or which type of campaign will lead to animal rights
eventually?
Animal welfare and animal rights
Animal welfare and animal rights are fundamentally different things. Animal welfare
first appeared in modern history in writings in the
mid 18th century. The first animal welfare group,
the English RSPCA, was founded in 1824, the first
one in Austria, the WTV, in 1846 in Vienna. The first
Austrian animal law was introduced in the same year.
Animal welfare is motivated by compassion and empathy.
The aim is to reduce the suffering of animals to
a “necessary” minimum. The first animal welfare groups
worked mostly on helping animals in need, especially
so-called pets, i.e. animals, who live in human households
as companions. Killing of animals is no issue in
animal welfare. As long as the killing is done painlessly,
it is of no ethical concern. The paradigm that animals
are there for humans to be used, is not questioned
in principle. As long as this use is done “humanely”,
there is nothing wrong with it. Animal welfare does
not question the animal-human relationship in society
as a whole. The primary aim is to alleviate suffering, hence social, and not to change society, i.e. political. Animal
welfare asks humans to be good people, to be kind
to animals, to show empathy and compassion.
Animal rights is a very different kind of ideology. Animal rights demand from
all humans to show respect for the equal basic rights
of non human animals. The value of animals is not
determined by their usefulness for humans, by their
utility. The individual animal changes from object
to subject, from thing to person. The first ideas
in this direction in modern society were provided
by Lewis Gompertz in the early 19th century. By the
end of the 19th century, Henry Salt had founded the
first animal rights organisation, the Humanitarian
League. The animal rights ideology does not want
to minimize “necessary” suffering. Its goal is to
achieve basic rights for all animals, to guarantee
their autonomy, to determine their lives by themselves.
Hence, killing of animals becomes a central issue.
There is no act that restricts the autonomy of an
animal more than to violently kill him or her. The
animal rights ideology wants to change the animal-human
relationship at the roots. The movement is primarily
political. The demand is justice, the motivation is to fight injustice in this world.
From animal welfare
to animal rights
From this analysis
we might conclude that animal rights is so completely
different from animal welfare that the path leading
to the one must be very different from the start,
to the path leading to the other. How should thinking
in terms of animal welfare, without questioning the
basic paradigm that nonhuman animals are there for
human needs, ever lead to animal rights? Even worse,
doesn’t good animal welfare practice, with good animal
husbandry and “humane” killing, stifle any further
critical thoughts on the issue?
However, things are
not as straight forward. The first hint in this direction
might be that the first animal rights thinker, Lewis
Gompertz, who even demanded veganism from humanity
(without giving it that name), also co-founded the
first animal welfare society of the world, the RSPCA.
But even closer to home: wasn’t your first motivation
to think on those issues triggered by empathy and
compassion, which you felt when you saw animals being
abused? Isn’t it that the power of those feelings
motivated you to think deeper and eventually arrive
at animal rights? Aren’t still almost all animal
rights activists today at least also still influenced
by such feelings, help animals in need at sanctuaries
and feel incapable of enjoying themselves in leisure
activities, because the nagging thought of animals
suffering at human hands stops them from switching
off? Is it at all possible, psychologically, to sacrifice
all your life to the animal rights cause without
compassion and empathy driving you? Don’t almost
all people, who end up living vegan, start by either reducing meat, or switching to free
range animal products, or at least by living vegetarian
for a while, which is also based on the use of animals?
Doesn’t that mean that the fundamental philosophical
difference between animal welfare and animal rights
suggests a philosophical gap that isn’t actually
there in psychological reality?
A further observation
hints in this direction. Today, Austrian animal laws
have already left behind the pure animal welfare
ideals introduced above. Let’s look at a few examples
of laws, which ban even the most “humane” use of
nonhuman animals in certain areas:
- §6 (2) Animal
law: Dogs and cats cannot be used to produce any
animal
product like fur or meat.
- §25 (5) Animal law: It is forbidden to keep any
fur bearing animal for the purpose of producing
fur.
- §27 (1) Animal law: It is forbidden to keep
or use any animal, apart from domesticated
animals, in whatever way in a circus, even if those
animals
are not used to earn money with.
- §3 (6) Animal experiment law: It is forbidden
to use any ape, i.e. chimp, bonobo, gorilla,
orang utan
or gibbon, for any purpose in an experiment,
if this experiment is not in the interest
of the individual
ape him- or herself.
Further, a few animal
laws actually change the animal-human relationship
in society and undermine the paradigm that animals
are there for humans to use as they please:
- §285a Civil
Law code: Animals are not things.
