2026-04-23
This thesis interrogates the systemic exploitation of non-human animals, rooted in the ideology of speciesism and the social structure of carnism. While scientific consensus confirms animal sentience, contemporary society, particularly within the Japanese context, sustains this oppression through mechanisms of clean violence and hegemonic normalisation. This study synthesises suffering-focused ethics with sociological analysis to deconstruct the systematic exploitation maintained by various animal agriculture industries. It critically examines how legal frameworks of animal welfare and cultural trends such as “flexible vegetarianism” obscure the moral imperative of abolition by treating animals as property or merely as food. Furthermore, the research exposes specific marketing tactics, such as the commodity mascot and white-washed labelling, that manufacture a false reality to sedate consumer conscience. Ultimately, this thesis argues that a victim-centred abolitionist approach is the only consistent moral response. It proposes strategic countermeasures, including deconstructive education and direct street activism, to dismantle these illusions and restore the visibility of the victims.
Billions of land animals, such as cows, pigs, and chickens, are exploited by the animal farming industry, instrumentalised for capital gain, and the populace facilitates the exploitative system. This exploitative system has a fundamental problem, because the belief that non-human animals, as sentient beings, can be exploited for human benefit, is unequivocally an injustice.
Traditional morality often remains anthropocentric, focused on human-to-human social contracts, thus lacking logical consistency and failing to dismantle the default beliefs that normalise the exploitation of non-human animals. This thesis adheres to an ethical framework grounded in logic and sentience. The fact of sentience mandates that their interests must be factored into ethical deliberation. Therefore, subordinating fundamental interests to ephemeral sensory pleasure is flawed logic.
Contemporary society, despite progress in social justice, continues to grapple with systematic inequalities, notably the exploitation of animals. Regrettably, these issues are often overlooked because individuals are often unaware of their complicity in the hegemony of animal use. However, individuals in society must face the situation not from the oppressor’s perspective but from the victims’ perspective. A moral imperative demands resistance to the hegemony of animal use and continued advocacy for animals.
This paper focuses on speciesism, a discriminatory system analogous to racism or sexism, yet masked under the guise of biological difference. The difference is that the discrimination is under the name of species. Just as racial prejudice targets individuals based on their race, speciesism justifies the exploitation and violence inflicted upon animals (Animal Ethics, n.d.).
Contemporary society maintains the belief that consuming animals is standard behaviour, despite the simultaneous moral conviction that inflicting harm is fundamentally wrong. Melanie Joy (2023) identifies this contradictory social structure as “carnism”. It is frequently overlooked that individuals are inculcated into this system through socialisation: a process Sensoy and DiAngelo (2017) explain as the embedding of individuals within institutions that structure society. The beliefs acquired through this process solidify into social norms, remaining invisible to those within the system until a violation occurs. As a dominant ideology, carnism blinds the moral agent to inherent contradictions, such as validating the consumption of pigs while deeming the consumption of dogs as abnormal, thereby obscuring the violation of the ethical duty to sentient beings.
This cultural discrimination, the contradiction of consuming only specific animals, is often unconscious. Joy (2023) explains the psychological aspect of discrimination with carnism. The deep inculcation of cultural norms, through socialisation and hegemony, hinders the capacity for critical thinking against choices. Sensoy and DiAngelo (2017) further elucidate how hegemony normalises dominant ideology. This process enforces oppression on marginalised groups, reinforcing the current position that perpetuates dominant interests.
The social reaction to animal liberation often consists of labels such as radical or extreme. Regardless of the ethical consistency of the movement, society often rejects challenges to exploitation as long as that exploitation benefits the majority and is supported by cultural norms. This friction reveals the power of carnism as a default ideology that views minority ethical positions as social discord rather than moral progress.
Sentience, the capacity for subjective experience, including the ability to suffer, serves as the definitive criterion for determining the ethical treatment of individuals. It is imperative to acknowledge that all animals, including Homo sapiens, share this capacity, a fact rigorously substantiated by extensive scientific research. Peter Singer (2011) argued that moral considerations for animals are not only ethical but also grounded in scientific knowledge. Animals are sentient beings, akin to humans, and, despite differences in intelligence, dogs, pigs, and many other animals possess cognitive abilities and the capacity to behave as individuals, often more than young human children or individuals with brain dysfunction.
In this comparison, logic dictates that pigs are no less deserving of ethical treatment than human infants. The importance of ethical treatment mustn’t be overshadowed by intellectual capability. The fundamental principle remains: the interests of non-human animals must not be overlooked based on species membership or differences in cognitive abilities. Moral consistency requires the consideration of the interests of all sentient beings capable of consciousness.
The Cambridge Declaration on Consciousness, publicly proclaimed on July 7, 2012, is a significant statement regarding non-human animal consciousness. This declaration asserts that biological evidence strongly supports the existence of a conscious state capable of intentional behaviour. Moreover, this evidence suggests that humans are not unique in possessing the neurological substrates that generate consciousness (Low, 2012). This scientific consensus challenges the long-held belief in species-based boundaries and could affect not only the legal and political framework but also social norms. The declaration’s impact is indirect; however, it contributed to a broader shift in public and political discourse. Its assertion of the presence of consciousness in non-human animals provided a strong foundation for advocacy and policymakers by establishing scientific consensus. Many changes, such as the Cruelty-Free Cosmetics Act in Canada and the Animal Welfare (Sentience) Bill in the UK, have occurred since the declaration. Scientific consensus, such as the Cambridge Declaration on Consciousness, strongly supports animal ethics and can drastically shift the current situation by providing persuasive evidence for legislative changes and raising societal awareness.
Discourse ethics is a view in moral and political philosophy that holds that moral principles should be acceptable to all those affected by their consequences. Thus, when considering the ethical treatment of sentient beings, all affected parties must participate in the decision-making process, and their interests should be considered. The consensus of actions should be focused on, so that the interests of animals are not overlooked in favor of human interests. Despite their inability to represent themselves, they still have moral interests if they are affected by the consequences. Not only those who have logistical issues to participate, but complex cognitive or linguistic ability is not necessarily a condition to be a moral subject. Human infants and humans with intellectual diversity, including broad spectrums of cognitive abilities and brain function, are subject to decisions made by moral agents and require moral consideration; this diversity does not diminish moral consideration. This requires that all beings with interests, including non-human animals, are included in moral deliberation. Failure to do so constitutes an endorsement of the unjustified view of anthropocentric speciesism. Ethical consistency dictates that all beings with interests be regarded as morally considerable, rather than drawing arbitrary lines between those who matter and those who do not (Animal Ethics, n.d.).
Utilitarianism is the approach to evaluate the quality of the actions or policy, entirely as the function of its consequences, contrasted to the other approaches of moral evaluation, regarding the consequences of the action as the mere element amongst the grounding values of its quality (Driver, 2025). On the other hand, the consequentialist viewpoint evaluates actions by their consequences, determining the rightness of acts (Sinnott-Armstrong, 2023). From a consequentialist perspective, the logic still requires that each interest be weighed against the overall benefit.
However, the utilitarian approach, by systematically prioritising the amount of benefit over inherent moral value, risks justifying animal exploitation if the perceived benefits to humans outweigh their suffering. Lori Gruen (2011) critiqued utilitarianism as a framework that, while aiming for the greatest good for the greatest number, risks justifying the systematic exploitation of animals. By focusing on the largest welfare, this may overlook the inherent moral value of individual animals, reducing them to mere instruments for human benefit.
