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To add interest
throughout the website I have
interspersed commentary with thought provoking
quotations from philosophers, ethicists, scientists
and other notable thinkers both past and present.
For ease of reading
all quotations appear in a purple font
Please note:
External links will open into a new window.
All beings are fond of
life, like pleasure, hate pain, shun destruction,
like life, long to live. To all life is dear.
Acharanga Sutra Jainism
General
statement
Think differently about sheep.com (TDAS) supports animal rights in its strictest
meaning which is the abolition of all animal
exploitation.
Animal rights is not always easy to define with one
single definition and you can read about general
definitions
here
We must
fight against the spirit of unconscious cruelty with
which we treat the animals. Animals suffer as much as we
do. True humanity does not allow us to impose such
sufferings on them. It is our duty to make the whole
world recognize it. Until we extend our circle of
compassion to all living things, humanity will not find
peace.
Albert Schweitzer, The Philosophy
of Civilization
Below you will find TDSA'S position on animal rights.
We would like to see a world free from the exploitation
and abuse of any living creature. We consider that most
animals are sentient on some level and in varying
degrees and therefore should be considered under the
remit of animal rights. Our stance as proponents of
animal rights is based upon animal sentience only and no other
cognitive characteristics, such as intelligence, memory,
and so on.
Where there is doubt that
sentience exists we give that animal the benefit of the
doubt because we believe that all animals experience
sentience at the very least when it comes to pain. Even
if an animal has no anticipation or memory of pain, as
many claim in order to justify their exploitative and
cruel treatment of animals, if
any creature experiences pain that creature is sentient
at the very least with regard to the pain experienced at
the time it is inflicted.
However having said that we consider that all
muliticellular animals are sentient, anticipate,
remember and feel pain, and just like humans have varying degrees of
intelligence and other cognitive abilities. There is no way to tell how
any nonhuman animal experiences the world any more than anyone
can really understand how another human being does so, and other creatures may
well experience the world on levels of awareness that we
do not experience or comprehend. For more information
about animal sentience please refer to:
Sentience in Farm animals.
We understand that all animals wish to avoid suffering
both physical and psychological and that like us all
beings are aware of and fear death and wish to live,
indeed the desire for survival is one of evolution's
driving forces. If you have any doubt that animals know when they are about to die, read this heart
wrenching account included in our page on
Factory Farming:Pigs
Basically if a being lives
moves and exists in the world we consider that that
creature has the moral right to live life free from
exploitation, harm
and death as a result of negative human intervention.
We
as human beings do not have the knowledge or the right
to assign defining criteria regarding sentience to any
animate creature.
Here I quote from Albert's Schweitzer's essay The Ethic
of Reverence for life
A man is really ethical only when he obeys the
constraint laid on him to help all life which he is able
to succour, and when he goes out of his way to avoid
injuring anything living. He does not ask how far this
or that life deserves sympathy as valuable in itself,
nor how far it is capable of feeling. To him life as
such is sacred. He shatters no ice crystal that sparkles
in the sun, tears no leaf from its tree, breaks off no
flower, and is careful not to crush any insect as he
walks. If he works by lamplight on a summer evening, he
prefers to keep the window shut and to breathe stifling
air, rather than to see insect after insect fall on his
table with singed and sinking wings.
If he goes out into the street after a rainstorm and
sees a worm which has strayed there, he reflects that it
will certainly dry up in the sunshine, if it does not
quickly regain the damp soil into which it can creep,
and so he helps it back from the deadly paving stones
into the lush grass. Should he pass by an insect which
has fallen into a pool, he spares the time to reach it a
leaf or stalk on which it may clamber and save itself.
He is not afraid of being laughed at as sentimental.
It is indeed the fate of every truth to be an object of
ridicule when it is first acclaimed. It was once
considered foolish to suppose that coloured men were
really human beings and ought to be treated as such.
What was once foolishness has now become a recognized
truth. Today it is considered as exaggeration to
proclaim constant respect for every form of life as
being the serious demand of a rational ethic. But the
time is coming when people will be amazed that the human
race was so long before it recognized thoughtless injury
to life as incompatible with real ethics. Ethics is in
its unqualified form extended responsibility with regard
to everything that has life.
Please take the time to read the complete essay
The Ethic of Reverence for Life, by Albert Schweitzer
Though nonhuman animals may experience the world
differently to humans each animal is aware of his or her
environment and are aware of what happens to them and of
the cruelty that is inflicted upon them and they, like
us, wish to live their lives free from cruelty, enslavement or
any other exploitation or abuse. We strongly
believe that no one has the right to deny any animal his
or her right to life, and moreover a life free from any
kind of suffering inflicted upon them by man for any
reason whatsoever that is not in the interests of the
nonhuman animal.
