In January, I wrote a blog entry about two friends, an elephant and a dog. This lovely story is so important in terms of animal rights theory and animal cognition.
A new update on the story of Bella and Tara is available HERE.
28.6.09
25.6.09
"Animal Rights July."
Every Wednesday evening in July 2009.
7.00 - 9.45pm.
Theatre ‘N’, Newman Building, U.C.D.
Admission (and food) is free.
·Week 1. July 1st.
The Animal Rights Debate: A Bill of Rights for Animals?
·Week 2. July 8th.
HOME. A film released on World Environment Day, 2009.
· Week 3. July 15th.
A Cow at My Table.
·KEYNOTE EVENT: Week 4. July 22nd.
The Animal Rights Debate: Abolition or Regulation?
Lecture by law professor and animal rights philosopher Gary L. Francione (live from the USA, via Skype).
·Week 5. July 29th.
Something a little different – Judge John Deed: “Everyone’s Child”.
In this episode of G.F. Newman’s drama, Deed’s daughter gets involved with demonstrations in support of an ‘animal rights hunger striker,’ while Deed decides the fate of a minor who has refused a heart transplant due to his adherence to the philosophy of vegan animal rights and the principles of nonviolence.
7.00 - 9.45pm.
Theatre ‘N’, Newman Building, U.C.D.
Admission (and food) is free.
·Week 1. July 1st.
The Animal Rights Debate: A Bill of Rights for Animals?
Although filmed in the late 1980s, this debate is still relevant today. Featuring professors Tom Regan, Richard Ryder, Andrew Linzey, Mary Warnock, Steven Rose and Germaine Greer, and with contribution from audience members, the debate explores issues such as the connection between human and nonhuman animal rights, rights-based thought and utilitarianism, and animal rights –v- animal welfarism.
·Week 2. July 8th.
HOME. A film released on World Environment Day, 2009.
“HOME is better by miles than Al Gore’s document, An Inconvenient Truth...There is explicit criticism of intensive agriculture and discussion about the inefficient use of resources (grains, water) used to produce meat. Although the film certainly does not advocate veganism, that is the logical implication of its message. As I have argued for longer than I care to remember, anyone who cares at all about the environment should be vegan even if she/he does not care about the moral issue involved in animal exploitation.” Gary Francione - http://www.abolitionistapproach.com/
· Week 3. July 15th.
A Cow at My Table.
This is an unusual and fascinating documentary about a journalist, Jennifer Abbot, who was arrested for filming a dead cow. A Cow at My Table features contributions from the author of The Case for Animal Rights, philosopher Tom Regan, representatives from the animal agriculture industry, animal welfare expert Dr. Ian Duncan, ex-rancher Howard Lyman, and ecofeminists Carol Adams and Vandana Shiva.
·KEYNOTE EVENT: Week 4. July 22nd.
The Animal Rights Debate: Abolition or Regulation?
Lecture by law professor and animal rights philosopher Gary L. Francione (live from the USA, via Skype).
Gary Francione is the leading exponent of the Abolitionist Approach to animal rights. His books, Animals, Property and The Law, Rain Without Thunder: The Ideology of the Animal Rights Movement, Introduction to Animal Rights and Animals as Persons, explore his vision of animal rights. Francione argues for one right for nonhuman animals, the right not to be property. He is a critic of Peter Singer’s utilitarian philosophy which does not rule out all animal use and killing, and he objects to Tom Regan’s version of animal rights theory for its emphasis on nonhuman animals with sophisticated cognitive abilities. Francione's theory applies to all sentient beings.
·Week 5. July 29th.
Something a little different – Judge John Deed: “Everyone’s Child”.
In this episode of G.F. Newman’s drama, Deed’s daughter gets involved with demonstrations in support of an ‘animal rights hunger striker,’ while Deed decides the fate of a minor who has refused a heart transplant due to his adherence to the philosophy of vegan animal rights and the principles of nonviolence.
15.6.09
More Vegan Education Developments.
In a recent blog entry, I mentioned some welcome developments in vegan education initiatives and vegan podcasting. For example, I highlighted the NZ Vegan Podcast, online vegan recipes from Vegan-a-go-go, Adam Kochanowicz’s The Vegan News and, of course, Bob and Jenna Torres' Vegan Freaks Radio Show.
