Veganism is the application of the principle of abolition in your own life; it represents your recognition that animals are not things. Veganism is the recognition of the moral personhood of nonhuman animals.
Interpretation
Veganism embodies the ethical commitment to treat animals as beings with moral rights rather than mere objects.
In this quote, Gary L. Francione emphasizes that veganism is not just a dietary choice but a profound ethical stance that opposes the exploitation of nonhuman animals. By adopting a vegan lifestyle, individuals acknowledge the moral personhood of animals, advocating for their rights and well-being, and rejecting the notion of viewing them as mere commodities.
In practice
During a speech on animal rights at a conference, you might use this quote to illustrate the moral imperative of veganism.
The idea that we have the right to inflict suffering and death on other sentient beings for the trivial reasons of palate pleasure and fashion is, without doubt, one of the most arrogant and morally repugnant notions in the history of human thought.
Humans treat animals as things that exist as means to human ends. That's morally wrong. Sexism promotes the idea that women are things that exist as means to the ends of men. That's morally wrong. We need to stop treating all persons - whether human or nonhuman - as things.
They are nonhuman persons. They are not food. If animals matter morally at all, there is one and only one rational response: go vegan. Everything else is just participation in animal exploitation.
We cannot talk simultaneously about animal rights and the 'humane' slaughter of animals.
We are vegans not simply because being vegan will reduce suffering. We are vegan because every sentient being values her or his life even if no one else does. We are vegan because justice minimally requires that we not take life for trivial purposes.
We can no more justify using nonhumans as human resources than we can justify human slavery. Animal use and slavery have at least one important point in common: both institutions treat sentient beings exclusively as resources of others. That cannot be justified with respect to humans; it cannot be justified with respect to nonhumans—however “humanely” we treat them.
Life is very fleeting. It’s important to be gentle and optimistic. We look behind and think what we’ve done in this life has been good. It was simple; it was modest. Everyone creates their own story and moves on. That’s it. I don’t feel particularly important. What we create is not important. We’re very insignificant.
The emptiness I speak about is not the emptiness the mind imagines. It is not blank. Your body can continue expressing in a natural way. Intelligence is there. Emotions can come. Everything can play, but inside there is total serenity and peace. No planning, no strategising, no personal identity is there. Just the space of pure being. It is what we are, but we dream and believe we are not.
Your image isn't your character. Character is what you are as a person.
His chains chinked softly. I seldom fling children from towers to improve their health. Yes, I meant for him to die.
There is only one thing in life worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about.
Everything is both simpler than we can imagine and more entangled than we can conceive.
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