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.
Interpretation
The quote emphasizes the moral imperative of veganism as a means to honor the lives of sentient beings and seek justice.
Gary L. Francione's quote highlights that the choice to be vegan goes beyond the practical benefits of reducing suffering; it is rooted in a deep respect for the lives of all sentient beings. It argues that justice calls for recognizing and valifying the intrinsic worth of each individual's life, rejecting the notion of taking lives for insignificant reasons, thus advocating for a principled stance against unnecessary harm.
In practice
In a discussion on ethical eating at a community event.
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 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.
I guess it's wrong always to be worrying about tomorrow. Maybe we should think about today..." "No, that's giving up... I'm still hpoing that yesterday will get better.
That he who hath the loan of money has not repaid it, and he who has repaid has not the loan; but he who has acknowledged a kindness has it still, and he who has a feeling of it has requited it.
The only way to be sure of catching a train is to miss the one before it.
A 'fair' fight between non-equals is not fair, and being blind to power is an implicit endorsement of the powerful.
Without order nothing can exist-without chaos nothing can evolve. Nowadays people know the price of everything and the value of nothing.
Let us work without desire for name or fame or rule over others. Let us be free from the triple bonds of lust, greed of gain, and anger. And this truth is with us!
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