- Constitution: The state protects life and wellbeing
of animals as cohabitants of humans
- §41 Animal law: In each province, animal solicitors
funded by the province must be established,
who can get involved in all court cases regarding
animal
law, i.e. they get access to all court papers,
can call witnesses, submit expert statements
and appeal
against verdicts on behalf of the animals involved
And in Austria there
are laws already established that explicitly ban
the killing of animals, however painlessly and „humanely“
conducted:
- §6 (1) Animal
law: It is forbidden to kill any animal for no
good reason
- §222 (3) Criminal law: It is forbidden to kill
vertebrate animals for no good reason
- Constitution: The state protects the life of
animals as cohabitants of humans
Politically, we can
indeed provide a continuous transition from laws
that do not restrict animal usage at all, to complete
animal rights based on an equal value of the lives
of each individual:
No restriction of the use of animals
→ indirect protection (a ban on abusing animals if
that upsets humans)
→ minimal direct protection (a ban on beating animals
„too much“)
→ relevant protection of economically irrelevant animals
(„pets“)
→ relevant restriction of economic use of animals
(e.g. cage ban)
→ radical restriction of economic use of animals (only
free range)
→ ban on killing
→ „weak rights“ according to Mary Midgeley
→ the only right: to have animal laws executed
→ basic rights for some animals (e.g. Great Ape Project)
→ basic rights for all animals
→ equal value of life and suffering for all animals
(incl. humans)
Hence we learn that while there is a deep philosophical gulf between animal
welfare and animal rights, psychologically and politically
there is a continuum. That means on the one hand
that it is at least possible, if not probable, that
a person develops psychologically from animal use
via animal welfare to animal rights. And secondly
it proves that it is at least possible – even if
we haven’t provided data of its likelihood yet –
that a society develops politically from animal usage
via animal welfare to animal rights. The least we
can say for sure at this stage is that such a development
is not excluded in principle.
The easiest way to live: consumption of factory farmed animal products
Practical experience
of decades of vegan outreach shows that it is pretty
difficult to reach the average person with the animal
rights message. The easiest way to get someone to
start living vegan is to expose them to a vegan social
environment. Animal rights groups often have the
experience that new activists are not vegan, when
they start to get active. But generally, even without
providing rational arguments, those people being
active within a vegan group will soon start to live
vegan without outside priming. For social animals
like humans, the social environment has a very strong
influence on their behaviour. That, however, means
on the other hand that in strictly speciesist societies
like ours, almost everybody growing up and living
there will become speciesist in the way they think
and act. And it will be very hard indeed to change
that, especially with nothing but rational arguments.
Imagine such speciesist
people are suddenly influenced by a media report,
or by passing by a vegan summerfest, or by a long
chat at a vegan stall etc., and they become aware
of the problem and are willing to turn vegan. What
frequently happens then is that this effect does
not last for long and sooner or later they start
eating animal products again, never mind how convinced
they were of veganism at the start. Why is that?
In a society as strictly
speciesist as ours, it takes a lot of energy to live
vegan. There is the psychological pressure of not
being considered “normal” anymore, of sticking out
in society. Suddenly you run into conflict with your
peer-group and your family. On the one hand, they
will consider you complicated or even fundamentalist,
when you suddenly watch carefully whatever you eat
or buy, when you read every detail on the list of
contents of a product. On the other hand they might
feel criticized by your mere behaviour: after all,
you refuse to eat the same as they do for ethical
reasons.
But the problems do
not end there. In your working place, in your leisure
activities, during your daily shopping, in restaurants
etc. all the time your choice to live vegan demands
a lot of energy from you to justify what you do,
to ask uncomfortable questions, to go on other people’s
nerves, not to buy something you would have fancied
and not to buy the cheapest and the easiest to get.
Permanently you spend more time and energy than you
would have to otherwise, and that must erode the
original motivation of the most strong-willed person.
And in addition, albeit you invest so much, you do
not seem to get anything back! The amount of animals
slaughtered does not decrease and society does not
seem to change even a tiny bit. Slowly, your original
motivation dies down until you adjust to the mainstream
and go with the flow. Your veganism has ended and
is waiting for better days. That will happen especially
in times of crises, or when you have big changes
in your life, e.g. when you change job, or have a
new partner, start a family or move house. The extra stress, or the fact that suddenly
some other important issues demand all your attention,
might be the trigger away from veganism. You just
do not have the motivation of putting so much time
and energy into it anymore.
Those observations
can be made clearer with the following picture:
The way society is organized, the system, changes the straight line continuum
from unrestricted animal use via animal welfare to
animal rights (above) to a structured surface (below).
Single human beings can be considered as balls on
this surface. Without any additional energy input,
the balls swiftly roll into the trough. In our society
that means consuming factory farmed animal products.
Say, someone wants to enjoy watching illegal animal
fights or the torture of animals, then s/he moves
up the left branch. Since those activities are illegal
and have a bad reputation, it takes a lot of energy
to stay up there, this branch is very steep. You
need to be highly motivated to sustain staying there.
If you lose interest, you will soon roll back into
the trough.
On the other hand, if someone develops towards using organic free-range animal
products only, or even vegetarianism or veganism,
then s/he moves to the right. It also goes upwards
in this direction, and if you want to stay there,
or develop even further to the right, then you need
an increasing amount of energy input. Those, who
cannot sustain that energy loss, who lose the motivation
to invest so much and constantly swim upstream, will
simply roll back. If you go with the flow, you end
up square in the trough and consume factory farmed
animal products like everybody else. Its by far the
easiest and least time consuming way to live.