There is no justifiable reason to
inflict pain upon any nonhuman animal any more than
there is to inflict pain upon any human being save
perhaps in the interests of that being, for instance to
to provide an animal
with medical assistance which at times may bring
about pain for a nonhuman animal as it does for
humans in the interests of providing treatment for
the sake of the wellbeing of that animal.
We strongly believe that animals have moral
rights, including the right to life and the right
not to be harmed, and as a consequence animals should be granted
legal rights to live their lives the way nature intended
without negative intervention by human beings.
Because one species is more clever than another, does it
give it the right to imprison or torture the less clever
species? Does one exceptionally clever individual have a
right to exploit the less clever individuals of his own
species? To say that he does is to say with the Fascists
that the strong have a right to abuse and exploit the
weak - might is right, and the strong and ruthless shall
inherit the earth.
Richard Ryder
This website supports animal rights and is against the
use of animals for food, clothing, sport, entertainment
and experimentation. We strongly consider that animals
are here for their own purposes and are not for our use
or abuse. We believe that animals have their own inherent worth
irrespective of their perceived or actual use to us, and
as such they should not be used towards our betterment under
any circumstance. Moreover the lives of some animals should
not be considered as of more worth by the virtue of a
particular characteristic such as intelligence, anymore
than the life of a human being be considered differently
as a result of a similar criterion.
The rights of any
creature should not be dependent on ability, intelligence, appearance, size or any other
characteristic.
It has to be noted that creatures who
appear to many people to be less attractive or to which
they may
even have a phobic reaction, such as insects
and arachnids, often are not considered in the some light as
a mammal, such as a dog or cat or a rabbit, and are not
accorded with even the basic right to their lives. Size
as ludicrous as it may seem is another criterion which
lessons a creatures support for even basic rights. For
example who cares about a beetle on the verge of
extinction, but if it were a species of whale or a furry
mammal... Everyone is concerned about the extinction of
bees, but if they were considered of no real value as a
pollinator or provider of honey and other products It
has to be
wondered how many people would care other than serious
conservationists.
Unfortunately this attitude may be present amongst some
animal rights supporters who inadvertently overlook
these beings as animals as much as any other with the
same inherent right to live their lives according to
their natures.
We consider the life of any creature
valuable to that creature, the lives of animals are not
merely valuable because of their utility to humans or
because they are more attractive or they are more like
us and so on.
Animals lives aren't less valuable than humans.
Animals like you or I simply wish to live and we should allow them to do so, the instinct for
survival is the most prominent of all instinctive
behaviours in both nonhuman and human animals.
Although
Animals should be allowed to freely live the lives they
wish by their nature to lead without negative
interference of any kind, medical aid and other support
measures should nevertheless be made available to animals for their
own welfare in a similar way as it should be available to
humans, which sadly is not universally the case. As the most intelligent animal
concerning the provision of medical care and other
supportive measures it is our moral obligation to ensure
that medical and other supports should be provided to any
creature to relieve suffering whenever possible.
Moreover, in addition to veterinary care, supportive
measures should be available to care for disabled or sick animals unable to care
for themselves in the wild .
Speciesism
We are opposed to
Speciesism as much as we are
opposed to racism, sexism and any other form of
discrimination. We would like to see a world were the
life of each individual being is respected regardless of race,
creed, gender, or species, regardless as to their use to
us or otherwise. And the last statement applies as well of
course to humans as much it does to nonhuman animals. It
is our philosophy that the life of a nonhuman animal is
as important to him or her as our lives are important to
us and as a consequence we should respect their right to
life. We consider all animals equal inasmuch that their
rights to live according to their natures are respected.
It is superfluous to say that
equality does not imply that animals should be granted
rights that are only applicable to humans such as the
right to education, the right to vote and so on,
this is of course ludicrous and common sense tells us
that this is not the intention of the animal rights
supporters. However as many writers on the matter often
feel the need to emphasise this I have done so here even
though it had not previously occurred to me to do
so.
We advocate that animals are equal inasmuch as their
interests should be respected and taken into
consideration.
The word interests to mean their interest in living
their lives unmolested free from suffering inflicted by
human beings, to seek out companionship, reproduce, to
care for their young and other activities according to
their natures.
