From Publishers Weekly
In legal theory, Francione notes, "Animal welfare, unlike animal rights, rests on the notion that animals are property and that virtually every animal interest can be sacrificed in order to obtain `benefits' for people." Animal welfare is rather like "wise use"--i.e., eat animals, experiment on them, but try to avoid "unnecessary" suffering. As Francione says, "I do not think that we can meaningfully speak of legal rights for animals as long as animals are regarded as property." Francione follows his 1995 book, Animals, Property and the Law, with a scholarly, sometimes dense but generally compelling argument that the modern animal-rights movement is substantially one for animal welfare that ignores the question of whether animals have inherent rights. Even the more radical animal advocates dismiss the idea of rights as a utopian concept without immediate practical application. Discussing the dichotomy and the blurring of the issues, the book sometimes becomes redundant, both in its reiteration of the stands of prominent animal rights activists and in its analyses of definitions, legal and otherwise. The points of contention are multifaceted and occasionally confusing, but that complexity is clarified somewhat by the addition of imaginative anecdotes. As a Rutgers law professor and codirector of the Rutgers Animal Rights Law Center, Francione is clearly trying to affect public policy, but a more accessible book would have given him a better chance to affect public opinion as well.
Copyright 1996 Cahners Business Information, Inc.
Présentation de l'éditeur
Are 'animal welfare' supporters indistinguishable from the animal exploiters they oppose? Do reformist measures reaffirm the underlying principles that make animal exploitation possible in the first place? In this provocative book, Gary L. Francione argues that the modern animal rights movement has become indistinguishable from a century-old concern with the welfare of animals that in no way prevents them from being exploited. Francione maintains that advocating humane treatment of animals retains a sense of them as instrumental to human ends. When they are considered dispensable property, he says, they are left fundamentally without 'rights'. Until the seventies, Francione claims, this was the paradigm within which the Animal Rights Movement operated, as demonstrated by laws such as the Federal Humane Slaughter Act of 1958. In this wide-ranging book, Francione takes the reader through the philosophical and intellectual debates surrounding animal welfare to make clear the difference between animal rights and animal welfare.
Through case studies such as campaigns against animal shelters, animal laboratories, and the wearing of fur, Francione demonstrates the selectiveness and confusion inherent in reformist programs that target fur, for example, but leave wool and leather alone. The solution to this dilemma, Francione argues, is not in a liberal position that espouses the humane treatment of animals, but in a more radical acceptance of the fundamental inalienability of animal rights. Author note: Gary L. Francione is Professor of Law and Nicholas de B. Katzenbach Scholar of Law at Rutgers University Law School, Newark. He is the co-director of the Rutgers Animal Rights Law Center and the author of Animals, Property, and the Law (Temple).
Through case studies such as campaigns against animal shelters, animal laboratories, and the wearing of fur, Francione demonstrates the selectiveness and confusion inherent in reformist programs that target fur, for example, but leave wool and leather alone. The solution to this dilemma, Francione argues, is not in a liberal position that espouses the humane treatment of animals, but in a more radical acceptance of the fundamental inalienability of animal rights. Author note: Gary L. Francione is Professor of Law and Nicholas de B. Katzenbach Scholar of Law at Rutgers University Law School, Newark. He is the co-director of the Rutgers Animal Rights Law Center and the author of Animals, Property, and the Law (Temple).
