Analysis of California's Prop. 2 by Gary Francione

Comments

August 28, 2008 at 2:17 pm

(1) Mike Jaynes says:

Professor Francione, a very active animal advocate and respected individual, is incorrect in his assessment of California’s prop 2. He states welfare reforms such as it “[Make] the public feel better about exploiting nonhuman animals is exactly what efforts like Proposition 2 are intended to do by the organizations that promote such measures.” True welfare reforms are not about assuaging the public’s conscious; they are about relieving nonhuman suffering.
Refusing to improve the miserable conditions of billions of enslaved animals (even if it is only to the level of slightly less miserable) due to an unrealistic holding fast to a future utopia is a misguided proposition.
Animal welfare is a bridge that leads the vast majority of the public from meat eating to veganism and giving moral consideration to nonhuman animals. Some seem to wish to blow up the bridge of animal welfare in favor of liberation-the end goal. What Francione sometimes fails to realize is that the connective bridging stance of animal welfare ultimately is vegan education…the very first class of it. Eventual Vegan 101, if you will.
With respect to the professor, I feel voting “no” on prop 2 is a horrendous disservice to the animals who are currently suffering and dying with no notion or hope of a dim future utopia. They only have their sensory experiences that are filled with unspeakable terror. Philosophy will not alleviate this terror we have visited upon them. The unfortunately dirty and dark real world of humanity and animal suffering does not require philosophical stances and rigorous ethical theorizing…it only requires eyes. And a human heart.
This is not overly simplistic reductionism of multi-faceted animal advocacy; it is simply objective reasoning and a logical approach to the true reality of our selfish anthropocentric race, which will one day -hopefully- respect animals as individual persons and give them their freedom from humanity. Until then, inaction in the name of a presently unreachable utopia is not a viable reason for leaving billions of animals in agony and despair.

With Respect,
Mike