Factory
Farming
If you could see or feel the suffering
you wouldn't think twice. Give back life. Don't eat
meat.
Kim Basinger
Before they reach their end, the pigs get
a shower, a real one. Water sprays from every angle to
wash the farm off them. Then they begin to feel crowded.
The pen narrows like a funnel' the drivers behind urge
the pigs forward, until one at a time they climb onto
the moving ramp... Now they scream, never having been on
such a ramp, smelling the smells they smell ahead. I do
not want to overdramatize because you've read all this
before. But it was a frightening experience, seeing
their fear, seeing so many of them go by, it had to
remind me of things no one wants to be reminded of
anymore, all mobs, all death marches, all mass murders
and executions ...
Rhodes, Richard
Pulitzer prize winning author
We support the
abolition of all types of animal farming, the most
heinous of which is factory farming. Read about the
atrocities of Factory
Farming on this website.
Also from VIVA
factoryfarming.org.uk-
Of all the
atrocities perpetrated against animals by human beings,
factory farming, along with experimentation, is the most
exploitative cruel and abusive. Please read carefully
the the information in the links above.
Veganism
We advocate a vegan world for the sake of the health and
wellbeing of all animals both human and non human and for
the planet. To this end we condemn all forms of animal farming,
most particularly that of
factory farming .
The first action you can take to end factory farming and
the most simple is to to stop eating meat and adopt a
vegan lifestyle
For more
information on this website
Vegetarianism/veganism
Animal Experimentation
Atrocities are not less atrocities when they occur in
laboratories and are called medical research.
George Bernard Shaw
During my medical education … I found vivisection
horrible, barbarous and above all unnecessary.
Carl Jung, MD
We condemn experimentation on any
living being regardless of the benefit to mankind and
consider vivisection along with factory farming as an
abhorrent crime against another sentient being.
Experimentation upon animals is considered to be of
little value in medical research. Even if it was we do
not have the right to experiment on other animals, other
sentient beings with who feel pain and suffer as much as
we do.
For more information on this issue please visit:
Uncaged Campaigns Against animal testing and experiments
Again I refer
you to appropriate quotations, the sentiment of which we
strongly echo
I abhor
vivisection…. I know of no achievement through
vivisection, no scientific discovery that could not have
been obtained without such barbarism and cruelty.
Charles
W. Mayo, MD (1961), son of the co-founder of the Mayo
Clinic.
I abhor
vivisection with my whole soul. All the scientific
discoveries stained with innocent blood I count as of no
consequence.
Mahatma
Gandhi
Vivisection is
the blackest of all the black crimes that a man is at
present committing against God and his fair creation.
Mahatma
Gandhi
Universal declaration
We support the
Universal declaration of animal rights
in the same way as we support the Universal declaration
of Human Rights and would like to belong to a world
that puts both into practice.
Fur, wool
and other animal derived clothing
Some who
reflect upon this subject for the first time will wonder
how such cruelty can have been permitted to continue in
these days of civilisation, and no doubt if men of
education saw with their own eyes what takes place under
their sanction, the system would have been put to an end
long ago.
Charles Darwin, Essay on Fur, 1878
We support the
abolition of the rearing and killing animals for their
fur. Many people have strong objections to the rearing
of animals for fur, even non vegans/vegetarians. It may
have been a necessity in the stone age, now it is nothing
more than a self indulgent decadent luxury. The
brutality and heinous cruelty with which these killings
are often carried out is beyond imagination. See links
further down
The more
common place leather often not seen in the same light as
fur though is just as cruel. Globally more than one
billion animals are slaughtered each year. Here in the
UK leather most usually comes from cows who are
slaughtered and such would of course come to an end when
the farming and slaughter of animals is abolished. Even
more horrendous though is leather from Asian countries, for example China, which may be stripped from
the animal while he or she is still alive after having
his or her throat cut. The very thought that other human
beings could perpetrate such atrocities on other living
beings is utterly shocking.
Furthermore it
is not just cows but other animals who are cruelly
exploited for their skin. Still today millions of
snakes, alligators, seals and zebras are killed for
their skins. An example we hear about each year is the
controversial Canadian seal "Hunt", really a massacre of
defenceless baby seals for their fur.
Useful
Links: Action You Can Take
Other appalling cruelty towards animals for their skins
is less well known, for example every year in China
approximately 2 million cats and dogs are killed and
hundreds of thousands of cats' and dogs' skins are
traded in Europe.1)
For more
information:
When
undercover investigators made their way onto Chinese fur
farms, they found that many animals are still alive and
struggling desperately when workers flip them onto their
backs or hang them up by their legs or tails to skin
them. When workers on these farms begin to cut the skin
and fur from an animal's leg, the free limbs kick and
writhe. Workers stomp on the necks and heads of animals
who struggle too hard to allow a clean cut.
