WEBVTT 00:00:00.360 --> 00:00:05.820 Back in 2016, Jerry Kolb and Michael Dorff published 00:00:05.820 --> 00:00:09.240 one of the most thought -provoking book in the 00:00:09.240 --> 00:00:12.419 animal rights world. It is called Beating Hearts 00:00:12.419 --> 00:00:15.839 and it attempts to resolve a challenging question. 00:00:16.480 --> 00:00:19.719 How can you condemn hunting, animal farming and 00:00:19.719 --> 00:00:23.719 animal experimentation while also favoring legal 00:00:23.719 --> 00:00:26.559 abortion, which is the deliberate destruction 00:00:26.559 --> 00:00:30.629 of a human fetus? If you are someone like me, 00:00:30.829 --> 00:00:33.929 who thinks abortion should be legal, but goes 00:00:33.929 --> 00:00:38.090 as far as not to even kill mosquitoes, then this 00:00:38.090 --> 00:00:41.850 issue hits home. But more than that, this book 00:00:41.850 --> 00:00:44.829 is the proof that the secular vegan philosophy 00:00:44.829 --> 00:00:48.929 and intellectual tradition has enough depth to 00:00:48.929 --> 00:00:52.289 tackle and appropriate itself some of the most 00:00:52.289 --> 00:00:55.789 complex and sensitive moral hot button issues 00:00:55.789 --> 00:01:00.119 of our time. To discuss the book, I have the 00:01:00.119 --> 00:01:03.100 honor to welcome the author himself, Michael 00:01:03.100 --> 00:01:07.140 Dorff, a Robert S. Stevens Professor of Law at 00:01:07.140 --> 00:01:10.579 Cornell University and long -time animal rights 00:01:10.579 --> 00:01:13.959 activist. Check out the episode notes for more 00:01:13.959 --> 00:01:17.700 details. And if you appreciate this conversation 00:01:17.700 --> 00:01:20.920 and my independent reporting of the animal rights 00:01:20.920 --> 00:01:24.019 world, then please share this episode with your 00:01:24.019 --> 00:01:29.159 fellow vegans. asked me before we started recording 00:01:29.159 --> 00:01:32.319 to talk a little bit about Sherry Kolb, who is 00:01:32.319 --> 00:01:36.420 my co -author on this book and who passed away 00:01:36.420 --> 00:01:42.620 in 2022. The book was published in 2016 and I 00:01:42.620 --> 00:01:44.439 thought I'd say a little bit about Sherry's work 00:01:44.439 --> 00:01:50.980 in animal rights. So first, both of us were trained 00:01:50.980 --> 00:01:55.040 as lawyers. We were colleagues for many years. 00:01:55.290 --> 00:02:03.590 and but also married. And we became vegans in 00:02:03.590 --> 00:02:07.230 2006, but had been sort of moving in that direction 00:02:07.230 --> 00:02:10.590 in the way that a lot of people do over the better 00:02:10.590 --> 00:02:18.169 course of a decade in stages. Initially, we did 00:02:18.169 --> 00:02:25.090 so as a kind of personal choice. And over time, 00:02:25.210 --> 00:02:28.469 it became woven into our respective work. I would 00:02:28.469 --> 00:02:33.229 say more initially for Sherry than for me. If 00:02:33.229 --> 00:02:37.909 I think about the roots of Sherry's activism, 00:02:38.689 --> 00:02:41.669 she always loved animals. We had dogs, and she 00:02:41.669 --> 00:02:45.729 was very fond of animals as a kid. She actually 00:02:45.729 --> 00:02:49.810 is, I think I can say this, she's responsible. 00:02:50.169 --> 00:02:54.729 for a line in a Supreme Court case in 1993, long 00:02:54.729 --> 00:02:57.550 before she became vegan. So when Sherry was a 00:02:57.550 --> 00:03:00.509 law clerk for Justice Harry Blackmon on the U 00:03:00.509 --> 00:03:02.930 .S. Supreme Court, there was a case before the 00:03:02.930 --> 00:03:05.870 court called Church of Lakumi Babalu -I against 00:03:05.870 --> 00:03:10.110 Aylia. And the case posed the question whether 00:03:10.110 --> 00:03:15.409 a local law that forbade ritual animal slaughter 00:03:15.409 --> 00:03:18.710 was targeted at practitioners of Santeria. whether 00:03:18.710 --> 00:03:22.810 that law violated freedom of religion. And the 00:03:22.810 --> 00:03:25.069 Supreme Court unanimously said, yes, the law 00:03:25.069 --> 00:03:28.330 was unconstitutional because it singled out ritual 00:03:28.330 --> 00:03:30.870 slaughter as opposed to being a kind of general 00:03:30.870 --> 00:03:35.349 purpose anti -cruelty law. Justice Blackmun wrote 00:03:35.349 --> 00:03:38.509 a concurrence saying that, well, it would be 00:03:38.509 --> 00:03:40.949 a very different case if this were a law that 00:03:40.949 --> 00:03:44.319 was going after slaughter more generally on the 00:03:44.319 --> 00:03:48.879 grounds that it was inhumane. In that case, the 00:03:48.879 --> 00:03:50.699 government would have much stronger interest. 00:03:51.439 --> 00:03:54.240 He wrote that because Sherry pushed him to write 00:03:54.240 --> 00:03:57.639 it. And it's, you know, it's one of the very 00:03:57.639 --> 00:04:00.300 few expressions of what you might think of as 00:04:00.300 --> 00:04:04.120 animal welfare in the US Supreme Court case law. 00:04:04.659 --> 00:04:06.740 So I think Sherry was kind of a proto vegan. 00:04:06.969 --> 00:04:12.310 already. But what sort of pushed her and therefore 00:04:12.310 --> 00:04:15.650 me into veganism and then the animal rights movement 00:04:15.650 --> 00:04:18.689 was that she was for many years colleagues with 00:04:18.689 --> 00:04:24.529 Gary Francione at the Rutgers law school. And 00:04:24.529 --> 00:04:30.430 Gary is of course a well -known author and animal 00:04:30.430 --> 00:04:35.310 rights activist. He wasn't that, I would say, 00:04:35.410 --> 00:04:37.740 much of an advocate with his colleagues, I think 00:04:37.740 --> 00:04:40.100 because he didn't think there was much of a hope. 00:04:41.220 --> 00:04:43.500 But Sherry was sympathetic to him from the beginning. 00:04:43.600 --> 00:04:48.860 She started working there in 1995. And one way 00:04:48.860 --> 00:04:51.399 you saw it was she would sometimes bake cookies 00:04:51.399 --> 00:04:55.120 for the faculty. And because she wanted to include 00:04:55.120 --> 00:04:59.040 Gary, she always made them vegan, too. And that, 00:04:59.040 --> 00:05:05.029 I think, planted a seed. There was no exact turning 00:05:05.029 --> 00:05:07.810 point for veganism, but we sort of, as I said, 00:05:08.069 --> 00:05:11.129 gradually got there in 2006. And then after we 00:05:11.129 --> 00:05:15.569 moved to Ithaca, we sort of joined the local 00:05:15.569 --> 00:05:18.629 vegan community, which included a number of very 00:05:18.629 --> 00:05:22.389 prominent people. So Colin Campbell, who's most 00:05:22.389 --> 00:05:25.949 famous for the China study, lives in Ithaca. 00:05:27.670 --> 00:05:31.550 There's a farm sanctuary is a 40 minute drive 00:05:31.550 --> 00:05:37.629 away in Watkins Glen. The filmmakers, James Labeck 00:05:37.629 --> 00:05:40.990 and Jenny Stein live here. A friend of ours, 00:05:41.310 --> 00:05:44.670 Amy Hamlin, who runs something called the Coalition 00:05:44.670 --> 00:05:47.230 for Healthy School Foods, which promotes plant 00:05:47.230 --> 00:05:50.069 based foods in public schools. lives here. So 00:05:50.069 --> 00:05:52.829 we became friends with all of these people. And 00:05:52.829 --> 00:05:54.870 one of the things they encouraged us to do was 00:05:54.870 --> 00:05:57.750 to go to something called Vegan Summerfest. At 00:05:57.750 --> 00:05:59.470 the time, it was called Vegetarian Summerfest, 00:05:59.490 --> 00:06:03.709 although it was purely vegan. And there, we were 00:06:03.709 --> 00:06:07.670 exposed to just many more people in the movement. 00:06:08.610 --> 00:06:12.370 And that led Sherry to decide she wanted to offer 00:06:12.370 --> 00:06:15.910 a class in animal rights. A lot of law schools 00:06:15.910 --> 00:06:20.759 offer classes in animal law. But Her view at 00:06:20.759 --> 00:06:22.759 the time i think this was true for her throughout 00:06:22.759 --> 00:06:25.879 her life was that the law was not a very powerful 00:06:25.879 --> 00:06:29.800 instrument for bringing about change for animals 00:06:29.800 --> 00:06:33.259 mostly because. It's very difficult to enforce 00:06:33.259 --> 00:06:38.540 laws that go very far beyond where people are 00:06:38.540 --> 00:06:41.740 in their own social attitudes and so she thought 00:06:41.740 --> 00:06:43.839 that if you wanted to make real progress you 00:06:43.839 --> 00:06:46.920 had to at least start with working on people's. 00:06:47.790 --> 00:06:51.050 viewpoints. And so she taught this class in animal 00:06:51.050 --> 00:06:54.730 rights for many, many years. She brought in guest 00:06:54.730 --> 00:06:57.949 speakers, many of whom we met at Summerfest. 00:06:58.850 --> 00:07:02.050 And, you know, they had a lot of various perspectives. 00:07:02.170 --> 00:07:04.250 We met lots of interesting people in the movement. 00:07:05.769 --> 00:07:09.350 And that led to Sherry's first book, which was 00:07:09.350 --> 00:07:10.910 not her first book, but her first book on animal 00:07:10.910 --> 00:07:15.110 rights, which was called Mind If I Order the 00:07:15.110 --> 00:07:17.750 Cheeseburger. and other questions people ask 00:07:17.750 --> 00:07:21.730 vegans and what that book does in uh 13 chapters 00:07:21.730 --> 00:07:25.990 is it poses questions that people commonly ask 00:07:25.990 --> 00:07:29.350 like you know where do you get your protein um 00:07:29.350 --> 00:07:32.189 uh isn't it you know if other animals eat animals 00:07:32.189 --> 00:07:34.550 why is it wrong for humans to eat animals these 00:07:34.550 --> 00:07:37.250 sorts of things some of which are often posed 00:07:37.250 --> 00:07:42.170 as gacha questions or not in good faith but the 00:07:42.170 --> 00:07:43.709 point of her book was to take these questions 00:07:43.709 --> 00:07:46.930 seriously to treat them, regardless of how they 00:07:46.930 --> 00:07:50.769 might be asked any given person, as though they 00:07:50.769 --> 00:07:52.910 were being asked in good faith, and then really 00:07:52.910 --> 00:07:56.870 grapple with them. One of the questions that 00:07:56.870 --> 00:08:00.550 was posed in that book is, are you pro -life? 00:08:01.629 --> 00:08:03.970 Because that was a question we had encountered 00:08:03.970 --> 00:08:07.889 from i think some people who were pro -choice 00:08:07.889 --> 00:08:10.170 on abortion and wanted just sort of wanted to 00:08:10.170 --> 00:08:12.529 know well is does your theory lead to this other 00:08:12.529 --> 00:08:15.069 position and some who were in fact pro -life 00:08:15.069 --> 00:08:19.310 on abortion uh but were part of the animal rights 00:08:19.310 --> 00:08:21.509 movement so uh you can think of someone like 00:08:21.509 --> 00:08:23.790 matthew scully i mean he wasn't the actual person 00:08:23.790 --> 00:08:25.750 who posed that question to sherry but other people 00:08:25.750 --> 00:08:31.709 did and um she has a kind of uh the kernel of 00:08:31.709 --> 00:08:35.649 the argument that we would unpack at greater 00:08:35.649 --> 00:08:39.309 length in Beating Hearts in that chapter of Mind 00:08:39.309 --> 00:08:43.669 If I Order the Cheeseburger. In addition to the 00:08:43.669 --> 00:08:45.289 chapters in Mind If I Order the Cheeseburger, 00:08:45.470 --> 00:08:48.230 Sheri had all sorts of interesting ideas about 00:08:48.230 --> 00:08:50.230 veganism and animal rights, which she wrote about 00:08:50.230 --> 00:08:55.750 both in academic work that appears in scholarly 00:08:55.750 --> 00:09:00.070 journals and in more popular work. She and I, 00:09:00.090 --> 00:09:03.090 for many years, I still do this. publish a bi 00:09:03.090 --> 00:09:06.990 -weekly columns first in something called Find 00:09:06.990 --> 00:09:11.649 Law and for the last 15 years or so in a journal 00:09:11.649 --> 00:09:15.809 called Verdict. And in addition to that, I have 00:09:15.809 --> 00:09:20.090 a blog for which I write two or three times a 00:09:20.090 --> 00:09:22.450 week, and Sherry used to write every other week. 00:09:22.889 --> 00:09:25.830 So she would explore almost all sorts of things. 00:09:25.870 --> 00:09:29.370 She had a number of interesting essays about 00:09:29.370 --> 00:09:33.870 the relation between various religious practices 00:09:33.870 --> 00:09:39.529 and veganism. She was quite interested in how 00:09:39.529 --> 00:09:43.509 different movements responded and worked together. 