Veganism and Animal Rights?

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VGnizm
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Veganism and Animal Rights?

Post by VGnizm »

Greetings :)

I have noted that there is a very close relationship between veganism and animal rights. This is very true when we look at associations and organizations. It is easy to notice that Animal Rights associations promote a Vegan Lifestyle and most if not all Vegans are also pro Animal Rights.

I am curious to find the demarcation line between the 2 movements and I am also curious to know if one of them can be considered a super set of the other?

I myself became Vegan for life loving or cruelty free living reasons but I did not pay much attention to the Animal Rights issue at first. It became evident to me as I encountered people who work for the Humane Society of the United States and noted how they promoted food programs that replaced meats.

My question is if one of them would qualify as a super set of the other and in that case what would be the reasons?
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NonZeroSum
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Re: Veganism and Animal Rights?

Post by NonZeroSum »

Interesting post on this from
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Click to enlarge in one shot: http://alwa.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/mindmap-ethics.png

Existentialists are kind of like rule consequentialists who can appear anywhere on the spectrum based on their will to bootstrap responsibilities for themselves, so an egoist would be for animal welfare and an existential virtues/duties ethicist would be for animal rights.
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Re: Veganism and Animal Rights?

Post by VGnizm »

Thanks for the excellent link and as such Veganism would seem to be the super set since it seems to respect at once both animal rights and animal welfare.

But for it to be so it must be clearly stressed that Veganism is a matter of respecting sentient beings and the food and clothing issue being only one of them.

An example would be abandoning a pet animal. It could be argued that a pet animal has a right to not be abandoned and the owner has a responsibility to provide care since the animal has become dependant on it, whereas per Veganism setting it free would be to its best interests. Or not?
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brimstoneSalad
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Re: Veganism and Animal Rights?

Post by brimstoneSalad »

On a philosophical level animal rights are frequently deontological, or dogmatic, and I don't think most vegans really subscribe to that view.

In the colloquial sense it's perhaps possible to have a pragmatic sense of rights rather than an ideological one, and I think that's more popular at least for the philosophical laity. Basically that rights themselves are a means to an end, and not always absolute. That's hard to parse when it comes to the philosophy though, and the distinction between the two which is probably properly seen as something fundamental.

As a consequentialist, I subscribe to welfare, but since we grant rights kind of willy-nilly from a political perspective I can support some rights for animals too.

I think vegans and non-vegans can believe in welfare or animal rights, so there's not necessarily a fundamental overlap there.
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Re: Veganism and Animal Rights?

Post by Lightningman_42 »

I understand that the concept of "moral rights" can be problematic from a consequentialist standpoint, but it might be possible to describe moral rights in terms of rule consequentialism.

One could describe animal rights as being general descriptions of how we ought to treat animals under most common circumstances, while acknowledging that there are exceptions to the rules (something you'll never get from Franciobots).

Still, I myself wouldn't make moral arguments in favor of vegansim, based on "rights", since I don't want to portray veganism as a deontological stance on animal ethics.

Arguments in favor of veganism based on "rights", in the strict deontological sense, tend to utilize circular reasoning:
"It's always wrong to use animals as resources because they have the right not to be used as resources, and we know that they have this right because using them as resources is always wrong."
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NonZeroSum
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Re: Veganism and Animal Rights?

Post by NonZeroSum »

VGnizm wrote: Tue Dec 05, 2017 12:56 pm Thanks for the excellent link and as such Veganism would seem to be the super set since it seems to respect at once both animal rights and animal welfare.

But for it to be so it must be clearly stressed that Veganism is a matter of respecting sentient beings and the food and clothing issue being only one of them.
Yes even if there was no longer a market demand for killing animals for food and clothing, we'd still want better universal protections over animals to deter random abuse. As well as policy goals like the setting aside of wildlife habitat, management of disease and injury, green walls and bridges and sensors to avoid traffic collisions with animals.
VGnizm wrote: Tue Dec 05, 2017 12:56 pmAn example would be abandoning a pet animal. It could be argued that a pet animal has a right to not be abandoned and the owner has a responsibility to provide care since the animal has become dependant on it, whereas per Veganism setting it free would be to its best interests. Or not?
I don't know of any pet animal species that have a wild habitat reserve you could return them to. Maybe some fish or snakes that were illegally poached from their habitat mid way through their life so they still have the instincts to survive if returned, but you'd really need to do your research and check with the local environment managers to know that it would be a good thing to do. Most of the problems with invasive species come from rich aristocrats back in the day bringing home exotic animals and plants and them then spreading and taking over native habitat.

But yes in terms of the different vegan advocacy approaches, some promote the extinction of domesticated animal species (some in favor of adopting and sterilizing, some not adopting, mass euthanizing and re-wilding a few if possible) others want to see us getting down to stable numbers, but the co-habitation with domestic animals who like our company as okay.

Here's our wiki on companion animal care so far: http://philosophicalvegan.com/wiki/index.php/Companion_Animal_Care
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brimstoneSalad
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Re: Veganism and Animal Rights?

Post by brimstoneSalad »

NonZeroSum wrote: Tue Dec 05, 2017 7:19 pm Yes even if there was no longer a market demand for killing animals for food and clothing, we'd still want better universal protections over animals to deter random abuse. As well as policy goals like the setting aside of wildlife habitat, management of disease and injury, green walls and bridges and sensors to avoid traffic collisions with animals.
That's a good example of where welfare can exceed morally over rights. Usually we only see examples in the other directions (accusations of acceptable levels of abuse).
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Re: Veganism and Animal Rights?

Post by NonZeroSum »

brimstoneSalad wrote: Tue Dec 05, 2017 8:04 pm
NonZeroSum wrote: Tue Dec 05, 2017 7:19 pm Yes even if there was no longer a market demand for killing animals for food and clothing, we'd still want better universal protections over animals to deter random abuse. As well as policy goals like the setting aside of wildlife habitat, management of disease and injury, green walls and bridges and sensors to avoid traffic collisions with animals.
That's a good example of where welfare can exceed morally over rights.
Where a kind of allocating energy to practical considerations for reacting to welfare considerations on top of basic rights you mean? I would definitely agree, I'm still open to hearing the case that this can be formulated by deontologists in a constitutional model, but yea would have to use pragmatic definitions of terms that would account for levels of sentience.
brimstoneSalad wrote:Usually we only see examples in the other directions (accusations of acceptable levels of abuse).
Yes it's important to have these kind of political movement goals to point to I think.
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Re: Veganism and Animal Rights?

Post by brimstoneSalad »

Also: some diseases are literally other animals (parasites), so that becomes a serious problem for a deontologist.
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Re: Veganism and Animal Rights?

Post by VGnizm »

Many thanks to all for providing so much valuable insight.

A question that comes to mind is the use of police dogs to screen for weapons or drugs. What would be the Vegan approach to this? Is there a philosophical framework that would justify such a type of relationship since generally these animals are well cared for. Not out of sentience but rather out of need?
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