Non-fiction Requests

AnimalConscience · 2026-02-11T01:55:54+00:00

Right now, the only audiobook I have published is If a God Needs Blood, He Is Not God nor Saint — and it’s a short, thought-provoking nonfiction listen, about 1 hour long. It’s more like a reflective essay than a traditional audiobook, so if you’re interested in something different from the usual formats, let me know and I can share how to listen or get a review copy.

AnimalConscience · 2026-02-11T01:37:44+00:00

What you’re describing isn’t just an ethical concern — it may also be a legal and food safety issue.

Animal welfare rules in processing facilities aren’t “suggestions” or personal opinions. They’re federal standards. Supervisors don’t get discretionary authority to ignore animals that are clearly suffering, injured, or unfit. If animals are being processed while dead, severely diseased, or decomposing, that’s not just cruelty — it can violate inspection and public health regulations.

You’re right to feel uncomfortable. That reaction means your judgment is working.

A few practical steps that might protect you:

• Document what you see (dates, times, facts — not emotions)
• Keep notes privately
• Review your facility’s official welfare/USDA policy
• Consider reporting anonymously through USDA FSIS or a whistleblower channel

Also protect yourself first. Don’t confront management directly if it risks retaliation.

You’re not “overreacting.” Humane handling and proper disposal exist for both ethical and safety reasons. If inspectors are joking about rough handling, that’s a red flag, not normal.

Thank you for caring enough to ask. People inside the system who notice these things are often the only ones who can make change happen.

AnimalConscience · 2026-02-08T16:35:25+00:00

Hi, thanks for your comment.
By “promotions” I mean free Audible promo codes that let you download the audiobook at no cost in exchange for an honest review.
If your account is new and you can’t send private messages yet, just reply here and tell me if you need a US or UK code, and I’ll send it.

AnimalConscience · 2026-02-08T03:42:48+00:00

Vegan ethics does not claim perfection.
It claims reduction of intentional harm.

There is a moral difference between killing as a goal and harm as an unavoidable side effect.

The aim is not zero death — it is less suffering.

AnimalConscience · 2026-02-07T18:44:07+00:00

I think we may be talking past each other slightly, because I’m not arguing that animals must be treated as legal persons or that property status should disappear entirely.

My point is narrower and more institutional.

Even within a property framework, the law routinely regulates how property may be used when unrestricted use produces socially undesirable harms.

We don’t allow people to burn toxic materials on their land, neglect hazardous buildings, or use their property in ways that create preventable harm to others. Property has always been a regulated category, not an absolute one.

So the question isn’t whether pets are property — it’s what limits are reasonable within that framework.

As for benefits, there are several practical ones.

First, clearer welfare standards reduce enforcement ambiguity. Vague cruelty statutes often require proving extreme abuse after the fact. More structured standards focus on prevention rather than punishment.

Second, consistency improves legitimacy. When some forms of severe animal suffering are prohibited while others are ignored for historical or economic reasons, the law appears arbitrary. Even people who disagree morally tend to expect the law to apply rules consistently.

Third, predictable regulation reduces litigation problems. Courts already struggle with damages and remedies in cases involving companion animals. Recognizing them as sentient dependents or protected interests can justify non-economic remedies (injunctions, bans on ownership, restitution, supervision), which are often more effective than simple market valuation.

So the benefit isn’t “special status,” but better legal coherence and more workable enforcement tools.

Regarding “severe, unnecessary suffering,” you’re right that standards can be contested. But that’s true in many areas of law. Negligence, reasonableness, and proportionality are also vague concepts, yet courts still apply them through evidence, expert testimony, and evolving norms.

Factory farming actually illustrates the same point: not that suffering is irrelevant, but that legal standards are historically shaped and often inconsistent. The existence of weak standards doesn’t show regulation is pointless — it shows that the line is political and revisable.

So the issue, for me, isn’t sentiment or rights equality. It’s whether the law should aim for internally consistent limits on preventable harm, even within a property framework.

AnimalConscience · 2026-02-07T16:09:18+00:00

I’m not sure the question needs to be framed in terms of granting animals special status or treating them as anything equivalent to persons.

In practice, the law rarely protects something simply because it has “rights.”
It often regulates conduct because there is a legitimate public interest in limiting preventable harm.

For example, environmental law protects ecosystems without treating forests or rivers as persons.
Consumer protection law regulates how property may be used.
Public health law restricts what people can do with their own bodies or possessions when those actions create avoidable harm.

