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

Gary L. Francione

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Gary L. Francione
Age: 70
Born: 1954
Born: May 24
Philosopher
Professor
University Teacher
New York
United States
Gary Lawrence Francione
Kind
Differences
Recognition
Food
Degree
Animal
Entertainment
Moral
Degrees
Reflects
Use
Animals
Clothings
Social
Concern
Clothing
Part
Civilization
Increasing
Humans
Development
Experiments

More quotes by Gary L. Francione

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The distinction between meat and other animal products is total nonsense. Vegetarianism is a morally incoherent position. If you regard animals as members of the moral community, you really don’t have a choice but to go vegan.
Gary L. Francione
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Domesticated animals such as dogs and cats are vulnerable and entirely dependent on us for all of their needs. They live very unnatural lives because they are not part of the human world and they are not part of the animal world.
Gary L. Francione
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We cannot talk simultaneously about animal rights and the 'humane' slaughter of animals.
Gary L. Francione
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Being vegan is not a matter of lifestyle. It is a matter of fundamental moral obligation. Is being vegan a matter of choice? Only insofar as we are able to choose to ignore our moral obligations not to exploit the vulnerable.
Gary L. Francione
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Veganism is not a sacrifice. It is a joy.
Gary L. Francione
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Every sentient being values her/his life even if no one else does. That is what is meant by saying that the lives of all have inherent value.
Gary L. Francione
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To say that a being who is sentient has no interest in continuing to live is like saying that a being with eyes has no interest in continuing to see. Death—however “humane”—is a harm for humans and nonhumans alike.
Gary L. Francione
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They are nonhuman persons. They are not food. If animals matter morally at all, there is one and only one rational response: go vegan. Everything else is just participation in animal exploitation.
Gary L. Francione
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There is no moral distinction between fur and other materials made from animals, such as leather, which also is the result of the suffering and death of sentient beings.
Gary L. Francione
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Veganism must be the baseline if we are to have any hope of shifting the paradigm away from animals as things and toward animals as nonhuman persons.
Gary L. Francione
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Every time you drink a glass of milk or eat a piece of cheese, you harm a mother. Please go vegan.
Gary L. Francione
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Any serious social, political, and economic change must include veganism.
Gary L. Francione
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Does veganism require a “sacrifice”? Yes. It requires that you give up that which you never had any right to in the first place.
Gary L. Francione
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I certainly believe that we have a moral obligation to care for the dogs, cats, and other nonhumans whose existence we have caused or facilitated as part of the institution of 'pet' ownership. But I maintain that we ought to abolish the institution and stop causing or facilitating the existence of more 'companion' animals.
Gary L. Francione
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All sentient beings should have at least one right—the right not to be treated as property
Gary L. Francione
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Forty-two years after Dr. King was murdered, we are still a nation of inequality. People of color, women, gays, lesbians, and others are still treated as second-class citizens. Yes, things have changed but we have still not achieved equality among all humans. And nonhuman animals continue to be chattel property without any inherent value.
Gary L. Francione
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Veganism is about nonviolence: nonviolence to other sentient beings nonviolence to yourself nonviolence to the earth.
Gary L. Francione
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We are vegans not simply because being vegan will reduce suffering. We are vegan because every sentient being values her or his life even if no one else does. We are vegan because justice minimally requires that we not take life for trivial purposes.
Gary L. Francione
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99% of our uses of animals, including our numerically most significant use of them for food, do not involve any sort of necessity or any real conflict between human and nonhuman interests. If animals matter morally at all, then, even without accepting a theory of animal rights, those uses of animals cannot be morally justified.
Gary L. Francione
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If an animal has any rights at all, it's got the right not to be eaten.
Gary L. Francione