The massacre of animals for humans, such as industrial animal farming or testing, often rationalises mass suffering and violence, appealing to human interest. However, the fundamental moral quality of its system, overlooking the interests of non-human animals, must be considered to evaluate ethical quality of the act. A utilitarian calculus might justify mass suffering if it yields greater benefits; however, prioritizing outcomes over intrinsic value may overlook the justification for systematic exploitation, a distortion rooted in speciesism.
The utilitarian calculus, justifying the instrumentalisation of sentient beings, shares the same logic as historical systems of oppression, such as the enslavement or the subordination of females to domestic chores, whereby individuals are reduced to resources for the benefit of a dominant group. Thus the legitimacy of its act shall be critically evaluated through the systematic perspective on ethics, not with a quantitative calculation over the utility.
Lori Gruen (2011) argues that the side defending animal testing often relies on human interests as its justification. Gruen illustrates this bias through an ethical evaluation method: if subjecting humans to animal testing for the benefit of others seems indefensible, then doing the same to animals, despite their sentience and capacity to suffer, is equally unjustifiable. This inconsistency exposes the flaw in utilitarian reasoning: prioritizing utility over value renders the quantitative calculus logically inconsistent.
A morally consistent position must reject exploitation outright, regardless of any perceived benefit derived from unjust practices. Where viable alternatives exist, such as plant-based dietary choices or non-animal research models, harming sentient beings will no longer be ethically inexcusable, even under utilitarian reasoning.
While utilitarian calculus measures the quality of act with the quantitative outcomes, the legitimacy evaluation of its act necessitates considering the ethical value of the agent, affected by the process of its action. While most ethical perspectives converge on the objective of minimising negative experiences, the primary self evident metric of its quality is the avoidance of suffering, mandated by the fact of sentience.
Deontology, a normative ethical theory focused on duties and rules, provides the measurement of the nature of the act itself. Within a deontological framework, ethical obligation can be analysed from a different perspective. The former is an agent-centred perspective, constrains the individuals from intrinsic unethical behavior , such as reducing individuals to the status of an object to be exploited. The latter is patient-centred perspectives, focusing on the individuals who are the recipients of the action, which mandates diminishing the suffering of the affected individual by its act (Alexander & Moore, 2024).
Consequently, moral agents are bound by strict rules that prohibit the infliction of suffering. Furthermore, a consideration of overall interests which necessitates an inclusive recognition of those interests to ensure that a flawed utilitarian calculation does not overlook the victim, requires alleviating of suffering and promoting compassion for those who suffer. In this framework, the recognition of an interest acts as a categorical prohibition; unlike a quantitative calculus that might permit harm for a perceived greater good, the deontological approach that a fundamental interest can never be subordinated to minor interest, such as ephemeral sensory pleasure (Animal Ethics, n.d.c.).
While the utilitarian calculation of individuals might permit suffering in exchange for personal pleasure, the rationale regarding sentience does not accept inflicting suffering on others for human gratification. The rejection of speciesism, akin to the rejection of other forms of discrimination, dictates that the killing of innocent animals for enjoyment, rather minor interest upon humanity, thus cannot be condoned (Animal Ethics, n.d.c).
Reducing suffering stands as a moral imperative. Priority must be given to reducing suffering over pursuing pleasure, particularly when choices result in harm to others. This approach aligns with the fundamental duty to minimise harm. As sentient beings, animals warrant full consideration within the moral framework; therefore, the infliction of pain for the sake of human pleasure is ethically indefensible.
While concerns about the use of non-human animals have existed since ancient times, organised social movements against exploitation only began to emerge in the early 20th century. As awareness of the animal-use industries grew in Western society, the movement known as veganism emerged in the early 20th century.
Veganism is a philosophy, boycotting the property status of non-human animals. It is crucial to distinguish veganism from mere dietary changes; veganism is a social movement that advocates for animals by boycotting animal products and the industries and forms of exploitation associated with them at the individual level.
Donald Watson was one of the pioneers of veganism. Regarding the consumption of animal products, Watson first introduced the term “vegan” in the first volume of “The Vegan News” magazine, issued in November 1944, highlighting the cruelty of exploiting and slaughtering sentient life.
Later in 1949, Leslie J Cross pointed out a lack of definition of veganism and “The principle of the emancipation of animals from exploitation by man,” that was later clarified as “to seek an end to the use of animals by man for food, commodities, work, hunting, vivisection, and by all other uses involving exploitation of animal life by man” (Vegan Society, n.d., para 4).
While veganism aims to abolish the property status of non-human animals, the populace dilutes this ethical imperative by diminishing it to mere dietary choice or marketing instruments, leading to the obfuscation of its nature and purpose. Thus it is imperative for individuals to persist in the resistance position towards animal use, such as animal industries supported by carnism, not to be distracted by the industries and becoming complicit in the oppression. Neither submission nor silence against injustice is an option. Active confrontation against the grave injustices inflicted upon non-human animals is required.
The social landscape of animal advocacy comprises three primary, yet fundamentally divergent, streams: animal liberation, animal rights, and animal welfare. While public discourse frequently conflates these movements, they operate from opposing ethical baselines. Animal liberation and animal rights generally align on the goal of abolishing animal use based on the principle of equal consideration of interests. Conversely, animal welfare serves as a reformist framework that seeks only to mitigate the conditions of treatment without challenging the underlying property status of animals and the consequentialist fallacy that treats sentient beings as resources for human utility.
Animal liberation, a movement to liberate animals from suffering and to end speciesism, is indispensable to ending the grave injustice of the violent treatment of animals and terminating their suffering. It aims to eliminate the use of animals for any purpose, regardless of the treatment they receive.
Peter Singer (1987) notes that the animal liberation movement shares the underlying logic with earlier liberation movements, from black civil rights to feminism. Much like the earlier movement against discrimination based on sex or race, animal liberation rejects unjust discrimination based on species rather than race or gender. Yet despite societal recognition of injustice, discrimination, and exploitation, a persistent gap remains: speciesism.
Animal liberation seeks to dismantle the property status of non-human animals; a status historically maintained through moral exclusion based on arbitrary biological traits. While other traditional frameworks may focus on the condition of use, liberation addresses the intrinsic injustice of the use itself, regardless of how “humane” the treatment is perceived to be.
Singer (2004) notes that the animal liberation movement has achieved tangible progress by forcing the regulatory advisory bodies, responding to systematic civil pressure, implemented restrictive legislative reforms, the mandatory phasing out of intensive confinement systems and one laboratory lost its funding in the campaign against the experiment of 1976. This shift illustrates that activism does not merely appeal to ethics; it creates an economic environment where the costs of maintaining the system, due to the fortification of industrial facilities against the transparency brought by undercover investigations, and legal compliance, become a significant burden for the animal agriculture industry.
The activism influences the industries, targeting economic and social aspects. By its economic disincentives, the activism dismantled the existing system exploiting non-human animals within the economic level, not solely the philosophical paradigm shift.
The activism to achieve unjust treatment towards non-human animals has two main streams: animal rights and animal liberation. However, each perspective has a different aspect of problem-solving.
Peter Singer (1987) delineates the philosophical distinction between animal rights and animal liberation. While often conflated in social movements, Singer cautions that asserting rights based solely on species membership constitutes a form of prejudice analogous to racism. Instead, the argument rests on the principle of equal consideration of interests. Just as this principle applies to humans regardless of race or gender, its consistent application to sentient beings logically necessitates the cessation of animal use.
