Animal liberation movement
Encyclopedia
The animal-liberation movement, sometimes called the animal-rights movement, animal personhood, or animal-advocacy movement, is a social movement
which seeks an end to the rigid moral and legal distinction drawn between human and non-human animals, an end to the status of animals as property, and an end to their use in the research
, food
, clothing
, and entertainment industries.
It is one of the few examples of a social movement that was created, and is to a large extent sustained academically, by philosophers.
Animal-rights advocates, or rights liberationists, believe that these basic interests confer moral rights of some kind on the animals, and/or ought to confer legal rights on them; see, for example, the work of Tom Regan
. Utilitarian liberationists, on the other hand, do not believe that animals possess moral rights, but argue, on utilitarian grounds — utilitarianism
in its simplest form advocating that we base moral decisions on the greatest happiness of the greatest number — that, because animals have the ability to suffer, their suffering must be taken into account in any moral philosophy. To exclude animals from that consideration, they argue, is a form of discrimination that they call speciesism
; see, for example, the work of Peter Singer
.
Despite these differences, the terms "animal liberation" and "animal rights" are generally used interchangeably.
The movement is regarded as having been founded in the UK in the early 1970s by a group of Oxford university academics, now known as the "Oxford Group". Psychologist Richard Ryder
, who was part of the group, writes that "rarely has a cause been so rationally argued and so intellectually well armed." He cites a 1965 article by novelist Brigid Brophy
in the Sunday Times as pivotal in helping to spark the movement. Brophy wrote:
Ryder wrote three letters to the Daily Telegraph in response to Brophy's arguments. Brophy read Ryder's letters and put him in touch with Oxford philosophers Stanley and Roslind Godlovitch, and John Harris, who were working on a book about the issue.
In 1970, Ryder coined the phrase "speciesism
," first using it in a privately printed pamphlet to describe the assignment of value to the interests of beings on the basis of their membership of a particular species. Ryder subsequently became a contributor to Animals, Men and Morals: An Inquiry into the Maltreatment of Non-humans(1972), edited by John Harris and the Godlovitches, a work that became highly influential, as did Rosalind Godlovitch's essay "Animal and Morals," published the same year.
It was in a review of Animals, Men and Morals for the New York Review of Books that Australian philosopher Peter Singer
first put forward his basic arguments, based on utilitarianism
and drawing an explicit comparison between women's liberation
and animal liberation. Out of the review came Singer's Animal Liberation
, published in 1975, now regarded as the "bible" of the movement.
Other books regarded as important include philosopher Tom Regan
's The Case for Animal Rights (1983); Created from Animals: The Moral Implications of Darwinism by James Rachels
(1990); Animals, Property, and the Law (1995) by legal scholar Gary Francione, Rattling the Cage: Toward Legal Rights for Animals by another legal scholar Steven M. Wise
(2000); and Animal Rights and Moral Philosophy by Julian H. Franklin (2005).
and is now a common subject of study in philosophy departments in Europe and North America. Animal law courses are taught in 92 out of 180 law schools in the U.S., and the movement has gained the support of senior legal scholars, including Alan Dershowitz
and Laurence Tribe
of Harvard Law School
. Chapters of animal rights law have been created in several state bar association
s, and resolutions related to animal rights are regularly proposed within the American Bar Association
.
Michael Socarras of Greenberg Traurig
told the Association of American Medical Colleges: "There is a very important shift under way in the manner in which many people in law schools and in the legal profession think about animals. This shift has not yet reached popular opinion. However, in [the U.S.], social change has and can occur through the courts, which in many instances do not operate as democratic institutions. Therefore, the evolution in elite legal opinion is extremely significant ..."
by putting the basic interests of non-human animals on an equal footing with the basic interests of human beings. A basic interest would be, for example, not being made to suffer pain on behalf of other individual human or non-human animals. The aim is to remove animals from the sphere of property and to award them personhood; that is, to see them awarded legal rights to protect their basic interests.
Liberationists argue that animals appear to have value in law only in relation to their usefulness or benefit to their owners, and are awarded no intrinsic value whatsoever. In the United States, for example, state and federal laws formulate the rules for the treatment of animals in terms of their status as property. Liberationists point out that Texas Animal Cruelty Laws apply only to pets living under the custody of human beings and exclude birds, deer, rabbits, squirrels, and other wild animals not owned by humans, ignoring that jurisdiction for such creatures comes under the domain of state wildlife officers. The U.S.
Animal Welfare Act excludes "pet stores ... state and country fairs, livestock
shows, rodeo
s, purebred dog and cat shows, and any fairs or exhibitions intended to advance agricultural arts and sciences." There is no mention in the law that such activities already fall under the jurisdiction of state agriculture departments. The Department of Agriculture interprets the Act as also excluding cold-blooded animals, and warm-blooded animals not "used for research, teaching, testing, experimentation ... exhibition purposes, or as a pet, [and] farm animals used for food, fiber, or production purposes".
The Seattle-based Great Ape Project
(GAP) — founded by Australian philosopher Peter Singer
, the author of Animal Liberation
, widely regarded as the founding philosophical work of the animal liberation movement — is campaigning for the United Nations
to adopt its Declaration on Great Apes, which would see chimpanzee
s, bonobo
s, gorilla
s and orang-utans included in a "community of equals" with human beings. The declaration wants to extend to the non-human apes the protection of three basic interests: the right to life, the protection of individual liberty, and the prohibition of torture (see also Great ape personhood
).
