The Slavery Analogy Part II: Gary Francione’s Jan 4 Blog Entry

After I posted yesterday’s piece on slavery and animal liberation, a subscriber alerted me to the fact that the Rutger’s philosopher Gary Francione had posted on the same topic the day before. So, here it is. A different, and quite fascinating, take on the issue:

Francione writes:

Many vegans become irritated with non-vegans who claim to care morally about animals but who continue to consume them. The former will often invoke an analogy to human slavery. It goes like this: we all agree that the use of humans exclusively as resources—the condition known as human slavery—is morally abhorrent. Similarly, if people think that animals are members of the moral community, then we ought not to be treating them exclusively as resources either and we ought to oppose animal slavery. And if one opposes animal slavery, one adopts and promotes veganism.

Does the analogy work?

Yes and no. The slavery analogy, which I have been using for two decades now, is not particularly compelling if one maintains that nonhumans, unlike human slaves, only have an interest in not suffering and do not have an interest in continued life or in autonomy. And that is a core belief of the welfarist position going back to Bentham—that animals can suffer and have interests in not suffering but are cognitively different from us in that they are not self-aware and do not have an interest in continued existence. To put the matter another way: welfarists maintain that animals do not have an interest in not being slaves per se; they just have an interest in being “happy” slaves. That is the position promoted by Peter Singer, whose neo- or new-welfarist views are derived directly from Bentham. Therefore, it does not matter morally that we use animals but onlyhow we use them. The moral issue is not use but treatment.

Add to this that most welfarists are utilitarians—they maintain that what is right or wrong is determined by what maximizes pleasure or happiness or interest satisfaction for all of those affected—and you end up with the view that as long as an animal does not suffer “too much,” and given that the animal does not have an interest in her life, her having lived a reasonably pleasant life and ended up on human plates is better than her not having lived at all. If we provide a reasonably pleasant life and relatively painless death for animals, we actually confer a benefit on them by bringing them into existence and using them as our resources.

Therefore, it is understandable that, if one is a welfarist, one does not accept the slavery analogy. “Happy” slavery is not only not a problem; it is a good thing. The problem with human slavery is that even “humane” forms of slavery violate fundamental human rights in continued existence, autonomy, etc. But if animals do not have those interests, then “humane” slavery may be just what is needed. And that is precisely the thinking that motivates the “happy” meat/animal products movement and the entire welfarist enterprise of trying to make animal use more “humane,” more “compassionate,” etc.

I have argued that this sort of thinking is problematic in at least two regards:

First, the notion that nonhuman animals do not have an interest in continued existence—that they do not have an interest in their lives—involves relying on a speciesist concept of what sort of self-awareness matters morally. I have argued that every sentient being necessarily has an interest in continued existence—every sentient being values her or his life—and that to say that only those animals (human animals) who have a particular sort of self-awareness have an interest in not being treated as commodities begs the fundamental moral question. Even if, as some maintain, nonhuman animals live in an “eternal present”—and I think that is empirically not the case at the very least for most of the nonhumans we routinely exploit who do have memories of the past and a sense of the future—they have, in each moment, an interest in continuing to exist. To say that this does not count morally is simply speciesist.

Second, even if animals do not have an interest in continuing to live and only have interests in not suffering, the notion that, as a practical matter, we will ever be able to accord those interests the morally required weight is simply fantasy. The notion that we property owners are ever going to accord any sort of significant weight to the interests of property in not suffering is simply unrealistic. Is it possible in theory? Yes. Is it possible as a matter of practicality in the real world. Absolutely not. Welfarists often talk about treating “farmed animals” in the way that we treat dogs and cats whom we love and regard as members of our family. Does anyone really think that is practically possible? The fact that we would not think of eating our dogs and cats is some indication that it is not.

Moreover, a central thesis of my work has been that because animals are chattel property—they are economic commodities—we will generally protect animal interests only when we get an economic benefit from doing so. This means that the standard of animal welfare will always be very low (as it presently and despite all of the “happy” and “compassionate” exploitation nonsense) and welfare reforms will generally increaseproduction efficiency; that is, we will protect animal interests in situations where treatment is economically inefficient and welfare reforms will, for the most part, do little more than correct those inefficiencies. For example, the use of gestation crates for sowsis economically inefficient; there are supposedly more “humane” alternatives that actually increase production efficiency. Similarly, “gassing” chickens is more economically efficient than electrical stunning.

So I understand why welfarists have a problem with the slavery analogy. I think that they are wrong in multiple respects but they never really engage the arguments. Instead, they claim that I am “divisive” and “do not care about animals suffering now” because I make these arguments. Some get even more dramatic.