A Shocking Look Inside Chinese Fur Farms
if you are one
of the many people who consider that the wearing of fur
is dying out, think again.
Did you know
that about thirty million mink are farmed annually worldwide
.
How To Do Animal Rights. Fur Statistics
Be mindful
though that wool more often than not comes from
slaughtered sheep. If you buy a garment made of lamb's
wool this is most certainly the case as lambs who are not sent
to slaughter but spared for a few years to breed are not
sheared until the following year. Even if your woolly
jumper came from the fleece of a sheep who was not
slaughtered, and there is really no way of
telling, eventually the sheep will finish his or her
days in the slaughter house and suffer exploitation in
the interim until he or she can no longer provide any
useful utility to man, such as a breeding machine to
provide further lambs for slaughter.
Labour and
Entertainment
We condemn the
use of animals for labour regardless of the benefits to
man. Likewise we would like to see an end to the
exploitation of
nonhuman animals for entertainment, for
example as circus performers, in sports such as greyhound
and horse racing and most certainly in dog fighting
which is in any case banned in most countries.
We are opposed
to hunting, trapping and fishing. Such "sports should be
confined to history, they are an anachronism of a bygone
age and should not be legalised in any country. It is a
sad reflection on any society that legally condones the hunting of defences animals. It is
shocking that in the UK within a very few weeks after being
elected, the coalition conservative and liberal
government propose to vote to repeal the hunting with
dogs bill. A vicious and barbaric hunt which allows dogs
to tear apart foxes and other creatures.
It was
undoubtedly the League Against Cruel Sports' proudest
moment when the culmination of eighty years' campaigning
brought about the Hunting Act in 2004, protecting
wildlife from the savagery and cruelty of the hunt.
However, despite the consigning of their 'sport' to the
history books, the hunters are now stepping up their
efforts to have the Hunting Act repealed. Moreover, some
politicians want to repeal the hunting ban despite 75%
of the public being in favour of keeping it.
Read more
about this and other issue concerning hunting and other
cruel "sports" included in
League Against Cruel Sports - Home - End cruelty to
animals in sport
We condemn the
imprisonment of animals in zoos and aquariums and other
places of confinement such as safari parks. We consider
that no animal, human or nonhuman is the property of
another, for this reason we are opposed in principle to
the keeping of pets.
Companion
Animals (Pets)
Concerning pets, we prefer the term companion animal, in a perfect world no
animal should be kept as a pet, and we wish this situation did not
exist, but this is by no means an ideal world and the
domestication of dogs and cats has progressed beyond the
point of turning back. The opposition by many animal
rights advocates including ourselves towards keeping a
companion animal should not be considered as a
call to release domesticated animals. Domesticated
animals such as dogs, cats, rabbits and so on are now
dependent on us for their survival, it would not be in
the best interests of these animals to release them into
the wild or let them loose in our streets where in both
cases they would starve to death or come to other harm.
Moreover no advocate of animal rights wishes to remove
companion animals from their homes and we support this
position. However we have a moral duty to take
responsible care of the animals that we take into our
homes and you will find that many animal rights
activists and supporters have companion animals or take
into their homes rescued animals in need of care.
We support the stance by many animal rights activists
that companion animals who are already here should live
long, healthy lives, in as natural a way as is possible,
cared for with love and respect by the humans who take
them into their homes as their guardians rather than
their owners. We would though like to see the phasing out
of confined animals as pets such as rabbits, guinea pigs,
birds, rats, fish, reptiles and end breeding of such creatures as
companion animals. These creatures still exist in the
wild where they should remain to live the lives that
nature intended.
Many people refer to themselves as an animal
lover and consider they take good care of their
companion animal, but often the desire to give a home to
a cat or dog is for entirely selfish reasons, for
example many puppies and kittens are given as Christmas
or birthday presents to young children who may not care
for the animal properly or even may be cruel. The
reality in many homes is that companion animals are
restricted with no opportunity for their natural
behaviour, they must obey commands often being shouted
at or worse such as beaten if they do not do so. Many have
no freedom even to drink as they wish or to urinate or
defecate unless humans allow then to do so. Many
dogs can only see to their bodily functions when they
are taken out for a walk possibly only a couple of times
each day. In towns or cities many dogs may never be
unleashed and may remain in cramped living spaces with
no garden. There are many situations similar to the
following of a young couple who live in a tiny terraced
house with a small mostly paved back yard, measuring at
the most eighteen feet by twelve. Here in the cramped
environment they keep two dogs, one of medium size the
other a small dog about the size of a Jack Russell. Also
until recently two guinea pigs and a rabbit. Both of the
owners of these animals go out to work for most of the
day, the dogs are shut in the house and the guinea pigs
and rabbits are in hutches outside in the shed, a dark
place, although in the winter they are brought indoors.