Towards a vegan society
through system change
If a singular event
like one person turning vegan is to have a political
effect on society at large, it would have to happen
en masse. In Austria, every year 80.000 people die
and equally about 80.000 people are born or migrate
into the country. In order to change society at large
this way, there would have to be a rate of people
turning vegan well above and beyond this number per
year. In reality, we are very far from that. The
first ethical vegetarian restaurant opened in 1878
in Austria. Since then, and especially around 1900,
there were many individuals and groups, who tried
to turn people towards a plant-based diet. But, with
all their efforts, they failed, up until today. 130
years of campaigning for humans becoming vegetarian
or vegan did have no large impact on society. It
seems that the social pressure in our speciesist
society prevents enough people to turn vegan and
stay vegan long enough to change society at large.
After 130 years of trying it, no vegan revolution
is in sight. And there are no signs that this will change anytime soon.
There is a study commissioned
in 2004 with the IFES institute in Austria that supports
this observation. When people were asked whether
they agreed with a ban on caging laying hens for
egg production, 86% said that they want a ban on
this practice. But at the same time, 80% of eggs
being bought in Austria were from exactly such battery
farms. Clearly, while most people were already persuaded
that caging hens is animal abuse and unethical, they
kept buying exactly those products they apparently
disapproved of. And this is not because they were
not aware of that. They were, for example when asked
in supermarkets. After all, eggs from cage systems
are nowadays clearly marked as such, on the egg as
well as on the packaging. The explanation simply
is that eggs from cage systems were available everywhere,
they were the cheapest, they were in all products
like noodles and cakes, and they were served in restaurants
and hotels. To avoid eggs from cage systems would
have taken a lot of energy, and people were just
not prepared to invest that. Especially since many of those who did, saw absolutely
no change in society and soon gave up for that reason
alone. If you choose the easiest way of life and
go with the flow, you had to consume battery eggs,
never mind your opinion whether it is unethical or
should be banned.
But the animal rights
movement can also use this attitude of most people,
to rather go with the flow and live the way of life
of least resistance, to its benefit. We have already
observed that the easiest way to turn people vegan
is to expose them to a vegan social environment.
Religious sects use that characteristic of social
animals by forming close-nit groups, cut off from
the outside world, where the sect can sustain a way
of life the rest of society considers utterly weird.
Were the members of the sect still imbedded in “normal”
society, they would not be able to sustain their
way of life. The animal rights movement, however,
is not satisfied with establishing some small vegan
communities within larger society. The movement wants
to change society as a whole. How to achieve that
then?
Let’s look at the
data. In 1996, the Austrian animal rights movement
decided to start a campaign against wild animal circuses.
At that time, the majority of people probably didn’t
care either way, but of the remaining minority, a
majority surely supported wild animal circuses and
saw no reason why to find this tradition unethical.
Media, similarly, reported favourably on those circuses.
But in 2005, a ban of wild animal circuses was introduced.
In consequence, there were neither wild animal circuses
left in Austria, nor were any coming into Austria
to perform. Since that year, nobody in Austria can
visit wild animal circus shows anymore.
But nobody misses
them nowadays either! The campaign had a 100% success
rate changing the behaviour of Austrians. But during
the campaign, nobody tried to change the minds of
individual people. That never was the strategy. Instead,
the campaign just removed such circuses from Austria.
While having not changed the minds of people, this
changed their behaviour. Instead of going to the
circus, people started spending their time with their
kids in another way. The system change – no wild
animal circuses existing – led to a 100% change in
behaviour. In the above picture that would mean moving
the trough to the right towards more animal welfare.
The easiest way of life becomes living without wild
animal circuses. If you still wanted to go to one,
you would have to leave the country for that purpose.
To sustain that way of life, i.e. to keep going to
wild animal circuses, would mean a lot of energy
investment, which neigh nobody is willing to do.
But the effects of
the system change go even further than that. Already
now, media have started to report negatively on foreign
wild animal circuses. The rules of socialisation,
as sketched above, imply that after 1 or 2 generations
have grown up in a society where wild animal circuses
have been banned for ethical reasons, their attitudes
change as well. Wild animal circuses start to be
considered as animal abuse of times gone past, when
there was much less respect for animals. Such an
opinion we find ever more frequently in Austria today.
Another example supports
this view. Let’s look at the campaign against battery
eggs. In 2005, the animal rights movement decided
to start a campaign to remove battery eggs from the
shelves of all supermarkets in Austria. Remember
that at this time 86% of the population opposed battery
farming as unethical, but only 20% actually did act
correspondingly and did not buy battery eggs. The
campaign, again, did not aim to change people’s minds.
That would have been useless, since, after all, most
people were already opposed to battery farms. So,
the campaign attacked supermarkets and shops selling
battery eggs. And it succeeded. By 2007, it was impossible
to buy any battery eggs, including from enriched
cage systems, in Austria.
