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.
Interpretation
The quote argues against the use of animals as resources, likening it to human slavery.
In this quote, Gary L. Francione draws a parallel between the exploitation of animals and the historical injustice of slavery, emphasizing that both practices fundamentally treat sentient beings as mere resources for others. He asserts that the ethical considerations that protect humans should equally apply to nonhumans, suggesting that even humane treatment does not justify their use as mere tools or property.
In practice
During a speech on animal welfare, one might use this quote to highlight the ethical implications of animal use.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Death carries off a man busy picking flowers with an besotted mind, like a great flood does a sleeping village.
How do we transform mere power into justice, mere sentiment into love?
My life was hurrying, racing tragically toward its end. And yet at the same time it was dripping so slowly, so very slowly now, hour by hour, minute by minute. One always has to wait until the sugar melts, the memory dies, the wound scars over, the sun sets, the unhappiness lifts and fades away.
The awakening of the soul to its bondage and its effort to stand up and assert itself - this is called life.
A gentleman is ashamed to let his words outrun his deeds.
A good style must, first of all, be clear. It must not be mean or above the dignity of the subject. It must be appropriate.
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