We should not be surprised that more and more people feel comfortable about consuming animal products. After all, they are being assured by the experts that suffering is being decreased and they can buy happy meat, free-range eggs, etc.. These products even come with labels approved of by animal organizations. The animal welfare movement is actually encouraging the compassionate consumption of animal products.Animal welfare reforms do very little to increase the protection given to animal interests because of the economics involved: animals are property. They are things that have no intrinsic or moral value. This means that welfare standards, whether for animals used as foods, in experiments, or for any other purpose, will be low and linked to the level of welfare needed to exploit the animal in an economically efficient way for the particular purpose. Put simply, we generally protect animal interests only to the extent we get an economic benefit from doing so. The concept of unnecessary suffering is understood as that level of suffering that will frustrate the particular use. And that can be a great deal of suffering.Killing Animals and Making Animals Suffer | Animal Rights: The Abolitionist Approach
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About Gary L. Francione
Gary L. Francione was a contemporary American legal scholar. Gary Lawrence Francione is an American academic in the fields of law and philosophy. He is Board of Governors Professor of Law and Katzenbach Scholar of Law and Philosophy at Rutgers University in New Jersey. Read more on Wikipedia →
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