Episode 56: Why animal rights advocates should promote veganism instead of animal welfare reforms

This week, I am pleased to present my third interview with Elizabeth Collins. Elizabeth, who lives in New Zealand, has been conducting street stalls to educate the public about veganism since 2009, and she is the host of the New Zealand Vegan Podcast. Her advocacy is based on the principles of Gary Francione's Abolitionist Approach to Animal Rights.

In this interview, Elizabeth and I discuss why animal welfare reforms are counterproductive to our goal of ending animal exploitation. Specifically, we speak about the problems with the following campaigns: so-called “bans” on live export in New Zealand and the shredding of male chicks in Germany (you can find the Guardian article I mentioned here, and a more recent Wall Street Journal article here); a Canadian company’s decision to stop using fur (but continue using feathers); and a campaign that aims to convince a world-famous leader to eat fewer animal products in order to help the environment.

We also discuss the use of environmental and health arguments in vegan advocacy, and then Elizabeth explains the importance of engaging in abolitionist vegan education in our everyday lives.

At the end of the show, we will listen to the song "My Vegan Friend" by the vegan singer-songwriter Gülce Özen Gürkan.

As we discussed in this episode and on past episodes, eating/using eggs or other animal products will never be ethical, no matter how many animal welfare measures are put into place. I recommend the following essay by Gary Francione and Anna Charlton: Why Welfare Reform Campaigns and Single-Issue Campaigns Necessarily Promote Animal Exploitation.

How to listen to this episode

There are two ways you can listen to this episode.

1. Listen to the episode on CKCU FM's website at https://cod.ckcufm.com/programs/553/52574.html.
   
2. Listen to or download the podcast from Archive.org at https://archive.org/details/afar-june-30-2021.
   

You can also find Always for Animal Rights on Facebook and Instagram. If you'd like to receive an e-mail every time there is a new post on the AFAR blog, feel free to enter your e-mail address into the appropriate box in the right-hand sidebar of this site.

Go vegan, stay vegan, and let's remember to stand up and speak up for animal rights today and every day. Thanks for listening to the show!

Episode 55: Interview with Professor Gary Steiner about the history of animal ethics in the West, whether Christianity can lead to veganism, and why postmodernism cannot protect animal rights

This week, I am pleased to present my interview with Dr. Gary Steiner, professor of philosophy at Bucknell University in Pennsylvania. Much of Gary Steiner’s work has focused on the moral status of animals in Western philosophy. He is the author of many academic papers and four published books, including Anthropocentrism and its Discontents, Animals and the Moral Community, and Animals and the Limits of Postmodernism. His fifth book, which will be published later this year, will be titled Felt Kinship: The Historical Pretensions of Reason and the Moral Status of Nonhuman Animals.

In this interview, Gary speaks about the history of the moral status of animals in the Western world, and we discuss whether Christianity can lead to animal rights and veganism. After that, Gary tells me about his book Animals and the Limits of Postmodernism, explaining why the philosophy of postmodernism fails to establish the clear moral principles that are necessary in order to achieve justice for nonhuman animals. Then he outlines a philosophy of animal ethics that we could embrace instead. Finally, we discuss whether there is hope that we could achieve a vegan world.

During the interview, I read an excerpt from Volume 1 of The Keys to Freedom by Leo Tolstoy, translated into English by Walter Richmond. Gary told me about Pope Francis's 2015 papal encyclical, Laudato Si', which can be read here. The Christian scholar I mentioned in the show was Rynn Berry, who said on an episode of Go Vegan Radio with Bob Linden that the word "fish" was a mistranslation of what could more accurately be described as "relish".

It was a fascinating discussion. I hope you can tune in!

At the end of the show is the song "Sixth Commandment" by Dr. Aryan Tavakkoli.

How to listen to this episode

There are two ways you can listen to this episode.

1. Listen to the episode on CKCU FM's website at https://cod.ckcufm.com/programs/553/52321.html.
   
2. Listen to or download the podcast from Archive.org at https://archive.org/details/afar-june-9-2021.
   

You can also find Always for Animal Rights on Facebook and Instagram. If you'd like to receive an e-mail every time there is a new post on the AFAR blog, feel free to enter your e-mail address into the appropriate box in the right-hand sidebar of this site.

Go vegan, stay vegan, and let's remember to stand up and speak up for animal rights today and every day. Thanks for listening to the show!