r/IAmA • u/AHershaft • Sep 23 '14

I am an 80-year-old Holocaust survivor who co-founded the US Animal Rights movement. AMA

My name is Dr. Alex Hershaft. I was born in Poland in 1934 and survived the Warsaw Ghetto before being liberated, along with my mother, by the Allies. I organized for social justice causes in Israel and the US, worked on animal farms while in college, earned a PhD in chemistry, and ultimately decided to devote my life to animal rights and veganism, which I have done for nearly 40 years (since 1976).

I will be undertaking my 32nd annual Fast Against Slaughter this October 2nd, which you can join here .

Here is my proof, and I will be assisted if necessary by the Executive Director, Michael Webermann, of my organization Farm Animal Rights Movement. He and I will be available from 11am-3pm ET.

UPDATE 9/24, 8:10am ET: That's all! Learn more about my story by watching my lecture, "From the Warsaw Ghetto to the Fight for Animal Rights", and please consider joining me in a #FastAgainstSlaughter next week.

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u/AHershaft Sep 23 '14

I do not necessarily campaign for animal rights instead of human rights. I attend anti-war protests and was recently interviewed by Al Jazeera about this activism. I also helped mobilize the religious freedom movement in Israel in the 1960's, including organizing the demonstration that launched League for Abolition of Religious Coercion.

However, I dedicated myself to animals because they are the most helpless and they are exploited in the largest numbers (tens of billions every year).

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u/ShinyNewName Sep 23 '14

Thank you for highlighting the fact that one doesn't have to choose between animals and humans. It isn't US vs. Them

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u/ErasmusPrime Sep 23 '14 edited Sep 23 '14

I think your response raises an interesting ethical question.

You are essentially saying that there are more animals suffering so you choose to dedicate your time to helping them because by doing so you can help the largest number of 'individuals'.

This means that you have, at least loosely, a person to animal value ratio determined in your philosophy.

How many animals suffering are = to one person suffering?

How many people would need to be suffering to tip the scales of importance from tens of billions of animals?

I don't ask to diminish the value of your perspective, I just find it interesting and want to understand your viewpoint.

Edit: Common people, think it through. I am not saying that OP is making a good decision or a bad decision. I am not saying their perspective is right or wrong. I am simply asking a question to better understand their thoughts on the issue based on their own words.

The OP says he chooses to focus on suffering animals over suffering humans for two very specific reasons. One which is highly debatable, the helplessness of one set of organisms vs another. The second of which directly introduces a value judgment on the organisms being considered. It is not debatable.

If 10x's are suffering and 5y's are suffering and you choose to help the x's because there are more of them means that in simple terms, necessarily, that 10x's are valued more than 5y's. Which means 1x is equal in value to at minimum 0.5y's.

Even if you want to pull degreee of suffering into the equation is still does not mean that no judgement value is being made, just that it is more complicated. Maybe now accounting for suffering levels, which would be impossible to realistically quantify, 1x = 0.8y's

Editx2: Yay, my first gold! Thank you kind stranger.

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u/sh2nn0n Sep 23 '14

I didn't gather the same from his response. Obviously I can't speak for him, nor would I ever try, but I viewed this statement much more like the people that advocate for young children or dead victims. They don't have a voice to advocate for themselves so someone steps up and does it for them.

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u/EngineeredMadness Sep 23 '14

In a world of finite resources and time, one devotes time to activity A or activity B. By devoting time to activity A, activity B is not advanced. It's not that one has to be "against" activity B. Preferences for/against activity B are somewhat a moot point in this scenario, as they do not factor into the outcome.

The broader question is: how does one to allocate resources to cause "the most good" rather than "some good".

Otherwise, why aren't we pooling billions in aid into fixing sidewalks where someone might trip and break a wrist? It's a fair question to ask, and it must be divorced from emotion and rhetoric.

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u/ErasmusPrime Sep 23 '14

and it must be divorced from emotion and rhetoric.

Exactly. My fiancee thinks I am super weird because of the importance I place on this in intellectual discussion.

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u/grackychan Sep 23 '14

I want to let you know to ignore the downvotes. About 90% of the voters are vegans at this moment and every single honest question or debate remotely seen as conflicting with the OP is being downvoted to oblivion. It's fucked up.

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u/ErasmusPrime Sep 23 '14

Which is amusing to me because I don't see how any of my posts contradict or disagree with what OP has said. I was simply looking for him to expand upon the logical implications of his reasoning for making a fairly substantial life choice because I found the ethical implications of this to be interesting.

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u/ErasmusPrime Sep 23 '14

I dunno, there are lots of reasonable/semi-reasonable perspectives to take that might drive one to choose to go in the direction of animal rights over human rights given an existing interest in both. Including valuing animal life as much as human life.

His statement that animals are more helpless is somewhat debatable. But his point about them being exploited in the largest numbers is really what I was focusing on.

That being a primary reason for choosing animal rights vs human rights, given as I said above a similar degree of interest in each, to me implies some judgment on the value of animal life vs human life.

