ARCO's Abolitionists - A Vegan Forum

What are your thoughts on connecting the human rights movement to the animal rights movement? As I understand human rights (from Lynn Hunt), two concepts are fundamental: a) the existence of moral rights, and b) the necessity of empathy in realizing the inclusion of increasing numbers of individuals into the moral community.

As empathy depends on the recognition of the similarities between your “inner life” and the “inner life” of others, human rights campaigns that aim to illuminate the likeness of all individuals as far as we are all capable of feeling, it seems like the animal rights movement would be a proper corollary or the logical ethical result of the human rights movement.

The difficulty as I see it, lies in connecting the inner experiences of animals with the inner experiences of humans.

I’m curious to know if there is work in this field that collapses the human rights movement and the animal rights movement into a unified movement that seeks to recognize the inclusion of all sentient beings; an end that rests on a foundation of empathy.

http://www.not-quiteright.net/tvg/

Nonhuman animals can't really benefit from any rights beyond "basic rights", which pretty much mandate that we end our relationship with sentient nonhumans. "Human rights" can refer to the protection of many interests that don't play into the human/nonhuman relationship. But humans and nonhumans do have essentially the same basic interests (not being property or otherwise subjugated, being free from capricious violence and murder), and therefore, lest we be speciesist, humans and nonhumans should have the same basic rights.

On connecting human rights to animal rights as different manifestations of the same oppressive system, I recommend:

Human Rights/ Animal Rights, Entanglements of Oppression and Liberation

by David Nibert.

Nothing more I can add yet.

Namasté

Thanks for your thoughts.

http://www.not-quiteright.net/tvg/

I believe that the "animal" rights movement, by definition, cannot but encompass human rights. Not only because we are also animals, and because we are also sentient but because the processes behind human exploitation come from the same hierarchical, oppresive and dominative ideological system that`s behind other animals exploitation.

That`s why we fight speciesism as well as racism, sexism, ageism and heterosexism or any other arbitrary discrimination. As I`ve read somewhere else, we have to fight every form of oppresion if we want to get rid of any.

Granted that many "vegans" develop some kind of misanthropy after seeing the reality behind animal exploitation, but if we are to take animal rights seriously we cannot support such thoughts.

Alex wrote:I’m curious to know if there is work in this field that collapses the human rights movement and the animal rights movement into a unified movement that seeks to recognize the inclusion of all sentient beings

I strongly believe that the abolitionist AR movement is the one that collapses both.

But I guess that your point might be directed at how to get the "human rights" movement to consider the "animal rights" movement.
That`s a little bit harder since anthropocentrism and speciesism is a part of most "human rights" people. But it`s the same with most non-vegans, so the answer is the same. Vegan/abolitionist education.

Maybe focusing more on the integrative view of oppresion and domination with the former might be useful.

Thoughts?

Along with Veganomante`s recommendation I`d add:

Making a Killing - The Political Economy of Animal Rights by Bob Torres.

I haven`t finished it yet, but it covers many of these topics, and I really like it so far.

Regards.

I am also reading "Making a Killing: The Political Economy of Animal Rights," by Bob Torres.

I agree that Mr. Torres' argument is appropriate because, as you say, he considers the structural oppression and hierarchy Capitalism depends upon for its survival. I often take this approach when speaking with human rights activists about animal rights; my efforts rely on Mr. Torres' belief that all forms of oppression within our social world are linked, and one necessarily has to attack the roots of the "whole" before damaging each independent eruption.

I also think that the logic of human rights, as moral rights, does lend itself to the animal rights movement. If one proffers the existence of moral rights, the next logical step is to question why only humans are included in that sphere, and if we are to deny animals moral rights due to their supposed "inferiorities" then how "universal" can moral rights be as some humans will necessarily be excluded from that sphere of protection because they will likewise be "affected" by those supposed inferiorities. Group membership also belies the claim of "universality" as this is the form of discrimination that is most often employed to deny the claim that some individuals have moral rights. I suppose our goal, as always, is to convince the human rights movement that "species" is just another group.

Thanks for your thoughts.

http://www.not-quiteright.net/tvg/

I tend to see this idea this way: some - basic - 'human rights' are our animal rights. I think we can sensibly talk about human animal rights.

I introduced this idea in an undeveloped way in my phd theses about human-nonhuman relations. http://roger.rbgi.net I think there are several good aspects of this approach. The most basic, perhaps, is that it reminds human animals that they are animals and provides for a little humility in their perspectives on relations with other animals.

It also, then, makes it possible to argue that animal rights is not such a strange idea because human animals are already socially constructed as rights bearers. From this point, it is not such a large leap to think of nonhuman animals too being rightholders.

best

RY