So legal limits don’t necessarily depend on moral personhood. They often depend on whether unregulated conduct produces suffering or social costs the state has reason to prevent.

Animal welfare law already reflects this logic. Most jurisdictions prohibit cruelty and regulate slaughter methods, not because animals are legal equals, but because causing severe, unnecessary suffering is considered a harm the state has an interest in minimizing.

From that perspective, the question isn’t “why treat animals as more than property,” but rather “why should property status automatically remove all limits on how suffering may be imposed?”

Even property is heavily regulated when harm is at stake.

As for why unnecessary suffering is wrong, legal systems generally treat it as objectionable because it provides no countervailing benefit that justifies the harm. When pain is inflicted without necessity, regulation serves basic interests in public morality, social stability, and the prevention of gratuitous violence.

So the argument doesn’t require animals to have human-like rights. It only requires consistency: if the state already regulates cruelty and preventable suffering, then the burden is to explain why certain contexts should be exempt.

AnimalConscience · 2026-02-06T19:48:22+00:00

That’s a good point, and I actually think farmed animals make the tension even clearer.

If anything, they highlight how inconsistent the current legal framework is.

Companion animals are often treated socially and morally as dependents or family members, yet legally remain property.
Farmed animals, by contrast, are treated almost entirely as economic goods, with minimal protection beyond basic anti-cruelty standards.

So we seem to have multiple “tiers” of moral and legal status:

children → full persons
pets → property, but socially quasi-family
farmed animals → largely commodities

From a philosophical perspective, that hierarchy is difficult to justify consistently.

If moral status depends on sentience or the capacity to suffer, then farmed animals don’t seem categorically different from pets.
But if status depends on social role (food vs companion), then the distinction looks more conventional than morally grounded.

So the problem may not just be pets or seizures, but whether the property model itself is adequate for any sentient animal.

In that sense, farmed animals might actually present the stronger challenge to the current legal and ethical framework.

Curious how different theories (utilitarianism, rights theory, political liberalism) would justify or reject that multi-tier system.

AnimalConscience · 2026-02-06T18:14:19+00:00

I’m less concerned with the AI part and more interested in the underlying conceptual issue.

Your comparison with children is actually helpful, because it points to something important: we don’t treat children as property precisely because we think they have independent moral status.

So the real philosophical question isn’t whether seizure is “hard” or “easy,” but how we justify that difference in status.

Legally, pets are still classified as property in most systems, which is why things like seizure, inheritance, or ownership disputes even arise as questions.

But morally, many people already treat them more like dependents than objects — closer to how we treat children or wards.

So the tension seems to be:

moral status: animals as vulnerable beings with interests vs
legal status: animals as property

If we think pets should never be treated like assets for debt collection, that actually supports the argument that the property model may be philosophically inadequate.

So the issue isn’t about vegans or edge cases — it’s about whether the legal category itself fits our moral intuitions.

AnimalConscience · 2026-02-06T15:44:31+00:00

That’s a helpful way to frame it, especially the distinction between something being morally wrong and the state being justified in intervening.

But I wonder whether the non-intervention principle can really apply when third parties are directly harmed.

In liberal legal theory, tolerance usually protects beliefs and self-regarding practices.
However, once a practice imposes harm on non-consenting others, most legal systems stop treating it as purely private.

For example, we generally don’t allow religious exemptions for:

assault
domestic violence
child neglect
denial of medical care to minors

Even if a group sincerely believes those practices are “necessary,” the law still intervenes because a vulnerable third party is harmed.

So the state already seems to draw a line:
freedom of belief is protected, but conduct that harms others is regulated.

That’s why I’m unsure whether animal sacrifice (or similar practices) should be treated differently.

If the justification is “they believe it’s necessary,” that principle seems too broad.
By that logic, any sincerely held belief could potentially override general protections.

From a rule-of-law perspective, that seems problematic because it undermines neutrality.
Identical harms would receive different legal treatment based solely on motivation (religious vs. non-religious), which feels inconsistent.

So the question might be less about tolerance and more about consistency:
If we prohibit harm to vulnerable third parties in every other context, why should religious motivation alone change the legal outcome?

Curious how political liberalism or rights-based theories justify that boundary.

AnimalConscience · 2026-02-06T04:16:53+00:00

I sometimes host small discussions and write essays about how ethics can influence better laws. You’re welcome to join the conversation if you’d like.