The rights paradigm, which, as I interpret it, morally requires the abolition of animal exploitation and requires veganism as a matter of fundamental justice, is radically different from the welfarist paradigm, which, in theory focuses on reducing suffering, and, in reality, focuses on tidying up animal exploitation at its economically inefficient edges. In science, those who subscribe to one paradigm are often unable to understand and engage those who subscribe to another paradigm precisely because the theoretical language that they use is not compatible.

I think that the situation is similar in the context of the debate between animal rights and animal welfare. And that is why welfarists simply cannot understand or accept the slavery analogy.



The World is Vegan! If you want it.

Gary L. Francione
Professor, Rutgers University


About James McWilliams

3 Responses to The Slavery Analogy Part II: Gary Francione’s Jan 4 Blog Entry

  1. timgier says:

    I’m not a fan of the analogy to human slavery, especially as Francione draws it in this piece.

    Human slavery is not simply “the use of humans exclusively as resources” in the way that the use of other animals is. Human slaves (in the Americas up until the 19th century) were not bred, raised, confined and then slaughtered for use as food or clothing. Human slaves were owned as property to be sure, and they were treated as resources, and many of them were unjustly killed, but the purpose of owning human slaves was for the work they were able to do, not for the meat on their bones.

    Now, considering that what we do to those other animals who we slaughter for food and clothing has nothing to do with making them perform work for us, then those animals aren’t slaves. Perhaps we might say that they are the victims of a genocide or holocaust, but that wouldn’t be right either. Genocides are waged to eradicate whole populations once and for all, holocausts are similarly about destruction. However, by our use of other animals for food and clothing we are not conducting either genocide or holocaust, we are doing something quite more pernicious. We are purposefully breeding into existence conscious beings with the sole intent of killing them. Were it not so commonplace and taken for granted it would be seen as the insane obscenity that it is.

    I’m not sure I know the word to label what we do to other animals, but in the case of those we slaughter for food and clothing, at least, slavery is both inappropriate and inadequate.

    Thanks for your work in the series of posts you’re writing about “A House Divided”, I think it’s important,

  2. Provoked says:

    Hi Tim – Your response kept me thinking all day. I agree that using the term slave for the way we use other animals as commodities can be troublesome, but only if you view and use the phrase as it pertains to humans exclusively. I don’t know that it makes a difference (in the slavery act itself) how the victim is used in the end… The ordeal of subjugation is experienced in the same way. I think it is the act and the ordeal that makes a slave… Not what becomes of their bodies as a result.

    Further, if one can say that slavery is limited to “work” obtained from captors – Then I also think that by extension of the labor “saved” via animal agriculture, it makes them slaves as well. What I mean is- Human civilization had the opportunity at one time to toil and/or discover plant based systems that would feed the multitudes. We could have opted for means that would have weaned us away from using the flesh, blood and bone of nonhumans… It may have taken more perseverance and work – But in the end we would have liberated our dependence on their captivity and on their deaths. We chose not to… Taking the lazier way out and in essence making them “slave” for the challenges we failed to meet. They are enslaved by our lack of ingenuity and lack of effort.

    I don’t take much issue with using the word “holocaust” as it is defined as “destruction or slaughter on a mass scale.” Or even more so – “any mass slaughter or reckless destruction of life” – Certainly knowing of the very viable alternatives it is not only reckless but maliciously so.

    Of course I don’t mean to be argumentative… I certainly see your point that the word slavery isn’t quite on the mark – Perhaps what we do to nonhumans will have no definition until the corrupt practice comes to an end?

    Thank you James for bringing up these and other issues that reside in “A House Divided”.

  3. BlessUsAll says:

    Thanks for the provocative series, James.

    All these distinctions as to what slavery is and isn’t are interesting to explore.

    Here’s a thought that just came to me: If enslaving someone involves taking away their autonomy, then I suppose that imprisoning animals in zoos, making them perform in circuses, keeping them locked in cages or chained on stakes for long periods, forcing them to plow and log and drive carriages, and subjecting them to laboratory studies are all examples of slavery.

    When a sentient being is raped or made to mate, when a sentient being has her baby taken away from her, when a sentient being is not free to make any decisions for himself/herself — all of these deprivations of freedom are aspects of enslavement, in my mind. In each instance, the master is giving the slave no choice but to obey.

    A distinguishing characteristic of slavery is that someone is profiting from the exploitation of another sentient being’s body in some way, usually economically. This would apply whether the body is used for labor, for food or clothing or household products or furniture, for breeding, for entertainment, for guard duty, for experiments — or for a combination of the above. Sometimes the enslavement is the result of one person’s desire to dominate — to exert his assumed superiority over — another’s mind and body. That would be psychological slavery, I suppose.

    That’s my current take. I’m keeping my mind open to new insights.

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