00:09:44.009 --> 00:09:48.490 So she would draw parallels between the LGBTQ 00:09:48.490 --> 00:09:53.529 rights movement and animal rights. And so she, 00:09:53.529 --> 00:09:56.110 you know, I think she sort of covered the waterfront 00:09:56.110 --> 00:10:00.950 during the period in which she was actively thinking 00:10:00.950 --> 00:10:04.450 and writing about animal rights. Admirable. Thank 00:10:04.450 --> 00:10:08.509 you so much for sharing that about Sherry. And 00:10:08.509 --> 00:10:12.710 I'm impatient to get into the topic of the book, 00:10:12.909 --> 00:10:17.009 Beating Hearts. But first, I want to have maybe 00:10:17.009 --> 00:10:20.769 your opinion as a lawyer and as a professor of 00:10:20.769 --> 00:10:25.490 law about the expression, the term animal rights. 00:10:25.960 --> 00:10:29.340 I'm meeting more and more activists in the animal 00:10:29.340 --> 00:10:32.179 rights animal liberation space who are taking 00:10:32.179 --> 00:10:35.539 their distance away from that expression and 00:10:35.539 --> 00:10:40.179 who would rather prefer to use vegan or veganism 00:10:40.179 --> 00:10:44.639 instead of talking about animal rights because 00:10:44.639 --> 00:10:48.279 they feel you know it's a bit too much detached 00:10:48.279 --> 00:10:52.399 from the reality of people and that maybe there's 00:10:52.409 --> 00:10:55.710 Like you said, no future in advancing the animal 00:10:55.710 --> 00:11:00.710 cause on the legal front. What do you make of 00:11:00.710 --> 00:11:06.350 that and of the term animal rights? Yeah. So 00:11:06.350 --> 00:11:08.129 I want to answer that question in a second, but 00:11:08.129 --> 00:11:11.009 first I want to just clarify. I don't think there's 00:11:11.009 --> 00:11:14.070 no future in advancing the cause of animals through 00:11:14.070 --> 00:11:17.690 the law. I think that I would qualify that in 00:11:17.690 --> 00:11:20.429 two ways. So the contention, which was Sherry's, 00:11:20.470 --> 00:11:24.240 but I largely share this. is that it will be 00:11:24.240 --> 00:11:27.399 difficult to make a whole lot of progress now 00:11:27.399 --> 00:11:30.779 through laws that do what we really want them 00:11:30.779 --> 00:11:33.059 to do, because to get those enacted, you would 00:11:33.059 --> 00:11:35.379 need much more support than they currently have. 00:11:35.960 --> 00:11:38.460 But I think there are at least two ways in which 00:11:38.460 --> 00:11:41.820 law can be useful. One is we can think long term 00:11:41.820 --> 00:11:44.840 that eventually, once people's hearts and minds 00:11:44.840 --> 00:11:47.799 have been changed, it might be possible to enact 00:11:47.799 --> 00:11:52.620 laws that do have serious teeth. And the second 00:11:52.620 --> 00:11:56.600 is that, you know, I don't think of legal reform, 00:11:56.740 --> 00:12:00.899 whether through legislation, referenda, or court 00:12:00.899 --> 00:12:06.539 cases, as operating separate from social and 00:12:06.539 --> 00:12:11.279 political activism, so that litigation or a campaign 00:12:11.279 --> 00:12:16.159 for legal change can be a kind of social activism, 00:12:16.340 --> 00:12:19.240 so that even if what you're seeking is relatively 00:12:19.240 --> 00:12:23.730 modest, You know, getting rid of battery cages, 00:12:23.769 --> 00:12:27.629 for example, or as in the case of litigate the 00:12:27.629 --> 00:12:29.690 litigation, you're just trying to have this these 00:12:29.690 --> 00:12:32.190 particular elephants moved to a sanctuary rather 00:12:32.190 --> 00:12:34.870 than kept in a zoo or other form of captivity. 00:12:35.649 --> 00:12:40.710 And even if you fail, the campaign itself can 00:12:40.710 --> 00:12:45.330 move the needle by changing people's minds and 00:12:45.330 --> 00:12:49.929 therefore Laying the foundation for further change 00:12:49.929 --> 00:12:52.769 so I should say that about about the law coming 00:12:52.769 --> 00:12:57.769 directly to your question I Don't have a strong 00:12:57.769 --> 00:13:05.289 view about the nomenclature You know the Until 00:13:05.289 --> 00:13:08.509 very recently I and and you know for a while 00:13:08.509 --> 00:13:10.690 now I've heard people not want to use the word 00:13:10.690 --> 00:13:14.070 vegan because they fear that it turns people 00:13:14.070 --> 00:13:17.740 off I don't love the word the term plant -based 00:13:17.740 --> 00:13:21.820 only because it's misleading. So my friend and 00:13:21.820 --> 00:13:26.539 fellow activist, Victoria Moran, likes to use 00:13:26.539 --> 00:13:30.059 the term plant -exclusive rather than plant -based 00:13:30.059 --> 00:13:33.240 because it's more accurate. Because I've seen 00:13:33.240 --> 00:13:36.360 products labeled plant -based that contain some 00:13:36.360 --> 00:13:38.259 animal products. It's like, well, the base is 00:13:38.259 --> 00:13:40.799 plants. It's then the additional thing. So I 00:13:40.799 --> 00:13:44.259 think any term one uses, whether it's vegan, 00:13:44.600 --> 00:13:48.299 animal rights, plant -based, or something else, 00:13:49.200 --> 00:13:53.320 is going to potentially have two problems. One 00:13:53.320 --> 00:13:56.820 is that it might not be exactly accurate in capturing 00:13:56.820 --> 00:14:00.919 everything that the people who want to use it 00:14:00.919 --> 00:14:04.620 want to project to the term. And the other is 00:14:04.620 --> 00:14:09.480 words can take on a kind of guilt by association, 00:14:10.139 --> 00:14:12.279 so that if there are negative attitudes towards 00:14:12.279 --> 00:14:16.500 a term, even if it's inherently unproblematic, 00:14:16.820 --> 00:14:19.340 there might be tactical or strategic reasons 00:14:19.340 --> 00:14:21.440 to move away from it. You see this sometimes 00:14:21.440 --> 00:14:23.500 moving outside of this particular realm. You 00:14:23.500 --> 00:14:26.179 see this sometimes with the way in which the 00:14:26.179 --> 00:14:29.580 preferred term for a group that suffers some 00:14:29.580 --> 00:14:33.080 form of systemic discrimination or subordination 00:14:33.080 --> 00:14:37.250 will want to change the name because A stigma 00:14:37.250 --> 00:14:39.129 becomes associated with the term, even though 00:14:39.129 --> 00:14:44.149 the term is not inherently offensive. It becomes 00:14:44.149 --> 00:14:46.450 offensive because a lot of the people who are 00:14:46.450 --> 00:14:51.429 using it at a particular time have discriminatory 00:14:51.429 --> 00:14:53.769 attitudes about it. And so that might be some 00:14:53.769 --> 00:14:55.990 of what's going on with animal rights versus 00:14:55.990 --> 00:14:59.879 something else. My own preference would be to 00:14:59.879 --> 00:15:02.600 use whatever term is going to be most effective 00:15:02.600 --> 00:15:06.799 at building support for the shared goals of the 00:15:06.799 --> 00:15:12.539 movement. Okay, let's get to the book now. I 00:15:12.539 --> 00:15:16.000 before reading your book, I have to say I never 00:15:16.000 --> 00:15:22.679 really thought a lot about abortion and the debate, 00:15:22.679 --> 00:15:26.970 you know, pro choice, pro life. Um, I live in 00:15:26.970 --> 00:15:30.750 Canada. I live in Quebec. Uh, this, this is not 00:15:30.750 --> 00:15:34.610 part of the, uh, political culture here to, to 00:15:34.610 --> 00:15:39.049 debate this. Um, uh, and so I never, this was 00:15:39.049 --> 00:15:44.190 never top of mind, not like in America, but I 00:15:44.190 --> 00:15:46.830 always got, you know, the impression that this 00:15:46.830 --> 00:15:53.230 was very, um, um, you know, this rattles people 00:15:53.230 --> 00:15:58.399 and, uh, you know, triggers lots of reactions. 00:15:59.740 --> 00:16:02.840 So I guess my first question about the book is, 00:16:03.419 --> 00:16:07.820 did you have conversations about maybe hesitations 00:16:07.820 --> 00:16:12.059 about not publishing the book in fear of the 00:16:12.059 --> 00:16:15.500 kind of reception you would get from publishing 00:16:15.500 --> 00:16:19.580 this book touching to this turled rail issue? 00:16:20.860 --> 00:16:23.899 And also, what kind of reception did you get 00:16:23.899 --> 00:16:28.639 once you published the book? Yeah. So the short 00:16:28.639 --> 00:16:32.019 answer is no, not really. I mean, we're both 00:16:32.019 --> 00:16:37.279 academics and I think we we consider ourselves 00:16:37.279 --> 00:16:41.500 activists, but we're careful in our scholarly 00:16:41.500 --> 00:16:48.379 work to make claims that are backed by good arguments 00:16:48.379 --> 00:16:53.799 and good citations and what have you, and that 00:16:53.799 --> 00:16:56.480 sometimes will lead me, and this was true of 00:16:56.480 --> 00:17:00.580 Sherry as well, to take positions that might 00:17:00.580 --> 00:17:04.160 not be especially popular with our friends as 00:17:04.160 --> 00:17:08.099 well as with people with whom we more often disagree. 00:17:10.980 --> 00:17:14.920 So we didn't really worry too much about that. 00:17:14.960 --> 00:17:20.029 I have also I had written about abortion in my 00:17:20.029 --> 00:17:23.609 scholarly work as had Sherry and a lot of different 00:17:23.609 --> 00:17:29.509 articles and so forth and I think that no one 00:17:29.509 --> 00:17:33.109 who knew us would be surprised that this was 00:17:33.109 --> 00:17:36.849 an issue we were discussing. We did have a worry 00:17:36.849 --> 00:17:41.549 a little bit about whether it made sense as a 00:17:41.549 --> 00:17:44.640 kind of uh... tactical matter if we're thinking 00:17:44.640 --> 00:17:49.019 of ourselves as advocates for animals or advocates 00:17:49.019 --> 00:17:51.299 for whatever position we're going to be proposing 00:17:51.299 --> 00:17:54.859 on abortion to combine the two because you know 00:17:54.859 --> 00:17:57.599 it's a little bit like uh... you know you take 00:17:57.599 --> 00:17:59.980 a controversial subject and you what you normally 00:17:59.980 --> 00:18:03.839 the way you wanna persuade somebody of your view 00:18:03.839 --> 00:18:07.339 is to find an area of agreement and then show 00:18:07.339 --> 00:18:14.220 how their agreement on Here, we're taking y and 00:18:14.220 --> 00:18:15.440 saying, well, here's something else you don't 00:18:15.440 --> 00:18:17.700 agree with us on, potentially. And so that seems 00:18:17.700 --> 00:18:20.559 kind of backwards as an advocacy strategy. But 00:18:20.559 --> 00:18:23.599 I have to say, we really didn't think about it 00:18:23.599 --> 00:18:29.180 as advocacy. As far as the reception goes, I 00:18:29.180 --> 00:18:34.240 think it was generally quite positive. I have 00:18:34.240 --> 00:18:39.319 two caveats about that. One is we didn't think 00:18:39.319 --> 00:18:41.470 about it We went back and forth with the publisher 00:18:41.470 --> 00:18:46.190 over the cover illustration because the the cover 00:18:46.190 --> 00:18:49.410 illustration includes a human baby not like a 00:18:49.410 --> 00:18:53.190 fetus or an embryo and I think that led some 00:18:53.190 --> 00:18:55.490 people who didn't read the book to think that 00:18:55.490 --> 00:18:57.569 this was a sort of strongly anti -abortion book 00:18:57.569 --> 00:19:01.269 which it is not and so I actually had one conversation 00:19:01.269 --> 00:19:04.200 with somebody who was who had that view and i 00:19:04.200 --> 00:19:05.579 tried to you know explain to her no no that's 00:19:05.579 --> 00:19:09.599 not what's going on there and um but the the 00:19:09.599 --> 00:19:12.839 the marketing people persuaded us that this was 00:19:12.839 --> 00:19:14.880 better than any of the ideas we came up with 00:19:14.880 --> 00:19:20.660 for cover illustrations um i would say that people 00:19:20.660 --> 00:19:24.460 who are sort of uh whose first commitment is 00:19:24.460 --> 00:19:28.740 to animals and like you you might have thought 00:19:28.740 --> 00:19:31.130 about abortion issue might have some position 00:19:31.130 --> 00:19:32.849 about it but it's not something that is sort 00:19:32.849 --> 00:19:36.130 of an animating issue for them really like the 00:19:36.130 --> 00:19:37.609 book they thought oh this is interesting you're 00:19:37.609 --> 00:19:40.410 shedding interesting light back and forth for 00:19:40.410 --> 00:19:46.609 people who um came to the book with um i think 00:19:46.609 --> 00:19:51.690 strong views about abortion if they were pro 00:19:51.690 --> 00:19:56.049 -choice i think they were initially a little 00:19:56.049 --> 00:19:58.880 bit put off but then generally came around and 00:19:58.880 --> 00:20:01.339 sort of liked our arguments. And I think the 00:20:01.339 --> 00:20:02.880 opposite is true of people who are pro -life. 00:20:02.940 --> 00:20:06.759 That is, I think people who are pro -life, there 00:20:06.759 --> 00:20:10.420 were a few who I thought took, who said, and 00:20:10.420 --> 00:20:12.599 I appreciated this, well, I don't agree with 00:20:12.599 --> 00:20:16.420 you, but at least you're giving our argument, 00:20:17.220 --> 00:20:19.319 you're taking our argument seriously and you're 00:20:19.319 --> 00:20:21.920 not responding to a straw man version of it. 00:20:22.059 --> 00:20:25.279 And, you know, that to me is about what I would 00:20:25.279 --> 00:20:30.210 expect. So I didn't expect that we would persuade 00:20:30.210 --> 00:20:32.150 anybody who was strongly opposed to abortion 00:20:32.150 --> 00:20:34.650 to change their view about that from this book. 00:20:35.690 --> 00:20:40.170 But it was our hope that we would sort of feel 00:20:40.170 --> 00:20:43.730 the force of arguments on all sides of their 00:20:43.730 --> 00:20:48.210 respective issues. I should say, all sides, I 00:20:48.210 --> 00:20:49.769 actually don't think there are any very good 00:20:49.769 --> 00:20:53.150 arguments against the animal rights position. 