What happened with
the consumers? They quickly adapted. Nobody was missing
battery eggs. The easiest way to live was now simply
not to buy battery eggs. And exactly that happened.
The campaign, again, did not change anybody’s minds,
but the system change had a 100% success rate in
changing people’s behaviour: nobody bought battery
eggs anymore.
The data provide clear
evidence: while trying to change people’s minds has
very limited success and even less influence on their
behaviour, system change leads to a 100% success
in behavioural change. Applying these findings to
veganism, we have to conclude that political animal
rights activists should primarily try to change the
system and not people’s minds. The latter is simply
hopeless as a strategy to change society. If it is
being pursued exclusively, it will have no effect
on society at large.
Let’s look at an example.
Say, we want to gain some land from the shallow sea
to establish new living space. Trying to change people’s
minds is like trying to remove the water from the
sea with a spoon. You might succeed in removing some
drops, but the larger picture will not change. You
could never have enough people removing water with
spoons to actually get the land dry. A system change
now would be for example to drive in with a digger
and to build a dam. Now the water in our area is
isolated from the water in the sea. The system is
changed. We don’t have to remove the water now, we
just let nature take its course. And after so and
so long, the water will have dried out and we can
use the land. The system change did not remove single
drops, but it led to a lasting change of the whole.
In our picture above
of the structured surface, a system change would
mean moving the trough to the right. If we succeed
to do that, then people will follow, will roll into
the new trough, and live differently, without you
having to persuade them one after the other. That
battery eggs are not available anymore is for example
a move of the trough to the right towards barn eggs
becoming the norm, which are better animal welfare.
Ultimately, we need to aim for moving the trough
all the way to the right towards animal rights and
veganism. When there are no non-vegan products available
anymore, then people will automatically become vegan
and in a few generations it will be the accepted
attitude in society as a whole.
System change by weakening
animal industries
How can we move the
system towards veganism? In parliamentarian democracy,
in principle the population can decide how the system
is run. In reality, especially since our society
is a representative and not a direct democracy, that
is not so easy. People can only vote every 5 years,
and only one of a handful or parties, i.e. by voting
they must support a whole host of opinions and not
just one.
But still, we do elect
parties into government. They will not exactly do
what we would most prefer, but if their decisions
deviate far enough from our opinion, then we will
kick up a fuss in society. The larger that fuss,
the larger the dissatisfaction of people and the
more likely the party in government will not be re-elected.
Hence governments are very wary of conflicts in society.
They want to avoid that. If one arises, they want
to resolve it. On the other hand, if there are no
conflicts, if everything is calm, if criticism is
brought up in a friendly and tolerant tone, then
there cannot be much dissatisfaction, so the government
will not risk to change anything to be safely re-elected.
Hence, system changes
only come through conflicts in society. It starts
with a segment in society being decidedly unhappy
with the status quo in a certain issue and kicking
up a fuss. If the fuss increases to a fully blown
conflict, government will have to react. They need
to keep the lid on it so that it does not escalate
and eventually remove them from office. That means,
in a conflict between two sides, the government will
side with those, who are more capable of deepening
the conflict, of kicking up more fuss, of producing
more political pressure. If the public takes the
side of one or the other party in the conflict that
can obviously also be of vital importance. A fuss
kicked up by one side will create much more political
pressure, if in the eyes of the public theirs is
a just cause.
In animal issues,
the conflict is between the movement and those exploiting
animals. Let’s call the latter animal industries.
The conflict in society for a system change towards
the end of the exploitation of animals, i.e. veganism,
hence is a direct conflict between the animal rights
movement and animal industries. The side that is
capable of producing more political pressure will
win at the end. The public stands indifferent at
the start and is the target of the propaganda war
between the two fractions. Each tries to pull the
public on their side. Since animal industries are
very powerful and influential, politically, a system
change against their will is very difficult, but
possible. It is very important to distinguish at
this point between animal industries, which are the
enemies of change, the public as an observer, whose
sympathies both sides are wooing for, and the government,
the judge so to speak, who both sides try to impress
with their political pressure.
In thinking about
political theories, it is vital to ground your thinking
on data and direct experience to see whether we are
still based in reality and not dream and fiction.
Politics is the art of changing society. Politics
are purely consequentialist, i.e. its value must
be judged solely by its consequences. Good politics
lead to a better society, bad politics to a worse
one. For political change, there are many unknown
parameters influencing the outcome. Hence strictly
theoretical thinking can very easily lead astray.
How should I know, for example, that a certain factor,
pointing in one direction, will have more or less
effect than another, pointing in the other? Only
through practical experience. What kind of experience
can we provide in this context? What do the data
say about the theory presented here?
