Franklin, Benjamin (1706-1790)

BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE

In his Autobiography Franklin recounts his youthful experiments with vegetarianism, which he practised inconsistently throughout his life. Elsewhere he acknowledges that animals are sentient, going so far as to attribute conversation to a type of fly (which, however, he flags as emblematic of humanity), but he reserves any intellectual awareness to humans. His decision to adopt a veg*n diet follows his reading of the work of the early English advocate Thomas Tryon. His attitudes were further conditioned by the influence of Philadelphia Quakers such as John Woolman and Benjamin Lay, and his motivations were based on health or Temperance, economics or frugality, the ethics of avoiding animal suffering, and Franklin's principle of utility applied to diet.

IMAGE: circa 1785. Joseph-Siffred Duplessis, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

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Last updated on June 24th, 2024

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