In contemporary society, animal welfare diverges fundamentally from animal liberation in its moral framework. Whereas animal liberation opposes animal exploitation, irrespective of species, much like slavery is unjust regardless of context, animal welfare prioritises companion animals, such as dogs or cats, because of their perceived affinity to humans. Yet, the interest in the social context holds no moral weight on their suffering (Singer, 2004).
Animal welfare aims to reduce the pain and improve the treatment of animals, however, the animals deemed “domesticated animals” will still be exploited and taken from their lives, since animal welfare does not regard that animal exploitation must be abolished. While animal welfare may reduce pain during life, improvements in animal treatment are unrelated to the injustice against animals. The use of animals itself is inherently exploitative and should be abolished. Were slavery to persist, improving the lives of those enslaved is unequivocally not the moral imperative. Analogous to the historical injustice of slavery, this moral failure must not be repeated.
Animal farming and fishing industries are the largest-scale massacres and systematic exploitation of sentient beings globally. As Singer (2011) documents in Animal Liberation, the broilers, the chickens bred for the meat industry, are slaughtered at just 7 weeks old, regardless of their natural seven-year life span. They are confined to merely 0.5 feet of space for their entire life, and forced to live the last days in almost dark places so that they would not kill each other under the severe stress of normal brightness. Moreover, the poultry industry developed cost-effective methods to mitigate chicken stress without incurring financial losses. One example is debeaking. Currently, the industry uses machines specialised for beak cutting, and processing speeds are approximately 15 chickens per minute. Consequently, the rapid procedure may cause severe harm to chickens due to inadequate management. This procedure is not analogous to cutting nails; it involves the highly sensitive tissue, between their stratum corneum (the hard, keratinised outer layer) and the bone. The knife for debeaking cuts the stratum corneum, bone, and tissue, thus causing severe pain.
During cattle breeding, farmers cut their horns and castrate them; however, these procedures cause severe suffering for the cows. Anaesthesia is not customarily used in this process. Cows are pressed not to move, cutting the scrotum with a knife, pulling out the testis, and crushing the Spermatic cord of the cow (Singer, 2011).
The systematic practices described above, debeaking, forced castration, and other brutalities, are not merely incidental cruelty but structural violence embedded in animal agriculture. These realities expose the normalised exploitation that society is complicit in through individual consumption. Such suffering is neither accidental nor necessary; it is an inevitable outcome of the commodification of animals, where sentient beings possessing consciousness are reduced to mere products. This moral and logical contradiction demands more than reform; it necessitates the abolition of institutionalised exploitation (Singer, 2011).
Why do scientists argue that the importance of the experiment justifies causing pain to animals, while they are against causing pain to humans with equivalent levels of intelligence? Peter Singer (2011) draws an analogy between speciesism and racism by examining the moral blindness within historical human experimentation. Under Nazi governance, approximately 200 doctors conducted experiments on Jewish, Russian, and Polish captives. The scientists experimented on humans in a decompression chamber, according to the report. The experiment continued until the test subject’s respiratory arrest.
With in the state sanctioned community, there was an absence of institutional objection, as the victims were stripped of their status and to mere resources. Singer argues that this normalised complicity is analogous to the contemporary social attitude towards animal experimentation. The experiments did not cease with the fall of the Nazi regime; instead, they continued using animals as the test subjects. At the University of Newcastle upon Tyne, researchers experimented on pigs, where they were exposed to decompression up to 81 times for 9 months, leading to their death (Singer, 2011).
Legislation in Western societies offers limited protection for animals, with modern laws primarily focusing on animal welfare to improve treatment standards. However, these laws do not prohibit the exploitation of animals, revealing an inconsistency between moral and legal frameworks. For instance, current UK legislation, often regarded as setting the “highest welfare” standards, ensures space allowances and temperature controls and aims to promote healthier conditions. As well, battery cages for laying hens, sow stalls for pigs, and veal crates for calves are banned (DEFRA, 2021), yet ethical concerns regarding animal use remain unaddressed. Current laws, while potentially improving animal conditions, serve the interests of the animal industry and fail to address the fundamental moral issue. This situation is analogous to laws that improve the lives of those who experienced enslavement in history.
Although awareness of ethical treatment remains limited, there is still progress in UK government policy. The UK government introduced the Animal Welfare Bill, which formally recognised vertebrates as sentient beings in domestic laws (DEFRA, 2021). The bill also established an Animal Sentience Committee to ensure that policymaking considers animal sentience and to require Government Ministers to update Parliament on the Committee’s recommendations. Moreover, they announced that some invertebrates, including decapod crustaceans (such as crabs or lobsters) and cephalopod molluscs (such as octopuses or squid), are to be recognised as sentient beings under the scope of the Animal Welfare Bill. This policy is underlined by the London School of Economics and Political Science, which found strong scientific evidence supporting sentience in decapod crustaceans and cephalopod molluscs (DEFRA, 2021).
While animals are the primary victims of exploitation, exposure to their cruel treatment can also harm human mental health, potentially leading to severe psychological distress and social dysfunction. Therefore, understanding the issue requires consideration not only of ethical implications but also of sociological and psychological impacts. In Beyond Beliefs: A Guide to Improving Relationships and Communication for Vegans, Vegetarians, and Meat Eaters, Melanie Joy (2023) examines the psychological challenges of veganism and offers strategies for fostering relationships between vegans and non-vegans. While veganism centres on the ethical treatment of non-human animals, advocates often encounter social conflicts in a carnism-dominated society.
Veganism advocates for the rights of oppressed animals, yet vegans themselves, despite being advocates, often face social oppression as victims of human society. As a minority group, vegans are frequently pressured to conform to the dominant norm of carnism. Joy (2023) notes that carnism operates as an invisible belief system, normalising the idea that consuming certain animals is justified, despite its inherent violence and lack of necessity in modern society. For a micro perspective, furthermore, vegans are often forced to thrive in difficult situations due to the social acceptance, although the choice was based on moral concern. The needs of vegans, even their basic interests, are often overlooked by non-vegans. Some non-vegans deem vegans as extremists who impose their view on others, which can make vegans feel pressured to stay silent, even when faced with criticism. Many vegans are constantly insecure and socially isolated. Psychologically, however, humans thrive on close and open relationships to feel secure, making supportive connections.
Vegans experience systematic marginalisation, analogous to the situation that black people and women as minority groups face under racism or sexism. This includes psychological harms, witnessing the animal slaughter causes STS (secondary traumatic stress), which is secondary PTSD among those who are traumatised, which can be the “indirect” victims (Figley, 1995). When individuals perceive animals’ flesh on the table or in supermarkets as dead bodies, while non-vegans overlook the cruelty of those industries and regard eating meat as a mere food choice, due to the carnism as the default ideology, the dominant group overlooks the minority struggles. When vegans are exposed to animal products, they recall the traumatic slaughter of animals. This gap between them makes it harder to understand vegans by non-vegans, and involuntary harm against vegans causes self-protective behaviour, which can lead to the destruction of their social relationships as a result. The stressful situation for vegans can be seen anywhere among partners, friends, and family.