Veganarchism
is the political philosophy
of veganism (more specifically animal liberation) and anarchism
, creating a combined praxis as a means for social revolution
. This encompasses viewing the state
as unnecessary and harmful to animal
s, both human
and non-human
, whilst practising a vegan diet. Veganarchists either see the ideology as a combined theory, or perceive both philosophies to be essentially the same. It is further described as an anti-speciesist perspective on green anarchism
, or an anarchist perspective on animal liberation.
The term was popularised in 1995 with Brian A. Dominick's pamphlet Animal Liberation and Social Revolution, described as "a vegan perspective on anarchism or an anarchist perspective on veganism". The 18-page pamphlet explains how many young anarchists in the 1990s
had been adopting deep ecological
(animal-inclusive and anti-speciesist) mindsets as part of an overall green anarchist political philosophy. Similarly animal liberationists were becoming increasingly influenced by anarchist thought and traditions, thus becoming veganarchists and adopting an overall praxis.
amended its constitution to recognize animals as beings and not things. However, in 1999 the Swiss constitution was completely rewritten. A decade later, Germany
guaranteed rights to animals in a 2002 amendment to its constitution, becoming the first European Union
member to do so. The German Civil Code had been amended correspondingly in 1997. The amendment, however, has not had much impact in German legal practice yet.
The greatest success of the animal liberation movement has certainly been the granting of basic rights to five great ape species in New Zealand
in 1999. Their use is now forbidden in research, testing or teaching. (It should be noted that the UK government banned experiments on great apes in 1986 ). Some other countries have also banned or severely restricted the use of non-human great apes in research
.
Animal liberationists usually boycott
industries that use animals. Foremost among these is factory farming
, which produces the majority of meat, dairy products, and eggs in industrialized nations. The transportation of farm animals for slaughter, which often involves their live export
, has in recent years been a major issue for animal rights groups, particularly in the UK and Scandinavia.
The vast majority of animal rights advocates adopt vegetarian or vegan diets. They may also avoid clothes made of animal skins, such as leather shoes, and will not use products known to contain animal byproducts. Goods containing ingredients that have been tested on animals
are also avoided where possible. Company-wide boycott
s are common. The Procter & Gamble
corporation, for example, tests many of its products on animals, leading many animal rights advocates to boycott the company's products entirely, whether tested on animals or not.
There is a growing trend in the American movement towards devoting all resources to vegetarian outreach. The 9.8 billion animals killed there for food every year far exceeds the number of animals used in other ways. Groups such as Vegan Outreach
and Compassion Over Killing
devote their time to exposing factory-farming practices by publishing information for consumers and by organizing undercover investigations.
The movement espouses a number of approaches, and is bitterly divided on the issue of direct action and violence, with very few activists or writers publicly advocating the latter tactic as a justified method to use. Most groups reject violence against persons, intimidation, threats, and the destruction of property: for example, the British Union for the Abolition of Vivisection
(BUAV) and Animal Aid
. These groups concentrate on education and research, including carrying out undercover investigations of animal-testing facilities. There is some evidence of cooperation between the BUAV and the ALF: for example, the BUAV used to donate office space for the use of the ALF in London in the early 1980s.
Other groups do not condemn the destruction of property, or intimidation, but do not themselves engage in those activities, concentrating instead on education, research, media campaigns, and undercover investigations: for example, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals
(PETA).
A third category of activists operates using the leaderless resistance
model, working in covert cells consisting of small numbers of trusted friends, or of one individual acting alone. These cells engage in direct action
: for example by carrying out raids to release animals from laboratories and farms, using names like the Animal Liberation Front
(ALF); or by boycotting and targeting anyone or any business associated with the controversial animal testing lab, Huntingdon Life Sciences
(HLS), using a campaign name like Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty
(SHAC). Some arson
, property destruction and vandalism
has been linked to various animal rights groups
Activists who have carried out or threatened acts of physical violence have operated using the names; Animal Rights Militia
(ARM), Justice Department, Revolutionary Cells--Animal Liberation brigade (RCALB), Hunt Retribution Squad
(HRS) and the Militant Forces Against Huntingdon Life Sciences (MFAH).
Some activists have attempted blackmail
and other illegal activities, such as the intimidation campaign to close Darley Oaks farm, which involved hate mail
, malicious phonecalls, bomb threats, arson
attacks and property destruction, climaxing in the theft of the corpse of Gladys Hammond, the owners' mother-in-law, from a Staffordshire
grave. Over a thousand ALF attacks in one year in the UK alone caused £2.6M of damage to property, prompting some experts to state that animal rights now tops the list of causes that prompt violence in the UK.
There are also a growing number of "open rescue
s," in which liberationists enter businesses to remove animals without trying to hide their identities. Open rescues tend to be carried out by committed individuals willing to go to jail if prosecuted, but so far no farmer has been willing to press charges.
Many of the ideas used by those who engage in direct action were developed by British activists.
and the Earth Liberation Front
as terrorist organizations.
A November 13, 2003 edition of CBS News' 60 Minutes
charged that "eco-terrorists
," a term used by the United States government to refer to the Animal Liberation Front
and Earth Liberation Front
, are considered by the FBI to be "the country’s biggest domestic terrorist
threat." John Lewis, a Deputy Assistant Director for Counterterrorism at the FBI, stated in a 60 Minutes interview that these groups "have caused over $100 million worth of damage nationwide", and that "there are more than 150 investigations of eco-terrorist crimes underway".
"Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act
", the legislation which allows federal authorities to "help prevent, better investigate, and prosecute individuals who seek to halt biomedical research through acts of intimidation, harassment, and violence" was adopted in the USA in 2006. It has also had what has been described as 'a chilling effect' on free speech.