The only time these animals get to exercise is
occasionally in the evenings when they are allowed to run
in the yard and the dogs than go for a
walk. Last year the guinea pigs died and now the rabbit
is alone in her hutch all day. The animals were in any
case not compatible, the guinea pigs pulling out the fur
of the rabbit. The dogs are often shouted at and told to
get inside if they stray out into the yard. The sad
thing is these people love these animals in their own
way and really do not see their actions as cruel.
Dogs are often ill treated dragged about on leads
regardless of the animal's ability to keep pace. Many dogs or cats spend hours alone day in
and day out for much of their lives. I have seen dogs
trotting along on leashes while the owner cycles. Most
shocking was an occasion recently of gypsies with two
greyhounds tied to their horse drawn cart having to keep
pace while two other smaller dogs were trapped in cages
with no room to turn round. Yes not the usual scenario
but you would be amazed at what people do to the animals
they claim to love so much and sadly much of this is
done without any intention to inflict harm, but rather as
a result of ignorance or simply not thinking the matter
through.
We advocate that those who take in a companion animal
should be educated into the appropriateness of doing so
and are able to provide the necessary conditions that
provide the animal with as natural and as healthy an
environment as is possible for the animal's psychical
and psychological well being. We consider that there
should be in place some form of restriction upon who
should give a home to a domesticated animal and the type
of animal kept as a pet. Anyone giving a home to a
companion animal should ideally have to apply for a
license to include an educational requirement on keeping
their companion animal in
conditions appropriate to his or her wellbeing.
Furthermore regarding treatment of companion animals we particularly condemn the
declawing of cats as this is a painful procedure and one
which incidentally is banned in some countries
Activists and many animal rights supporters including the largest
organisation PETA believe that domestic animals kept as companion animals should
not be allowed to breed. To be quite
frank this website's position on this issue is undecided, while the mutilation
of any animal is interference and abuse the tragedy of unwanted animals is a
significant problem when unwanted baby animals are mistreated, such a drowning
kittens. Please read PETA position on spaying and neutering:
Peta.org/mc/factsheSpaying
and Neutering:A Solution for suffering
Ideally all creatures should be left to evolve to their potential
without our interference and concerning animals that
remain in the wild we certainly advocate non interference
except in the circumstances mentioned above such as to
provide veterinary care if or when it is possible to do
so. We support and applaud people who
provide animal shelters caring for injured or sick wild
animals and returning them to the wild afterwards or
providing them with a safe environment if the animal is
too sick or disabled to do so. Healthy wild
animals should not be kept as companion animals in any
circumstances and in many countries it would be illegal
to do so. However as already mentioned in the case
of companion animals returning them to the wild would
not be practical, particularly here in the UK. Yes
indeed as time goes by these creatures would adapt to
their environment retuning to a wild state however most
animal rights supporters consider that retuning dogs and
cats to to the wild would inflict more harm than good.
We suggest choosing a dog or cat from an animal
shelter, pound or
animal group rather than from a breeder or puppy mill.
Here in the UK The rehoming scheme is a good example
http://www.rspca.org.uk/allaboutanimals/pets/rehoming
Thousands of abandoned healthy animals are killed every
year so you would be helping to save a life and bring
into decline the exploitative breeding methods of puppy
mills.
The decision to have a companion animal should ideally
not be self motivated although it is understandable that
a person living alone for example may decide to give a
home to a cat or a dog solely for companionship, however
a loving relationship that adequately provides for the
animal's physical and psychological needs must be
considered to be consistent with the advocacy of animal
rights. Get a companion animal who is suitable for your
situation for example as you may have read above, it is not ideal for a person who
works for most of the day to keep a dog shut up in a
tiny apartment all day, taking him or her out for a
short walk or in some cases no walk at all. An ideal
situation is to have a good sized garden or at least be
in position to take your dog for long and frequent walks
to include an opportunity for him or her to be unleashed
in a safe and appropriate environment. Ideally it is
better for the animal if you are able to support two,
preferably of the same species.
