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Gary Francione, Animals As Persons Interface: a journal for and about social movements Book review Volume 1 (2): 351 - 353 (November 2009) Francione, Animals as persons Book review: Gary Francione, Animals as persons Roger Yates Gary L Francione 2008, Animals as persons: essays on the abolition of animal exploitation. New York: Columbia University Press Law professor Gary L. Francione is the most prominent animal rights theorist writing at the present time. However, Animals as Persons, like his earlier books (Francione 1996; 2000), contains not only Francione’s vision of animal rights theory but also a historical and contemporary analysis of social movement advocacy for animal protection. Francione’s position on campaigning is borne out of experience. As legal advisor to the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals [PETA] in the 1990s, he was a close associate of prime movers in the US animal advocacy community. However, his views are controversial within the ‘animal rights movement’, no least because he claims that it does not exist. Francione asserts that the social movement that often goes under the ‘animal rights’ banner is still largely influenced by Peter Singer’s utilitarianism. Animal Liberation (Singer 1975) is the recognised text that inspired post-1970s advocacy. Francione caused bitter debate by describing Singer’s position a form of animal welfarism (a type of ‘new welfarism’), while claiming that all forms of animal welfare have theoretical and practical problems. Animals as Persons begins with a reiteration of this suggestion, differentiating animal rights, which seeks the abolition of animal use, from animal welfarism, which is about regulating how nonhumans are treated while they are being used. Francione states that animal welfarism is based on the proposition that ‘we can use animals but must treat them “humanely”’. While traditional forms of animal welfarism finds institutional expression in ‘humane societies’, ‘new welfarism’ is represented by organisations such as PETA. Francione says that, ‘most large animal advocacy organisations promote some form of the new welfarist position.’ They believe that a series of welfare reforms may work to end animal use and raise public consciousness about animal exploitation. A recent example of this strategy is PETA’s 5-year long campaign to encourage KFC Canada to adopt a system called Controlled Atmosphere Killing (CAK). KFC agreed to this and the new killing method, claimed to be ‘more humane’ than throat slitting, will be implemented in 2016. Francione argues that there are several problems with attempting to employ animal welfare to abolish animal use and, therefore, animal advocates are wasting time, energy and money. He suggests that, as a matter of moral theory, it is problematic for a social movement to promote ‘humane’ forms of exploitation. What movement would promote a ‘humane’ form of paedophilia, he asks. Moreover, he states that there is no evidence that improved regulation 351 Interface: a journal for and about social movements Book review Volume 1 (2): 351 - 353 (November 2009) Francione, Animals as persons of use will lead to its abolition, claiming that the opposite appears to be the case. Animals are only helped by welfare regulation if it so happens that there is an economic benefit for the users. Francione points toward evidence of the failure of animal welfarism saying that, once animal use is regarded as ‘humane’, consumers are even happier buying animal produce. In recent years, for example, there have been a number of former vegetarians returning to meat eating. Francione begins his first substantive chapter – ‘Animals – property or persons?’ – with an account of his concept of ‘moral schizophrenia’. This notion builds on repeated polls which suggest that large percentages of the general public believe that nonhuman animals have morally significant interests and should be protected from ‘acts of cruelty’, and even agree with the suggestion that animals have a ‘right to be free of suffering.’ The public apparently believe that animals cannot be used merely for trivial reasons. However, the way nonhuman animals are treated in actuality contradicts these declarations, Francione argues. Most human use of nonhumans is demonstrably trivial. He suggests that all this can ultimately be explained by the legal status of nonhuman animals and, moreover, the legal status of animals certainly sheds light on why animal welfarism fails to significantly protect their interests. In law, there are two categories, ‘things’ and ‘persons’. Nonhuman animals are regarded as ‘things’: the legal property of property owners. Francione claims that The property status of animals renders meaningless any balancing that is supposedly required under the humane treatment principle or animal welfare laws, because what we really balance are the interests of property owners against the interests of their animal property. Francione argues that real progress for nonhuman animals requires them to become moral persons. He says they become moral persons ‘if we extend the right not to be property to animals’. This idea is likely to create further controversy for Francione, yet he explains that his conceptualisation of animal personhood is limited and practical: ‘To say a being is a person is merely to say that the being has morally significant interests, that the principle of equal consideration applies to that being, that the being is not a thing.’ Francione suggests that humans already partially accepted that nonhumans are persons but, as in the case of human slaves before them, their property status ‘has prevented their personhood being realised.’ While animal welfarism amounts to the creation of ‘quasi-persons’ or ‘things plus,’ he maintains that there really isn’t this third choice: a being is either a person or a thing, and since nonhuman animals have morally significant interests, they should be regarded as persons in terms of the persons-things divide. The property status of nonhumans is a structural impediment to taking their interests seriously and, therefore, animal advocacy must be directed full-time on attacking this barrier. Not surprisingly, then, Francione quickly returns to his analysis of the animal advocacy movement on the grounds that, if nonhuman have moral significant 352 Interface: a journal for and about social movements Book review Volume 1 (2): 351 - 353 (November 2009) Francione, Animals as persons interests then they must be accorded the basic right not to be property. However, this demands that a credible social movement that takes animal rights serious must seek in a clear and consistent manner the abolition of animal use and not the regulation of animal treatment. For Francione, an equally clear and consistent declaration that veganism is the moral baseline position of animal rights is a necessary requirement for social movement claims-making. Animals as Persons also contains useful critiques of ‘animal law’ courses that have emerged in the US in particular, the ‘similar minds’ thesis, ecofeminist condemnations of rights-based theory and advocacy, and some of Tom Regan’s (1983) construction of animal rights theory. While sociologists Jasper and Nelkin (1992) have suggested that philosophers have acted as ‘midwives’ to social movements, Francione shows why the modern ‘animal rights movement’ is really an animal welfare mobilisation. This book will interest social movement scholars interested in the interplay of philosophers as the producers of ideas and movement activists as the producers of action in civil society. For those with a particular interested in human- nonhuman relations, this is vital reading, especially helpful in understanding the philosophical muddle that exists in the present animal advocacy movement. References Francione, Gary L 1996. Rain Without Thunder: The Ideology of the Animal Rights Movement. Philadelphia: Temple University Press. Francione, Gary L 2000. Introduction to Animal Rights: Your Child or The Dog. Philadelphia: Temple University Press. Jasper, James and Nelkin, Dorothy 1992. The Animal Rights Crusade: The Growth of a Moral Protest. New York: The Free Press. Regan, Tom 1983. The Case for Animal Rights. Berkeley: University of California Press. Singer, Peter 1975. Animal Liberation. New York: Avon. About the author Roger Yates is lecturer in sociology at University College Dublin and the University of Wales. A former activist in the Animal Liberation Front and other grassroots animal movement groups, he has written widely in the area. 353 .
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