Although both vegans and non-vegans debate veganism, the root of these conflicts often lies not in veganism but in communication barriers and psychological protection mechanisms. Joy (2023) emphasises the importance of resilience and mutual understanding to promote a sustainable and honest relationships. A central obstacle to this understanding is cognitive dissonance, the psychological discomfort arising from the contradiction between a moral conviction against harm and the normalised standard of animal consumption. Fechner and Isbanner (2025) identify this as intention-behaviour gap, where individuals employ psychological strategies to resolve the tension between their ethical values and their dietary habits.
The structural violence of carnism, the system defined in section 3.2, creates a profound psychological gap between the advocate and the dominant group. While the majority non-vegans views meat consumption as a neutral, standard behaviour, the vegan agent recognises this speciesist normalisation. This gap results in mutual difficulty of further understandings.
The most direct approach to addressing the issue of animal exploitation is to raise awareness of the practices in animal industries. A significant way is street activism. Street activism is raising awareness worldwide and contributing to a growing global awareness of animal exploitation. The international activist group “Anonymous for the Voiceless” established the “Cube” initiative, a direct-action campaign of peaceful street demonstrations that disseminated conditions in the meat, egg, and dairy industries through visual media. The team, composed of volunteers wearing an “Anonymous mask,” remains silent, displays powerful footage depicting the graphic reality of animal use, captures public attention, and compels engagement. The outreach team fosters deeper understanding by asking questions, encouraging viewers to adopt the victim’s perspective. The simplicity and effectiveness of the street action effectively convey the severity of the problem, promoting public recognition of its urgency (Anonymous for the Voiceless, n.d.).
To understand the current direction of total animal liberation, it is essential to analyse the shifting priorities within the movement. A comparative analysis of surveys from 1990 and 1996 reveals a significant trend: activists increasingly prioritised the abolition of animal agriculture over the critique of animal testing. Notably, younger advocates under 40 who adopted a plant-based diet and rejected animal-derived commodities, thereby enacting a principled boycott of property status, were significantly more likely to target the agricultural industry as the primary site of speciesist oppression. This shift reflects a move away from the conventional movement activism, which often targets isolated laboratory experiments, towards a systematic totality of rejection of commodification found in food production (Plous, 1991).
PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) was founded in 1980. The organisation has been advocating for the ethical treatment of animals and informing policymakers. The organisation actively campeigns against speciesism, the concept that discrimination based on species is unjustifiable, by addressing exploitation in various areas, including laboratory, food industry, and clothing trade, and entertainment business (PETA, n.d.).
One of their primary method of engagement is street activism and demonstrations, which are primarily aimed at influencing the company’s policy and exposing its cruelty worldwide. Beyond physical demonstrations, PETA’s impact is significant in the digital sphere; for instance, their Instagram account has reached 1.6 million followers, providing a platform for global outreach on Internet. Their numerous campaigns and public demonstrations fosters broader societal awareness (PETA, n.d.).
Furthermore, PETA’s undercover investigations across various companies, including the 1988 investigation at Biosearch, uncovered systematic legal violations. These efforts have not only compelled many cosmetic and food companies to implement policy changes but also attracted media attention, effectively bridging the reality of animal exploitation into the social exposure (PETA, n.d.).
Another famous group is the Animal Liberation Front (ALF), a decentralised group that split from the Hunter Saboteurs Association (HSA) in 1976. HSA was formed in the winter of 1963 to oppose the proposed ban on hunting with hounds in England, Wales, and Scotland (Hunter Saboteur Association, n.d.). ALF is not an organisation, nor does it have a leader. This group has been criticised as “violent” and many classify them as “terrorist” for their illegal activities, such as trespassing and destruction of property of the animal industries. However, they reject violence and physical harm against individuals in their activities. Their target is merely to inflict economic damage on those who profit from exploiting animals, without harming others. All activities conducted by ALF must comply with this guideline. Their target is the liberation of animals that suffer from any kind of exploitation by humans, and they are rescuing them by breaking into the facilities or laboratories.
While the scale of animal liberation activism in Japan is comparatively small, prominent progress has been made in recent years. Several organisations that support veganism have been established, and they are not only raising awareness of animal use but also providing opportunities to educate activists to support effective outreach. One such organisations is Animal Liberator, which was founded in 2017 as Animal Liberator.net. Following its qualification as a non-profit organisation in 2019, the group has conducted research and investigations targeted at aquariums and zoos in Japan. They investigated almost all facilities from 2018 to 2019, which revealed abnormal behaviour in the exhibited animals resulting from confinement, and they published a book about the actual conditions. (Animal Liberator, 2024a)
The areas of activism and views are categorised as animal liberation, as they categorically distances itself from welfarist frameworks. While animal welfare operates under a priori assumption of continued use of animals, restricting its protection scope to specific, culturally favoured species, animal liberation functions as an ontological emancipation. In this context, animal liberation and abolitionism are utilised interchangeably to denote the movement that rejects the property status of all sentient beings.
The organisation focuses on three key projects. First, a website to provide knowledge to sharpen their insights into animal liberation. Second, a project to facilitate a smooth transition to veganism. Third, an academy offering an education programme to provide versatile knowledge and skills in animal liberation activism, cultivate a new generation of activists, and build a stronger network of activists (Animal Liberator, 2024b).
Another significant initiative, the Vegan Kids Project, aims to disseminate information and raise awareness among Japan’s younger generation. This organisation began with a project originating in the academy that Animal Liberator organised, working to publish a children’s book for elementary schools, initially modelled on analogous initiatives in European countries. Their activities are currently on Instagram, and their posts are readily comprehensible for all ages, ensuring a straightforward approach to the issue of animal exploitation. Given the number of outreach efforts and that most are aimed at adults, the project addresses the need for a Japanese context (Vegan Kids Project, 2022).
While individualism in European cultures can support moral choices such as veganism, Japanese collectivism marginalises such minority positions to maintain social harmony, as individuals tend to prioritise group integration and social hierarchy over overt individuality (Takano, 2024).
This cultural divergence suggests that social movements aiming to challenge the systematic exploitation of animals may require different activist approaches in Japan compared to Europe. Su et al.’s (2020) investigation into the moral attitudes prevalent in Western and Asian societies suggests that, throughout Japan, there is a positive association between public awareness of animal issues and idealism and a negative association with relativism
Japan has a specific problem regarding the perception of “veganism”. While the awareness of the word “vegan” seems to be increasing, the perception of veganism is misunderstood or obfuscated. Despite a clear definition of veganism, many scientific studies focus on veganism as a lifestyle, health, and environmental movement and overlook its original purpose (Greenebaum, 2012). Furthermore, especially in Japan, a survey conducted for vegans suggests that more than twenty percent of the people who describe themselves as vegan claim the reason for becoming vegan as “health” or “environmental reasons (Animal Liberator, 2025).
While a plant-based diet serves as the practical application of avoiding systemic exploitation, its framing often shifts from a principled boycott of property status to a utilitarian lifestyle choice. When environmental or health benefits become the primary justification, the ethical urgency is diluted into a calculation of personal benefit rather than a categorical rejection of animal use. This reframing is structurally harmful to animal liberation because it replaces the ethical position of abolition with the passive concept of food diversity within the benefit-centred perspective, effectively erasing the perspective of the victim.
While Su et al. ’s (2020) investigation of moral attitudes reveals trends in moral concerns, it is crucial to analyse how these attitudes relate to behaviour. Idealism aligns with a deontological perspective by prioritising fixed moral principles; rightness of an action is inherent in the act itself, such as the categorical prohibition against treating sentient beings as property. Conversely, relativism aligns with consequentialism by suggesting that moral value is contingent upon outcomes. In this framework, ethical decisions are quantitative rather than derived from universal rules.
