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Rain Without Thunder: The Ideology of the Animal Rights Movement
"Francione cogently argues that the Animal Liberation Movement, though using rights rhetoric and espousing the eradication of animal exploitation, actually represents a new, self-defeating welfarism because its tactics embody the animal welfare position. Consequently, the plight of animals is worse than it was twenty years ago." —Choice
269 pages, Hardcover
First published August 1, 1996
14 people are currently reading
635 people want to read
About the author
Gary L. Francione
13 books213 followersA prominent and respected philosopher of animal rights law and ethical theory, Gary L. Francione is known for his criticism of animal welfare laws and regulations, his abolitionist theory of animal rights, and his promotion of veganism and nonviolence as the baseline principles of the abolitionist movement. Unlike Peter Singer, Francione maintains that we cannot morally justify using animals under any circumstances, and unlike Tom Regan, Francione's theory applies to all sentient beings, not only to those who have more sophisticated cognitive abilities.
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Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
September 2, 2014
To put it as succinctly as possible, Prof. Francione's work will change your world-view forever. I cannot recommend his work highly enough.
Generally speaking if you want cutting-edge animal rights theory written in a way which is understandable, consistent and clear, then go no further than *any* work by Prof. Gary L. Francione. After reading his books, I could never think about nonhuman animals in the same way again. I cannot view welfare "reform" in the same way. And I can clearly see the flaws in welfare "reform" and in today's animal "movement". These are just a few of many beneficial outcomes for me from reading his works and his blog online.
There are two movements today -- the "humane" use/new welfarist movement which assists in further entrenching animals in the property paradigm and which benefits industry and is making the public feel more comfortable about animal use. And there is the nonviolent grassroots political abolitionist movement which is addressing the property status of nonhuman animals through creative, nonviolent vegan education. Veganism is the rejection of nonhuman animals as "things", as resources, as property and is the recognition of the moral personhood of nonhuman animals.
I would be surprised if the reader is not convinced by his arguments and I would also not be surprised if the reader decides she can no longer participate in the violence of animal use and goes vegan.
Here is the author talking about his own veganism
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T5pDU1...
If this subject interests you, I highly recommend Prof. Sherry F. Colb's book "Mind if I order the Cheeseburger and other questions people ask vegans" through Lantern Books.
Generally speaking if you want cutting-edge animal rights theory written in a way which is understandable, consistent and clear, then go no further than *any* work by Prof. Gary L. Francione. After reading his books, I could never think about nonhuman animals in the same way again. I cannot view welfare "reform" in the same way. And I can clearly see the flaws in welfare "reform" and in today's animal "movement". These are just a few of many beneficial outcomes for me from reading his works and his blog online.
There are two movements today -- the "humane" use/new welfarist movement which assists in further entrenching animals in the property paradigm and which benefits industry and is making the public feel more comfortable about animal use. And there is the nonviolent grassroots political abolitionist movement which is addressing the property status of nonhuman animals through creative, nonviolent vegan education. Veganism is the rejection of nonhuman animals as "things", as resources, as property and is the recognition of the moral personhood of nonhuman animals.
I would be surprised if the reader is not convinced by his arguments and I would also not be surprised if the reader decides she can no longer participate in the violence of animal use and goes vegan.
Here is the author talking about his own veganism
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T5pDU1...
If this subject interests you, I highly recommend Prof. Sherry F. Colb's book "Mind if I order the Cheeseburger and other questions people ask vegans" through Lantern Books.
October 23, 2009
Crucial for understanding the animal rights movement and why anyone who takes the interests of animals seriously should go vegan and not support animal welfare.
February 25, 2011
Gary Francione doesn’t get along well with most well-known animal advocates and organizations. Some find him inspiring, others endlessly frustrating. The reason for this great rift is because that Francione believes that animal welfare reforms (such as larger cages for factory-farmed hens, for example) are pointless and counter-productive when the goal is animal rights, whereas most activists disagree.
There is much name-dropping of animal activists here, most of it disparaging. Francione does currently point out that
“most people who have become active in the animal movement since 1988 do not even know who [Henry] Spira is, and they do not realize that he, rather than PETA, pioneered efforts against animal testing.”