00:20:53.250 --> 00:20:56.250 So I'm open to feeling the force of contrary 00:20:56.250 --> 00:20:59.130 arguments. I just didn't see any here that I 00:20:59.130 --> 00:21:03.410 don't find. I tend to find that people who are 00:21:03.410 --> 00:21:06.130 opposed to the kind of, you know, sort of minimal 00:21:06.130 --> 00:21:09.509 rights for animals are engaged in rationalization 00:21:09.509 --> 00:21:12.450 rather than, you know, building serious arguments. 00:21:13.990 --> 00:21:19.170 I agree with what that person said about the 00:21:19.170 --> 00:21:22.269 straw man argument. I really feel like in your 00:21:22.269 --> 00:21:25.730 book, you're making the best pro choice argument 00:21:25.730 --> 00:21:29.420 because you are addressing the real arguments 00:21:29.420 --> 00:21:34.359 coming from the pro -life people. You know, you 00:21:34.359 --> 00:21:38.779 take them seriously, yes, but what's most important 00:21:38.779 --> 00:21:44.099 is you represent their argument well. And I really 00:21:44.099 --> 00:21:46.779 realized, you know, from reading the book that 00:21:46.779 --> 00:21:52.289 I had been fed a caricature version of what was 00:21:52.289 --> 00:21:58.049 a pro -life person. I really had, and that's 00:21:58.049 --> 00:22:00.369 the best word for it, a caricature in my head 00:22:00.369 --> 00:22:04.750 of, you know, who, like in the beginning of your 00:22:04.750 --> 00:22:08.029 book, you talk about how most pro -life people 00:22:08.029 --> 00:22:11.230 are pro -life for religious reason, and they 00:22:11.230 --> 00:22:13.269 have nothing to do with, you know, they have 00:22:13.269 --> 00:22:15.309 not thought about the question of sentience. 00:22:15.960 --> 00:22:18.900 And that's what I had in my mind, you know, someone 00:22:18.900 --> 00:22:24.099 like deeply religious or fanatic who hates women. 00:22:24.099 --> 00:22:30.480 And that's what, you know, gets you to believe 00:22:30.480 --> 00:22:36.359 that pro -life is a good stance. But yeah, you 00:22:36.359 --> 00:22:40.140 really represented well. We should clarify. What 00:22:40.140 --> 00:22:45.519 is your position on abortion? So The view that 00:22:45.519 --> 00:22:50.640 Sherry and I defend in the book is that abortions 00:22:50.640 --> 00:22:56.140 before fetal sentience which is that you can 00:22:56.140 --> 00:23:00.000 There is a range of legitimate scientific argument 00:23:00.000 --> 00:23:02.819 about when exactly fetus is attained sentience, 00:23:02.819 --> 00:23:06.460 but it's it's certainly well past the point at 00:23:06.460 --> 00:23:09.400 which about 90 % of abortions in North America 00:23:09.400 --> 00:23:13.119 occur. But our view is that abortions before 00:23:13.119 --> 00:23:18.339 fetal sentience do not raise serious moral questions. 00:23:19.539 --> 00:23:24.640 Abortions after fetal sentience do raise serious 00:23:24.640 --> 00:23:28.420 moral questions and that therefore someone deciding 00:23:28.420 --> 00:23:32.759 whether to have an abortion of a sentient fetus 00:23:33.000 --> 00:23:35.539 uh first of all has a kind of moral duty to try 00:23:35.539 --> 00:23:37.940 to make that decision before fetal sentience 00:23:37.940 --> 00:23:40.259 but you can't always sometimes there are circumstances 00:23:40.259 --> 00:23:44.700 that arise late in pregnancy but that there is 00:23:44.700 --> 00:23:49.460 a kind of personal moral duty to give serious 00:23:49.460 --> 00:23:52.460 weight to the fetus's interest if one is going 00:23:52.460 --> 00:23:57.220 to have an abortion after fetal sentience but 00:23:57.220 --> 00:24:00.240 that still doesn't answer the question of what 00:24:00.240 --> 00:24:04.099 position the law ought to take on abortion because 00:24:04.099 --> 00:24:07.640 there are many things, there are many areas of 00:24:07.640 --> 00:24:11.839 life where one has a moral duty to take seriously 00:24:11.839 --> 00:24:16.660 some matter, but if one takes it seriously or 00:24:16.660 --> 00:24:18.960 even if one doesn't take it seriously and makes 00:24:18.960 --> 00:24:21.980 a kind of moral mistake, we don't necessarily 00:24:21.980 --> 00:24:24.839 think that justifies the state in intervening. 00:24:25.130 --> 00:24:33.069 So our view is that in general abortion up until 00:24:33.069 --> 00:24:37.750 fairly late in pregnancy ought to be legal, but 00:24:37.750 --> 00:24:40.809 that people ought to take seriously their moral 00:24:40.809 --> 00:24:45.309 duties with respect to abortion of sentient fetuses. 00:24:45.569 --> 00:24:48.289 So when you say sentience, what do you mean by 00:24:48.289 --> 00:24:55.009 that? Yeah. So sentience is the ability to have 00:24:55.009 --> 00:24:58.750 and the having of subjective experiences such 00:24:58.750 --> 00:25:04.049 as pleasure, pain, excitement, thoughts, etc. 00:25:04.309 --> 00:25:08.069 It's the difference between something and someone. 00:25:08.390 --> 00:25:11.650 It's a sort of a first -person subjective consciousness. 00:25:11.910 --> 00:25:14.130 It's a synonym for rough synonym for consciousness. 00:25:14.630 --> 00:25:16.529 The reason I prefer the term sentience although 00:25:16.529 --> 00:25:18.250 maybe I shouldn't because a lot of people who 00:25:18.250 --> 00:25:21.200 aren't in the animal movement don't know the 00:25:21.200 --> 00:25:23.579 word but the reason I prefer sentience is that 00:25:23.579 --> 00:25:28.119 consciousness I think tends to signify more of 00:25:28.119 --> 00:25:31.579 a kind of rational thought process and a being 00:25:31.579 --> 00:25:34.599 need not be rational in the way that you know 00:25:34.599 --> 00:25:36.759 we think of like a you know a philosophy professor 00:25:36.759 --> 00:25:41.579 uh in order to be sentient so um it's basically 00:25:41.579 --> 00:25:46.490 what distinguishes most animal life from you 00:25:46.490 --> 00:25:48.589 know, just about all plants, as far as we're 00:25:48.589 --> 00:25:51.210 aware, all plant life and inanimate objects. 00:25:52.410 --> 00:25:56.849 Okay, so you mentioned how sentience is, yes, 00:25:56.950 --> 00:26:01.210 a very well known popular word used in the animal 00:26:01.210 --> 00:26:08.190 rights world. How did you tie this term of sentience 00:26:08.190 --> 00:26:14.670 to? What is the link between that to, you know, 00:26:15.160 --> 00:26:18.059 abortion, or since we're talking about abortion, 00:26:18.740 --> 00:26:22.559 how did you tie that, you know, concept of sentience 00:26:22.559 --> 00:26:27.220 to, you know, talking about the fetus to animals? 00:26:27.819 --> 00:26:35.420 Sure. So the first thing to note right is that 00:26:35.420 --> 00:26:40.380 this is the Using sentience as the basis for 00:26:40.380 --> 00:26:42.559 rights is hardly something we came up with, right? 00:26:42.660 --> 00:26:45.839 This is a common view among people who support 00:26:45.839 --> 00:26:51.880 animal rights, and it goes back quite far. If 00:26:51.880 --> 00:26:54.839 you think about Jeremy Bentham's famous line, 00:26:55.079 --> 00:26:57.279 the question is not can they think, but can they 00:26:57.279 --> 00:27:01.730 suffer? And it's a little weird to think about 00:27:01.730 --> 00:27:03.849 animal rights and then talk about Bentham because 00:27:03.849 --> 00:27:06.569 Bentham was a utilitarian who famously derided 00:27:06.569 --> 00:27:09.250 the whole idea of rights as nonsense on stilts. 00:27:09.589 --> 00:27:12.730 But nonetheless, Peter Singer is also a utilitarian 00:27:12.730 --> 00:27:14.730 and he's associated with the animal rights movement 00:27:14.730 --> 00:27:22.710 as well. And so the idea is that beings who are 00:27:22.710 --> 00:27:27.339 capable of suffering should not be unnecessarily 00:27:27.339 --> 00:27:28.960 made to suffer. That's the sort of, I think, 00:27:29.140 --> 00:27:33.079 the core of the animal rights idea. It's also, 00:27:33.079 --> 00:27:38.539 you can find it in many religions. It's most 00:27:38.539 --> 00:27:42.099 clearly in the idea of Ahimsa and the Indian 00:27:42.099 --> 00:27:45.839 religions. But it doesn't have to be a religious 00:27:45.839 --> 00:27:48.440 idea. It could just simply be, if there's any 00:27:48.440 --> 00:27:51.240 kind of moral principle, you shouldn't unnecessarily 00:27:51.240 --> 00:27:54.470 inflict suffering on a being capable of suffering 00:27:54.470 --> 00:27:58.529 and and this takes an additional logical step 00:27:58.529 --> 00:28:02.670 which we can talk about later um likewise a being 00:28:02.670 --> 00:28:05.490 capable of experiencing pleasure or pleasurable 00:28:05.490 --> 00:28:08.549 experiences or or deriving something positive 00:28:08.549 --> 00:28:11.450 out of its life shouldn't be deprived of its 00:28:11.450 --> 00:28:15.849 life either and both of those principles i think 00:28:15.849 --> 00:28:20.349 are in play not only with respect to the duties 00:28:20.349 --> 00:28:23.920 we humans owe to animals but also with respect 00:28:23.920 --> 00:28:27.519 to whatever duties we owe to human fetuses. After 00:28:27.519 --> 00:28:33.440 all, a human fetus that is capable of experiencing 00:28:33.440 --> 00:28:38.319 pain or is capable of having subjective experiences 00:28:38.319 --> 00:28:41.380 more generally seems to have the same kinds of 00:28:41.380 --> 00:28:44.640 interests in both avoiding the painful experience 00:28:44.640 --> 00:28:48.960 and in continuing to exist as would a non -human 00:28:48.960 --> 00:28:51.940 animal like a chicken or a pig or what have you. 00:28:52.529 --> 00:28:55.710 So it seemed to us just quite logical that these 00:28:55.710 --> 00:28:59.650 ought to be connected. And we also noticed that 00:28:59.650 --> 00:29:05.170 a lot of the pro -life advocacy that aims at 00:29:05.170 --> 00:29:07.730 people sort of in the middle, that is to say, 00:29:07.869 --> 00:29:11.130 not people who have strong religious commitments 00:29:11.130 --> 00:29:15.970 that they believe in the insolment of a zygote, 00:29:15.990 --> 00:29:18.549 but people who, you know, just sort of don't 00:29:18.549 --> 00:29:21.789 think about it much, that a lot of the the argument 00:29:21.789 --> 00:29:27.990 aimed at them works in this register of avoiding 00:29:27.990 --> 00:29:31.170 inflicting suffering. So one of the things that 00:29:31.170 --> 00:29:34.569 we saw in the United States over the course of 00:29:34.569 --> 00:29:42.529 several decades were campaigns to enact laws 00:29:42.529 --> 00:29:47.869 and also to public information campaigns about 00:29:47.869 --> 00:29:53.339 fetal pain. Right? So there was legislation in 00:29:53.339 --> 00:29:56.039 various US states. There was a bill introduced 00:29:56.039 --> 00:30:01.440 in the National Congress to ban, quote, pain 00:30:01.440 --> 00:30:04.359 -capable abortions. That is to say, abortions 00:30:04.359 --> 00:30:08.920 of fetuses capable of experiencing pain. And 00:30:08.920 --> 00:30:12.799 I think that reflected a recognition that, at 00:30:12.799 --> 00:30:15.859 least for a lot of the audience for the debate 00:30:15.859 --> 00:30:20.180 about abortion, people cared about abortion or 00:30:20.180 --> 00:30:22.839 didn't care about abortion, whether or not they 00:30:22.839 --> 00:30:26.700 imagined the infliction of pain or other suffering 00:30:26.700 --> 00:30:31.460 on a fetus, right? And so it does seem to us 00:30:31.460 --> 00:30:35.440 that putting aside distinctly religious views, 00:30:36.839 --> 00:30:41.779 the secular argument against abortion looks very 00:30:41.779 --> 00:30:46.259 much like the argument for respecting animals. 