Law professor and animal rights philosopher, Gary Francione, recently noted that Elizabeth Collins of the NZ Vegan podcast is developing a new 'flip book' or flip chart idea for use in vegan community education. This seems to be particularly useful where the use of video is problematic - although there are some great ideas about that too (see HERE.)
Francione writes that, "Elizabeth is in the process of constructing a stall that she will use to provide community education about animal rights and veganism. She wants to use the videos from this site—Theory of Animal Rights, Animals as Property, and Animal Rights vs. Animal Welfare—but finds it impractical to take her laptop into the streets. So she is going to print each slide and create albums or "flip books" that will allow people who come to her stall to read relatively brief and accessible presentations about the central ideas of the abolitionist approach."
For Francione's full account of this initiative, click HERE.
Law professor and animal rights philosopher, Gary Francione, recently noted that Elizabeth Collins of the NZ Vegan podcast is developing a new 'flip book' or flip chart idea for use in vegan community education. This seems to be particularly useful where the use of video is problematic - although there are some great ideas about that too (see HERE.)
Francione writes that, "Elizabeth is in the process of constructing a stall that she will use to provide community education about animal rights and veganism. She wants to use the videos from this site—Theory of Animal Rights, Animals as Property, and Animal Rights vs. Animal Welfare—but finds it impractical to take her laptop into the streets. So she is going to print each slide and create albums or "flip books" that will allow people who come to her stall to read relatively brief and accessible presentations about the central ideas of the abolitionist approach."
For Francione's full account of this initiative, click HERE.
2.6.09
The Rationality of Becoming Vegan.
An article by Barbara McDonald on becoming vegan, first published in the 1990s, has recently been featured in a new reader on human-nonhuman relations. Although the piece is now a little dated (the original research being conducted in June 1996), and the sample of 12 vegans interviewed is very small, it seems to contain some points of interests for rights-based abolitionists.
Although McDonald is critical of Jack Mezirow’s ‘transformation theory’, ideas embedded within it seem relevant to a study of how people become vegans, especially when certain critical elements on, for example, power relations are added to the original formulation. Mezirow's perspective is certainly overly psychological and in need of sociological elements for balance and context. McDonald is undoubtedly an expert on Mezirow since her doctoral thesis was about his work. She states that the transformation theory “does not explain the process of learning to become vegan.”
However, some of her discussion in this paper seems to contradict that conclusion, at least to the extent to which McDonald claims the theory has no explanatory value. For example, in a 2000 book, Mezirow builds on 20 years of his theory and outlines the basic ideas about how people change in a 10-point process of ‘transformative learning’
One of the main thrusts in the theory, borrowing heavily from Habermas, is the power of rational discourse and a level of cognitive functioning which critics of Mezirow say most adults never achieve. For her part, McDonald focuses on the theory’s need for individuals to be critically reflexive about assumptions. She says her study of vegans failed to identify such critical reflection in their talk. Again, other parts of her piece seems to contradict that claim too.
However, let’s stick with Mezirow a little longer, and via Nancy Franz’s discussion of Stephan Brookfield’s definition of ‘critical reflection theory,’ which may well serve to correct some of the shortcomings in Mezirow’s approach. Critical reflection requires persons being self-aware, making sense of experiences, deconstructing and reconstructing meanings , the critiquing of premises and ideologies, and ‘principled thinking’ all of which can be defined, according to Brookfield, as ‘reflecting on the assumptions underlying ours and other’s ideas and actions, and contemplating alternative ways of thinking and living.’
These ideas may be expressed in this way - and by means of these ‘phases’
At this point we have a basic understanding of some of the ideas that interest McDonald in her study of vegans. Perhaps we can see how these 10 points and 5 phases inform an appreciation of the changes people go through when they become vegan?
McDonald works with a process which begins with the notion of ‘Who was I?’ (meaning who was the person before learning about veganism and animal cruelty). This is followed by what some have called ‘a moral shock’ but McDonald uses the term ‘catalytic experience’ instead (meaning a person’s learning of some aspect of cruelty). At this point, two things are likely to occur. The information about animal cruelty can be acted upon, and therefore the person ‘becomes oriented’ towards learning more and maybe making a decision (for example, to stop eating other animal flesh), or there can be repression of the information (when people put what they know to the back of their minds [see also]). In the latter case, another catalytic experience or event may be required to, in some sense, re-engage a recall of the repressed knowledge of animal cruelty.