Animal People estimates the combined budgets of US animal protection organizations at more than $290 million in 2004, up from $207 million in 2003.
Books
Social movement
Social movements are a type of group action. They are large informal groupings of individuals or organizations focused on specific political or social issues, in other words, on carrying out, resisting or undoing a social change....
which seeks an end to the rigid moral and legal distinction drawn between human and non-human animals, an end to the status of animals as property, and an end to their use in the research
Animal testing
Animal testing, also known as animal experimentation, animal research, and in vivo testing, is the use of non-human animals in experiments. Worldwide it is estimated that the number of vertebrate animals—from zebrafish to non-human primates—ranges from the tens of millions to more than 100 million...
, food
Slaughterhouse
A slaughterhouse or abattoir is a facility where animals are killed for consumption as food products.Approximately 45-50% of the animal can be turned into edible products...
, clothing
Fur farming
Fur farming is the practice of breeding or raising certain types of animals for their fur.Fur used from wild caught animals is not farmed, and is instead known as 'free range fur' because the animals have lived their lives free and natural in the wild....
, and entertainment industries.
It is one of the few examples of a social movement that was created, and is to a large extent sustained academically, by philosophers.
Terms
All animal liberationists believe that the individual interests of non-human animals deserve recognition and protection, but the movement can be split into two broad camps.Animal-rights advocates, or rights liberationists, believe that these basic interests confer moral rights of some kind on the animals, and/or ought to confer legal rights on them; see, for example, the work of Tom Regan
Tom Regan
Tom Regan is an American philosopher who specializes in animal rights theory. He is professor emeritus of philosophy at North Carolina State University, where he taught from 1967 until his retirement in 2001....
. Utilitarian liberationists, on the other hand, do not believe that animals possess moral rights, but argue, on utilitarian grounds — utilitarianism
Utilitarianism
Utilitarianism is an ethical theory holding that the proper course of action is the one that maximizes the overall "happiness", by whatever means necessary. It is thus a form of consequentialism, meaning that the moral worth of an action is determined only by its resulting outcome, and that one can...
in its simplest form advocating that we base moral decisions on the greatest happiness of the greatest number — that, because animals have the ability to suffer, their suffering must be taken into account in any moral philosophy. To exclude animals from that consideration, they argue, is a form of discrimination that they call speciesism
Speciesism
Speciesism is the assigning of different values or rights to beings on the basis of their species membership. The term was created by British psychologist Richard D...
; see, for example, the work of Peter Singer
Peter Singer
Peter Albert David Singer is an Australian philosopher who is the Ira W. DeCamp Professor of Bioethics at Princeton University and Laureate Professor at the Centre for Applied Philosophy and Public Ethics at the University of Melbourne...
.
Despite these differences, the terms "animal liberation" and "animal rights" are generally used interchangeably.
History
Richard D. Ryder
Richard Hood Jack Dudley Ryder is a British psychologist. He is a former Mellon Professor at Tulane University, New Orleans. He served as chairman of the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Council from 1977 to 1979, and is a past president of Britain's Liberal Democrat Animal...
, who was part of the group, writes that "rarely has a cause been so rationally argued and so intellectually well armed." He cites a 1965 article by novelist Brigid Brophy
Brigid Brophy
Brigid Antonia Brophy, Lady Levey was an English writer. In the Dictionary of Literary Biography: British Novelists since 1960, S. J...
in the Sunday Times as pivotal in helping to spark the movement. Brophy wrote:
Ryder wrote three letters to the Daily Telegraph in response to Brophy's arguments. Brophy read Ryder's letters and put him in touch with Oxford philosophers Stanley and Roslind Godlovitch, and John Harris, who were working on a book about the issue.
In 1970, Ryder coined the phrase "speciesism
Speciesism
Speciesism is the assigning of different values or rights to beings on the basis of their species membership. The term was created by British psychologist Richard D...
," first using it in a privately printed pamphlet to describe the assignment of value to the interests of beings on the basis of their membership of a particular species. Ryder subsequently became a contributor to Animals, Men and Morals: An Inquiry into the Maltreatment of Non-humans(1972), edited by John Harris and the Godlovitches, a work that became highly influential, as did Rosalind Godlovitch's essay "Animal and Morals," published the same year.
It was in a review of Animals, Men and Morals for the New York Review of Books that Australian philosopher Peter Singer
Peter Singer
Peter Albert David Singer is an Australian philosopher who is the Ira W. DeCamp Professor of Bioethics at Princeton University and Laureate Professor at the Centre for Applied Philosophy and Public Ethics at the University of Melbourne...
first put forward his basic arguments, based on utilitarianism
Utilitarianism
Utilitarianism is an ethical theory holding that the proper course of action is the one that maximizes the overall "happiness", by whatever means necessary. It is thus a form of consequentialism, meaning that the moral worth of an action is determined only by its resulting outcome, and that one can...
and drawing an explicit comparison between women's liberation
Feminism
Feminism is a collection of movements aimed at defining, establishing, and defending equal political, economic, and social rights and equal opportunities for women. Its concepts overlap with those of women's rights...
and animal liberation. Out of the review came Singer's Animal Liberation
Animal Liberation (book)
Animal Liberation is a book by Australian philosopher Peter Singer, published in 1975.The book is widely considered within the animal liberation movement to be the founding philosophical statement of its ideas...
, published in 1975, now regarded as the "bible" of the movement.
Other books regarded as important include philosopher Tom Regan
Tom Regan
Tom Regan is an American philosopher who specializes in animal rights theory. He is professor emeritus of philosophy at North Carolina State University, where he taught from 1967 until his retirement in 2001....