In Francione’s eyes, most movement leaders are “new welfarists.” I did, admittedly, find interest in the various behind-the-scenes movement politics and personality clashes one often doesn’t get to hear about. Other times, I felt Francione pulled low blows. He railed against The Fund for Animals, which held a meat barbeque to celebrate the opening of the Black Beauty Ranch sanctuary in 1979. While I agree that this decision was hypocritical and offensive, it does reflect a time when the animal movement was still struggling to find a unified voice and moral compass. There are still innumerable pet shelters (including “no kill” shelters) who hold meat-centered fundraisers each and every year. Why not criticize them, instead of something The Fund did before many of this book’s readers were even born? Francione also spends much time berating the Fund for at one time hiring a farmer who in his spare time raised cattle and pigs for slaughter. Ok, bad—fair enough. But at the same time, could the Fund really have a say about legal activities engaged in by workers while not on the job?
I also disagreed with Francione’s problem with the now-defunct magazine The Animals’ Agenda. Francione threw a fit about Agenda’s cover for an issue discussing the link between animal abuse and family violence. (The cover showed a frightened-looking African-American child spliced with the image of a cat. Those who disliked this campaign saw it as implying that African-Americans were more likely to engage in abuse, or that they were at an animal level.) Francione went on to describe a demonstration by African-Americans against the image’s appearance on a billboard, the text seemingly inferring this controversy was all Agenda’s fault. First of all, the image and billboard were the work of The Washington (DC) Humane Society, in effort to publicize the message “people who abuse animals rarely stop there.” The billboard was part of a series also depicting white and Hispanic children, presumably to appeal to a wide cross-section of people in a diverse city. Agenda had chosen the image of the African-American child to grace the cover apparently at random. The other images appeared within the pages of the magazine.
Francione also takes a look at the political maneuverings of anti-animal organizations formed to counter the animal rights movement. He rightly states of the Foundation for Biomedical Research:
FBR does not bother to tell the public that the research community it represents has historically opposed the very laws and regulations that FBR describes as adequately protecting the welfare of animals and as obviating the need for animal rights.
Francione is equally insightful regarding the National Association for Biomedical Research:
[NABR and similar groups] frequently report updates about the efforts of animal advocates to reform animal agriculture or the use of animals in entertainment and praises the efforts animal exploiters to defeat such efforts. In theory...NABR [should be] completely disinterested in what animal advocates are doing about slaughtering animals for food…no one (vivsectors included) would maintain that using animals in entertainment is “necessary.” …The groups that use animal property have a narrow but strong interest in preserving that protection. Their primary focus is on opposing governmental regulation of property irrespective of the use.”
And I did enjoy the author’s response to Americans for Medical Progress’s PR histrionics:
“Extremists” do not “cripple biomedical research with excessive regulation.” “Extremists” cannot impose any sort of regulation-only legislators and administrative agencies can.”
Francione believes that animal welfare reforms have done nothing to help animals because animals are still nothing but objects of property in the eyes of the law. He points out that USDA figures indicate that lab animal use is not showing a downward trend, if fact quite the opposite, and the percentage used in experiments with unrelieved pain may be increasing as well. The US meat industry is also factory farming and slaughtering more animals than ever before. However, one needs to also figure in corresponding population growth and seriously ask whether this is something that can be blamed on the still small community of vegans and animal activists.
An aspect of the author’s arguments that I do agree with is that activists should take a critical look at supposed court “victories” won for animals. We hear of the famous “Silver Springs Monkeys” case in a different light:
Had [experimenter Edward] Taub done the exact same experiments in the exact same way, except that he provided adequate and minimal veterinary care and a sanitary environment, the Taub case would have never gotten past the desk of the local police sergeant.
All in all, animals haven’t fared that well when cruelty cases are taken to court. There are many examples. In a 1981 case, the defendant shot and killed his dog, who was tearing up his children’s Easter baskets. The court held that this was not a crime, as the anticruelty law contained an exception for animals posing a threat to “any property.” In 1962, a defendant was charged for not maintaining the animals in his traveling circus humanely. The Court held that although people may feel sorry for the animals, they were the owner’s property and the owner would have no reason to ill-treat his belongings.
The Court added that “even though some of the southern planters before the civil war may have cruelly treated some slaves, on the other hand, the slave that produced was well fed and housed by reason of their livelihood to the planter.”
Jaw, meet floor.
While the first part of the book was decent, although not always agreeable, reading, the second half was dry as dust. I got so sick of reading “rightholder” legalese and Francione’s personal complaints against Peter Singer and Tom Regan, I was eager for the book to end. And my, does Francione like to repeat himself. One can understand while Francione has as many foes as fans in the AR movement.