With regards to
cats here in the UK it is becoming increasingly common
to have someone refer to their cat as a house cat in
much the way you would refer to a house plant. In recent
years many people keep their cats constantly imprisoned
in their homes, never allowing the poor animal his or
her natural freedom. The reason for this appears to be
anxiety about harm coming to the cat either as a result
of a traffic accident or deliberate abuse or to prevent
theft of the animal for purposes such as sale to a
research laboratory . However as one would not confine
ones children to the house to guard against various
potentially harmful possibilities it is inappropriate to
do so to cats and is cruel, with the exception of
keeping them indoors at night perhaps. A cat may live a
longer and safer life indoors but would he or she live a
full and as natural a life as is possible?
Care and Release of Farm Animals
Similarly, animals domesticated for
agricultural purposes should be cared for but allowed to
run free in animal reserves. An ideal situation would be
the abolition of farms and the land turned over to
provide animal reserves where domesticated animals could
live their lives and gradually return to their natural
ways. Here in the UK for example In the Yorkshire dales
most of the land is given over to sheep farming, where
in the main these sheep are left to fend for themselves
as are Herdwick sheep in the Lake district of Cumbria,
both areas would make ideal animal reserves, the animals
cared for by rangers, and add to the attraction
of these wild and scenic places. As for a surplus
of animals and over breeding in time this would
settle down to normal levels as is the case for any wild
animal because these animals will no longer be
intentionally bred. All animals retain their original genetic makeup regardless of selective breeding and in time farm
animals would regress to the way that nature intended
and settle into a normal evolutionary pattern of change
as would have been the case prior to human intervention.
Farm animals will not overrun the earth if we stop
eating them because we will no longer intentionally
breed them as we do now. Parent flocks and herds are
deliberately maintained by artificial insemination,
genetic selection, bizarre lighting schedules and other
manipulations to force them to produce billions of
offspring each year. This inflated population will fade
as people stop eating animal products. In time, as David
Gabbe states in Why Do Vegetarians Eat Like That?, "farm
animals could be left to fend for themselves; some would
make out fine, others would struggle to keep from
becoming extinct. But, like all animals (except humans),
they would adjust their numbers in accordance with the
conditions around them."
In the meantime, we have to remember that we, not they,
are responsible for their predicament. We have an
obligation to find ways to ease the transitional period
for these animals.
Don't Plants Have Feelings Too?
by By Karen Davis, PhD, President of United Poultry
Concerns
www.upc-online.org/ethics_questions.html
An idealist notion, maybe. But who would not wish to
live in a peaceful world without exploitation of any
animal either human or nonhuman. The exploitation of
other beings diminishes us and adds to the injustice in
the world, delays world peace and promotes global
warming. There is no need for anyone to eat the flesh of
any living being there is enough arable land to feed each and
every person that is alive today, enough to feed the
nine billion people, the global population predicted by
2050 2) I hope that future generations will look back
with abject horror at the appalling atrocities that
human beings have inflicted upon their fellow creatures,
beings with whom we share this beautiful world.
Since compassion for animals is so intimately
associated with goodness of character, it may be
confidently asserted that whoever is cruel to animals
cannot be a good man.
Arthur Schopenhauer
A Non Violent Approach
This website supports the nonviolent approach to
achieving rights for non human animals through peaceful
persuasion, education and campaigning and we consider that
a change to a vegan diet and life style is
the way forward to securing rights for our fellow
creatures. People simply need educating concerning the
perceived need for meat, and how animals are cruelly
treated in order to supply a relatively small minority
of the world's population with a food that is not
natural and is unnecessary to health, which in fact
results in ill health,
at the expensive of the majority
of humans
and other animals.
A man can live and be healthy without killing animals
for food; therefore, if he eats meat, he participates in
taking animal life merely for the sake of his appetite.
And to act so is immoral.
Leo Tolstoy
We do not have a natural right to eat meat; meat is not
our natural food. A tiger has a natural right to eat
meat because meat is a natural part of his diet. A
tiger has the correct anatomy to do so, sharp claws to
tear flesh, long sharp pointed canine teeth to eat raw flesh. A
tiger unlike man needs no weapon, neither does he have
to cook his food to make it suitable for him to digest.
Man most likely began to eat meat when he migrated to
colder climates and could no longer gather herbivorous
food particularly during winter time. Observing wild
animals prey on other animals, man no doubt due to his instinct for
survival, as keen as that of any other animal, most
possibly did likewise fashioning for himself weapons in
order to do so.