The study confirms that Japanese respondents exhibit an idealistic orientation, valuing fixed moral rules over situational outcomes. Crucially, however, this doesn’t translate to consistent moral concern for animals. This discrepancy arises because Japanese and Chinese societies maintain a holistic and relational view toward non-human animals. Unlike the analytic Western mentality, which seeks universal moral constants like sentience to define intrinsic value, relational societies evaluate animals based on the positioning within the specific human societal context. This leads to instrumentalisation of animals as a default system, because an animal’s status is not inherent but contingent upon its perceived utility, allowing welfarism while maintaining the systematic exploitation (Su et al., 2020).
By focusing primarily on pet ownership and meat-eating frequency as a measure of moral attitude, the study narrows its scope to domestic and dietary choices. The limited metric risks misrepresenting principled ethics by overlooking systemic, institutionalised use occurring in industrial farms, laboratories, and fashion industry. Consequently, an abolitionist framework focusing on the totality of animal exploitation, arising from the property status of animals beyond the perceived role or utility, is required to address the speciesist framework that persists across the differences between Western and Asian mentalities and to achieve total animal liberation.
The pervasive misunderstanding of veganism as a mere dietary choice, predicated on health or environmental utility rather than an ethical stance against property status, is directly linked to collectivist societal pressure and the psychological mechanisms as Fechner and Isbanner (2025) describe. When individuals confront the severe condition inflicted upon sentient beings, the resulting cognitive dissonance compels them to seek palatable justifications. Fechner and Isbanner (2025) suggest that individuals resolve this discomfort by shifting focus towards personal benefits, such as health reasons, effectively employing a consequentialist fallacy to obscure the victim’s perspective.
Consequently, this reframing erases the property status of animals from public discourse and replaces the ethical imperative of abolition of animal use with “food diversity” concept. To counter this misinformation, a precise definition of veganism as an active resistance against the use of animals is essential. This requires a concerted effort from activists, grounded in an abolitionist framework, to constantly and critically calibrate movements against the obfuscation or dilution of the purpose of total liberation.
The strategy for animal liberation activism would need to be tailored within the Japanese cultural context, acknowledging the prevailing collectivist values and the potential for marginalisation of minority viewpoints. The street activism “Cube of Truth,” a form of direct action, can be utilised to address this problem. This method originated with the global activist group “Anonymous for the Voiceless,” and similar non-organised activism is now spreading in Japanese cities such as Osaka, Tokyo, and Nagoya (Animal Liberation Tokyo, n.d.). By a direct approach within each dialogue in activism, the social awareness will face a moral contradiction. Especially for a holistic perspective on Japan, graphic engagement in activism, which does not rely solely on analytical moral argument, can be a practical approach across cultures, particularly in Eastern cultures such as Japan and China, as argued above.
Achieving a precise understanding of veganism as a social justice movement resisting animal exploitation, rather than a mere dietary preference, would be an imperative for total liberation from animal exploitation. Supporting educational initiatives, designed to inform younger generations about the ethical foundations of veganism, such as the Vegan Kids Project, will promote collective civil movement, such as street activism, and spread awareness of the animal use issue for a wide range of populations, not limited to those who are focused on street activism.
Animal Alliance Asia is an organisation dedicated to establishing an inclusive justice movement focused on culturally relevant countries in Asia. The organisation holds annual “Animal Academy”, providing educational opportunities through workshop and interactive project. The organisation seeks to spread knowledge about animal exploitation among the younger generation and their parents (Animal Aliance Asia, n.d.).
Animal welfare legislation, despite its seemingly positive intentions, often functions as a mechanism to legitimise and mitigate the ongoing exploitation of animals rather than challenge its fundamental premise. These laws typically regulate how animals are used—conditions of confinement, transport, and slaughter—thereby implicitly supporting their status as property to be utilised for human purposes, rather than recognising them as sentient beings with inherent rights. Japan’s Animal Welfare Act (Animal Welfare Act, 1973), while acknowledging some aspects of animal sentience by referring to pain and distress in Articles 40 and 41, exhibits significant limitations that reveal a speciesism bias. The Act’s enforcement mechanisms for preventing animal pain and distress are primarily restricted to a specific list of “Aigo-Dobutsu” (protected animals), such as dogs and cats, and certain domestic farm animals. This leaves other unlisted sentient animals without legal protection. While regulations for “protected animals” are being strengthened, there is a dearth of discussion and a near-total absence of legal rules for animals classified as “livestock” and “experimental” animals within Japan’s legislative framework (Aoki, 2021). In stark contrast, the UK’s Animal Welfare (Sentience) Act 2022 officially recognises cephalopod molluscs and decapod crustaceans as sentient beings, a recognition based on robust scientific evidence of their capacity to experience pleasure and suffering. This legislation represents a significant philosophical step toward broadening protection for sentience beyond traditional vertebrates. The UK example demonstrates a philosophical advancement in recognising a broader scope of sentience.
According to the market investigation by Frembacy inc., the populace in Japan is consciously reducing the consumption of animal-derived products by 16 percent. Frembacy categorises 12.5 percent of total populace “Yuru-vegi”, a category defined by those who are consciously reducing animal-derived food consumption at least one day per week. (Frembacy, 2018).
The “Yuru-veji” phenomenon, or flexitarianism, presents another complex challenge to the animal liberation movement in Japan. On the surface, it appears to be a positive development, with increased consumption of plant-based foods and broader public awareness of dietary alternatives. From an ethical standpoint, however, “Yuru-Veji” can insidiously subvert the core principles of veganism by reframing an ethical imperative as a collectivistic food diversity.
This manipulates the plant-based eating aspect of veganism, making it palatable by providing flexibility and removing the ethical context. This dilution is often driven by commercialisation and marketing efforts. While flexitarians can reduce harm by decreasing overall consumption of animal products, the primary concern is that this approach dilutes the radical ethical stance of veganism by presenting it as a mere subjective choice rather than a boycott of the animal use.
Peter Singer’s concept of “flexible veganism”, where he admits to occasionally consuming shellfish or eggs based on his utilitarian calculus of sentience, exemplifies this dilution. In stark contrast, Carol J. Adams argues that the term”vegan” should not be diluted as “vegetarian” has been (Kelly, 2021). From an abolitionist perspective, advocating for progressive reduction is not a valid pathway to animal liberation. Furthermore, a reduce-only approach constitutes a morally inadequate response, serving only to rationalise the systemic injustice of animal agriculture.
Both the mainstream animal welfare movement and the Japanese trend of “Yuru-Veji”, or a “flexible” vegetarianism, serve to divert attention from the core issue of animal exploitation. The former sanctions the use of animals, focusing on the “improvement” of their environment rather than outright abolition, thereby leaving the core practice uncriticised. Similarly, Yuru-Veji reframes plant-based eating as a matter of harmonious food diversity and freedom of choice. In doing so, it deliberately marginalises the ethical concerns for the animals themselves. Such trends, by obfuscating the central moral question, risk undermining the moral force of arguments for animal liberation.
The consequentialist fallacy of animal use extends to the institutional level. Animal welfare initiatives, despite their stated goals, frequently serve the economic interests of the animal agriculture industry by reinforcing the property status of sentient beings. They provide a sophistry of “humane” standards that allows the fundamental system of exploitation to persist and remain profitable. By adopting these “welfare standards”, governments and industries effectively deflect more radical calls for total liberation, continuing to generate substantial profits from the instrumentalisation of animals while sedating the public discourse from the systematic reform.