's The Case for Animal Rights (1983); Created from Animals: The Moral Implications of Darwinism by James Rachels
James Rachels
James Rachels was an American philosopher who specialized in ethics.-Biography:Rachels was born in Columbus, Georgia, and graduated from Mercer University in 1962. He received his Ph.D. in 1967 from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, studying under Professors W. D. Falk and E. M. Adams...
(1990); Animals, Property, and the Law (1995) by legal scholar Gary Francione, Rattling the Cage: Toward Legal Rights for Animals by another legal scholar Steven M. Wise
Steven M. Wise
Steven M. Wise is an American legal scholar who specializes in animal protection issues, primatology, and animal intelligence. He teaches animal rights law at Harvard Law School, Vermont Law School, John Marshall Law School, Lewis & Clark Law School, and Tufts University School of Veterinary...
(2000); and Animal Rights and Moral Philosophy by Julian H. Franklin (2005).
Current status of the movement
The movement is no longer viewed as hovering on the fringe. In the 1980s and 1990s, it was joined by a wide variety of academics and professionals, including lawyers, physicians, psychologists, veterinarians, and former vivisectionists,and is now a common subject of study in philosophy departments in Europe and North America. Animal law courses are taught in 92 out of 180 law schools in the U.S., and the movement has gained the support of senior legal scholars, including Alan Dershowitz
Alan Dershowitz
Alan Morton Dershowitz is an American lawyer, jurist, and political commentator. He has spent most of his career at Harvard Law School where in 1967, at the age of 28, he became the youngest full professor of law in its history...
and Laurence Tribe
Laurence Tribe
Laurence Henry Tribe is a professor of constitutional law at Harvard Law School and the Carl M. Loeb University Professor at Harvard University. He also works with the firm Massey & Gail LLP on a variety of matters....
of Harvard Law School
Harvard Law School
Harvard Law School is one of the professional graduate schools of Harvard University. Located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, it is the oldest continually-operating law school in the United States and is home to the largest academic law library in the world. The school is routinely ranked by the U.S...
. Chapters of animal rights law have been created in several state bar association
Bar association
A bar association is a professional body of lawyers. Some bar associations are responsible for the regulation of the legal profession in their jurisdiction; others are professional organizations dedicated to serving their members; in many cases, they are both...
s, and resolutions related to animal rights are regularly proposed within the American Bar Association
American Bar Association
The American Bar Association , founded August 21, 1878, is a voluntary bar association of lawyers and law students, which is not specific to any jurisdiction in the United States. The ABA's most important stated activities are the setting of academic standards for law schools, and the formulation...
.
Michael Socarras of Greenberg Traurig
Greenberg Traurig
Greenberg Traurig LLP and Greenberg Traurig PA is an international law firm based in Miami, Florida.The firm has approximately 1,800 attorneys and governmental professionals in 32 locations in the United States, Europe and Asia. Its founding office is in Miami, Florida with its largest office in...
told the Association of American Medical Colleges: "There is a very important shift under way in the manner in which many people in law schools and in the legal profession think about animals. This shift has not yet reached popular opinion. However, in [the U.S.], social change has and can occur through the courts, which in many instances do not operate as democratic institutions. Therefore, the evolution in elite legal opinion is extremely significant ..."
Philosophical and legal aims
The movement aims to include animals in the moral communityMoral community
A moral community is a group of people drawn together by a common interest in living according to a particular moral philosophy.Moral communities are typically associated with a religion and advocate that religion's conception of a good life. The congregation of a church, synagogue, or mosque is a...
by putting the basic interests of non-human animals on an equal footing with the basic interests of human beings. A basic interest would be, for example, not being made to suffer pain on behalf of other individual human or non-human animals. The aim is to remove animals from the sphere of property and to award them personhood; that is, to see them awarded legal rights to protect their basic interests.
Liberationists argue that animals appear to have value in law only in relation to their usefulness or benefit to their owners, and are awarded no intrinsic value whatsoever. In the United States, for example, state and federal laws formulate the rules for the treatment of animals in terms of their status as property. Liberationists point out that Texas Animal Cruelty Laws apply only to pets living under the custody of human beings and exclude birds, deer, rabbits, squirrels, and other wild animals not owned by humans, ignoring that jurisdiction for such creatures comes under the domain of state wildlife officers. The U.S.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
Animal Welfare Act excludes "pet stores ... state and country fairs, livestock
Livestock
Livestock refers to one or more domesticated animals raised in an agricultural setting to produce commodities such as food, fiber and labor. The term "livestock" as used in this article does not include poultry or farmed fish; however the inclusion of these, especially poultry, within the meaning...
shows, rodeo
Rodeo
Rodeo is a competitive sport which arose out of the working practices of cattle herding in Spain, Mexico, and later the United States, Canada, South America and Australia. It was based on the skills required of the working vaqueros and later, cowboys, in what today is the western United States,...
s, purebred dog and cat shows, and any fairs or exhibitions intended to advance agricultural arts and sciences." There is no mention in the law that such activities already fall under the jurisdiction of state agriculture departments. The Department of Agriculture interprets the Act as also excluding cold-blooded animals, and warm-blooded animals not "used for research, teaching, testing, experimentation ... exhibition purposes, or as a pet, [and] farm animals used for food, fiber, or production purposes".
The Seattle-based Great Ape Project
Great Ape Project
The Great Ape Project , founded in 1994, is an international organization of primatologists, anthropologists, ethicists, and other experts who advocate a United Nations Declaration of the Rights of Great Apes that would confer basic legal rights on non-human great apes: chimpanzees, bonobos,...