00:30:48.720 --> 00:30:53.920 If I had to summarize what you just said, um, 00:30:54.460 --> 00:31:00.380 you looked at people who cared about, uh, you 00:31:00.380 --> 00:31:04.059 know, fetus abortions, all of that, since we 00:31:04.059 --> 00:31:07.980 are humans, uh, since, uh, they are Americans. 00:31:08.519 --> 00:31:14.960 Um, and you explain why they care about it by 00:31:14.960 --> 00:31:20.200 talking about sentience and then you tie it to 00:31:20.200 --> 00:31:24.720 the animal rights movement for them. Is that 00:31:24.720 --> 00:31:27.779 a good summary? Yeah. So I think that's right. 00:31:27.880 --> 00:31:31.660 With the possible exception of that, I don't 00:31:31.660 --> 00:31:34.779 know that that's why all of them care about it. 00:31:34.779 --> 00:31:36.799 I'm sure that's not why all of them care about 00:31:36.799 --> 00:31:39.019 it. As you were saying, you know, many people 00:31:39.019 --> 00:31:41.640 might hold these these views simply because that's 00:31:41.640 --> 00:31:45.079 what their religion tells them. But I think that 00:31:45.079 --> 00:31:48.279 it's certainly true that some of them have a 00:31:48.220 --> 00:31:51.180 this view for that reason and certainly you see 00:31:51.180 --> 00:31:53.799 it in the kinds of arguments that they make and 00:31:53.799 --> 00:31:57.519 so again much like you know sherry's book on 00:31:57.519 --> 00:32:00.319 um you know mind if i were the cheeseburger right 00:32:00.319 --> 00:32:04.859 the goal here is to take this seriously and respond 00:32:04.859 --> 00:32:07.680 to what is sometimes called the steel man as 00:32:07.680 --> 00:32:09.839 opposed to the straw man version of the argument 00:32:09.839 --> 00:32:14.140 by the way i should say that here in quebec uh 00:32:14.140 --> 00:32:19.289 abortion is legal up until nine months. So kind 00:32:19.289 --> 00:32:23.890 of a strange situation. What do you make of those 00:32:23.890 --> 00:32:26.609 people? And you touched on that in the book, 00:32:27.269 --> 00:32:32.349 who believe that humans are special, their own, 00:32:33.130 --> 00:32:38.970 our own kind, you know, it is, they justify it, 00:32:38.990 --> 00:32:45.000 their views with religion. And so, yeah, humans 00:32:45.000 --> 00:32:50.519 are special, they are unique, and we should not, 00:32:50.519 --> 00:32:53.640 you know, mix that with the rest of the animal 00:32:53.640 --> 00:32:58.720 kingdom. Basically going against what Darwin 00:32:58.720 --> 00:33:02.039 was saying about humans and the rest of animals, 00:33:02.279 --> 00:33:04.220 you know, there's a difference of degrees and 00:33:04.220 --> 00:33:06.059 not of nature. Well, those people say there's 00:33:06.059 --> 00:33:09.160 a difference of nature. What do you make of that? 00:33:10.180 --> 00:33:15.630 Yeah, so I mean, I think that if somebody is 00:33:15.630 --> 00:33:20.210 asserting that as a matter of religious doctrine, 00:33:21.230 --> 00:33:24.430 there are really two kinds of responses one can 00:33:24.430 --> 00:33:30.210 make. One is somebody who falls within the same 00:33:30.210 --> 00:33:33.849 religious tradition, I think can usually point 00:33:33.849 --> 00:33:36.630 to resources within that religious tradition 00:33:36.630 --> 00:33:41.890 for why this is a mistake. So that in just about 00:33:42.029 --> 00:33:48.130 every religious tradition, there are resources 00:33:48.130 --> 00:33:52.589 for showing kindness to animals. It's very, very 00:33:52.589 --> 00:33:56.049 clear in the Eastern religions, especially those 00:33:56.049 --> 00:33:58.849 that believe in reincarnation and the possibility 00:33:58.849 --> 00:34:01.730 that one's soul could have come from or end up 00:34:01.730 --> 00:34:06.410 in a non -human animal. It's within the Christian 00:34:06.410 --> 00:34:12.619 tradition. The current pope, Pope Francis, took 00:34:12.619 --> 00:34:15.619 his name from Francis of Assisi, who is known 00:34:15.619 --> 00:34:22.440 for his kindness to animals. In both Judaism 00:34:22.440 --> 00:34:27.119 and Islam, the rules around slaughter of animals, 00:34:27.380 --> 00:34:31.719 both permit slaughter of animals, but both kosher 00:34:31.719 --> 00:34:37.019 laws and halal are thought to be partly about 00:34:37.019 --> 00:34:43.199 reducing cruelty to animals. And so even if one 00:34:43.199 --> 00:34:48.619 begins with a sort of strongly religious basis 00:34:48.619 --> 00:34:55.599 for one's morality, that's not a reason to unnecessarily 00:34:55.599 --> 00:34:57.760 harm animals. In fact, it's the opposite, right? 00:34:58.019 --> 00:35:03.519 So that's one kind of an argument within that 00:35:03.519 --> 00:35:07.420 area. And then one can say, look, we're not saying 00:35:07.420 --> 00:35:10.889 that necessarily that non -human animals are 00:35:10.889 --> 00:35:14.210 the same as humans in all respects, and maybe 00:35:14.210 --> 00:35:16.929 not even in what you think of as the most important 00:35:16.929 --> 00:35:20.650 respect, but just in one respect that you care 00:35:20.650 --> 00:35:24.789 about. And so the same sort of compassionate 00:35:24.789 --> 00:35:27.150 motives you might have for being against abortion 00:35:27.150 --> 00:35:31.010 can apply to not participating in various forms 00:35:31.010 --> 00:35:35.530 of animal exploitation. The other thing one can 00:35:35.530 --> 00:35:38.909 do, and this, I think, is going to be more or 00:35:38.909 --> 00:35:41.889 less effective, depending on one's audience, 00:35:42.349 --> 00:35:45.969 is to say something like, well, look, we live 00:35:45.969 --> 00:35:49.969 in a religiously diverse society in which people 00:35:49.969 --> 00:35:52.489 come from a variety of faiths or no faith at 00:35:52.489 --> 00:35:56.010 all. And so if we're going to have a public debate, 00:35:56.170 --> 00:35:59.550 we have to restrict ourselves to what John Rawls 00:35:59.550 --> 00:36:02.750 called public reason. And that means particularly 00:36:02.750 --> 00:36:06.699 sectarian arguments are out of bounds, at least 00:36:06.699 --> 00:36:10.820 as a basis for public regulation. Although, of 00:36:10.820 --> 00:36:12.599 course, they could be a basis for particular 00:36:12.599 --> 00:36:17.619 as individual moral choices. And so therefore, 00:36:17.659 --> 00:36:24.599 let's bracket those. If I can, I want to make 00:36:24.599 --> 00:36:29.139 one analogy, which is I think that some of what 00:36:29.139 --> 00:36:31.769 you're talking about, the idea that it's almost 00:36:31.769 --> 00:36:34.730 offensive from a religious person's perspective 00:36:34.730 --> 00:36:38.230 to be talking about the rights of fetuses in 00:36:38.230 --> 00:36:40.909 the same breath as the rights of chickens or 00:36:40.909 --> 00:36:45.909 cows or pigs. I think that is a kind of reaction 00:36:45.909 --> 00:36:50.789 that one sometimes sees in other forms of animal 00:36:50.789 --> 00:36:55.329 advocacy that compare the treatment of non -human 00:36:55.329 --> 00:36:58.690 animals to historic injustices against human 00:36:58.690 --> 00:37:01.619 beings like slavery or the Holocaust or what 00:37:01.619 --> 00:37:07.480 have you and I understand why as a tactical matter 00:37:07.480 --> 00:37:11.340 therefore one should be very careful about drawing 00:37:11.340 --> 00:37:16.239 such analogies but I think the people who are 00:37:16.239 --> 00:37:21.000 taking offense are misunderstanding the way in 00:37:21.000 --> 00:37:23.940 which the argument is being made right when if 00:37:23.940 --> 00:37:28.690 somebody says that what's happening to animals 00:37:28.690 --> 00:37:35.010 on farms and slaughterhouses is comparable to 00:37:35.010 --> 00:37:36.809 slavery or the Holocaust. They're not trying 00:37:36.809 --> 00:37:39.269 to minimize slavery or the Holocaust. They're 00:37:39.269 --> 00:37:42.710 not trying to say that people who were enslaved 00:37:42.710 --> 00:37:48.670 or people who were victims of genocide were as 00:37:48.670 --> 00:37:51.690 worthless as animals. It's because the people 00:37:51.690 --> 00:37:54.650 making this comparison think of non -human animals 00:37:54.650 --> 00:37:58.039 as having great worth that we think of it as 00:37:58.039 --> 00:38:02.159 comparable. So to my mind, there is at best a 00:38:02.159 --> 00:38:05.639 tactical reason to avoid drawing these sorts 00:38:05.639 --> 00:38:08.420 of analogies because it's not effective advocacy 00:38:08.420 --> 00:38:12.519 to offend people, even if people ideally shouldn't 00:38:12.519 --> 00:38:15.719 be offended by the argument you're making. I 00:38:15.719 --> 00:38:20.119 agree that you don't want to start a conversation. 00:38:20.260 --> 00:38:22.199 Well, it's difficult to have a conversation if 00:38:22.199 --> 00:38:26.590 you start with something. Judge offensive, but 00:38:26.590 --> 00:38:33.730 at the same time Don't you want to get personal 00:38:33.730 --> 00:38:38.750 right away with people and you know Get at the 00:38:38.750 --> 00:38:43.110 heart of it and and the best way to do it is 00:38:43.110 --> 00:38:47.409 Really to touch on some issues such as abortion 00:38:47.409 --> 00:38:55.340 I Guess my question is uh, if done in a thoughtful 00:38:55.340 --> 00:39:01.159 manner, um, shouldn't more activists not shy 00:39:01.159 --> 00:39:05.920 away from, um, addressing, you know, um, doing 00:39:05.920 --> 00:39:07.800 your argument, the argument you're making in 00:39:07.800 --> 00:39:12.960 the book and talking about abortion, um, or discussing, 00:39:12.960 --> 00:39:16.500 um, you know, the Holocaust as it is done in, 00:39:16.500 --> 00:39:20.920 um, the book, uh, an internal Treblinka, um, 00:39:23.440 --> 00:39:26.860 because they would catch the attention of people 00:39:26.860 --> 00:39:30.340 much more quickly and get them to think maybe 00:39:30.340 --> 00:39:37.119 more profoundly on those issues. Or is it a miscalculation 00:39:37.119 --> 00:39:41.940 on my part? Yeah. So I don't think there, you 00:39:41.940 --> 00:39:44.840 know, there's a lot of research now being done 00:39:45.420 --> 00:39:47.840 by people in the animal rights movement about 00:39:47.840 --> 00:39:51.340 what kinds of advocacy are most effective. You 00:39:51.340 --> 00:39:53.159 know, one thing we learned is that something 00:39:53.159 --> 00:39:55.760 I wouldn't have thought turns out to be true, 00:39:55.840 --> 00:40:00.119 which is that showing people really graphic imagery 00:40:00.119 --> 00:40:03.500 of, you know, what happens in a slaughterhouse 00:40:03.500 --> 00:40:09.260 is pretty effective, at least in the short run, 00:40:09.619 --> 00:40:13.960 at sort of shocking people. And, you know, I 00:40:14.300 --> 00:40:16.920 looked at that data and I, you know, I have to 00:40:16.920 --> 00:40:19.619 confess I think it's right that that probably 00:40:19.619 --> 00:40:24.079 does work. I don't know that there has been similar 00:40:24.079 --> 00:40:28.159 research backing up the kinds of what people 00:40:28.159 --> 00:40:32.639 think of as provocative analogies. There was 00:40:32.639 --> 00:40:37.139 a case about a decade ago in Germany in which 00:40:37.139 --> 00:40:40.360 the German branch of PETA had these billboards 00:40:40.360 --> 00:40:44.440 that said Holocaust on your plate. And they were 00:40:44.440 --> 00:40:47.880 actually prosecuted under, you know, because 00:40:47.880 --> 00:40:53.840 Germany has very strict laws about Nazism and 00:40:53.840 --> 00:40:56.519 so forth. And of course, it was a complete misunderstanding 00:40:56.519 --> 00:41:00.280 of what PETA was trying to do. But it might not 00:41:00.280 --> 00:41:04.039 have been very effective advocacy for PETA in 00:41:04.039 --> 00:41:11.920 Germany then. So I don't think that there is 00:41:11.920 --> 00:41:15.159 a Definite answer to your question at this point 00:41:15.159 --> 00:41:18.179 I think some people are going to find that kind 00:41:18.179 --> 00:41:20.280 of advocacy more effective or less effective 00:41:20.280 --> 00:41:25.900 with particular audiences You know certainly 00:41:25.900 --> 00:41:30.820 One wants to reach people at a personal level 00:41:30.820 --> 00:41:33.739 and one way to do that is to find some personal 00:41:33.739 --> 00:41:36.760 connection It could be through an issue that 00:41:36.760 --> 00:41:40.280 your interlocutor cares about if that's abortion 00:41:40.280 --> 00:41:43.119 for example but it could be through something 00:41:43.119 --> 00:41:45.679 that you know some other shared view like you 00:41:45.679 --> 00:41:47.980 know person who has a companion animal like a 00:41:47.980 --> 00:41:52.840 dog or a cat and will almost invariably you know 00:41:52.840 --> 00:41:56.500 sympathize and empathize with dogs and cats and 00:41:56.500 --> 00:42:00.239 so that's often a gateway in Now, how far it 00:42:00.239 --> 00:42:03.260 gets you is not entirely clear. But again, this 00:42:03.260 --> 00:42:06.159 is an area that I haven't studied directly, but 00:42:06.159 --> 00:42:08.960 I have seen some of the studies. And I think 00:42:08.960 --> 00:42:12.659 they're somewhat inconclusive. But there's an 00:42:12.659 --> 00:42:16.420 emerging picture. And I would urge any advocate 00:42:16.420 --> 00:42:19.719 who's comfortable in adopting a variety of tactics 00:42:19.719 --> 00:42:22.260 to look at the data we have and sort of see what 00:42:22.260 --> 00:42:24.019 they think they can be most effective doing. 