Man now no longer needs to eat the flesh of other animals.
Doing so now not only takes life away from the
animals he imprisons in factory farms and mercilessly
slaughters, but also from other human beings as land is
taken to grow crops in order to fatten the factory farmed
animals whose flesh he seems unable to stop consuming
despite the immorality of this practice and the risk to
his health, a practice which his mind barely turns to as
he consumes what now little resembles the once living
breathing vibrant creature who just like himself simply wants to live.
In his essay
On the Eating of Animal Flesh Volume 12 The Moralia Plutarch challenges the idea that man is naturally
carnivorous - an excuse so often used today to justify
the eating of meat appears to have been used for its
justification in ancient times. Also In his discussion against meat eating
Plutarch maintains that animals deserve ethical
consideration because they possess the attributes of
intelligence and sentience.
Can
you really ask what reason Pythagoras had for abstaining
from flesh? For my part I rather wonder both by what
accident and in what state of soul or mind the first man
did so, touched his mouth to gore and brought his lips
to the flesh of a dead creature, he who set forth tables
of dead, stale bodies and ventured to call food and
nourishment the parts that had a little before bellowed
and cried, moved and lived. How could his eyes endure
the slaughter when throats were slit and hides flayed
and limbs torn from limb? How could his nose endure the
stench? How was it that the pollution did not turn away
his taste, which made contact with the sores of others
and sucked juices and serums from mortal wounds?
You
call serpents and panthers savage and lions savage , but
you yourselves , by your own foul slaughter, leave them
no room to outdo you in cruelty; for their slaughter is
their living yours is a mere appetizer.
It is
certainly not lions and wolves that we eat out of self
defence; on the contrary, we ignore these and slaughter
the harmless , tame creatures without stings or teeth to
harm us, creatures that, I swear, Nature appears to have
produced for the sake of their beauty and grace...
But
nothing abashes us, not the flower-like tinting of the
flesh, not the cleanliness of their habits or the
unusual intelligence that may be found in these poor
wretches. No, for the sake of a little flesh we deprive
them of the sun, of the light, of the duration of life
to which they are entitled by birth and being.
The following section of the essay is indeed a very persuasive argument against meat
being a natural food for man and will often leave even
the most ardent meat eater lost for words.
We
declare, then, that it is absurd for them to say that
the practise of flesh-eating is based on nature . For
that man is not naturally carnivorous is, in the first
place, obvious from the structure of his body.
A mans frame is in no way similar to those creatures who
were made for flesh-eating; he has no hooked beak or
sharp nails or jagged teeth, no strong stomach or warmth
of vital fluids able to digest and assimilate a heavy
diet of flesh. It is from the very fact, the evenness of
our teeth, the smallness of our mouths, the softness of
our tongues, our possession of vital fluids too inert to
digest meat that nature disavows our eating of flesh. If
you declare that you are naturally designed for such a
diet, than first kill for yourself what you want to eat.
Do, it however, only through your own resources, unaided
by cleaver or cudgel of any kind or
axe. Rather, just as wolves and bears and lions
themselves slay what they eat, so you are to fell an ox
with your fangs or a boar with your jaws, or tear a lamb
or hare in bits. Fall upon it and eat it still living,
as animals do. But if you wait for what you eat to be
dead, if you have qualms about enjoying the flesh while
life is still present, why do you continue, contrary to
nature, to eat what possesses life? Even when it is
lifeless and dead, however, no one eats the flesh just
as it is; men boil it and roast it, altering it by fire
and drugs, recasting and diverting and smothering with
countless condiments the taste of gore so that the
palate may be deceived and accept what is foreign to it.
Furthermore argues Plutarch the cruelty by which meat is
acquired brutalises the human character which not only
makes it callous to the suffering of non human animals
but also to human beings.
But
apart from these considerations, do you not find here a
wonderful means of training in social responsibility?
Who could wrong a human being when he found himself so
gently and humanely disposed toward other non-human
creatures?
Excerpts from a
Translation by Harold Cherniss and William C Helmbold
quoted in Ethical Vegetarianism From Phythagaras to
Peter Singer by Kerry S. Walters and Lisa Portmess
If
you would like to read the entire essay there are a
number of translations available on the internet. I
prefer the one above which unfortunately I have not been
able to locate on the internet in the public domain,
however the following translations are available on-line
for you to read and indeed it is very worthwhile doing
so, as this essay by Plutarch provides many
insightful and thought provoking reasons why human
beings should not eat meat.