As Gary Francione (2010) highlights, the welfarist approach is problematic: its utilitarian goal of reducing suffering does not object to the unequal treatment inherent in animal use, nor does it oppose breeding sentient beings solely for human consumption.
Culturally, “Yuru-Veji” thrives in environments that prioritise harmony and collectivism, such as Japan. In a society where bucking the norm is viewed as a source of social discord, a flexible approach that permits occasional consumption of animal products is more readily accepted than an abolitionist stance, which is often perceived as “radical” by the majority. This cultural predisposition to compromise and maintain social cohesion means that radical social justice movements face significant resistance. “Yuru-Veji” thus provides a comfortable middle ground, allowing individuals to feel they are contributing to a positive trend without fully challenging the established social and dietary norms. This creates a form of “social consent” that allows the existing system to perpetuate itself, giving a superficial appearance of progress while actively marginalising both the suffering of animals and the moral imperative for their liberation. The profound impact on the abolitionist message is that it is made to seem”extreme” or “radical” to the public, diverting attention from the fundamental paradigm shift required for genuine justice.
All advocacy efforts must unequivocally centre on the inherent value and profound suffering of sentient non-human animals. This requires moving beyond abstract notions of “kindness to animals” to explicit discussions of exploitation and its devastating impact on individuals. The abolitionist perspective, as articulated by Gary L. Francione, asserts that all sentient beings possess an interest in their continued existence and in not being treated as property. As an interim path toward abolition, the “new welfarist” position, which promotes regulation to achieve abolition or to reduce animal use and exploitation in the future significantly, can serve as an alternative to the current framework (Between the Species, 2008). The genuine ethical telos must be the abolition of animal use itself, grounded in the equal consideration of animal interests.
Current Japanese legislation exemplifies a lag in acknowledging scientific consensus, such as the Cambridge Declaration on Consciousness. By treating non-human animals as property whose status is derived from the owner’s interest rather than their own sentience, Japan maintains a speciesist hierarchy. In contrast, the UK’s nominal recognition of sentience represents a significant shift toward acknowledging the inherent interests of sentient beings.
The current legislative landscape, particularly in Japan, must evolve beyond mere animal welfare (Dobutsu-Aigo) to a formal recognition of animal sentience that establishes fundamental interests against exploitation. Building upon the expanded recognition of sentience demonstrated in the UK context (cf. section 7, 11.1.1.), Japanese policy must confront the fact that treating sentient beings as property is a logical and ethical inconsistency. As Gary L. Francione (2008) argues, the property status of animals remains the primary barrier to their liberation; therefore, any meaningful reform must move beyond welfarist regulation and towards the legal deconstruction of the owner-resource relationship.
While the UK legislation exhibits practical inconsistencies, particularly in its protection of animals exploited in food production, it nonetheless represents a crucial advancement. Recognising sentience is necessary to establish a sound basis for legal protection. Such recognition provides a legal foundation for more comprehensive protections, moving beyond the limited animal welfare framework in Japan.
From a legal standpoint, especially in Japan, individuals incapable of self-advocacy have historically been afforded protection only insofar as they are deemed beneficial towards humanity or constitute human property. However, advocacy for their legal entity and their social interest among society has gradually been accepted, according to precedents in the U.S. (Aoki, 2021). The legal protection for non-human animals as legal entities necessitates a policy that views them not solely as belonging to humanity nor as property to be controlled for exploitation. To establish a legal entity for animals, public and legal discourse must focus on their interests. This focus must be grounded in scientific evidence of sentience, such as the expert consensus in the Cambridge Declaration on Consciousness, which affirms that the neurological substrates necessary for consciousness are not unique to humans, thereby allowing inference of conscious experience in many non-human animals (Low, 2012).
Complementing these legislative and philosophical approaches, a strategy of direct resistance to commercial co-operation and misleading marketing that undermines the abolitionist message is also imperative. This entails upholding an unassailable definition of veganism as the rejection of all animal exploitation, rather than a flexible dietary choice. As highlighted previously, Carol J. Adams’s argument that veganism should not be diluted, unlike vegetarianism, clarifies the importance of the core ethical stance (Kelly, 2021). Moreover, companies should not label products as “vegan” if they strip the term of its ethical context; such products should be labelled as merely “plant-based”. The term should not be utilised purely as a marketing tool.
A critical view of the commercial co-operation of justice movements is essential, as phenomena such as “Yuru-Veji” often serve commercial interests at the expense of genuine ethical progress. The strategies employed by companies to make plant-based products appealing for health or environmental reasons, while avoiding explicit ethical arguments about animal suffering, must be highlighted. A “flexible” approach that retains animal product consumption is not a step towards abolition; it is a comfortable compromise that maintains the status quo. Francione’s critique of “new welfarists” for making the public comfortable with animal use applies here, emphasising the need to promote ethical veganism directly. Lastly, this criticism also extends to consumer responsibility. Each consumer must reject products from companies using the “vegan” label merely for “ethical washing” or in a way that misrepresents its abolitionist context. The imperative is to support responsible companies that contribute to the abolition of animal use.
Animal exploitation is an unequivocal, grave injustice. Animal Liberation: the movement to terminate the exploitation of sentient beings, rejects any use of animals occurring within the systematic exploitation, primarily, of the meat, egg, dairy, and fishing industries. However, the industries use tactics to deceive consumers and sustain their systems. Their marketing creates a “clean” image, persuading the populace that consuming animals is part of social norms. Their marketing tactics generate the image of “clean violence”, impeding recognition of the agony and suffering of animals. This normalisation of violence poses a significant obstacle to animal liberation. It is imperative to deconstruct their strategy and formulate a counter-strategy.
This analysis will deconstruct three primary whitewashing tactics used in Japan: (1) the “Happy Commodity” mascot, which reframes the victim as a salesperson; (2) the “Populist Event”, which weaves exploitation into cultural traditions; and (3) the “Myth of the Pasture”, which uses idealised imagery to obscure industrial reality.
The mascot “Boo-Chan” is an official mascot of the company Yabaton Co., Ltd. (Yabaton, n.d.a). It is often produced as stuffed animals and anime (Yabaton, n.d.b). This figure functions not merely as a brand identifier but also as a psychological barrier to confronting the reality of slaughter. This tactic relies on anthropomorphism to construct a narrative of manufactured consent that serves a specific psychological function.
By presenting the animal as a cheerful participant in the commercial transaction, the industry creates a forged identity that bears no resemblance to the sentient individual being exploited. The mascot is depicted smiling alongside the product of the company, implicitly endorsing its own consumption. This recontextualisation of the animal as a happy salesperson rather than a victim utilises the cultural appreciation of cuteness to obfuscate the violence within the commodification process (Pinterest, n.d.).
Additionally, the prevalence of the “Kawaii” (cuteness) aesthetic and mascots in Japanese society, both commercial and non-commercial, has been linked to a collectivist tendency to maintain social harmony and avoid confrontation (Bîrlea, 2021). In the context of meat marketing, this aesthetic serves to neutralise moral discomfort. By cloaking the cruelty of slaughter in a harmless, cute veil, the industry prevents the ethical conflict that might disrupt the consumer’s experience. Consequently, this fosters a deep psychological disassociation, allowing consumers to interact with the mascot while ignoring the animal remains on their plate.
