was not vegan. I would agree with you then, that many may think the simple act of being vegan is enough, and there is no obligation to perform any activism other than representing the animals when walking into the lunchroom, at least that is my experience in our break room.

TG: Another source of confusion with regard to our obligations to others is the result of our political system. For example, you might think that we have an obligation to provide at least basic health care to every person in the country. Do you mean that you personally accept an obligation to provide such care? No. What you actually mean is that you think we should all, collectively and through the mechanisms of government, provide such care. As members of a democracy, we agree to be bound by the decisions reached in our political process. There is a difference between being a voluntary part of a system and being obligated by moral imperative.

SW: Good point. But please also consider the amount of disease and illness directly connected with the consumption of animals and their products. I have no desire to withhold necessary medical care to any one. However, like insurance companies charging higher premiums for smokers, I'd prefer more vegans (well, all vegans in a perfect world) so the world would be a healthier one and easier to provide medical care to those who needed it as there'd be fewer sick and dying people.

Additionally consider this: If I don't consume flesh, I will not be exposed to BSE. As you and I both know, our meat producers cannot be trusted to follow the most basic laws in place and there is very little policing done to be sure they're not violating WRT both human and non-human rights. BUT (and it is a very huge but) if a class 5 hurricane goes spinning up the coast and enters pig country - well I'm going to try to resist fan references, but you get my drift. That said, the risk of vegans getting sick from airborne diseases like Swine flu - and I am NOT going to call it H1N1 to protect the guilty, is a risk I'd like to not take. So it is indeed in my best interest to actively promote veganism for that reason. Am I obligated to do so? No, but I see a piano falling down from that great height and I am getting out of Dodge.

TG: Finally, since the basis for you accepting your obligations toward animals is that they should not be treated as just a means to an end, then you have a right to the same consideration for yourself. In other words, even though the end result of the cessation of the use of animals as things is a noble one, you cannot be used by others as merely a way to achieve that end. You get to decide what you will do, no one gets to decide that for you. While it might be a good thing for you to try to convince others to accept their own obligations towards animals, you are not obligated to do so.

SW: But it is in my best interest to move away from the piano falling and if you are beside me reading your Kindle, I'm going to shove you too. If you drop your Kindle and it breaks, I'll hope you see my actions as still in your best interests.

TG's Question: So why is any of this important?

TG: It is important because when one person has made a commitment to veganism, they have done all that is required of them. Vegans are not obligated to change the minds of other people, whether those people are perfect strangers or significant others. Vegans are not required to take part in campaigns, or put bumper stickers on their cars, or proselytize their views in every possible forum. Maybe it would be a better world if they did, but they are not obligated to.

The process of educating others about veganism, and the questions about whether to do it, when to do it, and how to do it, are personal matters beyond the reach of the obligations that each of us have to other sentient beings.

Our obligation to animals is to stop using them, to stop treating them as things. As each of us does that, our individual obligation has been met. Accept that obligation, and your work is done.

SW: Nicely done. I agree that I don't want anyone threatening to take away my vegan card if I don't go to meetups and try to change the mind of every omnivore I know. I'm not sure, however that it is a personal matter beyond what I owe to non-human persons.  If I don't speak up, then am I not complicit? I'm reminded of the poem http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_they_came...

Pasted from <http://timgier.com/2010/03/09/saving-the-world/>

The Six Principles of the Animal Rights Position
The animal rights position maintains that all sentient beings, humans or nonhuman, have one right: the basic right not to be treated as the property of others.
Our recognition of the one basic right means that we must abolish, and not merely regulate, institutionalized animal exploitation–because it assumes that animals are the property of humans.
Just as we reject racism, sexism, ageism, and homophobia, we reject speciesism. The species of a sentient being is no more reason to deny the protection of this basic right than race, sex, age, or sexual orientation is a reason to deny membership in the human moral community to other humans.
We recognize that we will not abolish overnight the property status of nonhumans, but we will support only those campaigns and positions that explicitly promote the abolitionist agenda. We will not support positions that call for supposedly “improved” regulation of animal exploitation. We reject any campaign that promotes sexism, racism, homophobia or other forms of discrimination against humans.
We recognize that the most important step that any of us can take toward abolition is to adopt the vegan lifestyle and to educate others about veganism. Veganism is the principle of abolition applied to one’s personal life and the consumption of any meat, fowl, fish, or dairy product, or the wearing or use of animal products, is inconsistent with the abolitionist perspective.
We recognize the principle of nonviolence as the guiding principle of the animal rights movement.
Gary L. Francione© 2007 Gary L. Francione