After this there is a process of learning about animal abuse and how to be a vegan (i.e., start reading the damn labels!! [1]) A decision is made to live as a vegan (or a vegetarian). Finally, the person’s general worldview has changed. With a new perspective she or he begins to face the world as a vegan. This process can take a long time: some of McDonald’s interviewees took years to become vegan.
We can now follow some of the study’s participants through some of these stages. The first thing that would register with animal rights abolitionists is the number of McDonald’s respondents who acknowledged being in a state of what Francione characterises as ‘moral schizophrenia.’ McDonald writes that the majority of those in the study had a prior love for nature and of pets. However, they did not see the connection between their pets and ‘food animals.’ McDonald says they had ‘compartmentalised their compassion.’ Moreover, many of them ‘expressed amazement that they had not seen the connection.’
This notion of prior ‘love’ for pets is interesting from an abolitionist point of view. I think it is fair to say that the ‘pet issue’ is one reason why many animal advocates reject the animal rights view of human-nonhuman relations. Just like the pet breeders and pet lovers in the countermovements, they cannot imagine a future with no living ornaments/toys, or a future without their child substitute ‘fur babies.’
Many animal advocates suggest, then, that pet keeping is a necessary or at least widespread means by which humans come to have some regard for nonhuman animals. Without their ‘prior love’ for pets, they believe, they may never have seriously considered being an animal advocate. McDonald’s findings seem to support this view – but not fully by any means. For example, not every respondent had a strong affection for nonhuman animals when young and, as one person pointed out, most kids are dotty about their pets; most are upset when pets die, but that does not prompt further thinking about human-nonhuman relations. Most, it seems, can be quite comfortable in their morally schizophrenic state and no amount of ‘companion animals’ pegging out on them seems to cure them.
When it comes to the catalytic experiences, one respondent seems to have had a Paul and Linda McCartney moment. They are said that have awoken to reality looking out of their Scottish farmyard window at gambolling lambs when cooking ‘lamb,’ while this respondent looked up ‘and exchanged a long and pensive gaze with a buck standing on the hill above him.’ At that moment, he decided to not eat meat again. Others in the study went vegan after watching videos.
At this point, McDonald discusses the issues of emotions and cognition. McDonald reports that her respondents’ catalytic experience was often but not necessarily emotional and often, it seems, a blend of emotion and rational thought goes into the process by which people turn vegan. If anything, there is a hint that going vegetarian is an emotional reaction while the decision to go vegan is based on a cognitive interpretation of learning. Often the one followed the other.
Thus, while people spoke of videos ‘breaking their hearts’ and their reaction being, ‘My God, I just didn’t realise what things went on,’ McDonald says that, ‘Emotions seem to have been one of the major defining characteristics of the more memorable catalytic experiences. The decision to become vegan following a period of vegetarianism was more often rational.’ McDonald says it was typical that the decision to go vegan followed a period of learning, particular about the issue of ‘being in favour of animal rights but continuing to eat animal products.’ Here the logical inconsistencies of vegetarianism often finally sunk in. By thinking, talking, reading and becoming active, people realised their actions may not match their beliefs. McDonald cites one respondent who admits that he had drawn the line in the wrong place by being a vegetarian. Through reflection he realised that ‘using milk and putting cheese in stuff’ wasn’t good enough.
Following catalytic experiences, respondents were ‘becoming oriented’ to learning and then they learned about animal abuse. They learned about cruelty and how to be vegetarian or vegan. McDonald says that, at this stage, people are ‘guided by an ethical praxis of compassion.’ They learned by thinking, talking, becoming involved in activities and, most importantly, by reading. Reading ‘was the primary way of learning for every participant.’[2] All at once, they were trying to learn, teach and cope - but often their families proved to be a problem. Many respondents reported that family members argued with them, or trivialised their beliefs, and some even rejected them. Understandably, they found these experiences hurtful. One said she lost a friend of 20 years standing by going vegan.
What’s interesting at this point in McDonald’s paper is that, although she talks of the vegans’ new ‘transformed worldviews,’ it is not entirely vegan and it certainly is not all about animal rights. Therefore, even at the end of this process, vegetarianism and animal welfarism are mentioned. It is as though the paper echoes ‘the movement’ at this point. While there is talk of recognising the ‘moral rightness of veganism,’ there is also talk of ‘experiencing the world as a vegetarian and vegan,’ along with the advocacy of both animal welfare and animal rights. McDonald states that a central part of the new worldview is a generalised agreement that ‘animals were no longer viewed as food,’ which is hardly true of vegetarians.