(GAP) — founded by Australian philosopher Peter Singer
Peter Singer
Peter Albert David Singer is an Australian philosopher who is the Ira W. DeCamp Professor of Bioethics at Princeton University and Laureate Professor at the Centre for Applied Philosophy and Public Ethics at the University of Melbourne...
, the author of Animal Liberation
Animal Liberation (book)
Animal Liberation is a book by Australian philosopher Peter Singer, published in 1975.The book is widely considered within the animal liberation movement to be the founding philosophical statement of its ideas...
, widely regarded as the founding philosophical work of the animal liberation movement — is campaigning for the United Nations
United Nations
The United Nations is an international organization whose stated aims are facilitating cooperation in international law, international security, economic development, social progress, human rights, and achievement of world peace...
to adopt its Declaration on Great Apes, which would see chimpanzee
Chimpanzee
Chimpanzee, sometimes colloquially chimp, is the common name for the two extant species of ape in the genus Pan. The Congo River forms the boundary between the native habitat of the two species:...
s, bonobo
Bonobo
The bonobo , Pan paniscus, previously called the pygmy chimpanzee and less often, the dwarf or gracile chimpanzee, is a great ape and one of the two species making up the genus Pan. The other species in genus Pan is Pan troglodytes, or the common chimpanzee...
s, gorilla
Gorilla
Gorillas are the largest extant species of primates. They are ground-dwelling, predominantly herbivorous apes that inhabit the forests of central Africa. Gorillas are divided into two species and either four or five subspecies...
s and orang-utans included in a "community of equals" with human beings. The declaration wants to extend to the non-human apes the protection of three basic interests: the right to life, the protection of individual liberty, and the prohibition of torture (see also Great ape personhood
Great Ape personhood
Great ape personhood is a movement to create legal recognition of bonobos, common chimpanzees, gorillas, and orangutans as bona fide persons.-First steps:...
).
Veganarchism
Veganarchism
Veganarchism or vegan anarchism, is the political philosophy of veganism and anarchism, creating a combined praxis that is designed to be a means for social revolution. This encompasses viewing the state as unnecessary and harmful to animals, both human and non-human, whilst practising a vegan...
is the political philosophy
Political philosophy
Political philosophy is the study of such topics as liberty, justice, property, rights, law, and the enforcement of a legal code by authority: what they are, why they are needed, what, if anything, makes a government legitimate, what rights and freedoms it should protect and why, what form it...
of veganism (more specifically animal liberation) and anarchism
Anarchism
Anarchism is generally defined as the political philosophy which holds the state to be undesirable, unnecessary, and harmful, or alternatively as opposing authority in the conduct of human relations...
, creating a combined praxis as a means for social revolution
Social revolution
The term social revolution may have different connotations depending on the speaker.In the Trotskyist movement, the term "social revolution" refers to an upheaval in which existing property relations are smashed...
. This encompasses viewing the state
State (polity)
A state is an organized political community, living under a government. States may be sovereign and may enjoy a monopoly on the legal initiation of force and are not dependent on, or subject to any other power or state. Many states are federated states which participate in a federal union...
as unnecessary and harmful to animal
Animal
Animals are a major group of multicellular, eukaryotic organisms of the kingdom Animalia or Metazoa. Their body plan eventually becomes fixed as they develop, although some undergo a process of metamorphosis later on in their life. Most animals are motile, meaning they can move spontaneously and...
s, both human
Human
Humans are the only living species in the Homo genus...
and non-human
Non-human
Non-human is a term used to refer to non-human actors. Its use marks a shift in how the role of humans is perceived and discussed...
, whilst practising a vegan diet. Veganarchists either see the ideology as a combined theory, or perceive both philosophies to be essentially the same. It is further described as an anti-speciesist perspective on green anarchism
Green anarchism
Green anarchism, or ecoanarchism, is a school of thought within anarchism which puts a particular emphasis on environmental issues. An important early influence was the thought of the American anarchist Henry David Thoreau and his book Walden...
, or an anarchist perspective on animal liberation.
The term was popularised in 1995 with Brian A. Dominick's pamphlet Animal Liberation and Social Revolution, described as "a vegan perspective on anarchism or an anarchist perspective on veganism". The 18-page pamphlet explains how many young anarchists in the 1990s
1990s
File:1990s decade montage.png|From left, clockwise: The Hubble Space Telescope floats in space after it was taken up in 1990; American F-16s and F-15s fly over burning oil fields and the USA Lexie in Operation Desert Storm, also known as the 1991 Gulf War; The signing of the Oslo Accords on...
had been adopting deep ecological
Deep ecology
Deep ecology is a contemporary ecological philosophy that recognizes an inherent worth of all living beings, regardless of their instrumental utility to human needs. The philosophy emphasizes the interdependence of organisms within ecosystems and that of ecosystems with each other within the...
(animal-inclusive and anti-speciesist) mindsets as part of an overall green anarchist political philosophy. Similarly animal liberationists were becoming increasingly influenced by anarchist thought and traditions, thus becoming veganarchists and adopting an overall praxis.
Legal changes influenced by the movement
Regarding the campaign to change the status of animals as property, the animal liberation movement has seen success in several countries. In 1992, SwitzerlandSwitzerland
Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....
amended its constitution to recognize animals as beings and not things. However, in 1999 the Swiss constitution was completely rewritten. A decade later, Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
guaranteed rights to animals in a 2002 amendment to its constitution, becoming the first European Union
European Union
The European Union is an economic and political union of 27 independent member states which are located primarily in Europe. The EU traces its origins from the European Coal and Steel Community and the European Economic Community , formed by six countries in 1958...
member to do so. The German Civil Code had been amended correspondingly in 1997. The amendment, however, has not had much impact in German legal practice yet.
