The Animal Rights Debate: Abolition or Regulation?

The simple, but quite unusual plan, promised much: two leading academics (Gary Francione and Robert Garner) prepared to make their respective cases with conviction and candour, followed by a lively debate between them, during which no stone need be left unturned. In prospect, then, was an opportunity for nuances to be clarified, misunderstandings dispelled and some common ground established. But while it proved to be an enthralling engagement, the apparent inability of one author to concede even an inch of ground to the other's case meant that the divide between the viewpoints was, regrettably, no narrower at the end than at the beginning. Francione, a law professor at Rutgers University in the USA, is a leading philosopher of animal rights theory. He has pioneered the abolitionist theory of animal rights, claiming that animal welfare regulation is both theoretically and practically unsound, and serves merely to prolong the status of animals as property by making the public feel comfortable about using 'happy' animals. Accordingly, abolishing animal use, e.g., by adopting strict veganism, is the only acceptable course of action and the only basis on which people ought to be encouraged to relate to animals. Garner, a politics professor at Leicester University, UK, is a political theorist who specialises in the field of animal protection. One of his major concerns (as summarised on his website) is 'the difficulties of protecting the interests of animals from within the liberal tradition: focusing on the costs, for liberal societies, of adopting animal rights; the impact of liberal neutrality as regards the good society; and the protection of human autonomy'. While acknowledging the importance of campaigning for veganism, and indeed practising it personally, he considers it can realistically only form one part of an overall program to encourage more ethical treatment of animals.