Humans treat animals as things that exist as means to human ends. That's morally wrong. Sexism promotes the idea that women are things that exist as means to the ends of men. That's morally wrong. We need to stop treating all persons - whether human or nonhuman - as things.
Interpretation
The quote highlights the ethical implications of viewing beings, whether human or animal, as objects for use rather than as individuals with their own rights.
Gary L. Francione emphasizes the moral issue of treating living beings merely as tools for human benefit, drawing parallels between the exploitation of animals and sexism. By asserting that both practices are morally wrong, he advocates for recognizing the inherent value of all beings and urges society to stop dehumanizing and objectifying individuals, regardless of species or gender.
In practice
During a lecture on ethics, one could use this quote to discuss the importance of recognizing the rights of all sentient beings.
The idea that we have the right to inflict suffering and death on other sentient beings for the trivial reasons of palate pleasure and fashion is, without doubt, one of the most arrogant and morally repugnant notions in the history of human thought.
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.
We cannot talk simultaneously about animal rights and the 'humane' slaughter of animals.
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.
We can no more justify using nonhumans as human resources than we can justify human slavery. Animal use and slavery have at least one important point in common: both institutions treat sentient beings exclusively as resources of others. That cannot be justified with respect to humans; it cannot be justified with respect to nonhumans—however “humanely” we treat them.
Veganism is the application of the principle of abolition in your own life; it represents your recognition that animals are not things. Veganism is the recognition of the moral personhood of nonhuman animals.
The prejudice of the race appears stronger in the States that have abolished slaves than in the States where slavery still exists. White carpenters, white bricklayers, and white painters will not work side by side with the blacks in the North but do it in almost every Southern State.
When we passed a Catholic church, I recalled, he said, "You think your dad's a good chemist? They're turning soda crackers into meat in there. Can your dad do that?
I personally chose to go vegan because I educated myself on factory farming and cruelty to animals, and I suddenly realized that what was on my plate were living things, with feelings. And I just couldn't disconnect myself from it any longer. I read books like 'Diet for a New America' and saw documentaries like 'Earthlings' and 'Meet your Meat,' and it became an easy choice for me.
Men exist for the sake of one another.
Human affairs are so obscure and various that nothing can be clearly known.
One day some as yet unborn scholar will recognize in the clock the machine that has tamed the wilds.
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