The campaign against
wild animal circuses in Austria was directed against
the circuses themselves, only marginally towards
the public. The tactic was to permanently protest
outside each and every show of all wild animal circuses
in Austria, in order to spoil the fun of visitors
of the circus. This confrontational approach very
soon led to an escalation of the conflict. The circuses
resorted to violence and physically assaulted many
activists on a number of occasions, sometimes very
seriously and premeditatedly. The movement retaliated
with 3 arson attacks. In addition, the circuses started
a number of law suits against the campaign, while
the activists reported breaches of any regulations
to the authorities. After 6 years, every single wild
animal circus had gone bankrupt. The government had
not reacted so far, since the conflict never reached
societal proportions, neither the public nor the
media did take much notice.
At the end there were
no wild animal circuses left. And without any opposition,
it was easy to introduce a ban. By weakening and
eventually completely destroying animal industries
in this conflict, a ban and a lasting system change
was achieved.
Another example to
study is the campaign against battery farms. In this
sector, animal industries were very powerful and
could not be challenged directly. By threatening
with economic disaster, unemployment, removal of
locally important industries and a massive reduction
in tax payment, their influence on local, regional
and hence federal governments was enormous. The animal
rights movement was no match for them. But regarding
battery farming, the movement did not have to start
from scratch with regards to the public. Over decades,
the public had been fed the view that battery farms
are the epitome of animal abuse. Even children’s
books covered that issue and in all schools battery
farming was a topic. That was why, in 2004, there
were already 86% of the public in favour of a battery
farm ban.
But that alone would
have changed nothing. As stated before, 80% of the
people still bought cage eggs and the government
had no reason whatsoever to act, since there was
no conflict apparent. In this situation, the animal
rights movement decided to start a campaign for a
ban on battery cages, i.e. a ban on all cages, including
the so-called enriched ones. In parliament, the situation
was advantageous, since with the socialists and the
greens in opposition, almost 50% of MPs could be
won as allies. Against this coalition, only the conservatives
in government stood firm, pushed by the political
pressure of the mighty battery farm industry.
This is why the movement
started to focus on the conservatives and attacked
them at each of the following 3 elections (2 provincial
elections and one presidential election). Conservative
election placards were removed in large numbers,
or defaced, and many anti-conservative placards appeared
everywhere. It went so far that the conservatives
paid security to guard their placards in the night,
and indeed a number of conflicts with animal rights
activists were had. In addition, activists started
to disrupt all conservative election rallies and
organized an anti-conservative campaign with the
clear message: those voting conservative vote for
battery farms. At the height of this conflict, on
the day before the election in one province, the
head of the conservative party jumped from the stage
where he was holding his last election speech and
attacked a nearby animal rights activist, punched
him in the face and ripped his banner. On the next
day, it was headline news in all newspapers: conservative
party leader punched animal activist! And the conservative party did lose 50% of the votes in
this election!
In the other province,
where the conservatives had been in government, they
lost the majority to the socialists. And in the presidential
elections, the mounting pressure became so large
that their presidential candidate felt obliged to
say in her last press conference that she, personally,
does favour a ban of battery farms. When the conservatives
lost this election as well, they gave in. The political
pressure from the animal rights movement had exceeded
the political influence of animal industries. In
2005, a complete ban on all cages for laying hens,
including enriched cages, was decided on in parliament
and took effect 2009. Those, who have experienced
this campaign first hand, all agree that it was the
amount of political pressure that led to this decision.
In an open conflict, with the help of broad sympathies
within the public, the movement beat animal industries
and forced the influential egg industry into submission.
That opened the way for a system change. Today, as
said before, no-one is buying eggs from cage systems anymore.
A number of other
examples could be provided here, like the campaign
against the caging of rabbits, where the government
was forced to recall their „compromise“ of enriched
cages and agree to a complete ban by 2012 eventually.
But one other example is worth looking at in more
detail. In a region in the province Upper Austria,
the trapping of songbirds is a deep rooted tradition.
Hence this province exempted bird trapping from the
general ban of trapping animals. When animal law
became a federal matter in Austria, the provincial
bans on trapping animals were extended to Upper Austria
too. The government overlooked that this would ban
the practice also in this region, were it was such
a strong tradition. The trappers are very powerful
and influential in their region. All political parties
are really scared of them there. That influence extends
to the provincial but not to the federal government.
On the other hand, the animal rights movement is
much more capable of producing political pressure
on the federal level than on the provincial level in rural Upper Austria.
Now, when the provincial
governor of Upper Austria realized that the new law
would ban bird trapping in his province too, he intervened
and tried to get the animal minister to put an exception
for songbird trapping in Upper Austria into the law.
Without any other influence, the minister was willing
to do that and proposed it. But then the animal rights
movement stood up and started a very confrontational
campaign against the minister, with daily demos in
front of her office for months and disruptions of
all her public appearances. She succumbed to this
pressure and did not put this exception into the
law. But the provincial government is responsible
for enforcing the law in the province, and they,
being under such influence of the bird trappers,
decided simply not to execute it.