On the Eating of Flesh, by Plutarch
A comment concerning Animal welfare.
A comment concerning Animal welfare, if you are uncertain
about the difference between animal welfare and animal
rights please click
here
While this website admires the efforts of animal
welfare groups to ease the suffering of nonhuman
animals by campaigning for better conditions, we do
not support this stance and consider that the only
humane way forward is to liberate animals from the
negative effects of human influence as expressed in the
agenda of the animal rights movement.
Reforms in animal welfare although they provide
temporary relief to animals suffering in the short
term only increase public complacency in the long
term by encouraging the public to feel more
comfortable about consuming animal products.
Moreover it is bizarre is it not to claim, as many
animal welfare supporters do, that
animals are sentient beings but continue nonetheless to
believe that it is right to continue to exploit them for
our purposes, particularly considering the effects that
doing so not only has on the unfortunate animals but
upon other
Human beings
and the
environment.
Nonetheless in our view signing petitions and other
activities for improvement in the condition of exploited
animals or against certain atrocities is encouraged, but
the main aim must be to liberate animals from
exploitation.
Final comment concerns Animal Rights and the the
Holocaust, a comparison between the
treatment of animals and the Holocaust by Several
writers, including Jewish Nobel Prize laureate Isaac Bashevitz Singer and PETA which launched a campaign
making this comparison. This website considers the
comparison valid and supports this viewpoint.
Our grandchildren will ask us one day: Where were you
during the Holocaust of the animals? What did you do
against these horrifying crimes? We won't be able to
offer the same excuse for the second time, that we
didn't know.
Kaplan, Dr. Helmut Arthur Schopenhauer
1788-1860 — German philosopher
Link
In the main (there are areas of disagreement) this website supports the stance on
Animal rights as expressed by but not limited to:
PETA
The People for the Ethical Treatment
of Animals (PETA) Foundation is a
UK-based charity dedicated to
establishing and protecting the
rights of all animals. Like
humans, animals are capable of
suffering and have interests in
leading their own lives; therefore,
they are not ours to use – for food,
clothing, entertainment,
experimentation or any other reason.
PETA and our affiliates around the
world educate policymakers and the
public about cruelty to animals and
promote an understanding of the
right of all animals to be treated
with respect
peta.org.uk/ with links to international web sites
The Abolitionist Approach
Mission Statement
The mission of this website is to provide a clear
statement of an approach to animal rights that (1)
requires the abolition of animal exploitation and
rejects the regulation of animal exploitation; (2) is
based only on animal sentience and no other cognitive
characteristic, (3) regards veganism as the moral
baseline of the animal rights position; and (4) rejects
all violence and promotes activism in the form of
creative, non-violent vegan education
abolitionistapproach.com/
Animal Equality
Animal Equality is an international non-profit
organisation dedicated to achieving equal consideration
and respect for animals. Founded in Madrid, Spain in
January 2006 we are currently active in Spain, the
United Kingdom, Italy, Peru, Venezuela and Colombia.
animalequality.net
VIVA Vegetarians International Voice for Animals
What does Viva! Do?
Viva! campaigns for a vegetarian/vegan world because
most farmed animals spend their short and miserable
lives in the filth of factory farms and are killed with
sickening barbarity – see here We expose this abuse by
secretly going inside these shameful places and filming
the suffering – publicising it with nationwide campaigns
that bring about change. Billions of animals are also
killed at sea causing immense suffering and the
ecological collapse of the oceans
viva.org.uk/
League Against Cruel Sports - Home - End cruelty to
animals in sport
We work
to expose and bring to an end the cruelty inflicted on
animals in the name of 'sport'
Uncaged Campaigns Against animal testing and experiments
We are a
peaceful international animal protection organisation
based in Sheffield, England. Our main campaigns are
against animal experiments (vivisection); against
xenotransplantation (animal to human transplants); the
global boycott of Procter & Gamble; for animal rights
and for democratic action on animal issues through the
political system.
References
1)
Animals Are Not Ours to Wear The Issues PETA.org.uk
2) If animal farming were to stop and we
were to use the land to grow grain to feed ourselves, we
could feed every single person on this planet. Consuming
crops directly - rather than feeding them to animals and
then eating animals - is a far more efficient way to
feed the world. This Viva! Guide looks at why eating
meat is a major cause of world hunger and how
vegetarianism can provide a solution.
viva.org.uk/guides/feedtheworld.htm
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