Francione Animals Quotes & Sayings
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Top Francione Animals Quotes

We do not need to eat animals, wear animals, or use animals for entertainment purposes, and our only defense of these uses is our pleasure, amusement, and convenience. — Gary L. Francione

Being vegan is not just a matter of being 'kind' to animals. First and foremost, it is a matter of being just and observing our moral obligation to not treat other sentient beings as things. — Gary L. Francione

There is no meaningful distinction between eating flesh and eating dairy or other animal products. Animals exploited in the dairy industry live longer than those used for meat, but they are treated worse during their lives, and they end up in the same slaughterhouse after which we consume their flesh anyway. There is probably more suffering in a glass of milk or an ice cream cone than there is in a steak. — Gary L. Francione

You don't have to love animals to recognize that it is immoral and unjust to exploit them. But if you do love animals, but you continue to participate in their exploitation, you need to rethink your idea of what love means. — Gary L. Francione

I find it very annoying that so many animal advocates talk about the difficulty of being vegan. Many animal advocates are inclined to make the issue their suffering and not the animals' suffering, and I suppose that accounts for part of the reason that veganism is portrayed as such a "sacrifice." And many animal advocates are not vegans, or are "flexible vegans," which means that they do not observe veganism at all or not consistently, and emphasizing the supposed difficulty of veganism is part of justifying their own behavior. — Gary L. Francione

Because animals are property, we consider as 'humane treatment' that we would regard as torture if it were inflicted on humans. — Gary L. Francione

When it comes to animal agriculture, there is conventional, which is really hideous, and "compassionate" or "certified humane" or whatever, which *may* be *slightly* less hideous. But it's all torture. It's all wrong. These "happy" gimmicks are just designed to make the public feel better about exploiting animals. Don't buy the propaganda of "happy" exploitation. Go vegan and promote veganism. — Gary L. Francione

If you claim to 'love' animals but you eat animal products, you need to think critically about how you understand love. — Gary L. Francione

We eat animals because they taste good. And if that's O.K., what's wrong with wearing fur? We need as a society to think seriously about our institutionalized animal use. — Gary L. Francione

Beyond the economics of production efficiency, animal welfare laws that require "humane" treatment are really not about animals; they're about humans and making humans feel better about using animals. We can comfort ourselves with the idea that we are acting in a "humane" way. — Gary L. Francione

I certainly believe that we have a moral obligation to care for the dogs, cats, and other nonhumans whose existence we have caused or facilitated as part of the institution of 'pet' ownership. But I maintain that we ought to abolish the institution and stop causing or facilitating the existence of more 'companion' animals. — Gary L. Francione

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. — Gary L. Francione

Most of the time, those who use animals in experiments justify that use by pointing to alleged benefits to human and animal health and the supposed necessity of using animals to obtain those benefits. — Gary L. Francione

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. — Gary L. Francione

We should take good care of the domestic animals we have brought into existence until they die. We should stop bringing more domestic animals into existence. — Gary L. Francione

None of the writers suggest that rape may be morally permissible dependent on "contextual relations." None of the writers suggest that the morality of human slavery is dependent on "contextual relations." So, although these essays purport to reject the hierarchy of patriarchal ethics, and to offer the ethic of care as an alternative, the ethic of care is applied in significantly different ways depending on whether we are talking about humans or animals. When we apply the ethic of care to human beings, we assume from the outset that human beings have at least some interests that cannot be compromised irrespective of context. When we apply the ethic of care to animals, we assume that all animal interests can be violated if the "context" justifies it. The feminist ethic of care and animal welfare theory both accept the notion of animals as "things" and accept the legitimacy of the resulting hierarchy. — Gary L. Francione

Donald Watson, who founded The Vegan Society in 1944 and who lived a healthy, active life until passing on in 2005, maintained that dairy products, such as milk, eggs, and cheese, were every bit as cruel and exploitive of sentient animal life as was slaughtering animals for their flesh: "The unquestionable cruelty associated with the production of dairy produce has made it clear that lactovegetarianism is but a half-way house between flesh-eating and a truly humane, civilised diet, and we think, therefore, that during our life on earth we should try to evolve sufficiently to make the 'full journey.'" He also avoided wearing leather, wool or silk and used a fork, rather than a spade in his gardening to avoid killing worms.
Let us instil in others the reverence or life that Donald Watson had and that he passed on to us. — Gary L. Francione

The plain fact is that this country and other industrial countries are deeply dependent on animal exploitation to sustain their present economic structures. The plain fact is that we are more dependent on animal exploitation than were the states of the southern United States on human slavery ... . So, although there are more people concerned about animals and the environment, little progress has been made because those who profit from animal exploitation and the government that exists to serve their interests have a lot to lose and are not budging - not an inch. — Gary L. Francione

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. — Gary L. Francione

Veganism must be the baseline if we are to have any hope of shifting the paradigm away from animals as things and toward animals as nonhuman persons. — Gary L. Francione

The notion that animals are not self-aware is based on nothing more than a stipulation that the only way to be self-aware is to have the self-awareness of a normal adult human. That is certainly one way to be self-aware. It's not the only way. — Gary L. Francione