Industries weave their products into the fabric of beloved social rituals, making consumption feel like a cultural tradition rather than an ethical choice. A prime example is the association of KFC with Christmas in Japan. KFC Japan commissioned Mitsuki Takahashi, a well-known Japanese actress, to appear in a television commercial titled “Christmas Dinner,” linking its products to the holiday (PRtimes, 2019). Many companies in similar industries (e.g., McDonald’s, MOS Burger) use these popular representatives (celebrity, actor) to entrench animal products as a food choice into culture and obfuscate the reality of the violence. This strategy seeks to entrench animal products so deeply within social rituals that they appear to be cultural traditions rather than ethical choices. This functions as a sophisticated strawman technique. A straw man argument is a distorted or oversimplified version of the argument that is being made (Daly, 2024). By framing consumption as a discussion about “culture,” “family,” and “celebration” (e.g., KFC at Christmas), the industry deliberately misrepresents and avoids the actual argument about moral obligation. They build a “strawman” of tradition to distract from the victim.
This traditional argument is a common logical error known as a genetic fallacy. As Robert C. Jones argues, this fallacy justifies a practice based on its origin or history rather than its current moral context (Jones, 2020). While many ethically questionable practices, such as genital mutilation, stem from old traditions, tradition itself is a fallacious justification for animal exploitation. This straw man is constructed to obscure the true target of the vegan argument. As Serhii Dovhan (2025) clarifies, veganism does not target culture; it targets the “social norms” and the idea that regards animals as resources for humans to enslave. It is a challenge to the human mentality towards animals, much like the moral opposition to human slavery, not an attack on a holiday celebration. As a direct consequence, the moral obligation of the individual choice is obfuscated. As the previous study shows, it is reframed not as an ethical baseline but as a “mere food choice” that deviates from the cultural norm. This successfully neutralises the liberation argument by preventing the core ethical discussion from ever taking place.
The blue sky and green pasture often depicted on packaging are associated with nature and with a happy life. This graphic fabrication directly undermines consumers’ potential knowledge of factory farming. By selling a fantasy of “naturalness” and “harmony,” the industry effectively whitewashes the physical environment of exploitation, hiding the stark reality of industrial confinement.
This marketing strategy exploits a psychological mechanism known as the “halo effect”, first described by Edward Thorndike in 1920. This term refers to a cognitive bias in which known characteristics of a product influence expectations about unknown qualities. In the context of animal products, consumers engage in heuristic processing, selectively interpreting visual patterns, such as the pastoral label, as evidence of overall ethical quality. Consequently, the positive attributes of the”natural” image are transferred to the product itself, validating the purchase without requiring factual evidence of the animal’s treatment (Zamzow & Basso, 2022).
These three tactics are not separate; they form a comprehensive architecture of apathy that reinforces “clean violence”. The forgery of consent via the mascot distorts the victim’s identity. The strawman of culture distorts the moral stakes of the act. And the graphical lie of the pasture distorts the physical reality of the exploitation. Together, they build a powerful psychological barrier that disconnects consumers from the violence inherent in their choices.
Activists should elucidate the dissonance created by mascots. This can be achieved by developing campaigns that juxtapose a cheerful cartoon mascot (e.g., Yabaton) with factual, graphic imagery of animals’ lives in industrial settings, through non-organised street activism, or through a campaign backed by an animal liberation organisation. The visual content breaks the psychological disassociation and re-centres the individual victim. Vegan Kids Project, which develops and provides youth educational opportunities across generations in Japan, can counter the case with an Internet-based campaign and school-based activities, using materials such as books and social media posts (Vegan Kids Project, n.d.).
The counter-strategy for this tactic must be one of moral and intellectual deconstruction, not alternative popularism. Activists should launch media literacy campaigns that directly challenge the use of trusted public figures to obfuscate violence and moral obligation. The campaign should ask the public to examine their moral obligations critically, thereby rejecting the industry’s attempt to replace this core ethical point with a superficial discussion of culture. By exposing the manipulative mechanism itself, this approach re-centres the moral question and persuades the public to view the hidden victims rather than the celebrity.
To debunk the false imagery on packaging, a multi-pronged strategy is required to reveal the reality of industrial confinement. First, at the point of purchase, Activists can place stickers with a QR code on milk cartons in supermarkets. The code links to a page with the life story of a typical dairy cow, making the invisible visible at the point of purchase. Sticker activism has recently been observed around the world, especially in Europe, and the stickers often include not only QR codes linking to videos but also messages questioning carnism or conveying information about industry conditions (Fair Stickers, n.d.). Secondly, in online public spaces, activists can create social media graphics that reveal the situation with a factual image from a typical dairy farm. Third, in physical public spaces, direct street activism is essential.
The Animal Liberation organisation, which has begun activism in Japan, has recently launched a campaign to show footage in exchange for snacks as a starting point for discussion, which was initially displayed in the UK. Japanese and UK street activism shows pedestrians footage of reality in industry, creating opportunities for dialogue with activists (e.g., Anonymous for the Voiceless, Cube of Truth), and providing a direct way to deconstruct social images (Animal Liberation Tokyo, n.d.).
This thesis has elucidated that the societal structure that entrenches systematic exploitation is sustained by the fundamental ideology of speciesism and the anthropocentric arrogance that sanctions the exploitation of sentient beings for the exclusive benefit of humanity. Through the analysis of co-operation among industries and the legislation, it becomes evident that welfarist reforms serve only to obscure this structural violence rather than address it.
Consequently, the ultimate objective must be the total deconstruction of this belief system and the complete abolition of animal use. Grounded in a deontological framework and supported by suffering-focused ethics, this moral imperative demands rejecting all practices that reduce sentient subjects to resources. Justice, in this context, requires not the mere adjustment of legal status but the absolute cessation of inflicting suffering for human gain. Therefore, the only consistent moral response is to dismantle the hegemony of speciesism and liberate animals from the tyranny of human instrumentalisation.
Alexander, L., & Moore, M. (2024). Deontological ethics. In E. N. Zalta (Ed.), The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter 2024 Edition). Stanford University. https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/ethics-deontological/
Animal Alliance Asia. (n.d.a). About. https://www.animalallianceasia.org/about
Animal Alliance Asia. (n.d.b.). Animal Advocacy Academy. https://www.animalallianceasia.org/academy-japan
Animal Ethics. (n.d.a.). Ethics and animals. https://www.animal-ethics.org/ethics-animals-section/
Animal Ethics. (n.d.b.). Speciesism. https://www.animal-ethics.org/speciesism/
Animal Ethics. (n.d.c.). Suffering-focused ethics. https://www.animal-ethics.org/suffering-focused-ethics/
Animal Liberation Tokyo [@animal_liberation_tokyo]. (n.d.). Instagram. https://www.instagram.com/animal_liberation_tokyo/
Animal Liberator. (2024a, November 21). Ribu ni tsuite. [About Animal Liberator]. https://animal-liberator.net/about/
Animal Liberator. (2024b, November 30). Dōbutsu kaihō katsudō ni shūchū subeki riyū [The reasons we should focus on Animal Liberation activities]. https://animal-liberator.net/learn/why-we-should-concentrate-on-animal-liberation-activities/
Animal Liberator. (2024c, November 21). Nippon ni okeru bīgan no jittai chōsa [A survey of Vegans in Japan]. https://animal-liberator.net/vegan-survey-japan-2025/
Anonymous for the Voiceless. (n.d.). The Cube of Truth. https://www.anonymousforthevoiceless.org/what-is-a-cube-of-truth
Aoki, Y. (2021). Dōbutsu hogo no kenpōron: Amerika ni okeru dōbutsu hōgaku no hatten to kenpōgaku no hen’yō [Constitutional theory of animal protection—The development of animal jurisprudence and the transformation of constitutional law studies in the United States]. Chūō Daigaku Daigakuin Jimushitsu.
