The Wholesome Photo of the Month Thu May 09, 2024 11:01 | Anti-Empire
In 3 War Years Russia Will Have Spent $3... Thu May 09, 2024 02:17 | Anti-Empire
UK Sending Missiles to Be Fired Into Rus... Tue May 07, 2024 14:17 | Marko Marjanović
US Gives Weapons to Taiwan for Free, The... Fri May 03, 2024 03:55 | Anti-Empire
Russia Has 17 Percent More Defense Jobs ... Tue Apr 30, 2024 11:56 | Marko Marjanović
Anti-Empire >>
Indymedia Ireland is a volunteer-run non-commercial open publishing website for local and international news, opinion & analysis, press releases and events. Its main objective is to enable the public to participate in reporting and analysis of the news and other important events and aspects of our daily lives and thereby give a voice to people.
Julian Assange is finally free ! Tue Jun 25, 2024 21:11 | indy
Stand With Palestine: Workplace Day of Action on Naksa Day Thu May 30, 2024 21:55 | indy
It is Chemtrails Month and Time to Visit this Topic Thu May 30, 2024 00:01 | indy
Hamburg 14.05. "Rote" Flora Reoccupied By Internationalists Wed May 15, 2024 15:49 | Internationalist left
Eddie Hobbs Breaks the Silence Exposing the Hidden Agenda Behind the WHO Treaty Sat May 11, 2024 22:41 | indy
Human Rights in Ireland >>
The Losing Battle to Get Public Sector ?TWaTs? Back in the Office Thu Jul 25, 2024 19:06 | Richard Eldred
Years on from Covid, Civil Service 'TWaTs' (Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday office workers) are harming productivity and leaving desks empty. The Telegraph's Tom Haynes explains how this remote work trend affects us all.
The post The Losing Battle to Get Public Sector ?TWaTs? Back in the Office appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.
?Prepare to Go to Jail,? Judge Tells Just Stop Oil Art Vandals Thu Jul 25, 2024 17:00 | Richard Eldred
Guilty and about to face the consequences, two Just Stop Oil activists who hurled tomato soup at a Van Gogh masterpiece have been told to prepare for prison.
The post ?Prepare to Go to Jail,? Judge Tells Just Stop Oil Art Vandals appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.
Hundreds of Thousands Are Ditching the Licence Fee ? And It?s a Crisis for the BBC Thu Jul 25, 2024 15:00 | Richard Eldred
With an £80 million revenue drop and growing calls for a licence fee boycott, BBC bosses are struggling to prove that Britain's biggest broadcaster remains worth the cost.
The post Hundreds of Thousands Are Ditching the Licence Fee ? And It?s a Crisis for the BBC appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.
The Democratic Party Clown Show Continues, With Giggles Replacing Bozo Thu Jul 25, 2024 13:00 | Tony Morrison
Biden's sudden exit and the canonisation of his hopeless VP is a dismal chapter in American politics ? one that will further erode trust in the democratic process, says Tony Morrison.
The post The Democratic Party Clown Show Continues, With Giggles Replacing Bozo appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.
?Climate Change? Used to Justify Government?s Record ?Investment? in Renewables. Cui Bono? Not the T... Thu Jul 25, 2024 11:05 | Richard Eldred
The Government is using the excuse of 'climate change' to justify the largest taxpayer 'investment' in wind and solar farms in British history.
The post ?Climate Change? Used to Justify Government?s Record ?Investment? in Renewables. Cui Bono? Not the Taxpayer appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.
Lockdown Skeptics >>
Voltaire, international edition
Netanyahu soon to appear before the US Congress? It will be decisive for the suc... Thu Jul 04, 2024 04:44 | en
Voltaire, International Newsletter N°93 Fri Jun 28, 2024 14:49 | en
Will Israel succeed in attacking Lebanon and pushing the United States to nuke I... Fri Jun 28, 2024 14:40 | en
Will Netanyahu launch tactical nuclear bombs (sic) against Hezbollah, with US su... Thu Jun 27, 2024 12:09 | en
Will Israel provoke a cataclysm?, by Thierry Meyssan Tue Jun 25, 2024 06:59 | en
Voltaire Network >>
View Comments Titles Only
save preference
Comments (6 of 6)
Jump To Comment: 6 5 4 3 2 1Animal rights professor, Gary Francione's "The Theory of Animal Rights" video has just become available in Japanese for the very first time.
http://www.abolitionistapproach.com/video/
This is a mirror copy of the video in English. There are several other language versions available too.
