Exploring vegan ideology through graffiti slogans

2021 ◽  
pp. 095792652110131
Author(s):  
Neil Hughes
Keyword(s):  
Animal Rights ◽  
Direct Action ◽  
Peace Movement ◽  
Three Dimensions ◽  
Core Beliefs ◽  
Moral Basis ◽  
Animal Advocacy ◽  
Core Concepts ◽  
University Of Edinburgh ◽  
Human Animal

This article is a study of a sample of eighteen animal rights graffiti slogans that were chalked on the walls of a tunnel known as Potterow Port near the main University of Edinburgh campus, in Scotland, in February 2020. The purpose of the article is to interrogate the implicit ideological commitments underpinning the graffiti slogans, the rhetorical aims of their authors and the linguistic devices and structures they used to achieve their goals. These three dimensions of the slogans are analysed using an inter-disciplinary framework inspired by work on discourse and ideology, recent studies of graffiti slogans in protest contexts and important contributions to the animal rights canon. Regarding the ideological underpinnings of the slogans, the study reveals four core concepts that it argues are central to contemporary vegan thought: the speciesist relationship between human and non-human animals; species egalitarianism; the vegan imperative; and a commitment to non-violent direct action. In addition to these core beliefs, it detects the presence in the slogans of adherence to adjacent values and ideals such as love, compassion and respect for life, attempts to thicken vegan ideology by reaching out to environmentalism and the peace movement and tension around the moral basis for adopting vegan practices. The interconnected conceptual map that lies at the heart of contemporary veganism has emerged, it argues, in response to ‘dislocations’ in human/animal relations and within the animal advocacy movement, between advocates of a welfarist response to animal exploitation and those such as the authors of the graffiti slogans committed to a more radical, vegan inspired solution to animal oppression.

Canine Rescue as a Social Movement: The Politics of Love

2018 ◽  
Vol 28 (5-6) ◽  
pp. 670-687
Author(s):  
Anna L. Peterson
Keyword(s):  
Social Context ◽  
Public Sphere ◽  
Animal Rights ◽  
Animal Advocacy ◽  
The Social ◽  
Human Animal Bond ◽  
Nonhuman Animals ◽  
Political Approach ◽  
Human Animal ◽  
Politics Of Love

Abstract Canine rescue is a growing movement that affects the lives of tens of thousands of nonhuman animals and people every year. Rescue is noteworthy not only for its numbers, but also because it challenges common understandings of animal advocacy. Popular accounts often portray work on behalf of animals as sentimental, individualistic, and apolitical. In fact, work on behalf of animals has always been political, in multiple ways. It is characterized both by internal political tensions, especially between animal rights and welfare positions, and by complex relations to the broader public sphere. I analyze canine rescue, with a focus on pit bull rescue, to show that an important segment of canine rescue movements adopts an explicitly political approach which blurs the divide between rights and welfare, addresses the social context of the human-animal bond, and links animal advocacy to social justice.

scholarly journals Kantian Ethics and the Animal Turn. On the Contemporary Defence of Kant’s Indirect Duty View

Animals ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 512
Author(s):  
Samuel Camenzind
Keyword(s):  
Animal Rights ◽  
Ethical Framework ◽  
Arthur Schopenhauer ◽  
Kantian Ethics ◽  
Turn On ◽  
Conceptual Clarity ◽  
Moral Relationship ◽  
Human Animal ◽  
Kant's Ethics ◽  
Animal Question

Criticism of Kant’s position on our moral relationship with animals dates back to the work of Arthur Schopenhauer and Leonard Nelson, but historically Kantian scholars have shown limited interest in the human-animal relationship as such. This situation changed in the mid-1990s with the arrival of several publications arguing for the direct moral considerability of animals within the Kantian ethical framework. Against this, another contemporary Kantian approach has continued to defend Kant’s indirect duty view. In this approach it is argued, first, that it is impossible to establish direct duties to animals, and second, that this is also unnecessary because the Kantian notion that we have indirect duties to animals has far-reaching practical consequences and is to that extent adequate. This paper explores the argument of the far-reaching duties regarding animals in Kant’s ethics and seeks to show that Kantians underestimate essential differences between Kant and his rivals today (i.e., proponents of animal rights and utilitarians) on a practical and fundamental level. It also argues that Kant’s indirect duty view has not been defended convincingly: the defence tends to neglect theory-immanent problems in Kant’s ethics connected with unfounded value assumptions and unconvincing arguments for the denial of animals’ moral status. However, it is suggested that although the human-animal relationship was not a central concern of Kant’s, examination of the animal question within the framework of Kant’s ethics helps us to develop conceptual clarity about his duty concept and the limitations of the reciprocity argument.

scholarly journals Ambivalent Speciesism Scale: Development, Validity and Reliability

2020 ◽  
Vol 8 (18) ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Animal Rights ◽  
Social Dominance ◽  
Animal Ethics ◽  
High Reliability ◽  
Social Dominance Orientation ◽  
Three Dimensions ◽  
Validity And Reliability ◽  
The Social ◽  
Orientation Scale ◽  
Animal Use

The aim of this study is to develop a scale compatible with current animal ethics studies to measure the phenomenon of speciesism, that is marginalization of animals and prejudice and discrimination against animals. In order to develop the Ambivalent Speciesism Scale, an item pool was created by examining the animal ethics literature and social psychology studies on human-animal relations, and then the items were edited by taking the opinions of people studying animal rights and experts in measurement and evaluation in psychology. The scale is designed in 7-point Likert type. The trial form was applied to the participants together with the Speciesism Scale, the Social Dominance Orientation Scale and the Basic Empathy Scale. Participants were selected from individuals representing different lifestyles in the context of animal use, using the snowball sampling technique. The study was conducted with 288 participants; 64 men, 217 women and, 7 of whom are not of both genders. While there were 24 items in the trial form of the scale, nine of these items were eliminated as a result of the factor analysis. The final form of the scale with 15 items has a high reliability (.90). The items of the scale are divided into three dimensions: belief in human superiority, protective speciesism, and speciesism in language. It was determined that the scores obtained from the scale were in positive correlation with the scores obtained from the other scale measuring speciesism and the social dominance orientation scale, as expected. The scores obtained from the scale are distributed as expected among the groups that include lifestyles related to animal use. These data were evaluated as findings showing the validity of the scale. Keywords Speciesism, ambivalent speciesism scale, animal rights, discrimination, animal ethics

Animals in Political Theory

2015 ◽  
pp. 42-64
Author(s):  
Sue Donaldson ◽  
Will Kymlicka
Keyword(s):  
Political Theory ◽  
Animal Rights ◽  
Moral Status ◽  
Animal Ethics ◽  
Moral Rights ◽  
The Public ◽  
History Of ◽  
Human Animal ◽  
Animal Question ◽  
Blind Spots

Western political theorists have largely ignored the animal question, assuming that animals have no place in our theories of democracy, citizenship, membership, sovereignty, and the public good. Conversely, animal ethicists have largely ignored political theory, assuming that we can theorize the moral status and moral rights of animals without drawing on the categories and concepts of political theory. This chapter traces the history of this separation between animals and political theory, examines the resulting intellectual blind spots for animal ethics, and reviews recent attempts to bring the two together. Situating animal rights within political theory has the potential to identify new models of justice in human-animal relations, and to open up new areas of scholarship and research.

Wildlife as Property

2020 ◽  
pp. 19-36
Author(s):  
Angus Nurse ◽  
Tanya Wyatt
Keyword(s):  
Animal Welfare ◽  
Animal Rights ◽  
Companion Animals ◽  
Wildlife Trade ◽  
Entertainment Industry ◽  
Short Discussion ◽  
Criminological Perspective ◽  
Psychological Harm ◽  
Human Animal ◽  
Animal Welfare Legislation

This chapter examines the notion of wildlife as property or ‘things’ and critically analyses the extent to which anthropocentric notions of wildlife as a resource for human exploitation determines harm caused to non-human animals. This chapter examines how anthropocentric notions of morality and human-centred values underpin the exploitation of non-human animals and the sense in which they are owned. Employing a green criminological perspective, the chapter examines the use and abuse of wildlife within the animal ‘entertainment’ industry. The chapter examines the use of wildlife within aquariums, zoos, and circuses and examines both the legality of this use and the non-human animal harm contained within such uses. Evidence exists, for example, of psychological harm caused to wildlife in zoos that would likely be unlawful if experienced by companion animals. Yet, zoos and safari parks are ostensibly legal operations, thus animal welfare legislation is often the only mechanism through which action can be taken in respect of what would otherwise be deemed unlawful captivity (see also Chapter 7 on animal rights). We end the chapter by touching on how wildlife come to be property – that is a short discussion of wildlife trade, including the online market.

Does Beast Suffering Count for Kant

2004 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 375-390 ◽  
Author(s):  
Heike Baranzke ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Virtue Ethics ◽  
Human Dignity ◽  
Animal Rights ◽  
Animal Ethics ◽  
Emotional Needs ◽  
Animal Suffering ◽  
Moral Concepts ◽  
Perfect Duties ◽  
Human Animal ◽  
Human Responsibility

Ever since Schopenhauer´s accusation, it has been disputed whether Kant´s few remarks concerning the ethical human-animal-relationship in the Lectures and in the Doctrine of Virtue fail to support ethical arguments on behalf of animals. One critique that plays a central role is whether Kant would have forbidden cruelty to brutes for educational purposes. In addition to these old objections, Kant´s ethics is charged to be speciesistic by animal ethicists and animal rights philosophers at present.The following article examines especially §17 of the Doctrine of Virtue, which is the only animal ethical text authorized by Kant himself. The interpretation starts by taking the context of §17 into account, particularly the “Episodic Section on an Amphiboly in Moral Concepts”. The systematic output of the cruelty-account and of the duty classes is then analyzed. Central for the understanding of Kant´s argumentation relating to animals are the perfect duties to oneself, which are linked to Kant´s foundation of human dignity. Finally the roles of the physical and emotional needs of brutes and humans in Kant´s ethics are compared with each other. Some conclusions are then drawn concerning human and animal rights in relation to a duty-based argumentation. The article therefore appreciates Kant´s integration of animal suffering into the very core of his virtue ethics, an integration that may be able to open the door for an enlightened animal ethics based on human responsibility.

scholarly journals Virtue Ethics and Laboratory Animal Research

ILAR Journal ◽  
2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rebecca L Walker
Keyword(s):  
Virtue Ethics ◽  
Animal Rights ◽  
Laboratory Animal ◽  
Animal Studies ◽  
Animal Research ◽  
Moral Significance ◽  
Moral Framework ◽  
Animal Research Ethics ◽  
Human Animal

Abstract This article appeals to virtue ethics to help guide laboratory animal research by considering the role of character and flourishing in these practices. Philosophical approaches to animal research ethics have typically focused on animal rights or on the promotion of welfare for all affected, while animal research itself has been guided in its practice by the 3Rs (reduction, refinement, replacement). These different approaches have sometimes led to an impasse in debates over animal research where the philosophical approaches are focused on whether or when animal studies are justifiable, while the 3Rs assume a general justification for animal work but aim to reduce harm to sentient animals and increase their welfare in laboratory spaces. Missing in this exchange is a moral framework that neither assumes nor rejects the justifiability of animal research and focuses instead on the habits and structures of that work. I shall propose a place for virtue ethics in laboratory animal research by considering examples of relevant character traits, the moral significance of human-animal bonds, mentorship in the laboratory, and the importance of animals flourishing beyond mere welfare.

“HOW DOES YOUR COLLAR SUIT ME?”: THE HUMAN ANIMAL IN THE RSPCA'S ANIMAL WORLD AND BAND OF MERCY

2012 ◽  
Vol 40 (1) ◽  
pp. 247-262 ◽  
Author(s):  
Monica Flegel
Keyword(s):  
Animal Rights ◽  
Power Relations ◽  
Shared Experience ◽  
Human Relationships ◽  
Human Interactions ◽  
Human Animal ◽  
And Control ◽  
Cruelty To Animals ◽  
Animal World ◽  
As If

There is a central contradiction in human relationships with animals: as Erica Fudge notes, “We live with animals, we recognize them, we even name some of them, but at the same time we use them as if they were inanimate, as if they were objects” (8). Such a contradiction is also, of course, present in human interactions, in which power relations allow for the objectification of one human being by another. In an analysis of images and texts produced by the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (RSPCA) in the nineteenth-century, I want to examine the overlap in representations of animals and humans as subject to objectification and control. One common way of critiquing human treatment of animals within the RSPCA's journals, Animal World and Band of Mercy, was to have humans trade places with animals: having boys fantastically shrunk to the size of the animals they tortured, for example, or imagining the horrors of vivisection when experienced by humans. Such imaginative exercises were meant to defamiliarize animal usage by implying a shared experience of suffering: what was wrong for a human was clearly just as wrong for an animal. However, I argue that some of the images employed by the society suggest the opposite; instead of constructing animal cruelty in a new light, these images instead work to underline the shared proximity of particular humans with animals. In texts that focus specifically upon humans wearing animal bonds – reins, collars, and muzzles – the RSPCA's anti-cruelty discourse both critiqued the tools of bondage and, I suggest, invited the audience to see deep connections between animals and the humans taking their place. Such connections ultimately weaken the force of the animal/human reversal as an animal rights strategy, suggesting as they do that humans themselves often have use value in economies of labor, affect, and are subject to the same power relations that produce an animal as “animal.”

“New Social Movements” of the Early Nineteenth Century

1993 ◽  
Vol 17 (3) ◽  
pp. 385-427 ◽  
Author(s):  
Craig Calhoun
Keyword(s):  
Social Movements ◽  
Animal Rights ◽  
Political Action ◽  
Economic Transformation ◽  
Peace Movement ◽  
New Social Movements ◽  
Youth Movement ◽  
Animal Rights Movement ◽  
Gay Movement ◽  
Definition Of

Sometime After 1968, analysts and participants began to speak of “new social movements” that worked outside formal institutional channels and emphasized lifestyle, ethical, or “identity” concerns rather than narrowly economic goals. A variety of examples informed the conceptualization. Alberto Melucci (1988: 247), for instance, cited feminism, the ecology movement or “greens,” the peace movement, and the youth movement. Others added the gay movement, the animal rights movement, and the antiabortion and prochoice movements. These movements were allegedly new in issues, tactics, and constituencies. Above all, they were new by contrast to the labor movement, which was the paradigmatic “old” social movement, and to Marxism and socialism, which asserted that class was the central issue in politics and that a single political economic transformation would solve the whole range of social ills. They were new even by comparison with conventional liberalism with its assumption of fixed individual identities and interests. The new social movements thus challenged the conventional division of politics into left and right and broadened the definition of politics to include issues that had been considered outside the domain of political action (Scott 1990).

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document