Bîrlea, O.-M. (2021). How are kawaii (cute) fictional characters used in Japanese advertising? Journal of Media Research, 14(1), 55–78. https://doi.org/10.24193/jmr.39.4
Daly, D. (2024). Straw man arguments. In Decoding deception: A guide to interpersonal communication & relationships. University of Arizona. https://opentextbooks.library.arizona.edu/decodingdeception/chapter/straw-man-arguments/
Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs (2021a, May 11). Action Plan for Animal Welfare. https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/action-plan-for-animal-welfare/action-plan-for-animal-welfare#farm-animals
Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs (2021b, May 13). Animals to be formally recognised as sentient beings in domestic law. https://www.gov.uk/government/news/animals-to-be-formally-recognised-as-sentient-beings-in-domestic-law
Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs (2021c, Nov 19). Lobsters, octopus and crabs recognised as sentient beings. https://www.gov.uk/government/news/lobsters-octopus-and-crabs-recognised-as-sentient-beings
Dōbutsu no aigo oyobi kanri ni kansuru hōritsu [Act on Welfare and Management of Animals]. (1973). http://hourei.net/law/348AC1000000105
Dovhan, S. [@str8_vedge]. (2025). [3 Strawman Arguments Against Veganism][Photo]. Instagram. https://www.instagram.com/str8_vedge/
Driver, J. (2025).The History of Utilitarianism, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2025 Edition), Edward N. Zalta & Uri Nodelman (eds.), https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2025/entries/utilitarianism-history/
Fair Stickers. [@fairstickers]. (2025). [Sticker activism][Photo]. Instagram. https://www.instagram.com/fairstickers/
Fechner, D., & Isbanner, S. (2025). Understanding the intention-behaviour gap in meat reduction: The role of cognitive dissonance in dietary change. Appetite, 214, Article 108204. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.appet.2025.108204
Figley, C. R. (1995). Compassion Fatigue- Toward a New Understanding of the Costs of Caring. https://www.academia.edu/19886190/Figley_C_R_1995_Compassion_Fatigue_Toward_a_New_Understanding_of_the_Costs_of_Caring
Francione, G. (2010). Animal Welfare and the Moral Value of Nonhuman Animals. https://doi.org/10.1177/1743872109348989
Frembacy Inc. (2018, January 4). Nippon no bejitarian vigan yuruvegi jinko chosa by Vegewel [Japan vegetarian, vegan, and yuru-vegi population research by Vegewel]. PR Times. https://prtimes.jp/main/html/rd/p/000000014.000016326.html
Greenebaum, J. (2012). Veganism, Identity and the Quest for Authenticity. Food, Culture & Society, 15(1), 129–144. https://doi.org/10.2752/175174412X13190510222101
Gruen, L. (2011). Dōbutsu rinrigaku nyūmon [Animals and Ethics: Introduction]. Ōtsuki Shoten.
Hunter Saboteur Association. (n.d.). About The HSA history. https://www.huntsabs.org.uk/about-the-hsa/
Jones, R. C. (2020). 20 Anti-Vegan Arguments and Replies. In Encyclopedia of Veganism and Animal Ethics. https://www.academia.edu/43328495/20_Anti_Vegan_Arguments_and_Replies_forthcoming_in_Encyclopedia_of_Veganism_and_Animal_Ethics
Joy, M. (2023). Bīgan to non-bīgan no tame no komyunikēshon gaidobukku [Beyond Beliefs: A Guide to Improving Relationships and Communication for Vegans, Vegetarians, and Meat Eaters]. Seidosha.
Kelly, C. (2022). Philosophy in Review. Peter Singer, “Why Vegan? Eating Ethically. University of Victoria. https://doi.org/10.7202/1092045ar
Low, P. (2012). The Cambridge Declaration on Consciousness.
Monotaro. (n.d.). [Product Page]. https://www.monotaro.com/p/3141/5801/?utm_id=bi_pla&cq_plt=bp&cq_net=o&utm_medium=cpc&utm_source=bing&utm_campaign=shopping_424303920&utm_content=31415801&msclkid=c74f9216d0e71c72508dfaff69472030
PETA. (n.d.). About PETA. https://www.peta.org/about-peta/
PETA [@peta]. (n.d.). Posts [Instagram Profile]. Instagram. Retrieved January 7, 2026, from https://www.instagram.com/peta/
Pinterest. (n.d.). [Yabaton Mascot]. [Image]. Retrieved October 18, 2025, from https://jp.pinterest.com/pin/123356477268765205/
Plous, S. (1991). An attitude survey of animal rights activists. Psychological Science.
PR Times. (2019, November 28). [Mituki Takahashi, KFC Japan]. https://prtimes.jp/main/html/rd/p/000000049.000032088.html
Schaffner, J. (2011). Review of Francione’s Animals as Persons: Essays on the Abolition of Animal Exploitation. Between the Species. https://doi.org/10.15368/bts.2008v13n8.9
Sensoy, Ö., & DiAngelo, R. (2017). Is everyone really equal? An introduction to key concepts in social justice education (2nd ed.). Teachers College Press.
Singer, P. (1987). ANIMAL LIBERATION OR ANIMAL RIGHTS?. The Monist. http://www.jstor.org/stable/27903010
Singer, P. (2004). Animal liberation. In Ethics: Contemporary Readings. Routledge.
Singer, P. (2011). Dōbutsu no kaihō kaiteiban [Animal liberation: Revised edition]. Jinbun Shoin.
Sinnott-Armstrong, W. (2023). Consequentialism. In E. N. Zalta & U. Nodelman (Eds.), *The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy* (Winter 2023 Edition). Stanford University. https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2023/entries/consequentialism/
Su, B., Koda, N., & Martens, P. (2020). How Ethical Ideologies Relate to Public Attitudes Toward Nonhuman Animals: The Japanese Case. Society & Animals, 28(7), 695-712. https://doi.org/10.1163/15685306-12341585
Takano, Y. (2024). “Japanese Collectivism.” In Cultural Stereotype and Its Hazards: ‘Japanese Collectivism’ as a Case (pp. 1–16). Chapter, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
The Vegan Society. (n.d.). History. The Vegan Society. https://www.vegansociety.com/about-us/history
Vegan Kids Project [@vegankidsproject]. (2022, August 25). Bīgan kizzu purojekuto [Vegan Kids Project]. [Photo]. Instagram. https://www.instagram.com/vegankidsproject/
Watson, D. (1944). The Vegan News. https://issuu.com/vegan_society/docs/the_vegan_news_1944
Yabaton, (n.d.a). [Mascot Character’s Anime Promotion] https://www.yabaton.com/modules/special/index.php?content_id=6
Yabaton, (n.d.b). [Online Shop]. https://shop.yabaton.jp/i/000224
Zamzow, H., & Basso, F. (2022). ‘Say cheese!’: Humane halos from environmental practices in dairy production. Frontiers in Sustainable Food Systems, 6. https://doi.org/10.3389/fsufs.2022.997590