The Hypocrisy of Cage Free Eggs

Yesterday I heard an interview with Moby on Animal Talk, a segment played on my local community radio station WMNF . Moby expressed the opinion that, while he is still vegan after almost 20 years, he’s become less “militant” about it. He supports some of the work of PeTA, and the work of the HSUS. He’s of the mind that HSUS negotiating with Ben and Jerry’s to use cage free eggs in their ice cream is a step in the right direction. He thinks that cage free eggs reduce the amount of suffering.

I think he is patently and dangerously wrong.

I think free range eggs reduce the suffering of those who have a slight amount of conscience, but not enough to make them take total responsibility for their actions. I think cage free eggs merely assuage collective guilt.

The reality is that cage free hens are still hens. Which is to say that if an egg intended for a cage free egg factory is hatched out as a male (ie potential rooster – whereby valueless) it will be just as dead when it is gassed, tossed through the chick blender, or left to suffocate in a barrel with its millions of counterparts.

The reality is that the access to the outside world for a cage free chicken is still controlled by humans, humans who will capitalize on the loopholes in the rules that allow them to proclaim the reproductive byproducts “cage free” when in truth, there is a very narrow window of opportunity for the chickens to access the outside, compounded by the “weather permitting” caveat.

I think we’ll see consumption of “cage free” eggs increase. Here’s my view of what this person will look like…..

S/he will be very busy patting her/himself on the back as being “an animal lover” who is willing to spend a few pennies more for cage free eggs at the local breakfast bistro. S/he’ll be all puffed up as s/he consumes aforementioned eggs and explains his/her reasoning to his/her friends at the table all happily consuming cheese omelets and buttered (whole wheat because it’s healthier) toast. S/he’ll eschew the bacon because “it’s full of nitrites and nitrates – which, as you may know, are linked to cancer,” all the while drinking coffee harvested by slaves and lightened with ORGANIC milk – because everyone knows that the cows that give organic milk have organic lives filled with organic and bucolic fields to run around in. That’s right, organic milk comes from HAPPY meat! And s/he’ll do all this consuming with a clear conscience because some of the chickens got to run outside… maybe, once or twice, before they are “spent” and are converted into pet food.

The Doomed Science Project


Picture me, Selah, in ninth grade, which seems like a hundred years ago. Our school’s Science Fair loomed. I wanted to participate, and I wanted to win. I’d read the work of J.B. Calhoun, who'd written a paper called "The Effect of Overpopulation in Rats and Mice and thought that it would make a dandy of a Science project, one that surely would garner me a big honkin’ red ribbon. I put together my hypothesis and my allowance, and walked to the closest K-Mart, where I plunked down cash to buy a tiny metal cage and as many mice as I could afford.

The idea was that they’d have babies, and then more babies, and I’d be able to write a brilliant paper like Dr. Calhoun’s (only in my own words) about how the mice stopped acting like normal mice and began doing “weird stuff.” This model would then be applied to the human race and I could expound in my best fourteen year old English how this was what was happening in cities around the world…..cities I’d never even seen, and knew little about, but I digress. I was filled with excitement and anticipation while walking home with my Chinese Take Away cartons o’ mice. Upon arriving home, I set up my “laboratory” with the mouse house (my version of a miniature New York) my notebook and pencil at the ready. If I could have found a lab coat, you can bet I’d have worn it.

Within hours, the boys were fighting. No amount of discipline, pleading, scolding or harsh looks could get them to stop. There was blood, bitten ears, screeching, and horror. I hit my big brother up for some more cash and back to K-Mart I trudged to get a second cage. Within weeks I had baby mice alright, but the mommies got scared because the daddies were still in the cage so they ate them. I bought more cages. As a scientist, I think I failed. As a young girl, I believe my humanity triumphed. And now, so many years later, when, at the end of each day that I’ve eaten, and eaten well – without causing any sentient being any suffering, that young girl triumphs again.