There is much name-dropping of animal activists here, most of it disparaging. Francione does currently point out that
“most people who have become active in the animal movement since 1988 do not even know who [Henry] Spira is, and they do not realize that he, rather than PETA, pioneered efforts against animal testing.”
In Francione’s eyes, most movement leaders are “new welfarists.” I did, admittedly, find interest in the various behind-the-scenes movement politics and personality clashes one often doesn’t get to hear about. Other times, I felt Francione pulled low blows. He railed against The Fund for Animals, which held a meat barbeque to celebrate the opening of the Black Beauty Ranch sanctuary in 1979. While I agree that this decision was hypocritical and offensive, it does reflect a time when the animal movement was still struggling to find a unified voice and moral compass. There are still innumerable pet shelters (including “no kill” shelters) who hold meat-centered fundraisers each and every year. Why not criticize them, instead of something The Fund did before many of this book’s readers were even born? Francione also spends much time berating the Fund for at one time hiring a farmer who in his spare time raised cattle and pigs for slaughter. Ok, bad—fair enough. But at the same time, could the Fund really have a say about legal activities engaged in by workers while not on the job?
I also disagreed with Francione’s problem with the now-defunct magazine The Animals’ Agenda. Francione threw a fit about Agenda’s cover for an issue discussing the link between animal abuse and family violence. (The cover showed a frightened-looking African-American child spliced with the image of a cat. Those who disliked this campaign saw it as implying that African-Americans were more likely to engage in abuse, or that they were at an animal level.) Francione went on to describe a demonstration by African-Americans against the image’s appearance on a billboard, the text seemingly inferring this controversy was all Agenda’s fault. First of all, the image and billboard were the work of The Washington (DC) Humane Society, in effort to publicize the message “people who abuse animals rarely stop there.” The billboard was part of a series also depicting white and Hispanic children, presumably to appeal to a wide cross-section of people in a diverse city. Agenda had chosen the image of the African-American child to grace the cover apparently at random. The other images appeared within the pages of the magazine.
Francione also takes a look at the political maneuverings of anti-animal organizations formed to counter the animal rights movement. He rightly states of the Foundation for Biomedical Research:
FBR does not bother to tell the public that the research community it represents has historically opposed the very laws and regulations that FBR describes as adequately protecting the welfare of animals and as obviating the need for animal rights.
Francione is equally insightful regarding the National Association for Biomedical Research:
[NABR and similar groups] frequently report updates about the efforts of animal advocates to reform animal agriculture or the use of animals in entertainment and praises the efforts animal exploiters to defeat such efforts. In theory...NABR [should be] completely disinterested in what animal advocates are doing about slaughtering animals for food…no one (vivsectors included) would maintain that using animals in entertainment is “necessary.” …The groups that use animal property have a narrow but strong interest in preserving that protection. Their primary focus is on opposing governmental regulation of property irrespective of the use.”
And I did enjoy the author’s response to Americans for Medical Progress’s PR histrionics:
“Extremists” do not “cripple biomedical research with excessive regulation.” “Extremists” cannot impose any sort of regulation-only legislators and administrative agencies can.”
Francione believes that animal welfare reforms have done nothing to help animals because animals are still nothing but objects of property in the eyes of the law. He points out that USDA figures indicate that lab animal use is not showing a downward trend, if fact quite the opposite, and the percentage used in experiments with unrelieved pain may be increasing as well. The US meat industry is also factory farming and slaughtering more animals than ever before. However, one needs to also figure in corresponding population growth and seriously ask whether this is something that can be blamed on the still small community of vegans and animal activists.
An aspect of the author’s arguments that I do agree with is that activists should take a critical look at supposed court “victories” won for animals. We hear of the famous “Silver Springs Monkeys” case in a different light:
Had [experimenter Edward] Taub done the exact same experiments in the exact same way, except that he provided adequate and minimal veterinary care and a sanitary environment, the Taub case would have never gotten past the desk of the local police sergeant.
All in all, animals haven’t fared that well when cruelty cases are taken to court. There are many examples. In a 1981 case, the defendant shot and killed his dog, who was tearing up his children’s Easter baskets. The court held that this was not a crime, as the anticruelty law contained an exception for animals posing a threat to “any property.” In 1962, a defendant was charged for not maintaining the animals in his traveling circus humanely. The Court held that although people may feel sorry for the animals, they were the owner’s property and the owner would have no reason to ill-treat his belongings.