We see: solely the
political conflict in society between the animal
rights movement and animal industries determines
the laws and their execution. The side, which can
muster more support and political pressure on an
issue, wins. The corresponding law determines the
system in society, which eventually defines how people
behave and how animals are being treated. The opinion
of the majority or of single people in society is
of secondary importance. Even a large majority against
battery eggs did not ban battery farming or stop
them from being sold. It was only political pressure
and the system change that followed, which changed
society and how animals are treated.
Do incremental system
changes lead to animal rights?
The data presented
so far prove that a system change can be achieved
through a political conflict against animal industries.
If a system change, however, was to bring global
veganism, it would have to mean the end of the whole
of animal industries. Can animal industries be made
to completely disappear by step for step victories,
which bring incremental reforms?
From a purely theoretical
point of view, the psychological-political continuity
from animal use via animal welfare to animal rights
suggests that indeed it is possible. A society without
any restrictions on animal use sees non-human animals
as commodities for the benefit of humankind without
any ethical value. Such a society will not have any
empathy and compassion for animals. The historic
example of Austria before the first animal laws serves
as a good example of such a society.
Historically, from
that starting point, slowly compassion, animal welfare
and animal laws developed. At this stage, ethical
vegetarianism could get a foothold at the end of
the 19th century. Slowly, the first ideas of animal
rights developed and from the 1980s onwards, there
is a lively and thriving animal rights movement.
The ideology of animal rights and the animal rights
movement have their psychological and political roots
in animal welfare.
Similarly, the development
of single people generally advances from compassion
and animal welfare feelings, which might have led
to less consumption of animal products (probably
rather of the free range variety), to vegetarianism
and eventually to the full animal rights vision and
veganism. Psychologically, compassion and animal
welfare form the basis for animal rights too.
We can provide further
data for this observation. In 1998, after a long
and hard fought for campaign, Austria introduced
a ban on fur farms in 6 provinces. In the remaining
3 provinces, a new animal law restricted the use
of “fur animals”. It became only legal to keep foxes
on a natural floor and mink with swimming water,
i.e. bare cages were banned. However, this classic
animal welfare law based on the idea of “humane”
exploitation gave way 7 years later to a complete
ban on all fur farming, i.e. on keeping animals for
their fur in whatever way. This law obviously goes
beyond animal welfare and towards animal rights.
It does say that non-human animals are not there
for human benefit only, since the benefit of getting
fur does not justify to keep and to kill animals
even if in the most humane way. This complete ban
on fur farming is therefore a good bit further towards
animal rights on the continuum from welfare to rights,
than the ban on bare cages only. And it came on the
basis of an older welfare law.
The ban on fur farming
means that the fur industry is weakened, since at
least in Austria their production sector has been
completely wiped out. On the other hand, the ban
on fur farming did not reduce the amount of fur being
sold in Austria, since the furriers just switched
to imports. Does that mean, a fur farm ban cannot
be considered progress towards animal rights?
The Austrian animal
rights movement can only directly change things in
Austria. But the Austrian fur farm ban indeed was
an example to follow for a number of other countries,
and now we have some form of bans at least in England,
Scotland, Wales, Italy, Croatia, Holland and Sweden.
If the fur farm bans are being picked up in ever
more countries and one day in the whole of the EU,
then an import ban could be introduced, like today’s
import ban on cat and dog products, or possibly seal
products in the near future. That would be a system
change so that all EU citizens would stop using fur
at all. There is no reason why other continents could
not follow suit, so that their animal rights movements
master enough political pressure to get fur farm
bans there too. Eventually, fur production could
end in the whole world. In that sense, a ban on fur
farming in Austria is no doubt a first step towards
the end of fur as a consumer product altogether,
i.e. the end of the exploitation of any animal for
their fur.
Let’s look at the
ban of battery farms. In contrast to the fur farm
ban, the ban on battery farms did not mean the end
of egg production in Austria. But, nevertheless,
this ban directly led to a reduction in the number
of eggs produced (and the number of hens exploited)
by 35%! Since the ban was introduced, the number
of laying hens being used in Austria has gone down
by 35%. The reason for that is twofold. Firstly,
a barn egg production unit of the same size fits
only about half as many hens as a battery unit. That
is because barn hens have much more space and the
number of floors stacked above each other is limited.
In addition, since barn hens can move freely inside
the shed, they use much more of the energy they take
in through their food in movement and heat production.
So, a barn hen needs twice as much food than a battery
hen, who cannot move at all, for producing the same
amount of eggs! That means that egg production with
the new system has become more than twice as expensive.
The ban on battery
farming brought with it a drastic reduction in the
amount of hens used and a dramatic increase in production
costs per egg. So far, the egg industry did not dare
to put that cost increase directly onto the price
of the egg. They know that the single most important
factor determining which products consumers buy is
the price. If products get more expensive, fewer
of them will be bought.
But it is exactly
this effect, which the animal rights movement can
use to for its purposes. If the movement succeeds
against the resistance of animal industries to introduce
strict new animal laws, which reduce production capacity
and increase production costs, then that will dramatically
weaken animal industries. Consumers will buy less
of the more expensive products, even if they did
not change their opinion on its ethical justification.