00:42:25.639 --> 00:42:28.599 Yeah, I think that's what's lacking. the desire 00:42:28.599 --> 00:42:33.119 to even explore that, because I guess even activists 00:42:33.119 --> 00:42:36.780 putting themselves out there don't want to be 00:42:36.780 --> 00:42:41.440 in that discomfort, this very, yeah, uncomfortable 00:42:41.440 --> 00:42:46.280 situation of having to talk about abortion or, 00:42:46.280 --> 00:42:49.079 you know, drawing parallels with the Holocaust. 00:42:49.639 --> 00:42:53.860 Like, yeah, and I would understand that, you 00:42:53.860 --> 00:42:59.250 know, the how this tasteful, it sounds for certain 00:42:59.250 --> 00:43:02.929 activists or volunteers to organizations to to 00:43:02.929 --> 00:43:07.489 go there. And right. No. So again, I mean, I'm 00:43:07.489 --> 00:43:11.630 sometimes when I'm asked this kind of a question 00:43:11.630 --> 00:43:14.789 and I've done presentations on effective advocacy, 00:43:14.869 --> 00:43:17.409 which I sort of try to summarize what the latest 00:43:17.409 --> 00:43:21.929 data say is I sometimes end by telling people 00:43:21.929 --> 00:43:24.010 in the end, you don't really need to worry about 00:43:24.010 --> 00:43:29.719 it too much because like any movement, the animal 00:43:29.719 --> 00:43:32.420 rights, animal protection, animal welfare movement, 00:43:33.119 --> 00:43:38.019 as a very wide array of people with both with 00:43:38.019 --> 00:43:40.440 respect to what they think the goal is and with 00:43:40.440 --> 00:43:43.280 respect to what they think the means of achieving 00:43:43.280 --> 00:43:48.840 that goal are. And so it's not like there's some 00:43:48.840 --> 00:43:52.480 central command that's now telling all the activists, 00:43:52.619 --> 00:43:54.260 okay, this is the way we're going to make our 00:43:54.260 --> 00:43:59.909 arguments. people will end up doing a variety 00:43:59.909 --> 00:44:05.250 of things. I guess I don't know that drawing 00:44:05.250 --> 00:44:08.670 these analogies is necessarily helpful, but if 00:44:08.670 --> 00:44:10.329 someone's comfortable doing it and they think 00:44:10.329 --> 00:44:12.190 it's going to be effective, that will be a reason 00:44:12.190 --> 00:44:16.289 to go ahead. I should say that, again, we didn't 00:44:16.289 --> 00:44:20.369 write that book because we thought that bringing 00:44:20.369 --> 00:44:24.329 up abortion was an especially effective means 00:44:24.329 --> 00:44:27.789 of advocating for the rights of animals. I think 00:44:27.789 --> 00:44:31.690 we did have in mind that some people who had 00:44:31.690 --> 00:44:33.670 an interest in the abortion issue would read 00:44:33.670 --> 00:44:36.289 our book and they might or might not come away 00:44:36.289 --> 00:44:38.550 convinced about anything we said about abortion, 00:44:39.329 --> 00:44:41.170 but might in the process have learned something 00:44:41.170 --> 00:44:42.909 about the treatment of animals and that might 00:44:42.909 --> 00:44:44.989 affect how they thought and behaved with respect 00:44:44.989 --> 00:44:48.369 to animals. But it was not primarily conceived 00:44:48.369 --> 00:44:52.170 of as a way of leveraging the abortion issue 00:44:52.170 --> 00:44:56.690 to Make a bunch of points about animals. Certainly 00:44:56.690 --> 00:45:00.170 not. And, uh, yeah, I guess my point is, um, 00:45:00.210 --> 00:45:02.730 it's in your arsenal, those, you know, beating 00:45:02.730 --> 00:45:06.550 hearts exists, dominion exists. And you know, 00:45:06.630 --> 00:45:10.230 there are, this is part of your arsenal as an 00:45:10.230 --> 00:45:12.989 activist. Um, and you should be aware of them 00:45:12.989 --> 00:45:15.650 because I have now mentioned your book to many 00:45:15.650 --> 00:45:20.760 people. Thank you. Of course. Uh, and you know, 00:45:21.219 --> 00:45:24.000 it surprises me how there are, you know, street 00:45:24.000 --> 00:45:26.880 activists who have done this for the last 10 00:45:26.880 --> 00:45:30.340 years who have not read beating hearts. And, 00:45:30.440 --> 00:45:33.380 um, yeah, it's like, it's in your arsenal. You 00:45:33.380 --> 00:45:36.199 should know the argument about abortions and, 00:45:36.199 --> 00:45:43.280 and, you know, uh, yeah. Um, okay. Now you mentioned 00:45:43.280 --> 00:45:49.219 that, um, uh, how, you know, the footage. of 00:45:49.219 --> 00:45:53.679 animals being slaughtered was effective in getting 00:45:53.679 --> 00:45:56.539 people interested in the cause and in becoming 00:45:56.539 --> 00:46:01.920 vegan. Now, it is also a strategy used by pro 00:46:01.920 --> 00:46:05.679 -life people. And this is my favorite part in 00:46:05.679 --> 00:46:09.119 the book, how you draw those parallels between 00:46:09.119 --> 00:46:12.340 pro -life activists and animal rights activists. 00:46:12.840 --> 00:46:17.300 And I would love if you could... draw some more 00:46:17.300 --> 00:46:20.860 of those parallels and talk about why is it important 00:46:20.860 --> 00:46:26.860 to to explore that? Sure. So just for those for 00:46:26.860 --> 00:46:29.360 people who haven't read the book, or aren't familiar 00:46:29.360 --> 00:46:31.880 with it, it's divided into two parts, what I 00:46:31.880 --> 00:46:34.519 would call sort of philosophy, which is the first 00:46:34.519 --> 00:46:38.340 60 % of the book, and then some strategy, which 00:46:38.340 --> 00:46:42.320 is the remaining 40 % or so of the book. And 00:46:42.320 --> 00:46:45.760 so the philosophy part is all about, you know, 00:46:46.030 --> 00:46:49.969 How do you reconcile various views about abortion 00:46:49.969 --> 00:46:52.550 with various views about animal rights? What's 00:46:52.550 --> 00:46:55.050 the relevance or irrelevance of belonging to 00:46:55.050 --> 00:46:58.690 the human family as opposed to some other species? 00:46:59.969 --> 00:47:03.730 But then we turn in the back half of the book 00:47:03.730 --> 00:47:11.130 to noting ways in which there are similar advocacy 00:47:11.130 --> 00:47:16.019 challenges for Both the pro -life and animal 00:47:16.019 --> 00:47:18.019 rights movement and that's a that's a switch 00:47:18.019 --> 00:47:20.400 because for the most part in the first part of 00:47:20.400 --> 00:47:25.320 the book we are Although we analogize at first 00:47:25.320 --> 00:47:28.659 the pro -life position to the animal rights position. 00:47:28.659 --> 00:47:31.260 We end up ultimately inverting that and defending 00:47:31.260 --> 00:47:34.739 a Pretty pretty conventional pro -choice view 00:47:34.739 --> 00:47:37.980 and reconciling that with animal rights, but 00:47:37.980 --> 00:47:44.639 but the the parallels in tactics do correspond 00:47:44.639 --> 00:47:46.519 with pro -life movement and the animal rights 00:47:46.519 --> 00:47:49.179 movement. And there are two main ones that I 00:47:49.179 --> 00:47:52.099 would focus on, one of which is the one you mentioned, 00:47:52.539 --> 00:47:58.679 which is it is notoriously true that the anti 00:47:58.679 --> 00:48:02.679 -abortion movement will, in various circumstances, 00:48:03.260 --> 00:48:06.719 either hold up or otherwise display or publicize 00:48:06.920 --> 00:48:10.300 pictures of aborted fetuses. And these are meant 00:48:10.300 --> 00:48:16.099 to be very disturbing images. And likewise, some 00:48:16.099 --> 00:48:18.300 people in the animal rights movement will either 00:48:18.300 --> 00:48:21.840 hold up pictures or try to get people to watch 00:48:21.840 --> 00:48:26.219 videos of what happens to animals during slaughter 00:48:26.219 --> 00:48:30.820 and other processes. A couple of things I'd say. 00:48:31.079 --> 00:48:35.360 So first, you know one of the problematic aspects 00:48:35.360 --> 00:48:38.019 of the way in which that is leveraged by the 00:48:38.019 --> 00:48:41.719 anti -abortion movement is those are typically 00:48:41.719 --> 00:48:46.500 pictures of late -term abortions but the movement 00:48:46.500 --> 00:48:49.599 aims to ban abortion from the very beginning 00:48:49.599 --> 00:48:53.420 of pregnancy and so there's a a bit of dishonesty 00:48:53.420 --> 00:48:56.059 i think in that it's not you know i think those 00:48:56.059 --> 00:49:01.690 images would be appropriate as a part of an argument 00:49:01.690 --> 00:49:04.769 for addressing later term abortion, but less 00:49:04.769 --> 00:49:08.489 so for the sort of broad ban on abortion. And 00:49:08.489 --> 00:49:10.329 I don't think that's true of the footage with 00:49:10.329 --> 00:49:14.670 respect to animals. Second thing I want to say 00:49:14.670 --> 00:49:22.309 about images is there is, I think, a kind of 00:49:22.309 --> 00:49:26.960 prima facie moral question, which is that people 00:49:26.960 --> 00:49:29.820 are going about their business and they've got 00:49:29.820 --> 00:49:32.320 you know everyone's got complicated lives they've 00:49:32.320 --> 00:49:35.500 got their own challenges and then as an activist 00:49:35.500 --> 00:49:37.639 you know you you confront them with something 00:49:37.639 --> 00:49:41.539 extremely upsetting and you're doing harm when 00:49:41.539 --> 00:49:44.500 you do that uh and so i think you have to have 00:49:44.500 --> 00:49:48.679 a good reason to do that kind of harm um you 00:49:48.679 --> 00:49:51.219 know in the same way that i think it's wrong 00:49:51.219 --> 00:49:54.039 to unnecessarily harm non -human animals well 00:49:54.039 --> 00:49:56.800 humans are animals too if i'm harming a human 00:49:56.800 --> 00:49:59.659 by upsetting them then I need a good reason to 00:49:59.659 --> 00:50:04.039 do that so the good reason has to be well they 00:50:04.039 --> 00:50:08.960 are participating in a very harmful activity 00:50:08.960 --> 00:50:13.179 themselves and I'm hoping that by doing them 00:50:13.179 --> 00:50:17.400 this short -term harm I'm going to change their 00:50:17.400 --> 00:50:19.619 mind and thus change their behavior so but there 00:50:19.619 --> 00:50:22.980 is that kind of a sort of moral calculus there. 00:50:23.320 --> 00:50:26.579 And I think that that's a, you know, something 00:50:26.579 --> 00:50:33.239 that you have to take seriously. Again, the data 00:50:33.239 --> 00:50:38.559 I know of about the efficacy of showing people 00:50:38.559 --> 00:50:41.440 graphic imagery, post dates when we wrote that 00:50:41.440 --> 00:50:45.960 book. So I think if I were to revisit that chapter 00:50:45.960 --> 00:50:50.230 today, I would come down more firmly in favor 00:50:50.230 --> 00:50:52.650 of saying, yeah, this is something that it's 00:50:52.650 --> 00:50:54.969 fine to do, not because you're not doing harm 00:50:54.969 --> 00:50:57.889 to people by upsetting them, but because it's 00:50:57.889 --> 00:51:00.590 more justified because it's efficacious, right? 00:51:01.190 --> 00:51:03.090 The fact that you have a noble cause isn't a 00:51:03.090 --> 00:51:04.449 sufficient reason. It's got to be that you have 00:51:04.449 --> 00:51:06.969 a noble cause and it's likely to have some sort 00:51:06.969 --> 00:51:09.949 of an impact. So that's with respect to images. 