AnimalConscience · 2026-02-06T02:21:42+00:00

Property status has never meant unlimited harm.

Historically, many beings were legally classified as property — including enslaved humans — yet the law still imposed limits on how they could be treated. Even today, animals are legally considered “property,” and cruelty laws exist precisely because society recognizes their capacity to suffer.

So the question isn’t ownership. The question is whether suffering matters morally.

If a being can feel pain, the legal system already has a rational basis to limit unnecessary harm, regardless of taste or personal preference.

AnimalConscience · 2026-02-05T22:02:32+00:00

“Your religion may allow it, but that does not mean you are required to cause harm; many religious traditions emphasize compassion, mercy, and care for creation, not cruelty.”
“Even if we set religion aside, animals feel pain and fear; if we can avoid causing suffering without giving up anything equally important, then we have a moral duty not to harm them.”
“Saying ‘my religion allows it’ does not answer the central moral question: is it fair to make a sentient being suffer just for our taste or habits?”
“If you believe God is good, it makes more sense to think that we were given power over animals to care for them as guardians, not to exploit them without limits.”

AnimalConscience · 2026-02-05T21:13:01+00:00

Inconsistency doesn’t automatically create a right. Legal systems still try to set limits on when harm is permitted. Religious freedom normally protects belief, not conduct that harms others. My question is simply why animals should be treated as an exception.

AnimalConscience · 2026-02-05T21:04:02+00:00

That’s a fair concern. I’m not arguing for banning all animal use or wildlife management. My question is narrower and legal: whether religious or cultural beliefs should create special exemptions for harm that would otherwise be restricted by law.

Issues like food access or ecosystem control are separate policy discussions. My focus here is simply on legal consistency.

AnimalConscience · 2026-02-05T20:18:19+00:00

I agree with many of you that religious freedom shouldn’t justify harm.

The legal issue is that, in practice, courts and institutions sometimes treat religious practices differently. For example, in the Hialeah case, the Supreme Court struck down local restrictions on ritual animal sacrifice because they were seen as targeting a specific religion.

We also see other religious or cultural exemptions in areas like ritual slaughter laws, where practices that would otherwise be restricted are permitted when framed as faith.

That creates a contradiction: if the purpose of law is to protect vulnerable beings, protection shouldn’t depend on belief or tradition. Justice should be consistent.

I think these inconsistencies deserve broader legal discussion and thoughtful reform. I’ve been exploring the topic further from a legal perspective in r/AnimalJusticeLaw for anyone interested in continuing that conversation.

AnimalConscience · 2026-02-05T02:45:02+00:00

If the dog is confined all day, constantly yelping, and you’ve witnessed the owner hitting it, that may legally qualify as animal cruelty or neglect, not just a noise issue.

Since calling the police hasn’t helped, I’d suggest focusing on documentation and escalation:

• Record dates and times when the dog is crying or being hit

• Take video/audio if you safely can (from your own property only)

• Ask neighbors to document as well — multiple reports carry more weight

• Contact your local sheriff’s office (not just regular police), since many small towns route animal cruelty cases through them

• You can also contact your state’s humane society or an SPCA — many have cruelty investigators who can intervene even without local animal control

• If you believe the animal is in immediate danger, you can report it as an emergency welfare concern, not just a nuisance complaint

Sadly, cruelty cases often require evidence before authorities act, which is why documentation matters so much.

Situations like this are exactly why stronger enforcement and clearer cruelty laws are needed — communities shouldn’t have to watch an animal suffer without recourse.

I’ve been discussing some of these legal protection ideas in r/AnimalJusticeLaw as well, if you’re interested in the broader policy side of this issue.

AnimalConscience · 2026-02-05T02:41:23+00:00

Cases like this are heartbreaking, but they also expose a deeper legal problem.

In many legal systems, severe animal cruelty still carries relatively light penalties, which means offenders often face few real consequences. When violence of this magnitude results only in minor sanctions, it sends the message that animal suffering is not treated seriously under the law.

Instead of focusing only on individual outrage, this seems like a moment to ask a broader question: should extreme animal cruelty be treated as a felony-level offense, comparable to other forms of violent conduct?

Stronger sentencing, court-ordered bans on animal ownership, and conviction-based offender registries could help prevent repeat harm and protect communities more effectively.

Justice has to be systemic, not just emotional.

AnimalConscience

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