The greatest success of the animal liberation movement has certainly been the granting of basic rights to five great ape species in New Zealand
New Zealand
New Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses and numerous smaller islands. The country is situated some east of Australia across the Tasman Sea, and roughly south of the Pacific island nations of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga...
in 1999. Their use is now forbidden in research, testing or teaching. (It should be noted that the UK government banned experiments on great apes in 1986 ). Some other countries have also banned or severely restricted the use of non-human great apes in research
Great Ape research ban
A great ape research ban, or severe restrictions on the use of non-human great apes in research, is currently in place in the Netherlands, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, Sweden, Germany and Austria. These countries have ruled that chimpanzees, bonobos, gorillas, and orangutans are cognitively so...
.
Boycotts
Boycott
A boycott is an act of voluntarily abstaining from using, buying, or dealing with a person, organization, or country as an expression of protest, usually for political reasons...
industries that use animals. Foremost among these is factory farming
Factory farming
Factory farming is a term referring to the process of raising livestock in confinement at high stocking density, where a farm operates as a factory — a practice typical in industrial farming by agribusinesses. The main products of this industry are meat, milk and eggs for human consumption...
, which produces the majority of meat, dairy products, and eggs in industrialized nations. The transportation of farm animals for slaughter, which often involves their live export
Live export
Live export is the transport of living farm animals usually across either state or national borders.Animal charities say that thousands of animals die en route from disease, heat exhaustion, thirst, suffocation, and crush injuries. The National Hog Farmer reports that 420,000 pigs are crippled and...
, has in recent years been a major issue for animal rights groups, particularly in the UK and Scandinavia.
The vast majority of animal rights advocates adopt vegetarian or vegan diets. They may also avoid clothes made of animal skins, such as leather shoes, and will not use products known to contain animal byproducts. Goods containing ingredients that have been tested on animals
Animal testing
Animal testing, also known as animal experimentation, animal research, and in vivo testing, is the use of non-human animals in experiments. Worldwide it is estimated that the number of vertebrate animals—from zebrafish to non-human primates—ranges from the tens of millions to more than 100 million...
are also avoided where possible. Company-wide boycott
Boycott
A boycott is an act of voluntarily abstaining from using, buying, or dealing with a person, organization, or country as an expression of protest, usually for political reasons...
s are common. The Procter & Gamble
Procter & Gamble
Procter & Gamble is a Fortune 500 American multinational corporation headquartered in downtown Cincinnati, Ohio and manufactures a wide range of consumer goods....
corporation, for example, tests many of its products on animals, leading many animal rights advocates to boycott the company's products entirely, whether tested on animals or not.
There is a growing trend in the American movement towards devoting all resources to vegetarian outreach. The 9.8 billion animals killed there for food every year far exceeds the number of animals used in other ways. Groups such as Vegan Outreach
Vegan Outreach
Vegan Outreach is an American grassroots animal advocacy group working to promote veganism through the widespread distribution of printed informational booklets. As of March 2010, over 11 million hard copies of Vegan Outreach brochures have been handed out by members of Vegan Outreach around the...
and Compassion Over Killing
Compassion Over Killing
Compassion Over Killing is a nonprofit animal protection organization based in Washington, D.C., founded by Paul Shapiro and currently led by Erica Meier. Formed in 1995, COK's primary campaigns are to advocate against factory farms and promote vegetarian eating...
devote their time to exposing factory-farming practices by publishing information for consumers and by organizing undercover investigations.
Direct action
- Timeline of ALF actions: 1976-1999Timeline of Animal Liberation Front actions, 1976-1999This is a time line of Animal Liberation Front actions since its formation in 1976 until 1999.-1976:Two years after Ronnie Lee and Cliff Goodman had been charged for the raid on the Oxford Laboratory Animal Colonies in Bicester, as part of the Band of Mercy, the "Bicester Two" as they were known;...
, 2000-2004Timeline of Animal Liberation Front actions, 2000-2004This is a time line of the Animal Liberation Front actions from 2000 to 2004.-Background:ALF formedTwo years after Ronnie Lee and Cliff Goodman had been charged for the raid on the Oxford Laboratory Animal Colonies in Bicester, UK, in 1974, as part of the Band of Mercy, the "Bicester Two" as they...
and 2005-PresentTimeline of Animal Liberation Front actions, 2005-PresentThis is a time line of Animal Liberation Front actions since 2005.-Background:ALF formedTwo years after Ronnie Lee and Cliff Goodman had been charged for the raid on the Oxford Laboratory Animal Colonies in Bicester in 1974, as part of the Band of Mercy, the "Bicester Two" as they were known; Lee...
British Union for the Abolition of Vivisection
The British Union for the Abolition of Vivisection is a British animal protection and advocacy group that campaigns for the abolition of all animal experiments...
(BUAV) and Animal Aid
Animal Aid
Animal Aid, founded in 1977, is a British animal rights organisation. The group campaigns peacefully against all forms of animal abuse and promotes a cruelty-free lifestyle. It also investigates and exposes animal cruelty....
. These groups concentrate on education and research, including carrying out undercover investigations of animal-testing facilities. There is some evidence of cooperation between the BUAV and the ALF: for example, the BUAV used to donate office space for the use of the ALF in London in the early 1980s.