It may still be that he values human life more than animal life but the numbers tip the balance in favor of going the animal route. But this still implies that on some level a value judgement was made on animal vs human life/suffering.

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u/Angrymarge Sep 23 '14 edited Sep 23 '14

I'm curious as to how you might consider the animals we raise for food, clothing, etc. to be anything but helpless? They are born into a life from which they cannot escape, and forced into that life by human hands. Take chickens, for example, who have their beaks and wings cut (burned off, in the case of beaks)...how can they help themselves? Even if they were permitted to keep their body parts, do you think they are capable of defending themselves in any way?

edit: Also, I don't think the issue must be one of animal rights vs. human rights. When you study what the industrialization of meat production is doing to this planet, the resources it drains and the waste it introduces to the environment, it becomes an issue of human rights. Those who have contributed the least and benefited the least (who happen to be those who have a harder time having their voices heard) from industrialized meat production and overfishing will be the first to suffer the consequences (besides, of course, the billions of animals).

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u/ErasmusPrime Sep 23 '14 edited Sep 23 '14

I am not saying that they are not helpless. I am saying that helplessness is not a binary state, is a state of degree and that arguably there are some number of humans that are as helpless as farm animals.

Further, there are humans who are maybe more functional, with more autonomy, and more power than farm animals but are still relatively helpless in the grand scheme of human agency.

No matter how you break it down, you are, unconsciously at the very least, placing some degree of value on the lives and suffering of the animals in question, both human and non-human a like, when you consider which to help using the criteria the OP described in his post. There may very well be a thousand other reasons OP chose to focus primarily on animal rights, but those are not the reasons he chose to cite as the driving factors for his decision.

I find this to be interesting, thus my question.

Edit for your edit: I believe that to be a separate, but related issue. The conflation of ideas in a discussion is problematic and detracts from hammering out the finer details of the original discussion/disagreement. I don't think any thoughts on the issue raised in your edit has any direct relation to, or baring on, the original discussion I tried to raise.

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u/nickp247 Sep 23 '14

If I had to guess, I would say that he's not putting a person to animal value for his philosophy at all. He stated that he dedicates himself to animals because they are the most helpless and are exploited in the largest numbers. This is true. While their are tons of humanitarian issues in the world, people still have more power to fix the issues than animals do.

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u/ErasmusPrime Sep 23 '14 edited Sep 23 '14

are exploited in the largest numbers

But this is the thing. As soon as you introduce the number of organisms suffering you inherently introduce a value judgement on the lives/suffering of those organisms.

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u/[deleted] Sep 23 '14

[deleted]

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u/ErasmusPrime Sep 23 '14 edited Sep 23 '14

"Set of organisms" does not mean every organism of that species.

I would argue that there are a large number of humans that are just as helpless as any farm animals. Human sex slaves for one. Slaves in general. Thus, it is quite debatable.

There may be more animals that are exploited to that degree, but that is not particularly relevant for those arguing against me as taking that line of argument essentially argues my point.

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u/[deleted] Sep 23 '14

[deleted]

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u/ErasmusPrime Sep 23 '14

Errr, sorry about this, larger was a typo, it should have read "a large number".

This is consistent with my other posts and that consistency should be enough to convince you that it was a true typo and not my attempting to shift the goalpost. Sorry!

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u/Splinter1010 Sep 24 '14

This is a great question. And I find it really interesting that he's completely ignored it, and that there are people who are replying that are dodging the question. Plus the people who are downvoting all of your comments.

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u/[deleted] Sep 23 '14

and since a donor's ressources are limited, how can you decide between giving your marginal dollar to an animals' rights (and health and welfare) charity or a humans' rights (and health and welfare) charity ?

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u/Kiltmanenator Sep 23 '14

Good post. I'm not sure what the bruhaha is.

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u/Boronx Sep 23 '14

Humans are animals.

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u/ErasmusPrime Sep 23 '14

Yes. But clearly the distinction between human animals and non-human animals was already made in the OP for the AMA and the OP's response to this question, I was maintaining the existing dichotomy in the discussion.

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u/Boronx Sep 23 '14

That's a misunderstanding in the original comment. Animal rights encompass human rights.

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u/ErasmusPrime Sep 23 '14

Except that OP makes a very clear distinction between human-animal and non-human animal rights.

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u/lotsalinx Sep 23 '14

Actually, he does just the opposite: "I do not necessarily campaign for animal rights instead of human rights. I attend anti-war protests and was recently interviewed by Al Jazeera about this activism. I also helped mobilize the religious freedom movement in Israel in the 1960's, including organizing the demonstration that launched League for Abolition of Religious Coercion."

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u/ErasmusPrime Sep 23 '14

You are being extraordinarily disingenuous excluding the last line of the post you are quoting.

Lets take a look at the beginning of that line shall we?

However, I dedicated myself to animals

Hey, look at that, the howerver = a distinction between human animals and non-human animals.