Very expensive meat and very expensive eggs will
become luxury items, which can be consumed even less
frequently. The surviving animal industry will have
shrunk immensely. That means, in a next conflict
with the animal rights movement, the reduced animal
industries will have even less influence and power
to resist further reforms and further tightening
of animal production restrictions, so that the vegan
alternatives will have much better chances to win
out on the free market and remove animal products
further still.
Regarding meat, the
biggest hope for vegan alternatives lies in plant
based meat substitutes and tissue engineered meat,
i.e. in-vitro produced muscle cell cultures. Details
to such products can be found here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_vitro_meat
or http://futurefood.org.
If this kind of future
food can establish itself on the market, it will
be in direct competition with animal meat. When strict
animal laws make the production of animal meat much
more costly, then the ground is set for tissue engineered
meat to win out. That would further accelerate the
abolition process of animal production, since weakened
animal industries mean harsher animal laws. If tissue
engineered meat manages to completely eradicate animal
meat, then a ban on animal farming of any kind will
be coming by itself. And that we managed to achieve
without having changed people to vegans first. In
fact, most people could still eat the same sort of
meat, consisting of the same cells. But because of
the psychological continuum from animal welfare to
animal rights, a shift in public attitudes towards
animal rights and veganism will be expected in practice.
When all animal usage is banned, then animal rights
will be established in no time.
Do animal welfare
reforms serve to establish the attitude that animals
are only there for humans to use?
Through the work of
the animal movement, animal welfare has received
a positive image, which is being used for advertisement
purposes. Animal industries have started to use this
fact to market their products, often without their
way of dealing with animals having anything to do
with animal welfare at all. Consequently, weak animal
laws, like a little more space in the battery cage
for the hens, could provide a basis for such advertising
without costing animal industries much, since such
changes do not increase production costs significantly.
However, that effect should not be overestimated,
since animal industries will advertise regardless,
and such advertising effects usually do not last.
But another aspect
of this is often recited as an argument against animal
welfare reforms. If certain products are sold as
“animal friendly”, especially when animal welfare
and animal rights organisations promote those products
in some way, consumers, who are concerned about animal
issues and could have been reached by animal rights
arguments, might calm their consciences and consume
more of those products without a second thought.
In this way, such reforms might stand in the way
of spreading the animal rights message that the exploitation
of non-human animals must be questioned at a fundamental
level.
Whether this effect
exists, though, and how important it is, is purely
a question of psychology and must be answered by
studies on the effect of messages in advertising.
As a matter of fact, at the moment there are no data,
which are supporting this idea. There is no empirical
indication that this effect actually has a significant
impact on society. Indeed, there is an opposite effect,
which might as well have a more profound consequence.
A positive image for animal welfare, after all, means
that compassion and empathy for animals get a higher
value, and that means there is more support for further
animal welfare reforms. And if people do open up
to the idea of animal welfare and its underlying
motives, then the experience shows that they are
more likely to be prepared to think about animal
rights. Animal welfare and empathy form the psychological
basis for animal rights.
But let’s look at
the data. In Austria, every year the animal laws
are being tightened. The speed of these reforms,
and the degree to which they increase the restriction
on animal use, had a tendency to increase in the
last years. Certainly in the last 10 years, new animal
laws have been introduced, which restrict animal
use to an, until now, unknown degree. Remember the
restriction of fur farms in 1998, which was then
followed by an outright ban in 2005. A rather weak
regulation on how wild animals can be kept and used
in circuses was followed by a complete ban 15 years
later. The law governing animal experiments from
1988 was updated in 2006 to include a complete ban
on all experiments on apes. Regulations on how to
keep rabbits for meat production were introduced
in 2005 and tightened to a ban on all cages by 2008,
to come into effect by 2012. The regulations on keeping
laying hens were tightened in 1999, again in 2003
and then came a ban on all cages in 2005 to take
effect by 2009. Clearly, the development of animal laws shows in practice, that they are being tightened regularly and
ever more severely. That supports the above suggestion
that there is a political continuum from animal use
via animal welfare to animal rights, and that banning
certain particularly revolting aspects of animal
use leads to more bans and more animal welfare and
even towards animal rights, when a certain use is
banned completely (like fur farming) or when even
the most “humane” kind of killing is banned.
A more restrictive
animal law in one sector can also trigger more restrictions
in other sectors, when for example the ban on cages
for laying hens in 2005 was used to justify the introduction
of a ban on cages for rabbits in 2008.
Is it possible that
when a certain standard of animal welfare has been
reached, suddenly this process stops and no further
tightening of animal laws can ever be achieved so
that the ultimate aim of animal rights cannot be
achieved this way? There is no indication for that.