Other groups do not condemn the destruction of property, or intimidation, but do not themselves engage in those activities, concentrating instead on education, research, media campaigns, and undercover investigations: for example, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals
People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals
People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals is an American animal rights organization based in Norfolk, Virginia, and led by Ingrid Newkirk, its international president. A non-profit corporation with 300 employees and two million members and supporters, it claims to be the largest animal rights...
(PETA).
A third category of activists operates using the leaderless resistance
Leaderless resistance
Leaderless resistance, or phantom cell structure, is a political resistance strategy in which small, independent groups , including individuals , challenge an established adversary such as a government. Leaderless resistance can encompass anything from non-violent disruption and civil disobedience...
model, working in covert cells consisting of small numbers of trusted friends, or of one individual acting alone. These cells engage in direct action
Direct action
Direct action is activity undertaken by individuals, groups, or governments to achieve political, economic, or social goals outside of normal social/political channels. This can include nonviolent and violent activities which target persons, groups, or property deemed offensive to the direct action...
: for example by carrying out raids to release animals from laboratories and farms, using names like the Animal Liberation Front
Animal Liberation Front
The Animal Liberation Front is an international, underground leaderless resistance that engages in illegal direct action in pursuit of animal liberation...
(ALF); or by boycotting and targeting anyone or any business associated with the controversial animal testing lab, Huntingdon Life Sciences
Huntingdon Life Sciences
Huntingdon Life Sciences is a contract animal-testing company founded in 1952 in England, with facilities in Huntingdon, Cambridgeshire; Eye, Suffolk; New Jersey in the U.S., and Japan...
(HLS), using a campaign name like Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty
Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty
Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty is an international animal rights campaign to close down Huntingdon Life Sciences , Europe's largest contract animal-testing laboratory. HLS tests medical and non-medical substances on around 75,000 animals every year, from rats to primates...
(SHAC). Some arson
Arson
Arson is the crime of intentionally or maliciously setting fire to structures or wildland areas. It may be distinguished from other causes such as spontaneous combustion and natural wildfires...
, property destruction and vandalism
Vandalism
Vandalism is the behaviour attributed originally to the Vandals, by the Romans, in respect of culture: ruthless destruction or spoiling of anything beautiful or venerable...
has been linked to various animal rights groups
Activists who have carried out or threatened acts of physical violence have operated using the names; Animal Rights Militia
Animal Rights Militia
The Animal Rights Militia is a banner used by animal rights activists who engage in direct action that ignores the Animal Liberation Front's policy of taking all necessary precautions to avoid harm to human and non-human life.-History:...
(ARM), Justice Department, Revolutionary Cells--Animal Liberation brigade (RCALB), Hunt Retribution Squad
Hunt Retribution Squad
The Hunt Retribution Squad is a name used by militant animal rights activists that are willing to inflict harm on those involved in blood sport...
(HRS) and the Militant Forces Against Huntingdon Life Sciences (MFAH).
Some activists have attempted blackmail
Blackmail
In common usage, blackmail is a crime involving threats to reveal substantially true or false information about a person to the public, a family member, or associates unless a demand is met. It may be defined as coercion involving threats of physical harm, threat of criminal prosecution, or threats...
and other illegal activities, such as the intimidation campaign to close Darley Oaks farm, which involved hate mail
Hate mail
Hate mail is a form of harassment, usually consisting of invective and potentially intimidating or threatening comments towards the recipient...
, malicious phonecalls, bomb threats, arson
Arson
Arson is the crime of intentionally or maliciously setting fire to structures or wildland areas. It may be distinguished from other causes such as spontaneous combustion and natural wildfires...
attacks and property destruction, climaxing in the theft of the corpse of Gladys Hammond, the owners' mother-in-law, from a Staffordshire
Staffordshire
Staffordshire is a landlocked county in the West Midlands region of England. For Eurostat purposes, the county is a NUTS 3 region and is one of four counties or unitary districts that comprise the "Shropshire and Staffordshire" NUTS 2 region. Part of the National Forest lies within its borders...
grave. Over a thousand ALF attacks in one year in the UK alone caused £2.6M of damage to property, prompting some experts to state that animal rights now tops the list of causes that prompt violence in the UK.
There are also a growing number of "open rescue
Open rescue
Open rescue is a term for a form of direct action practiced by certain animal rights and animal welfare activists. The aim of open rescue is to rescue animals in pain and suffering, generally and to give these animals veterinary treatment and humane living conditions while also documenting the...
s," in which liberationists enter businesses to remove animals without trying to hide their identities. Open rescues tend to be carried out by committed individuals willing to go to jail if prosecuted, but so far no farmer has been willing to press charges.
Many of the ideas used by those who engage in direct action were developed by British activists.
Criminalization of direct action methods
The U.S. Justice Department labels underground groups the Animal Liberation FrontAnimal Liberation Front
The Animal Liberation Front is an international, underground leaderless resistance that engages in illegal direct action in pursuit of animal liberation...
and the Earth Liberation Front
Earth Liberation Front
The Earth Liberation Front , also known as "Elves" or "The Elves", is the collective name for autonomous individuals or covert cells who, according to the ELF Press Office, use "economic sabotage and guerrilla warfare to stop the exploitation and destruction of the environment".The ELF was founded...
as terrorist organizations.
A November 13, 2003 edition of CBS News' 60 Minutes
60 Minutes
60 Minutes is an American television news magazine, which has run on CBS since 1968. The program was created by producer Don Hewitt who set it apart by using a unique style of reporter-centered investigation....
charged that "eco-terrorists
Eco-terrorism
Eco-terrorism usually refers to acts of violence or sabotage committed in support of ecological, environmental, or animal rights causes against persons or their property....