I think what’s being reflected in McDonald’s work is the apparently widely-held view that veganism is rather difficult and we should expect a period of vegetarianism beforehand, despite the fact that it makes little sense. This may explain the current habit in animal advocacy literature of using the terms 'vegetarian' and 'vegan' interchangeably as though they mean the same thing, often expressed by the horrible word, 'veg*n.'
I recently had recourse to revisit Victoria Moran’s 1997 book, Compassion the Ultimate Ethic: An Exploration of Veganism, in which she notes (p. 53) that some people turned vegan overnight, but most were vegetarian for a year or two first. This appears to be the expected pattern: it ‘makes sense’ that people will drop one thing at a time.[3] Moran cites Singer’s Animal Liberation in which the author quite reasonably is concerned about the firm grip speciesism has on the social agent. He writes, ‘In our present speciesist world, it is not easy to keep so strictly to what is morally right.’ Perhaps, thinks Singer, since people have difficulty just giving up meat, the thought of eschewing milk and cheese as well may ultimately prevent them doing anything at all. It seems to me that this perspective is fairly reasonable since it was originally written in the early to mid 1970s. However, it seems that Singer’s views on this issue remain largely the same in the 21st century.
This marks a real difference for the abolitionist approach to animal rights. In an age when being vegan is very much easier in many places than it was in the 1970s, our new movement should not expect – and should certainly not encourage – this pattern of 'vegetarian first.' What it means is that the young animal rights movement must prioritise making veganism as easy as possible, something that Neil Lea was a pioneer in with his ‘Is It Vegan?’ and ‘Vegan Buddies’ initiatives. Answering Francione's call for examples of imaginative vegan education, it is great to see new ideas being developed all the time.
Since veganism is direct action for nonhuman animals, getting people to embrace ethical veganism is the best thing advocates can do at the present time: this activity also has the advantage over some others in that, presently at least, vegan advocacy and vegan education does not lead to anyone being chucked in jail for a decade or more.
[1] Joking apart, this was another interesting aspect of the research. Via both Mezirow and Habermas, McDonald looks at communicative and instrumental learning in vegans. The former ‘has to do with ideas, such as the idea of instrumentalised animal cruelty, animal rights, and veganism,’ while the latter ‘concerns the skills needed to live a vegan lifestyle, such as how to cook, order food in restaurants, and read ingredient labels.’
[2] Peter Singer (along with John Robbins) was cited in this context.
[3] I wonder if it ‘makes sense’ to a human rights advocate that a torturer or human trafficker gradually stops aspects of his exploitation. The person who has stopped visiting the brothel still downloads exploitative porn?
Although McDonald is critical of Jack Mezirow’s ‘transformation theory’, ideas embedded within it seem relevant to a study of how people become vegans, especially when certain critical elements on, for example, power relations are added to the original formulation. Mezirow's perspective is certainly overly psychological and in need of sociological elements for balance and context. McDonald is undoubtedly an expert on Mezirow since her doctoral thesis was about his work. She states that the transformation theory “does not explain the process of learning to become vegan.”
However, some of her discussion in this paper seems to contradict that conclusion, at least to the extent to which McDonald claims the theory has no explanatory value. For example, in a 2000 book, Mezirow builds on 20 years of his theory and outlines the basic ideas about how people change in a 10-point process of ‘transformative learning’
1. Experience a disorienting dilemma
2. Undergo self-examination
3. Conduct a deep assessment of personal role assumptions and alienation created by new roles
4. Share and analyze personal discontent and similar experiences with others
5. Explore options for new ways of acting
6. Build competence and self-confidence in new roles
7. Plan a course of action
8. Acquire knowledge and skills for action
9. Try new roles and assess feedback
10. Reintegrate into society with a new perspective
One of the main thrusts in the theory, borrowing heavily from Habermas, is the power of rational discourse and a level of cognitive functioning which critics of Mezirow say most adults never achieve. For her part, McDonald focuses on the theory’s need for individuals to be critically reflexive about assumptions. She says her study of vegans failed to identify such critical reflection in their talk. Again, other parts of her piece seems to contradict that claim too.
However, let’s stick with Mezirow a little longer, and via Nancy Franz’s discussion of Stephan Brookfield’s definition of ‘critical reflection theory,’ which may well serve to correct some of the shortcomings in Mezirow’s approach. Critical reflection requires persons being self-aware, making sense of experiences, deconstructing and reconstructing meanings , the critiquing of premises and ideologies, and ‘principled thinking’ all of which can be defined, according to Brookfield, as ‘reflecting on the assumptions underlying ours and other’s ideas and actions, and contemplating alternative ways of thinking and living.’
These ideas may be expressed in this way - and by means of these ‘phases’
1. Trigger event
2. Appraisal of assumptions
3. Exploration of alternatives to current assumptions
4. Developing alternative perspectives
5. Integration of new perspectives into daily life
At this point we have a basic understanding of some of the ideas that interest McDonald in her study of vegans. Perhaps we can see how these 10 points and 5 phases inform an appreciation of the changes people go through when they become vegan?
McDonald works with a process which begins with the notion of ‘Who was I?’ (meaning who was the person before learning about veganism and animal cruelty). This is followed by what some have called ‘a moral shock’ but McDonald uses the term ‘catalytic experience’ instead (meaning a person’s learning of some aspect of cruelty). At this point, two things are likely to occur. The information about animal cruelty can be acted upon, and therefore the person ‘becomes oriented’ towards learning more and maybe making a decision (for example, to stop eating other animal flesh), or there can be repression of the information (when people put what they know to the back of their minds [see also]). In the latter case, another catalytic experience or event may be required to, in some sense, re-engage a recall of the repressed knowledge of animal cruelty.
After this there is a process of learning about animal abuse and how to be a vegan (i.e., start reading the damn labels!! [1]) A decision is made to live as a vegan (or a vegetarian). Finally, the person’s general worldview has changed. With a new perspective she or he begins to face the world as a vegan. This process can take a long time: some of McDonald’s interviewees took years to become vegan.
We can now follow some of the study’s participants through some of these stages. The first thing that would register with animal rights abolitionists is the number of McDonald’s respondents who acknowledged being in a state of what Francione characterises as ‘moral schizophrenia.’ McDonald writes that the majority of those in the study had a prior love for nature and of pets. However, they did not see the connection between their pets and ‘food animals.’ McDonald says they had ‘compartmentalised their compassion.’ Moreover, many of them ‘expressed amazement that they had not seen the connection.’
This notion of prior ‘love’ for pets is interesting from an abolitionist point of view. I think it is fair to say that the ‘pet issue’ is one reason why many animal advocates reject the animal rights view of human-nonhuman relations. Just like the pet breeders and pet lovers in the countermovements, they cannot imagine a future with no living ornaments/toys, or a future without their child substitute ‘fur babies.’
Many animal advocates suggest, then, that pet keeping is a necessary or at least widespread means by which humans come to have some regard for nonhuman animals. Without their ‘prior love’ for pets, they believe, they may never have seriously considered being an animal advocate. McDonald’s findings seem to support this view – but not fully by any means. For example, not every respondent had a strong affection for nonhuman animals when young and, as one person pointed out, most kids are dotty about their pets; most are upset when pets die, but that does not prompt further thinking about human-nonhuman relations. Most, it seems, can be quite comfortable in their morally schizophrenic state and no amount of ‘companion animals’ pegging out on them seems to cure them.
When it comes to the catalytic experiences, one respondent seems to have had a Paul and Linda McCartney moment. They are said that have awoken to reality looking out of their Scottish farmyard window at gambolling lambs when cooking ‘lamb,’ while this respondent looked up ‘and exchanged a long and pensive gaze with a buck standing on the hill above him.’ At that moment, he decided to not eat meat again. Others in the study went vegan after watching videos.
At this point, McDonald discusses the issues of emotions and cognition. McDonald reports that her respondents’ catalytic experience was often but not necessarily emotional and often, it seems, a blend of emotion and rational thought goes into the process by which people turn vegan. If anything, there is a hint that going vegetarian is an emotional reaction while the decision to go vegan is based on a cognitive interpretation of learning. Often the one followed the other.
