In response to Sebastian's post here
While this is not a strictly philosophical post, it is fascinating to reflect on the history of various social movements that have achieved (to some degree) success nationally and internationally. Some movements that have succeeded are the international movement's for women's rights, to abolish slavery, and now gay rights may have moved into the category of successful movements. On not one of these issues has there been a perfect victory(1), but at the very least the legitimate powers-that-be recognise the issue and at least make lip service to fighting against these various transgressions against certain groups natural rights.
The victory for animal rights, if it comes, will be far more complete and satisfying than any of these other victories, except perhaps that victory over legal slavery, because of the shear scope and horror of animal suffering under our current system of systematic murder and torture. Naturally this movement is different because it is inherently a liberal movement not a radical one, despite political radicals often being the first to support animal rights. It's a fundamentally liberal movement because animals cannot rise up and advocate for themselves, thus the movement falls into the liberal model of the socially and economically included advocating for the expansion of legal rights to those groups that were previously excluded.
Hopefully the day will come where 'speciesist' is as much an insult as 'homophobe' or 'racist,' but animal rights being accepted by society is by no means inevitable Our species seems to have an uncanny ability to rationalise, and despite the economic conditions being right, we have been owning and eating animals for millennia. It's going to be a hard habit to break, but we must try, if only in our own lives.
(1) Even slavery still needs work http://www.state.gov/j/tip/what/
While this is not a strictly philosophical post, it is fascinating to reflect on the history of various social movements that have achieved (to some degree) success nationally and internationally. Some movements that have succeeded are the international movement's for women's rights, to abolish slavery, and now gay rights may have moved into the category of successful movements. On not one of these issues has there been a perfect victory(1), but at the very least the legitimate powers-that-be recognise the issue and at least make lip service to fighting against these various transgressions against certain groups natural rights.
The victory for animal rights, if it comes, will be far more complete and satisfying than any of these other victories, except perhaps that victory over legal slavery, because of the shear scope and horror of animal suffering under our current system of systematic murder and torture. Naturally this movement is different because it is inherently a liberal movement not a radical one, despite political radicals often being the first to support animal rights. It's a fundamentally liberal movement because animals cannot rise up and advocate for themselves, thus the movement falls into the liberal model of the socially and economically included advocating for the expansion of legal rights to those groups that were previously excluded.
Hopefully the day will come where 'speciesist' is as much an insult as 'homophobe' or 'racist,' but animal rights being accepted by society is by no means inevitable Our species seems to have an uncanny ability to rationalise, and despite the economic conditions being right, we have been owning and eating animals for millennia. It's going to be a hard habit to break, but we must try, if only in our own lives.
(1) Even slavery still needs work http://www.state.gov/j/tip/what/
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