00:51:11.309 --> 00:51:13.989 I can stop there and ask if you have follow up 00:51:13.989 --> 00:51:15.590 questions about that, or I can talk a little 00:51:15.590 --> 00:51:18.000 bit about violence if you want. No, please go 00:51:18.000 --> 00:51:20.820 ahead with violence. Okay. So the right. So the 00:51:20.820 --> 00:51:25.019 other parallel is the question of what role, 00:51:25.019 --> 00:51:29.619 if any violence plays in these respective movements. 00:51:29.619 --> 00:51:34.760 Um, because, uh, critics of both the pro -life 00:51:34.760 --> 00:51:37.440 movement and the animal rights movement, uh, 00:51:37.800 --> 00:51:42.780 have argued, uh, with varying degrees of accuracy 00:51:42.780 --> 00:51:45.960 that these are extremists who are, you know, 00:51:46.079 --> 00:51:49.699 causing serious harm and so one of the things 00:51:49.699 --> 00:51:52.820 we do purely for the sake of argument before 00:51:52.820 --> 00:51:55.579 we get into that is to ask the question well 00:51:55.579 --> 00:52:00.760 is violence morally justified uh that is to say 00:52:00.760 --> 00:52:06.079 you know if currently someone were doing to humans 00:52:06.079 --> 00:52:09.840 what happens routinely to non -human animals 00:52:09.840 --> 00:52:13.420 you know throughout the world uh i think most 00:52:13.420 --> 00:52:17.179 of us would say it is morally justified at the 00:52:17.179 --> 00:52:21.900 very least to violate property rights and to 00:52:21.900 --> 00:52:25.219 cause some you know property destruction to rescue 00:52:25.219 --> 00:52:30.440 as many humans as one can from that kind of horrible 00:52:30.440 --> 00:52:35.300 treatment and eventual death and so if you're 00:52:35.300 --> 00:52:39.239 a serious you know animal activist why not do 00:52:39.239 --> 00:52:41.550 that isn't it morally justified even if you don't 00:52:41.550 --> 00:52:43.349 want to go to prison? And so you might not do 00:52:43.349 --> 00:52:46.090 it for pragmatic reasons. And likewise, you could 00:52:46.090 --> 00:52:49.710 ask the same thing about an anti -abortion activist 00:52:49.710 --> 00:52:52.269 who believes abortion is morally equivalent to 00:52:52.269 --> 00:52:56.989 murder. You would take many steps, including 00:52:56.989 --> 00:53:01.230 physical intervention, to stop someone from committing 00:53:01.230 --> 00:53:03.670 murder of a fully -born, living human being. 00:53:04.550 --> 00:53:08.699 And so just as a logical matter, right, it does 00:53:08.699 --> 00:53:13.519 seem like if one accepts the premises then violence 00:53:13.519 --> 00:53:15.559 is morally justified even if it might not be 00:53:15.559 --> 00:53:20.059 legally justified. We don't really engage with 00:53:20.059 --> 00:53:22.860 that on the anti -abortion side because we don't 00:53:22.860 --> 00:53:28.039 think that the we don't accept the the argument 00:53:28.039 --> 00:53:31.780 and even with respect to sentient fetuses we 00:53:31.780 --> 00:53:34.840 think that there are Various reasons why the 00:53:34.840 --> 00:53:36.880 moral choice should rest with a pregnant person 00:53:36.880 --> 00:53:39.699 rather than with some third party or the government 00:53:39.699 --> 00:53:44.960 but we do wrestle with it for animal activists 00:53:44.960 --> 00:53:50.300 and The conclusion we reach is that in order 00:53:50.300 --> 00:53:54.820 to justify the use of physical force whether 00:53:54.820 --> 00:53:59.420 it's to commit property damage or, even worse, 00:53:59.539 --> 00:54:04.699 loss of human life, right? You need to not only 00:54:04.699 --> 00:54:11.059 think that the moral wrong of what's being inflicted 00:54:11.059 --> 00:54:14.639 on the animals is very, very serious, which we 00:54:14.639 --> 00:54:17.699 do think it is, but you also need to think that 00:54:17.699 --> 00:54:22.519 your act of violence is going to actually benefit 00:54:22.519 --> 00:54:26.269 those animals. And we have two reasons for thinking 00:54:26.269 --> 00:54:33.550 that's not true. One is that there are just so 00:54:33.550 --> 00:54:40.510 many animals in this system. And if there is 00:54:40.510 --> 00:54:42.969 one thing that sort of unites the general public 00:54:42.969 --> 00:54:46.409 against the cause, it's acts of violence. Even 00:54:46.409 --> 00:54:51.489 property damage is very bad publicity. And so 00:54:51.489 --> 00:54:54.369 it's likely to be counterproductive to the movement. 00:54:54.539 --> 00:54:58.900 Second reason is that there are so many things 00:54:58.900 --> 00:55:03.420 one can do short of violence to rescue individual 00:55:03.420 --> 00:55:06.900 animals that if your concern is, well, at least 00:55:06.900 --> 00:55:08.880 I've saved that one animal, you can save that 00:55:08.880 --> 00:55:12.579 one animal from using various other non -violent 00:55:12.579 --> 00:55:16.900 methods. So at the end of the day, we come out 00:55:16.900 --> 00:55:21.030 pretty strongly against it. We also entertain 00:55:21.030 --> 00:55:27.190 the idea that you might associate with Gandhi 00:55:27.190 --> 00:55:31.989 or Thoreau or Martin Luther King Jr. that violence 00:55:31.989 --> 00:55:35.369 is never an appropriate means towards achieving 00:55:35.369 --> 00:55:43.389 a peaceful goal. I'm generally sympathetic to 00:55:43.389 --> 00:55:45.190 that view, but I don't think that that's the 00:55:45.190 --> 00:55:48.250 core of our argument. That's really interesting. 00:55:48.800 --> 00:55:52.219 have spoken many times with one of the officer 00:55:52.219 --> 00:55:57.820 of the animal liberation front press office about, 00:55:57.820 --> 00:56:00.320 you know, the actions of the animal liberation 00:56:00.320 --> 00:56:04.900 front. And so I guess my question is, what do 00:56:04.900 --> 00:56:09.179 you make of acts of violence, such as what they 00:56:09.179 --> 00:56:14.889 did in Iceland where they are wrecked to whaling 00:56:14.889 --> 00:56:20.449 ships and, you know, basically put a stop to 00:56:20.449 --> 00:56:25.530 a very lucrative economic activity in Iceland. 00:56:25.889 --> 00:56:28.469 Are there some exceptions to that? Some acts 00:56:28.469 --> 00:56:34.570 of violence of property damage that could be, 00:56:34.570 --> 00:56:42.619 you know, very impactful if enacted? Yeah, so 00:56:42.619 --> 00:56:45.340 first I'd say that, you know, I think with a 00:56:45.340 --> 00:56:51.400 few exceptions ALF and Sea Shepherd are less 00:56:51.400 --> 00:56:54.500 what we had in mind we were we were more focused 00:56:54.500 --> 00:56:58.980 on acts of violence with respect to domestic 00:56:58.980 --> 00:57:03.219 farming but you know the argument I just laid 00:57:03.219 --> 00:57:09.739 out right is ultimately depends on a kind of 00:57:13.159 --> 00:57:18.679 predictive and empirical question. Whereas one 00:57:18.679 --> 00:57:22.599 can save a cow without breaking into a farm, 00:57:22.940 --> 00:57:27.159 harder to save the whales through some other 00:57:27.159 --> 00:57:30.440 means. So I guess I understand how one could 00:57:30.440 --> 00:57:33.940 reach a contrary conclusion with respect to free 00:57:33.940 --> 00:57:38.239 living animals in the ocean. I had in mind, I 00:57:38.239 --> 00:57:43.099 mean, you know, one of the things that I think 00:57:43.099 --> 00:57:45.400 about sort of a group like Direct Action Everywhere 00:57:45.400 --> 00:57:51.260 or DXE, and they are very much against doing 00:57:51.260 --> 00:57:54.239 even property damage. I mean, the most kind of 00:57:54.239 --> 00:57:55.960 property damage they might do is they might like, 00:57:55.960 --> 00:57:59.119 you know, cut a wire or something that prevents 00:57:59.119 --> 00:58:00.599 someone from getting to an animal, but they're 00:58:00.599 --> 00:58:03.420 not doing any kind of serious economic damage. 00:58:03.710 --> 00:58:06.969 And the defense is typically that the animals 00:58:06.969 --> 00:58:10.610 that are rescuing had zero or even negative economic 00:58:10.610 --> 00:58:17.949 value to the farmers. And so to my mind, the 00:58:17.949 --> 00:58:23.090 question for them is the stakes are lower because 00:58:23.090 --> 00:58:26.489 you're not causing serious property damage. You're 00:58:26.489 --> 00:58:30.210 certainly not causing serious harm. There is, 00:58:30.210 --> 00:58:34.199 of course, always a risk That there could be 00:58:34.199 --> 00:58:36.460 violence more likely against members of your 00:58:36.460 --> 00:58:40.300 own group if there happens to be a. Guard there 00:58:40.300 --> 00:58:42.880 some or someone i you know this is not activity 00:58:42.880 --> 00:58:45.320 in which i engage so i don't i don't know how 00:58:45.320 --> 00:58:50.639 to weigh all of those factors. What you know 00:58:50.639 --> 00:58:56.239 i i i i talk to wayne shung after he was in prison 00:58:56.239 --> 00:58:59.059 when of course founder of the xe no longer with 00:58:59.059 --> 00:59:01.679 the xe but you know so still. very much involved 00:59:01.679 --> 00:59:05.539 in this sort of movement and you know he had 00:59:05.539 --> 00:59:09.679 said before and after he went to prison that 00:59:09.679 --> 00:59:12.179 he thought that his going to prison would be 00:59:12.179 --> 00:59:15.960 good for the movement right so that um when we 00:59:15.960 --> 00:59:19.000 say we're against violence we're not against 00:59:19.000 --> 00:59:22.639 civil disobedience but it's civil disobedience 00:59:22.639 --> 00:59:27.960 in the sort of throw gandhi king tradition in 00:59:27.960 --> 00:59:32.460 which part of the dramatization of the seriousness 00:59:32.460 --> 00:59:36.579 of your cause is your willingness to go to jail. 00:59:37.239 --> 00:59:44.219 I do think it takes a lot of creativity to go 00:59:44.219 --> 00:59:48.739 and try to see the parallels between pro -life 00:59:48.739 --> 00:59:51.059 and the animal rights movement and try to learn 00:59:51.059 --> 00:59:54.969 from other social movements that are not looked 00:59:54.969 --> 00:59:58.969 upon as being adjacent to the animal rights movement. 00:59:59.469 --> 01:00:03.710 I always hear activists talk about the animal 01:00:03.710 --> 01:00:05.969 rights movement as a social justice movement 01:00:05.969 --> 01:00:11.230 or something akin to that. But I really like 01:00:11.230 --> 01:00:16.010 the idea of getting inspired or studying at least 01:00:16.010 --> 01:00:21.659 other social movements and you know, learning 01:00:21.659 --> 01:00:26.699 from from what they have accomplished. Now, we 01:00:26.699 --> 01:00:29.579 should maybe touch briefly on on this topic. 01:00:29.780 --> 01:00:32.820 But the pro -life movement has been successful 01:00:32.820 --> 01:00:39.900 in the US in reaching their goals. What do you 01:00:39.900 --> 01:00:45.079 make of that success? So I'm not sure they've 01:00:45.079 --> 01:00:47.360 been successful. They've been successful in making 01:00:47.360 --> 01:00:52.300 abortion illegal in about half the country. I 01:00:52.300 --> 01:00:54.559 don't think they've been successful in reducing 01:00:54.559 --> 01:00:58.099 the number of abortions. There's actually evidence 01:00:58.099 --> 01:01:02.480 that the number of abortions has actually increased 01:01:02.480 --> 01:01:06.920 in the now nearly three years since the Supreme 01:01:06.920 --> 01:01:10.400 Court overruled a constitutional right to abortion. 01:01:10.960 --> 01:01:15.960 Part of that is because of the availability of 01:01:15.960 --> 01:01:19.579 abortion pills, whether legal availability or 01:01:19.579 --> 01:01:24.719 illegal availability. Part of it is because of 01:01:24.719 --> 01:01:28.900 pushback. And one of the things you've seen in 01:01:28.900 --> 01:01:32.500 the US is, I think, a shift in public opinion, 01:01:32.519 --> 01:01:36.539 so that as a consequence of their success in 01:01:36.539 --> 01:01:41.280 the courts, their views have become less popular, 01:01:41.280 --> 01:01:45.480 so that when abortion has been placed on the 01:01:45.480 --> 01:01:49.159 ballot in states, even in most of the fairly 01:01:49.159 --> 01:01:52.400 conservative states, it's generally lost. And 01:01:52.400 --> 01:01:54.440 when it has won, like it did in a state like 01:01:54.440 --> 01:01:57.119 Florida, it was only because the threshold was 01:01:57.119 --> 01:02:01.280 a sort of super majority threshold. So I think 01:02:01.280 --> 01:02:02.920 there's a question of how you measure success. 