The Court added that “even though some of the southern planters before the civil war may have cruelly treated some slaves, on the other hand, the slave that produced was well fed and housed by reason of their livelihood to the planter.”
Jaw, meet floor.
While the first part of the book was decent, although not always agreeable, reading, the second half was dry as dust. I got so sick of reading “rightholder” legalese and Francione’s personal complaints against Peter Singer and Tom Regan, I was eager for the book to end. And my, does Francione like to repeat himself. One can understand while Francione has as many foes as fans in the AR movement.
January 28, 2009
Francione tends towards repetition, but his points are well worth reiterating. For anyone genuinely concerned about the rights of animals, as opposed to the regulation of their oppression, this book will be indispensible; for anyone who advocates regulation in favor of abolition, this will be a damning indictment. A foundational work that everyone interested in the topic should take seriously.
March 13, 2014
Dr. Francione's philosophical framework ("ideology") is compelling, clear, consistent. He provides a very solid casing in which to arrange one's thinking about animal ethics. His writing is severely redundant, though perhaps because the evidence he marshals to demonstrate the attitudes of the "new welfarists" are so repetitive (not due to any fault of his own).
September 24, 2020
This book has changed the way that I think about the animal rights movement.
In this book, Francione explains the theoretical and practical differences between animal welfare and animal rights. Although the modern animal advocacy movement often calls itself an "animal rights movement", far too often it is actually advancing what Francione refers to as a "new welfarist" agenda. "New welfarists" claim that we can work towards the abolition (or reduction) of animal exploitation by advocating for animal "welfare" laws (i.e. changes to the way that animals are exploited). However, Francione points out, due to the property status of nonhuman animals, animal welfare reforms cannot lead to the abolition of animal use. He makes compelling arguments to explain how animal welfare serves to perpetuate animal exploitation by making animal exploitation more economically efficient and by making the public feel more comfortable with animal use. Instead of advocating for welfare reforms, we should educate the public about the need to abolish the property status of animals, and our primary tactic should be veganism and vegan education. We must be clear that veganism is a moral imperative if we want to have any hope of achieving animal liberation.
It's a fascinating book, filled with case studies of actual laws and events that took place in the animal rights movement prior to the 1996 publication date. It's also a classic of animal rights literature, so in that sense, it will never become outdated. Highly recommended.
In this book, Francione explains the theoretical and practical differences between animal welfare and animal rights. Although the modern animal advocacy movement often calls itself an "animal rights movement", far too often it is actually advancing what Francione refers to as a "new welfarist" agenda. "New welfarists" claim that we can work towards the abolition (or reduction) of animal exploitation by advocating for animal "welfare" laws (i.e. changes to the way that animals are exploited). However, Francione points out, due to the property status of nonhuman animals, animal welfare reforms cannot lead to the abolition of animal use. He makes compelling arguments to explain how animal welfare serves to perpetuate animal exploitation by making animal exploitation more economically efficient and by making the public feel more comfortable with animal use. Instead of advocating for welfare reforms, we should educate the public about the need to abolish the property status of animals, and our primary tactic should be veganism and vegan education. We must be clear that veganism is a moral imperative if we want to have any hope of achieving animal liberation.
It's a fascinating book, filled with case studies of actual laws and events that took place in the animal rights movement prior to the 1996 publication date. It's also a classic of animal rights literature, so in that sense, it will never become outdated. Highly recommended.
October 28, 2022
Me ha parecido muy interesante. Explica por qué el bienestarismo refuerza el estatus de propiedad de los animales y, por tanto, es incompatible con los derechos animales.
March 11, 2025
mucho texto y mucha filosofía, pero son cosas importantes con ejemplos e información útil
June 14, 2015
This book reminded me a great deal of the fear of seeming too radical and the allergy to theory and debate that has always bothered me about certain segments of the youth rights movement. The book does a good job of exploring these dynamics in the case of the animal rights movement in the mid-1990s in a way that is still relevant to that movement and others today. Highly recommended.
January 17, 2008
*The* statement of abolitionist animal rights theory. An instant classic, as they say, and required reading for anyone interested in the great moral question of our time. Which ought to be everybody.
October 20, 2009
Even if one doesn't agree with every word, Gary Francione is always compelling, passionate and persuasive.
March 7, 2015
Simply a must-read for any animal advocate. As relevant today as when it was first published (or probably even more relevant now).
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews