Friday, April 17 11am ET
Friderike Spang is presenting. Here is her topic:
In this paper*, I treat vegan activism as a form of deliberative activism: a practice centered on exchanging reasons and engaging interlocutors through argument. Within this deliberative setting, activists are often encouraged to tailor their message to the audience, advocating for veganism in terms of health or environmental benefits rather than animal suffering. This talk examines the ethical implications of that practice. I argue that audience-tailored framing can generate significant moral costs for non-human animals: When the core concern of animal suffering is set aside for strategic reasons, deliberative exchanges can inadvertently objectify animals, weaken their moral standing, reinforce property notions, make future harms easier to justify, and create a hierarchy of moral worth among different animal species.
The talk also opens up broader questions for the ethics of argumentation: what responsibilities do advocates bear when choosing their argumentative strategy? And, especially in the case of advocacy for non-human beings, what distinct responsibilities arise when speaking on behalf of those who cannot participate in the exchange themselves? The aim is to show that the question of “what persuades” should not be treated in isolation but considered together with other ethical concerns.
Critical Thinking Now! 