If you have contacts in Japan interested in human-nonhuman relations, please alert them to this new development.
Thanks.
There are now further translations of the "Animal Rights: The Abolitionist Approach" leaflet, in Dutch, Greek, Japanese and Norwegian and in two different formats.
http://www.abolitionistapproach.com/?p=290
For the full list, see: http://www.abolitionistapproach.com/?page_id=68
Any volunteers to do an Irish version?
Equaliszer, I think your are missing RogY's point.
Whether animals think morally or not is irrelevant to whether we have moral obligations to them. There are some human beings who cannot think morally--the severely mentally disabled; the sociopaths, etc. But that does not mean that I may treat such humans as commodities or resources, as we treat nonhumans.
As RogY says, animal rights would not mean the end of nonhuman deaths, but would reduce the number of deaths caused by human moral agents to a small fraction.
By the way, you are wrong about vegetarianism among nonhumans. Interestingly, most of the animals we eat are vegetarians. And there is much more cooperation in the nonhuman world than you seem to recognize. We emphasize violence in the animal world so that we can justify it in our own as "natural."
Gary L. Francione.
This is part of a much bigger picture.
The human condition is rooted in a now forgotten series of survivalist emergencies in the distant past.
In a survivalist emergency, morality is reversed and rational ideation is abolished, because survival becomes the only morality, and generating hate-crazed soldiers to fight off the barbarians is the priority.
In other words, necessity was equated with morality in the forgotten survivalist emergencies.
All human progress can be seen as slowly coming out of survivalist mode and moving back toward our ancient pristine state of purity, decency and sanity.
Similarly, the animals reversed morality and started eating one another in the same forgotten survivalist emergencies.
Necessity was substituted for morality, in the animal kingdom as well as in human affairs.
I'm on your side, but I just wanted to point out that uncomfortable blind spot re abuse of animals by other animals. It is difficult to have any respect or any compassion for cats after seeing them tormenting and torturing to death the birds and mice they bring home. Remember, these are well fed cats who have no need to hunt for food, so they are indulging in pure sadism for its own sake. They generally do not eat these birds and mice, but only take their pleasure by spending an hour or two tormenting and torturing to death these unfortunate victims of animal abuse by other animals.
First, animal rights is about human behaviour and ethical standards. It is not about taking moral lessons from nonhuman animals. However, nonhuman animals do not 'abuse' other animals in the way you suggest - some do kill and eat others - they do that because they have too. There is little 'sport hunting' in the nonhuman world, although people will think of domesticated cats in this sense, those who catch other animals as well as being fed other animals by human keepers.
Human animals are regarded as moral agents who can discuss what is right and what is wrong and act of such discourse. We have the choice to live well on plant materials alone - or to kill to eat. Since we don't have to deliberately kill to eat, human food choices are inevitably moral choices. This is not how we think of lions and their diet.
Yes, animal rights does not end nonhuman deaths - but it would end nonhuman deaths at the hands (and the knives and forks) of human animals. This is not a small matter, globally human beings slaughter about 17,000 nonhuman animals just for food EVERY SECOND.
In the sense that you are implying that animal rights is a modest idea - then you are correct - it is a mere and limited extension of some principles of human rights thought. In fact, to be clear, some basic rights that are regarded as "human rights" are really our animal rights: basic animal rights upon which we build our unique human (positive) rights.
We need not observe what nonhuman animals do to one another to think about what animal rights philosophy means for human-nonhuman relations.
RogY
Animal rights advocates always avoid an embarrassing anomaly.
You want to abolish the abuse of animals, but the animals themselves, by an overwhelming majority, vote you down and demand the retention and perpetuation of animal abuse.
Animals abuse other animals. There are very few vegetarian animals. Have you ever seen a four-legged mammal eating another four-legged mammal? A spider eating a fly? A cat coming home with a bird in her mouth and spending an hour torturing and tormenting the bird to death? Hens cruelly pecking other hens? Dogs fighting other dogs? Dogs killing cats?
The animals themselves want absolutely nothing to do with ending animal abuse. You are trying to help those who emphatically do not want your help. The animals themselves will always make sure that animal abuse continues unabated.