01:02:03.019 --> 01:02:08.219 Having said that, yes, the campaign to change 01:02:08.219 --> 01:02:14.860 the law was very effective, and I think that 01:02:14.860 --> 01:02:22.420 was partly because they were able to rally their 01:02:22.420 --> 01:02:28.599 voters around particular issues to the exclusion 01:02:28.599 --> 01:02:32.119 of other issues. That is, there are a lot of 01:02:32.119 --> 01:02:36.059 voters in the United States who might have a 01:02:36.059 --> 01:02:39.800 whole variety of views on a great many uh issues 01:02:39.800 --> 01:02:44.900 but will only vote uh for a candidate if they 01:02:44.900 --> 01:02:47.619 are anti -abortion to a lesser extent that's 01:02:47.619 --> 01:02:49.760 true of people who are pro -choice but but there's 01:02:49.760 --> 01:02:54.719 some of that and so it's it um uh i think part 01:02:54.719 --> 01:02:57.840 and the reason i'm focusing on voters even though 01:02:57.840 --> 01:03:02.039 the big change took place in the supreme court 01:03:02.039 --> 01:03:06.659 is because the way that you got a supreme court 01:03:06.659 --> 01:03:10.739 that was going to overturn the abortion right, 01:03:11.059 --> 01:03:14.500 was through presidential appointments, which 01:03:14.500 --> 01:03:17.960 were based on campaigns which included abortion 01:03:17.960 --> 01:03:21.440 as one of the central issues, despite all sorts 01:03:21.440 --> 01:03:25.000 of other things going on. Now, I happen to think, 01:03:25.239 --> 01:03:28.659 putting aside my animal activism hat, I happen 01:03:28.659 --> 01:03:31.320 to think that's not healthy for a democracy to 01:03:31.320 --> 01:03:34.539 have elections turn on you know this one issue 01:03:34.539 --> 01:03:36.559 which you know to people on both sides is an 01:03:36.559 --> 01:03:38.719 important moral issue but there are you know 01:03:38.719 --> 01:03:42.500 literally hundreds of other uh also important 01:03:42.500 --> 01:03:45.099 issues that get sort of submerged and sort of 01:03:45.099 --> 01:03:50.420 washed out as a consequence um but i think that 01:03:50.420 --> 01:03:56.519 one thing that we could learn from the that is 01:03:56.519 --> 01:03:58.900 number one two things i'll say number one is 01:03:58.900 --> 01:04:01.639 patience This was a campaign over the course 01:04:01.639 --> 01:04:06.199 of about 50 years. And they were persistent. 01:04:06.719 --> 01:04:08.780 And even though they had setbacks, they eventually 01:04:08.780 --> 01:04:12.019 won, at least as measured by the legal change. 01:04:13.619 --> 01:04:18.239 And the other thing, I guess, is the importance 01:04:18.239 --> 01:04:23.639 of having a core of passionate supporters. So 01:04:23.639 --> 01:04:27.130 there are. people who care passionately about 01:04:27.130 --> 01:04:30.429 the animal issue. And then there's a lot of what 01:04:30.429 --> 01:04:34.909 we might call diffuse support. So I think that 01:04:34.909 --> 01:04:38.050 one of the things that could be really effective 01:04:38.050 --> 01:04:41.550 is turning some of those diffuse supporters into 01:04:41.550 --> 01:04:43.650 passionate supporters, the sorts of people who 01:04:43.650 --> 01:04:46.289 would go out and sort of vote and make this a 01:04:46.289 --> 01:04:52.449 campaign issue. It isn't there yet. So the highest 01:04:52.449 --> 01:04:56.119 profile uh... vegan politician in the united 01:04:56.119 --> 01:04:59.519 states uh... was in the news lately that's uh... 01:04:59.519 --> 01:05:01.619 united states senator corey booker who just you 01:05:01.619 --> 01:05:04.820 know spoke uh... continuously on the senate floor 01:05:04.820 --> 01:05:07.280 for twenty five hours he is quite open about 01:05:07.280 --> 01:05:09.400 the fact that he's a vegan and it's important 01:05:09.400 --> 01:05:12.219 to him um... there's an hour now another vegan 01:05:12.219 --> 01:05:14.699 in the u .s. senate adams chef and these are 01:05:14.699 --> 01:05:16.260 the both important players in the democratic 01:05:16.260 --> 01:05:20.539 party it's not as though there's a kind of vegan 01:05:20.539 --> 01:05:24.260 lobby or, you know, that the vegans are a powerful 01:05:24.260 --> 01:05:28.460 voice that politicians have to take seriously. 01:05:28.920 --> 01:05:31.039 So, you know, that's something you can build 01:05:31.039 --> 01:05:38.380 over time. Yes, I read Matthew Scully, and, you 01:05:38.380 --> 01:05:42.360 know, he mentioned how he would never support 01:05:42.360 --> 01:05:46.780 a political candidate who was not pro -choice, 01:05:46.940 --> 01:05:53.000 pro -life rather. And yeah, I have seen that 01:05:53.000 --> 01:05:56.760 how they are one issue voters, you know, the 01:05:56.760 --> 01:06:00.519 pro -life people. And I've looked at it a bit 01:06:00.519 --> 01:06:02.840 with envy, I have to say, you know, putting the 01:06:02.840 --> 01:06:05.960 question of democracy aside, I wish that there 01:06:05.960 --> 01:06:09.480 was more of that in the animal rights movement, 01:06:09.559 --> 01:06:14.280 you know, people prioritizing animals over other 01:06:14.429 --> 01:06:19.010 uh social issues um because if we don't do that 01:06:19.010 --> 01:06:23.449 then who else is going to put them forward but 01:06:23.449 --> 01:06:29.170 um so so you did cover that but i guess my my 01:06:29.170 --> 01:06:33.230 other question regarding that is should we put 01:06:33.230 --> 01:06:38.010 more the emphasis on uh politics instead of anything 01:06:38.010 --> 01:06:43.619 else um in regard to you know advancing the animal 01:06:43.619 --> 01:06:50.519 rights agenda. I often talk with Liz White, who 01:06:50.519 --> 01:06:53.239 is the leader of the Animal Protection Party 01:06:53.239 --> 01:06:57.420 of Canada. And every time she comes on the show, 01:06:57.440 --> 01:07:02.119 she says, you know, everything is political, 01:07:02.519 --> 01:07:04.880 politicians decide everything, you know, who 01:07:04.880 --> 01:07:09.780 lives who dies. And how are things done in terms 01:07:09.780 --> 01:07:15.989 of, you know, exploitation of animals. But we're 01:07:15.989 --> 01:07:20.110 not, you know, I feel lots of animal rights activists 01:07:20.110 --> 01:07:26.590 are not very political, are not inclined to make 01:07:26.590 --> 01:07:29.989 their activism more political. Do you think we 01:07:29.989 --> 01:07:33.510 should go more in that way, get inspired by the 01:07:33.510 --> 01:07:40.269 pro -life crowd and get more political? Where 01:07:40.269 --> 01:07:49.090 possible, sure. I think you can do that on issues 01:07:49.090 --> 01:07:53.150 where you can build coalitions with people who 01:07:53.150 --> 01:07:55.670 are not fully on board the animal rights movement. 01:07:55.989 --> 01:08:01.809 So for example, there are a number of towns in 01:08:01.809 --> 01:08:04.550 Massachusetts now that have banned the sale of 01:08:04.550 --> 01:08:12.800 fur. was a ballot initiative in Denver to close 01:08:12.800 --> 01:08:21.000 a lamb slaughterhouse, right? There are initiatives 01:08:21.000 --> 01:08:24.520 involving the treatment of horses. You can do 01:08:24.520 --> 01:08:32.359 things about companion animals. Given though 01:08:32.359 --> 01:08:38.199 that somewhere between 95 and 98 % of The people 01:08:38.199 --> 01:08:43.500 in our countries are. Eating and wearing animals 01:08:43.500 --> 01:08:49.939 on a daily basis. Who let politics and the law 01:08:49.939 --> 01:08:54.720 are not going to be a means of achieving very 01:08:54.720 --> 01:08:59.039 dramatic changes in the short run right not a 01:08:59.039 --> 01:09:01.720 reason not to do it right where you can not even 01:09:01.720 --> 01:09:04.140 a reason not to swing for the fences even though 01:09:04.140 --> 01:09:07.289 you know it's futile because you. who raise people's 01:09:07.289 --> 01:09:10.949 awareness. But I don't think that can be certainly 01:09:10.949 --> 01:09:13.729 the exclusive strategy. I sometimes hear people 01:09:13.729 --> 01:09:17.770 both in the animal rights side and the environmental 01:09:17.770 --> 01:09:21.590 justice movement or environmental movement say 01:09:21.590 --> 01:09:23.649 things like, well, these are systemic problems. 01:09:23.670 --> 01:09:25.810 They can only be addressed systemically by government 01:09:25.810 --> 01:09:28.729 and so forth. And I agree they're systemic problems, 01:09:28.770 --> 01:09:31.550 but systems are composed of individuals. And 01:09:31.550 --> 01:09:34.550 so there's no reason why you can't attack a problem. 01:09:35.279 --> 01:09:39.140 both at the systemic level, and at the individual 01:09:39.140 --> 01:09:42.020 level. And in fact, those things will often work 01:09:42.020 --> 01:09:46.479 complementarily. And I should differentiate the 01:09:46.479 --> 01:09:50.380 political system in Canada versus America. In 01:09:50.380 --> 01:09:53.819 Canada, we have the hope of a proportional democratic 01:09:53.819 --> 01:09:58.399 system, where parties like the Animal Protection 01:09:58.399 --> 01:10:06.220 Party can vote into, you know, MPs into the Parliament. 01:10:07.420 --> 01:10:13.079 So that's something that Americans do not have. 01:10:14.439 --> 01:10:19.000 We will never see an animal party in America 01:10:19.000 --> 01:10:24.600 doing impactful work like we see being done in 01:10:24.600 --> 01:10:29.180 the Netherlands or in New Zealand. Yeah, I think 01:10:29.180 --> 01:10:33.359 that's right. And I mean, I would include the 01:10:33.359 --> 01:10:37.930 Greens in in much of europe they're not explicitly 01:10:37.930 --> 01:10:40.609 animal rights party but a lot of people who are 01:10:40.609 --> 01:10:44.590 active in in green the green party have uh animal 01:10:44.590 --> 01:10:46.909 rights commitments along with their environmental 01:10:46.909 --> 01:10:50.890 and other commitments uh yeah it is a it is a 01:10:50.890 --> 01:10:54.630 problem with um district by district elections 01:10:54.630 --> 01:10:57.810 and you know no no no proportional representation 01:10:57.810 --> 01:10:59.409 that you're not going to have representation 01:10:59.409 --> 01:11:02.199 of that it's just a call to mind if i I don't 01:11:02.199 --> 01:11:04.020 know if you're familiar with the Graham Greene 01:11:04.020 --> 01:11:08.739 novel, The Comedians, which is a novel about 01:11:08.739 --> 01:11:13.659 basically the horrors of the popadoc regime in 01:11:13.659 --> 01:11:19.239 Haiti. But there's a character in the book who 01:11:19.239 --> 01:11:21.859 is referred to as the presidential candidate. 01:11:22.479 --> 01:11:25.140 And you learn that he ran for president of the 01:11:25.140 --> 01:11:28.500 United States on the vegetarian party platform, 01:11:28.739 --> 01:11:32.340 which, of course, is made up. And he's a somewhat 01:11:32.340 --> 01:11:36.359 ridiculous character. But it was hopeful to me 01:11:36.359 --> 01:11:39.100 that, oh, there was a vegetarian party, at least 01:11:39.100 --> 01:11:44.300 in fiction once. Yeah. I mean, we're grasping. 01:11:47.979 --> 01:11:54.340 Right. Yeah. I mean, again, going back to democracy, 01:11:55.489 --> 01:11:59.310 Sure, America does not have the hope of a proportional 01:11:59.310 --> 01:12:03.689 democratic system. But you have the First Amendment, 01:12:04.250 --> 01:12:07.729 which is freedom of speech. And, you know, the 01:12:07.729 --> 01:12:12.930 the ALF press office could not exist in Canada, 01:12:13.050 --> 01:12:17.310 but it can exist in in the US. So that's something 01:12:17.310 --> 01:12:22.279 beautiful and a big win for a great environment 01:12:22.279 --> 01:12:25.899 for activists in the animal rights space. Yeah, 01:12:25.899 --> 01:12:28.180 I think that's right, at least as their US citizens, 01:12:28.460 --> 01:12:30.720 because increasingly people who are not citizens 01:12:30.720 --> 01:12:33.119 are being punished for their freedom of expression. 01:12:33.859 --> 01:12:38.020 So, you know, I hope that turns out to be a temporary 01:12:38.020 --> 01:12:44.020 anomaly. You know, and there are there are other 01:12:44.020 --> 01:12:50.069 ways in which people can be influential. in politics 01:12:50.069 --> 01:12:54.510 right again um you can you can have these coalitions 01:12:54.510 --> 01:12:58.289 with other other movements so just to give another 01:12:58.289 --> 01:13:02.670 example so i'm i on most issues i find myself 01:13:02.670 --> 01:13:05.430 on the other side of people who call themselves 01:13:05.430 --> 01:13:09.729 libertarians but there is a libertarian organization 01:13:09.729 --> 01:13:12.050 in the united states called white coat waste 01:13:12.050 --> 01:13:17.939 which lobbies again very strongly against uh... 01:13:17.939 --> 01:13:21.159 medical research and and and and experimental 01:13:21.159 --> 01:13:24.760 uh... laboratory research on an on animals there's 01:13:24.760 --> 01:13:26.819 a federal law that requires that all the drugs 01:13:26.819 --> 01:13:29.640 be tested on animals and this libertarian organization 01:13:29.640 --> 01:13:31.720 lobbies against it on the ground this is a waste 01:13:31.720 --> 01:13:35.359 of money because the animal testing doesn't do 01:13:35.359 --> 01:13:38.539 any good uh... and it turns out that some of 01:13:38.539 --> 01:13:41.140 the people who are involved in it do actually 01:13:41.140 --> 01:13:43.420 care about the animals to so there's an opportunity 01:13:43.420 --> 01:13:46.979 to work with a potentially more powerful constituency. 