User:Andy/Animal rights FAQ

This is my own animal rights FAQ based on my answers to various (mostly strange) questions that people in everyday life ask me about my own beliefs. I am interested in your input if you think I could express myself better. I'm also interested if you want to debate some aspect of it, but I'm not interested in being trolled. Please use the discussion page if you have any comments.

If you're looking for a FAQ with answers from a real expert in the field then try Francione's Animal rights FAQ.

1. You spend your time thinking about animal rights, but there are humans all over the world needing help, why are you making a choice to help animals and not humans?

Humans already for the most part enjoy the most basic right: to not be property of another human. Although there are some humans who are slaves, and slavery does still exist on Earth, it is almost universally reviled and not regarded as acceptable. Anyone who engages in slavery knows they are doing a wrong thing.

On the other hand, for animals it is regarded as normal to be enslaved. That's the issue that I am interested in.

Of course I don't believe that animals are more important than humans or necessarily more deserving of help in any specific instance where I would have to choose. Just because I'm interested in animal rights issues doesn't mean that I neglect human rights issues.

1a. But you do spend time caring about animals rights that you could spend caring about human rights.

Yes. But I could spend that time doing something unrelated to rights that was purely for my own amusement. Just because it might be logical to help a human before helping an animal doesn't mean that time spent protecting animal rights is wasted time.

1b. So you do choose to care about animals before caring about humans then? Answer the question!

Yes. But it's clear you're only phrasing it this way and demanding a yes/no answer so that you can say "Aha! Have you heard that Andy says he will care for animals before humans!?".

2. If you don't use any animal product then what about fossil fuels, plastic, rubber, diesel, etc.? Surely you can't use those either since they all formed from plant and animal material?

I think most of the actual fossils that became fossil fuels came from plant matter but in any case, the point is not to abuse an animal by denying its most basic right: not to be property. For prehistoric animals that died long before anyone was around to abuse them the issue is irrelevant.

3. What if we just let animals die of old age and then ate them?

I think that you would still need some sort of farm environment to do that, and that means the animals are still enslaved.

Meat from old animals wouldn't taste as nice as the meat you are used to, which comes from animals that are mostly only a few years old and have been pumped with growth supplements all their life.

After an animal dies it has to be processed for human consumption very quickly as it starts to rot right away. You can't let it go into rigor mortis. You also need to know what it died of as you couldn't eat anything that was diseased.

I would be prepared to agree that this method would be less abusive than the current practices, but it would be a lot of effort for poor result, so I think it would be easier just to become a vegan.

4. Aging processes have been linked to vitamin E and free radicals. If we could come up with an anti-aging drug so that animals (and humans) would remain in peak physical fitness until the day they died of natural causes, would you agree it would be OK to use them as resources then? The animals would be allowed to roam free across a wide area while they are alive.

Again I think that this would be unrealistic without a farm environment (which is slavery). Also there's the issue of feeding an animal drugs against its will: the only reason for it is that we want to use the animal as a resource, so it's still wrong.

But again, should this be possible then it would be a lot better than the current way of things. personally I still wouldn't condone use of animals this way though.

5. What if we found a way to grow slabs of all types of flesh/meat without a nervous system or brain attached? Or some artificially grown substance that tasted the same as meat and provided all the same nutrients as meat?

That's fine, and sounds to me like a great use of technology.

6. It's been suggested that when you enslave any creature, it stops the evolution of that creature. This happened to black slaves in human history, and it's only been in the past few hundred years with the abolition of slavery that they've been able to catch up. If we ended slavery of animals, then over the course of history the most intelligent animals such as apes or dolphins may mount a coup and enslave the human race. Are you saying this is OK?

I for one welcome our new dolphin overlords.

OK, seriously.. I'm not sure you are right in all those assumptions, but if we assume for the sake of argument that you are..

No that is not OK. It's no different to when two human races or nations engage in war in order to subjugate each other. Self-defence is not wrong, and we are so far advanced than apes at the moment that we would probably see any signs of their organised aggression long before it actually happened. One-on-one we can be physically dominated by apes but as a group that is a total joke right now and would likely remain so forever.

For animals like apes to be capable of large-scale organised aggression, they would probably also be capable of peaceful negotiation. I don't regard these hypothetical super-apes to be a cause for concern because either they will agree to live with us in harmony or else they will be outclassed in terms of aggression and intelligence. I'd be far more worried about other humans: let's not all become pacifists, forget how to defend ourselves, and then be pwned by some barbarian tards who haven't got the message yet.

7. Some animals kill for no reason at all. I heard about bottle-nose dolphins that were killing porpoises for no apparent reason other than fun. If they kill each other then why shouldn't we kill them?

Animals do kill each other for no reason we can understand. They also rape each other, so why do you need to ask this question if you understand why rape is wrong? Just because I talk about how both humans and animals should have the right not to be property it doesn't mean that humans and animals are the same. We know better than to kill for no reason, just as we know better than to rape.

We should defend ourselves from animals, but we should also display common sense: If all forms of hunting were banned (as they should be) then it would not be OK to walk into the middle of an area where a large animal were nursing its young and then shoot it when it attacks you.

Animals don't know any better than to kill and rape, but we do. If the theoretical evolution of animals from question 6 did happen and some animals evolved to the point where they might be able to understand why not to kill etc., then we could try to educate them.

Also bear in mind that many animals are physiologically incapable of being vegetarian: they must eat meat to survive. Where the food chain still exists and operates normally we should try to preserve it and not interfere, but we ourselves know better than to kill and do not need to kill to live.

8. At home I've been having a problem with mice eating through pipes and cables. I laid a humane mouse trap where the mouse doesn't die, it just gets trapped, but something went wrong and I didn't realise a mouse was trapped inside it. I found the trap with a dead mouse inside; the mouse must have been there for 12 hours or so. What should I have done?

I don't think it's wrong to do what you need to do to keep unwanted animals out of your home, and you obviously did a good thing by using a humane trap, but you should have probably paid more attention to it so that the mouse didn't die in it, that's all.

9. You say that keeping pets is wrong. I have a cat which I let in and out of my house as it pleases. I care for it and I feed it well. I pay for it to be kept healthy. My cat wants for nothing. How can this be wrong? Would you suggest I have my cat killed?

This aspect of animal rights is probably the hardest thing I've had to come to terms with, because I myself love the companionship of dogs. I think many people would disagree with this stance as well -- even many of those who have an interest in animal rights -- because how can it be wrong to love and care for another creature?

It's not the specific conditions that your cat lives in that are wrong, it's the practice of owning animals as pets. A whole industry exists in breeding animals for a life of slavery as pets, and research suggests that most pets are mistreated or kept at one home for only a few years. True animal-lovers do seem to be few and far-between.

The best thing to do would be to carry on as you are doing; loving and caring for your cat. But your cat should not breed, and no one should buy cats or dogs from breeders. All current pets should be sterilised.

If everyone followed the above guidelines then eventually cats and dogs and other domesticated pets will die out as a species, as would domesticated cows, sheep, pigs, etc.. Hopefully wolves, foxes, stags, antelope, wild boar, mountain goats and so on would still exist in the wild. All these other animals are made by us for us, and that's wrong.

10. Do you wear leather shoes, or silk ties, or have suede clothes or furniture? If so, aren't you being hypocritical?

Before answering whether I do or do not have these animal products what I would like to point out is that this argument basically boils down to "because this one specific thing is hard to do without harming animals then it is OK to harm animals in all ways."

This argument is incorrect because there are many changes you can easily make in your life so that animals are not hurt. You can wear shoes made of leather or use other animal products while still arguing that you shouldn't use animal products, although it does make your position weaker. Some vegans will argue with you about why you don't go the extra lengths to obtain the alternative shoes or whatever but that's not important, the point is, this is not an excuse. You can't use the shoes excuse as a reason to continue eating meat, for example. Not eating meat is these days very easy.

I do currently have some leather footwear, some silk ties and a few other items made from animal products. I've only been taking this cause seriously since about June 2004 and most of those items I had before then.

When it comes time to replace these items I will try to replace them with completely man-made items, but even if I am not 100% successful, even if I could be more successful by making more effort (for example, by importing shoes from somewhere), then it doesn't make all my other arguments invalid.

11. Aren't you really doing this because of magistra, or maybe because it gives you something to talk about and feel better than other people over?

No, I don't think so. I shouldn't have to explain this, but for the sake of making my position known for the record I will, because people keep saying this.

I had been interested in what the people in #vegans were about for quite a while before I started talking to magistra (who herself was a member of #vegans). I spent most of 2003 in #vegans but not talking to magistra because quite frankly she scared me. I didn't even start talking to her on a regular basis until something like March 2004. The point is that my interest in veganism existed prior to my interest in magistra.

I can't argue with the fact that me being a vegan does make her happy, but at one point she said "I could never date anyone that wasn't at least a vegetarian". So if I was being cynical presumably I'd just try to do the minimum and become a vegetarian, which would be a much easier lifestyle. In fact I did initially intend to try vegetarianism for an indeterminate amount of time as a way to gradually adjust to a vegan lifestyle and try it out. As it happened I found the whole thing so easy that I decided to just go straight into it. The point is that my adoption of veganism is not for the benefit of magistra although obviously it is something she appreciates.

There are many things that magistra believes in that I do not. There are a lot of things I could do which would be a dramatic change in my lifestyle to make her happy. magistra doesn't agree with the use of alcohol or illegal recreational drugs. It upsets her that I drink and it upsets her that I don't agree with her views on recreational drugs, but because I don't agree with her, I don't change my views. The point is that I will not do things for her benefit only because she would like me to, I will only do them if I agree with them. I have not been brainwashed [so I keep telling myself? :)].

As for whether it's an ego trip, there is nothing I could say that could convince anyone here, all I can do is have you make up your own minds. All I will say is that I don't usually go out of my way to preach this and I actually dread the situation where a new person finds out I'm a vegan because they invariably get very defensive over it. Preaching it wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing since it's a set of beliefs that I obviously think are correct, but I don't feel it's my duty. Since I don't feel it's my duty I don't see how I can be accused of being on an ego trip - this FAQ and everything I say in defence of animal rights is only in response to direct questions people ask me.