," a term used by the United States government to refer to the Animal Liberation Front
Animal Liberation Front
The Animal Liberation Front is an international, underground leaderless resistance that engages in illegal direct action in pursuit of animal liberation...
and Earth Liberation Front
Earth Liberation Front
The Earth Liberation Front , also known as "Elves" or "The Elves", is the collective name for autonomous individuals or covert cells who, according to the ELF Press Office, use "economic sabotage and guerrilla warfare to stop the exploitation and destruction of the environment".The ELF was founded...
, are considered by the FBI to be "the country’s biggest domestic terrorist
Terrorism
Terrorism is the systematic use of terror, especially as a means of coercion. In the international community, however, terrorism has no universally agreed, legally binding, criminal law definition...
threat." John Lewis, a Deputy Assistant Director for Counterterrorism at the FBI, stated in a 60 Minutes interview that these groups "have caused over $100 million worth of damage nationwide", and that "there are more than 150 investigations of eco-terrorist crimes underway".
"Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act
Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act
The Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act is a United States federal law that prohibits any person from engaging in certain conduct "for the purpose of damaging or interfering with the operations of an animal enterprise." The statute covers any act that either "damages or causes the loss of any real or...
", the legislation which allows federal authorities to "help prevent, better investigate, and prosecute individuals who seek to halt biomedical research through acts of intimidation, harassment, and violence" was adopted in the USA in 2006. It has also had what has been described as 'a chilling effect' on free speech.
Public support
Animal People, an independent newspaper covering the international animal-protection and animal-rights movements, indicates that these issues are increasing in popularity with the public. Citing U.S. IRS (tax) form 990 numbers for 2004, the newspaper says that donations to animal rights groups increased by 40 percent from 2003 to 2004. For example:- The Humane Society of the United States (animal protection): revenues of $74 million, up 3 percent.
- The Massachusetts Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (animal protection): revenues of $48.2 million, up an 11 percent.
- People for the Ethical Treatment of AnimalsPeople for the Ethical Treatment of AnimalsPeople for the Ethical Treatment of Animals is an American animal rights organization based in Norfolk, Virginia, and led by Ingrid Newkirk, its international president. A non-profit corporation with 300 employees and two million members and supporters, it claims to be the largest animal rights...
(animal rights): $28.1 million, up 20 percent. - Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (animal rights): $16 million, up from $12 million.
Animal People estimates the combined budgets of US animal protection organizations at more than $290 million in 2004, up from $207 million in 2003.
Further reading
Articles- "A Critique of the Kantian Theory of Indirect Moral Duties to Animals" by Jeff Sebo, AnimalLiberationFront.com, undated, retrieved September 4, 2005
- "Burning Rage" by Ed BradleyEd BradleyEdward Rudolph "Ed" Bradley, Jr. was an American journalist, best known for twenty-six years of award-winning work on the CBS News television program 60 Minutes...
, CBS 60 Minutes, November 5, 2005 - "FBI, ATF address domestic terrorism", by Terry Frieden, CNNCNNCable News Network is a U.S. cable news channel founded in 1980 by Ted Turner. Upon its launch, CNN was the first channel to provide 24-hour television news coverage, and the first all-news television channel in the United States...
, May 19, 2005 - Animal Liberation Through Trade Unions?, No CompromiseNo Compromise (magazine)No Compromise was a San Francisco, California, USA-based bi-annual animal rights magazine, first published in the winter of 1989. The magazine covered global aspects of animal rights and promoted a vegan lifestyle, which included the use of cruelty-free products.The magazine was founded by Freeman...
, Issue 15, 1999 - Movement Watch, Friends of Animals, 2003
Books
- Keith MannKeith MannKeith Mann is a British animal rights campaigner and writer, alleged by police in 2005 to be at the top of the Animal Liberation Front pyramid. He is the author of From Dusk 'til Dawn: An Insider's View of the Growth of the Animal Liberation Movement...
, From Dusk 'Til Dawn: An Insiders View of the Growth of the Animal Liberation Movement (Puppy Pincher Press 2007). ISBN 978-0-9555850-0-5 - Ingrid NewkirkIngrid NewkirkIngrid Newkirk is a British-born animal rights activist and president of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals , the world's largest animal rights organization...
, Free the Animals: The Story of the Animal Liberation Front, Lantern BooksLantern BooksLantern Books is an American book publisher since 1998, first located in Union Square , and now with offices in Brooklyn. It "publishes books for all wanting to live with greater spiritual depth and commitment to the preservation of the natural world." The subject areas that Lantern Books covers...
, 2000). ISBN 1-930051-22-0 - Peter SingerPeter SingerPeter Albert David Singer is an Australian philosopher who is the Ira W. DeCamp Professor of Bioethics at Princeton University and Laureate Professor at the Centre for Applied Philosophy and Public Ethics at the University of Melbourne...
, Ethics into Action: Henry Spira and the Animal Rights Movement (Lanham, MD: Bowman & Littlefield, 1998). ISBN 0-8476-9073-3 - Lawrence Finsen and Susan Finsen, The Animal Rights Movement in America: From Compassion to Respect (New York: Twayne Publishers, 1994). ISBN 0-8057-3884-3
- Gary L. Francione, Rain without Thunder: The Ideology of the Animal Rights Movement (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1996). ISBN 1-56639-461-9
- Harold D. Guither, Animal Rights: History and Scope of a Radical Social Movement (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1998). ISBN 0-8093-2199-8
- James M. Jasper and Dorothy Nelkin, The Animal Rights Crusade: The Growth of a Moral Protest (New York: The Free Press, 1992). ISBN 0-02-916195-9