Thus, while people spoke of videos ‘breaking their hearts’ and their reaction being, ‘My God, I just didn’t realise what things went on,’ McDonald says that, ‘Emotions seem to have been one of the major defining characteristics of the more memorable catalytic experiences. The decision to become vegan following a period of vegetarianism was more often rational.’ McDonald says it was typical that the decision to go vegan followed a period of learning, particular about the issue of ‘being in favour of animal rights but continuing to eat animal products.’ Here the logical inconsistencies of vegetarianism often finally sunk in. By thinking, talking, reading and becoming active, people realised their actions may not match their beliefs. McDonald cites one respondent who admits that he had drawn the line in the wrong place by being a vegetarian. Through reflection he realised that ‘using milk and putting cheese in stuff’ wasn’t good enough.
Following catalytic experiences, respondents were ‘becoming oriented’ to learning and then they learned about animal abuse. They learned about cruelty and how to be vegetarian or vegan. McDonald says that, at this stage, people are ‘guided by an ethical praxis of compassion.’ They learned by thinking, talking, becoming involved in activities and, most importantly, by reading. Reading ‘was the primary way of learning for every participant.’[2] All at once, they were trying to learn, teach and cope - but often their families proved to be a problem. Many respondents reported that family members argued with them, or trivialised their beliefs, and some even rejected them. Understandably, they found these experiences hurtful. One said she lost a friend of 20 years standing by going vegan.
What’s interesting at this point in McDonald’s paper is that, although she talks of the vegans’ new ‘transformed worldviews,’ it is not entirely vegan and it certainly is not all about animal rights. Therefore, even at the end of this process, vegetarianism and animal welfarism are mentioned. It is as though the paper echoes ‘the movement’ at this point. While there is talk of recognising the ‘moral rightness of veganism,’ there is also talk of ‘experiencing the world as a vegetarian and vegan,’ along with the advocacy of both animal welfare and animal rights. McDonald states that a central part of the new worldview is a generalised agreement that ‘animals were no longer viewed as food,’ which is hardly true of vegetarians.
I think what’s being reflected in McDonald’s work is the apparently widely-held view that veganism is rather difficult and we should expect a period of vegetarianism beforehand, despite the fact that it makes little sense. This may explain the current habit in animal advocacy literature of using the terms 'vegetarian' and 'vegan' interchangeably as though they mean the same thing, often expressed by the horrible word, 'veg*n.'
I recently had recourse to revisit Victoria Moran’s 1997 book, Compassion the Ultimate Ethic: An Exploration of Veganism, in which she notes (p. 53) that some people turned vegan overnight, but most were vegetarian for a year or two first. This appears to be the expected pattern: it ‘makes sense’ that people will drop one thing at a time.[3] Moran cites Singer’s Animal Liberation in which the author quite reasonably is concerned about the firm grip speciesism has on the social agent. He writes, ‘In our present speciesist world, it is not easy to keep so strictly to what is morally right.’ Perhaps, thinks Singer, since people have difficulty just giving up meat, the thought of eschewing milk and cheese as well may ultimately prevent them doing anything at all. It seems to me that this perspective is fairly reasonable since it was originally written in the early to mid 1970s. However, it seems that Singer’s views on this issue remain largely the same in the 21st century.
This marks a real difference for the abolitionist approach to animal rights. In an age when being vegan is very much easier in many places than it was in the 1970s, our new movement should not expect – and should certainly not encourage – this pattern of 'vegetarian first.' What it means is that the young animal rights movement must prioritise making veganism as easy as possible, something that Neil Lea was a pioneer in with his ‘Is It Vegan?’ and ‘Vegan Buddies’ initiatives. Answering Francione's call for examples of imaginative vegan education, it is great to see new ideas being developed all the time.
Since veganism is direct action for nonhuman animals, getting people to embrace ethical veganism is the best thing advocates can do at the present time: this activity also has the advantage over some others in that, presently at least, vegan advocacy and vegan education does not lead to anyone being chucked in jail for a decade or more.
[1] Joking apart, this was another interesting aspect of the research. Via both Mezirow and Habermas, McDonald looks at communicative and instrumental learning in vegans. The former ‘has to do with ideas, such as the idea of instrumentalised animal cruelty, animal rights, and veganism,’ while the latter ‘concerns the skills needed to live a vegan lifestyle, such as how to cook, order food in restaurants, and read ingredient labels.’
[2] Peter Singer (along with John Robbins) was cited in this context.
[3] I wonder if it ‘makes sense’ to a human rights advocate that a torturer or human trafficker gradually stops aspects of his exploitation. The person who has stopped visiting the brothel still downloads exploitative porn?
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