01:13:47.000 --> 01:13:52.920 So I'm all for building coalitions with groups 01:13:52.920 --> 01:13:57.359 who might not share my views on any range of 01:13:57.359 --> 01:14:00.539 issues. So long as we can make common cause on 01:14:00.539 --> 01:14:03.020 this particular one, especially when it's one 01:14:03.020 --> 01:14:08.039 of those animals. I guess to close this topic 01:14:08.039 --> 01:14:14.630 of politics, and why do you think that Spartacus 01:14:14.630 --> 01:14:18.710 Curry Booker is not more, you know, pro animal 01:14:18.710 --> 01:14:22.949 more, you know, outspoken about his veganism. 01:14:24.590 --> 01:14:27.689 I'm always, you know, I find myself asking this 01:14:27.689 --> 01:14:31.250 question, because if I put myself in his place, 01:14:31.270 --> 01:14:34.329 I feel like I would be the first, you know, most, 01:14:34.329 --> 01:14:41.590 you know, driven on this issue and would put 01:14:41.590 --> 01:14:47.449 all of my time. So yeah, why do you think people 01:14:47.449 --> 01:14:50.630 like Cory Booker, you mentioned Adam Schiff, 01:14:50.770 --> 01:14:54.189 I think Bill Clinton was vegan for a long time. 01:14:54.489 --> 01:14:57.670 Not for the animals, though. For health reasons, 01:14:57.670 --> 01:15:00.189 I suppose. Yes. Anyway, he was never fully vegan. 01:15:00.329 --> 01:15:05.229 It was only for health reasons. Yeah, so why 01:15:05.229 --> 01:15:09.279 are those people and I guess more liberal politicians, 01:15:09.640 --> 01:15:12.819 because they must know vegans in their family, 01:15:13.220 --> 01:15:16.020 in their circle of friends. Why don't we see 01:15:16.020 --> 01:15:20.680 more of them being proactive in terms of, you 01:15:20.680 --> 01:15:24.619 know, animal rights? Right. So I think it's simply 01:15:24.619 --> 01:15:27.840 because we're a very small minority of the population, 01:15:27.840 --> 01:15:31.180 right? It's not. And and we are not seen as oppressed. 01:15:31.380 --> 01:15:33.619 We're seen as annoying. Right. Even though, of 01:15:33.619 --> 01:15:35.890 course, we don't want to be He's seen as a press. 01:15:35.970 --> 01:15:37.729 You want them to see the oppression of the animals. 01:15:39.090 --> 01:15:42.649 Again, it's just a matter of what's politically 01:15:42.649 --> 01:15:45.350 possible. So I think Cory Booker is actually 01:15:45.350 --> 01:15:49.390 pretty good about speaking up compared to what 01:15:49.390 --> 01:15:52.149 the possibilities are. You know, New Jersey, 01:15:52.310 --> 01:15:55.210 which is the state he represents, includes a 01:15:55.210 --> 01:15:59.670 lot of dairy farmers. So there are industries 01:15:59.670 --> 01:16:04.680 that would oppose him if he made his Veganism 01:16:04.680 --> 01:16:07.180 more of a voting issue. I think you notwithstanding 01:16:07.180 --> 01:16:09.560 that he does typically come out What I regard 01:16:09.560 --> 01:16:11.579 as the right way whenever one of these issues 01:16:11.579 --> 01:16:13.699 comes up, but you're you're absolutely right. 01:16:13.699 --> 01:16:16.979 He's not out They are pushing for you know a 01:16:16.979 --> 01:16:20.739 ban on You know animal slaughter or dairy or 01:16:20.739 --> 01:16:23.479 anything like that and I think that reflects 01:16:23.479 --> 01:16:26.579 a kind of political Reality, I just don't think 01:16:26.579 --> 01:16:29.260 it's realistic to expect somebody who has to 01:16:29.260 --> 01:16:34.130 stand for reelection to be proposing laws that 01:16:34.130 --> 01:16:37.689 are going to ensure that they don't get reelected. 01:16:38.689 --> 01:16:41.149 So, you know, that's, again, it's, it's simply 01:16:41.149 --> 01:16:43.350 a, to my mind, it's simply a numbers game. But 01:16:43.350 --> 01:16:46.609 again, you can make progress on smaller issues 01:16:46.609 --> 01:16:49.130 where you can form coalitions with people who 01:16:49.130 --> 01:16:54.489 have much less ambitious goals. Yeah, an argument 01:16:54.489 --> 01:16:58.250 for putting limits to mandates, political mandates. 01:16:59.640 --> 01:17:03.039 Okay, I guess my last question for you, and thank 01:17:03.039 --> 01:17:05.920 you so much for your time, we went over time. 01:17:06.319 --> 01:17:10.579 It's okay. Is you finished the book by mentioning 01:17:10.579 --> 01:17:16.439 a book I did not get to read yet called Zootopia. 01:17:16.880 --> 01:17:20.640 And you describe what it would be like to have, 01:17:20.640 --> 01:17:26.319 you know, more of an ideal world for animal and 01:17:26.319 --> 01:17:31.119 human relationships. And I guess that's one of 01:17:31.119 --> 01:17:36.399 the best if not the best description of a world 01:17:36.399 --> 01:17:40.140 where the animal rights movement succeeds, that 01:17:40.140 --> 01:17:42.939 I have read, you know, what it looks like if 01:17:42.939 --> 01:17:46.680 we succeed. So I would love if you could maybe 01:17:46.680 --> 01:17:50.779 as parting words to to talk about that about 01:17:50.779 --> 01:17:56.199 a zoo utopia. Sure. So so that's a book by Will 01:17:56.199 --> 01:17:58.359 Kimlicka and Sue Donaldson, and they're Canadians, 01:17:58.399 --> 01:18:02.439 by the way. So I think they're at Queen's University 01:18:02.439 --> 01:18:07.079 in Kingston, Ontario. And we actually presented 01:18:07.079 --> 01:18:11.260 a version of that chapter there before we published 01:18:11.260 --> 01:18:16.380 the book. After the book, there was a nice panel 01:18:16.380 --> 01:18:18.180 on it that Peter Singer hosted at Princeton. 01:18:19.020 --> 01:18:22.300 But that issue didn't come up. So giving credit 01:18:22.300 --> 01:18:27.640 to will ensue, what they say in their book is 01:18:27.640 --> 01:18:33.340 they imagine sort of three categories of animals, 01:18:33.420 --> 01:18:37.939 what they call sort of sovereigns, and these 01:18:37.939 --> 01:18:42.520 are free -living wild animals, and there the 01:18:42.520 --> 01:18:47.899 idea is to just let them be. Denizens, who are 01:18:47.899 --> 01:18:51.699 animals who live among us but are not Really 01:18:51.699 --> 01:18:54.039 part of our society. So think about like rats 01:18:54.039 --> 01:18:59.159 and pigeons and so forth and then citizens and 01:18:59.159 --> 01:19:01.439 The idea that I think I find most intriguing 01:19:01.439 --> 01:19:03.760 is their idea of citizens So these are you know, 01:19:03.760 --> 01:19:07.880 these are basically the most domesticated animals 01:19:07.880 --> 01:19:16.039 Think of dogs sheep, etc who With whom we have 01:19:16.039 --> 01:19:18.659 we could they imagine have a kind of mutualist 01:19:18.659 --> 01:19:24.939 relationship And I want to think that's possible. 01:19:25.079 --> 01:19:28.439 And I think I live with three dogs. I think on 01:19:28.439 --> 01:19:31.840 our good days, we have a mutualist relationship. 01:19:32.079 --> 01:19:37.380 If I'm playing frisbee with one of my dogs, I 01:19:37.380 --> 01:19:39.539 throw the frisbee. And he's clearly enjoying 01:19:39.539 --> 01:19:42.680 going after it and occasionally catching it, 01:19:42.680 --> 01:19:47.180 usually picking it up after it lands, and then 01:19:47.180 --> 01:19:50.000 bouncing back to me with the frisbee. He's enjoying 01:19:50.000 --> 01:19:53.199 it, and I'm enjoying it. And that is, I think, 01:19:53.560 --> 01:19:56.460 characteristic of a good deal of our relationship. 01:19:56.720 --> 01:20:00.060 You see anybody who lives with an affectionate 01:20:00.060 --> 01:20:02.979 companion animal, they lie on their back to get 01:20:02.979 --> 01:20:04.939 a belly rub or something like that. That's a 01:20:04.939 --> 01:20:07.520 sort of mutually satisfactory relationship. I 01:20:07.520 --> 01:20:11.699 think that's possible. But I also think it's 01:20:11.699 --> 01:20:15.319 fraught. That is to say, even for our most beloved 01:20:15.319 --> 01:20:19.520 animals, we are controlling their lives. in ways 01:20:19.520 --> 01:20:24.659 that I think are suboptimal. I would be very 01:20:24.659 --> 01:20:27.739 sad if that were to stop being the case. I don't 01:20:27.739 --> 01:20:29.800 think there's any risk of it stopping. I mean, 01:20:30.420 --> 01:20:33.340 I adopted all my dogs from shelters. I'd continue 01:20:33.340 --> 01:20:38.159 to do that. But in an ideal world, people aren't 01:20:38.159 --> 01:20:42.960 breeding these animals. What Will and Sue say 01:20:42.960 --> 01:20:44.770 is, well, they would breed on their own and there'd 01:20:44.770 --> 01:20:46.069 be these animals, you know, and they would come 01:20:46.069 --> 01:20:48.270 in. And so, you know, maybe I think it might 01:20:48.270 --> 01:20:50.789 look a little bit like the relationship between 01:20:50.789 --> 01:20:53.050 humans and the first dogs, which were sort of 01:20:53.050 --> 01:20:55.109 friendly wolves that came around the campfire 01:20:55.109 --> 01:20:59.670 of their own accord. I do think, though, that 01:20:59.670 --> 01:21:03.710 the kind of ideal future is also going to have 01:21:03.710 --> 01:21:07.850 to include just a lot more wild spaces that humans 01:21:07.850 --> 01:21:12.600 don't enter. Right. And so a An enormous reduction 01:21:12.600 --> 01:21:15.380 in the consumption of animal products will facilitate 01:21:15.380 --> 01:21:18.699 that because it will mean we just need much less 01:21:18.699 --> 01:21:26.300 land to grow food. That is also facilitated by 01:21:26.300 --> 01:21:29.340 the decline in human population, which is likely 01:21:29.340 --> 01:21:32.479 to begin 20 years or so, right, that his birth 01:21:32.479 --> 01:21:35.579 rates worldwide are declining almost everywhere. 01:21:36.090 --> 01:21:38.289 We will eventually reach a point of population 01:21:38.289 --> 01:21:41.189 decline and then presumably at some point stability 01:21:41.189 --> 01:21:44.010 at a much lower level where it's possible for 01:21:44.010 --> 01:21:46.329 there to be these wild spaces Assuming we get 01:21:46.329 --> 01:21:49.729 there before you know, we the complete ecological 01:21:49.729 --> 01:21:53.869 disaster And so I think the relationship that 01:21:53.869 --> 01:21:57.170 the ideal relationship I'm imagining is one in 01:21:57.170 --> 01:22:00.750 which you know for the most part we just leave 01:22:00.750 --> 01:22:06.640 the animals alone But you know I would like to 01:22:06.640 --> 01:22:09.979 think that there will be these citizens or perhaps 01:22:09.979 --> 01:22:12.239 denizens with whom we have friendly relations. 01:22:13.479 --> 01:22:15.960 But, you know, I doubt I'm going to see any of 01:22:15.960 --> 01:22:19.119 that in my lifetime. So right now, my main goal 01:22:19.119 --> 01:22:23.020 is just to sort of minimize the harm. Wonderful. 01:22:24.739 --> 01:22:27.600 Mike, thank you so much. Thank you for your work. 01:22:28.579 --> 01:22:33.239 I really consider your book as a classic of animal 01:22:33.239 --> 01:22:37.539 rights. books and you know, it's really up there 01:22:37.539 --> 01:22:42.380 in my list. So thank you for the book. Thank 01:22:42.380 --> 01:22:46.720 you for your activism and your work in the space 01:22:46.720 --> 01:22:50.840 of animal rights. And a big thank you for having 01:22:50.840 --> 01:22:53.819 taken the time to answer my questions. It was 01:22:53.819 --> 01:22:55.739 my pleasure. This was really a fun conversation. 01:22:56.399 --> 01:22:59.840 Thank you everyone for listening. I kindly invite 01:22:59.840 --> 01:23:02.279 you to share this podcast with the vegans you 01:23:02.279 --> 01:23:05.939 know. Let's encourage more people to take action. 01:23:06.819 --> 01:23:09.500 Again, thank you so much for caring and I will 01:23:09.500 --> 01:23:12.039 see you next Tuesday for a new episode.