As I discuss in Introduction to Animal Rights: Your Child or the Dog?, we may, in the lifeboat or burning-house situation, decide to favor the human over the nonhuman not because death is a lesser harm to the nonhuman, but because we do not know what death means to the nonhuman and we have a better idea what it means to the human. We might, therefore, rely on this - a matter of epistemological limitation on our part and not any empirical claim that death is a lesser harm to humans - as the tie-breaker. We might also flip a coin. We might also decide to choose the nonhuman for some other reason, such as that the human in question is very old and the nonhuman in question is very young. In no case, however, would I think it appropriate to invoke any notion that humans are "higher" animals. — Gary L. Francione

Domesticated animals such as dogs and cats are vulnerable and entirely dependent on us for all of their needs. They live very unnatural lives because they are not part of the human world and they are not part of the animal world. — Gary L. Francione

None of that is necessary. It's not as if we're in a situation where it is us or them.There's something peculiar about talking about the moral status of animals, when we are killing and eating them for no reason whatsoever. — Gary L. Francione

If you are a feminist and are not a vegan, you are ignoring the exploitation of female nonhumans and the commodification of their reproductive processes, as well as the destruction of their relationship with their babies;
If you are an environmentalist and not a vegan, you are ignoring the undeniable fact that animal agriculture is an ecological disaster;
If you embrace nonviolence but are not a vegan, then words of nonviolence come out of your mouth as the products of torture and death go into it;
If you claim to love animals but you are eating them or products made from them, or otherwise consuming them, you see loving as consistent with harming that which you claim to love.
Stop trying to make excuses. There are no good ones to make. Go vegan. — Gary L. Francione

People need to be educated so that they can make intelligent moral choices — Gary L. Francione

If you love animals but think that veganism is extreme, then you are confused about the meaning of love. — Gary L. Francione

Sentience is not an end in itself. It is a means to the end of staying alive. Sentient beings use sensations of pain and suffering to escape situations that threaten their lives and sensations of pleasure to pursue situations that enhance their lives. Just as humans will often endure excruciating pain in order to remain alive, animals will often not only endure but inflict on themselves excruciating pain - as when gnawing off a paw caught in a trap - in order to live. Sentience is what evolution has produced in order to ensure the survival of certain complex organisms. To claim that a being who has evolved to develop a consciousness of pain and pleasure has no interest in remaining alive is to say that conscious beings have no interest in remaining conscious, a most peculiar position to take. — Gary L. Francione

There is no difference between sitting around the pit watching dogs fight and sitting around a summer barbecue roasting the corpses of tortured animals or enjoying the dairy or eggs from tortured animals. — Gary L. Francione

If you think that being vegan is difficult, imagine how difficult it is for animals that you are not vegan. — Gary L. Francione

Veganism is about nonviolence. It is about not engaging in harm to other sentient beings; to oneself; and to the environment upon which all beings depend for life. In my view, the animal rights movement is, at its core, a movement about ending violence to all sentient beings. It is a movement that seeks fundamental justice for all. It is an emerging peace movement that does not stop at the arbitrary line that separates humans from nonhumans. — Gary L. Francione

We do not think clearly about our moral obligations to animals. — Gary L. Francione

There is increasing social concern about our use of nonhumans for experiments, food, clothing and entertainment. This concern about animals reflects both our own moral development as a civilization and our recognition that the differences between humans and animals are, for the most part, differences of degree and not of kind. — Gary L. Francione

Forty-two years after Dr. King was murdered, we are still a nation of inequality. People of color, women, gays, lesbians, and others are still treated as second-class citizens. Yes, things have changed but we have still not achieved equality among all humans. And nonhuman animals continue to be chattel property without any inherent value. — Gary L. Francione

If you really care about animals, then stop trying to figure out how to exploit them 'compassionately'. Just stop exploiting them. — Gary L. Francione

We cannot talk simultaneously about animal rights and the 'humane' slaughter of animals. — Gary L. Francione

Eating animals involves an intentional decision to participate in the suffering and death of nonhumans where there is no plausible moral justification. — Gary L. Francione

It's really not rocket science. If animals are not mere things; if they have moral value, we cannot justify eating, wearing, or using them particularly when we have no better reason than palate pleasure or fashion. If you are eating, wearing, or using animals, then your actions say that you regard them as mere things, despite what your words say. — Gary L. Francione

The distinction between meat and other animal products is total nonsense. Vegetarianism is a morally incoherent position. If you regard animals as members of the moral community, you really don't have a choice but to go vegan. — Gary L. Francione

If you care about animals, there is one and only one choice: go vegan. Can you choose not to be vegan? Sure. You can choose not to care. — Gary L. Francione

Veganism is an act of nonviolent defiance. It is our statement that we reject the notion that animals are things and that we regard sentient nonhumans as moral persons with the fundamental moral right not to be treated as the property or resources of humans. — Gary L. Francione

There is no moral distinction between fur and other materials made from animals, such as leather, which also is the result of the suffering and death of sentient beings. — Gary L. Francione

When it comes to animals, we suffer from moral schizophrenia. — Gary L. Francione

As discussed earlier, humans who lack the reflective self-awareness of normal adults, such as those with particular forms of amnesia or very young children or those with certain mental disabilities, still are self-aware and still have an interest in continuing to live. There may, of course, be a difference between the self-awareness of normal adult humans and that of other animals. But even if that is the case, it does not mean that the latter have no interest in continuing to live, and it does not justify treating the latter as commodities. Singer begs the question from the outset by maintaining — Gary L. Francione