Three objections to the use of violence in defence of nonhuman animals and why they fail
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.18012/arf.v10i3.65765Keywords:
Animal Liberation Front, Nonhuman Animal Rights, Interspecies Activism, TerrorismAbstract
In this paper I address the three main objections commonly raised to disavow the use of violence in defence of nonhuman animals. There is the idea that violence is inherently wrong and should always be repudiated – I call this the ‘Absolute Pacifist Objection’. There is also the view that using violence by interspecies activists alienates the general public from the nonhuman animal rights movement as a whole – I refer to this one as the ‘Public Hostility Objection’. Finally, there is this argument within the interspecies studies literature that using violence on behalf of nonhuman animals is counterproductive, for violent tactics would be responsible for the enactment of laws that protect those who exploit nonhuman animals and criminalize the actions of interspecies activists – that one is the ‘Noticeable Counterproductiveness Objection’. After presenting each one of those objections, I will explain why none of them can actually provide a knockdown argument against the use of violent strategies in favour of members of other sentient animal species.
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