After the ban on cages for laying hens in Austria,
half of the larger farms just closed down and the
other half changed to barn egg production. The latter,
still, is a classic factory farm with 9 hens per
m² (even if it was 16 hens per m² in the battery
cage). But since all battery farms have closed down
now, immediately the criticism of the new and more
expensive barn system has already started. Newly
formed animal rights groups, who have never seen
battery cages, have already broken into barn egg
farms and released the shocking film material to
the media, who have broadcast it. The animal rights
group most instrumental in achieving the ban on battery
cages has published a new 40 page booklet on animal
agriculture in 2008, which explicitly, and with graphic footage, criticises the barn egg system among all the other
forms of production and demands law changes as well
as suggesting veganism. Even the manager of a large
supermarket chain, which has removed all cage eggs
from their shelves 14 years ago, has already approached
animal groups and told them that he wants to remove
barn eggs in the future as well. The experience hence
is that the move to attacking the newly established
barn system has started much earlier than expected.
Even though there is not much scope, politically,
to introduce a new ban very soon, that topic might
become a matter of serious debate within 10 years.
If the whole process is being repeated then, i.e.
instead of a cage ban, a barn egg production ban,
and barn eggs are being removed from the shelves
in supermarkets, what should stop the movement to
continue this process until all laying hen farming
is banned? Like it happened with fur farming?
If becoming critically
aware of the aspects of particular animal abuse in
animal agriculture, and supporting animal welfare
per se, are psychological preconditions for individuals
to move on to animal rights, it is to be expected
that societies with higher animal welfare standards
will have larger animal rights movements, more animal
rights thinking will prevail and more vegan options
will be available. And societies with much less animal
welfare standards should show the opposite tendency.
And indeed, that is the case. European countries
like England, Sweden or Austria have high animal
welfare standards and a thriving animal rights movement.
On the other hand, countries with very little animal
welfare like China seem quite disinterested in all
animal issues and veganism as an ethical choice is
unknown.
If we include all
aspects, the data suggest that very restrictive animal
law reforms are not just no obstacle for animal rights,
but they actually promote the development of society
in this direction.
Additional aspects of the incremental reform
process
- Which reforms
are being called abolitionist and which reformist,
seems to be rather arbitrary and dependent on a
particular ideology.
Gary Francione defines 5 criteria in his book Rain
without Thunder (Temple University Press, Philadelphia
1996), which determine when a law is to be called
abolitionist. A full cage ban is being cited by
him as an example
of an abolitionist law in contrast to a law merely
enlarging the space per hen in the cage. A cage
ban means the interest of the hens in free movement
is
being respected, he observes, albeit respecting
this interest brings no advantage for the industry
exploiting
the hens. Francione, though, argues purely theoretically.
He does not provide any data to support his suggestions,
and his definition of abolitionism seems to be
deontological and not consequentialist, although
it is hard to see
how a theory on how to act politically should not
be solely concerned about whether the action actually
does promote the political aim in its consequences
or not.
- Even more radical
is Lee Hall’s opinion, published in the book Capers
in the Churchyard (Nectra Bat Press 2006). For
her, every law, regardless what it says, as long
as it
does not guarantee fully equal rights to all animals
at once, is a reformist law and must be rejected.
Her reason for that position is that any such law
would in some way implicitly condone some form
of animal use. A ban on fur farming, for example,
condones
leather production, rights for all apes condone
the view that all non-apes should have no rights
and
so forth. Hall even says that any campaign that
has a goal that falls short of complete animal
rights
and veganism for all, is reformist, because it
suggests that all forms of animal use outside this
goal are
legitimate. She subsumes even ALF activity under
reformist campaigning. For her, friendly vegan
outreach is the only path towards animal rights,
the only
truly abolitionist activity. But Hall does not
supply any data that support her ideas, neither
in the book
nor on enquiry. But without data her theory seems highly dubious.
- Animal law reforms
generally improve the quality of life for the individual
animals, who are protected by the law. A laying
hen in a cage surely has a much worse life than
a hen
in a barn or free range system. This aspect, however,
as much as it might be of central interest to the
animals themselves, plays no role in politically
evaluating whether a campaign goal will lead towards
animal rights or not.
- Worldwide, more
than 2000 activists have been locked up in prison
cells for their animal rights actions so far, because
they have broken speciesist laws. From the ethical
point of view, their incarceration is unjust and
a breach of their right to freedom. A number of
groups therefore support those prisoners, but not
just individually,
also with political campaigns. People are asked
to sign petitions to improve the prison system,
like
ban isolation cells and allow for vegan food provisions.
Those groups, albeit they disapprove of locking
up animal activists altogether, have decided that
they
would rather campaign for a realistic goal that
might be achieved and that will improve the lot
for the
prisoners. Such campaigning must be called reformist
and not abolitionist by any standards, but nevertheless,
radical abolitionists will not disapprove. Nobody
asks, surprisingly, whether such campaigns do not
legitimize incarceration of animal activists in
the minds of the public, and whether their success
in
achieving better prison conditions will not serve to strengthen the habit in society
to lock up activists, who have liberated animals.
- Running
campaigns to achieve realistic animal laws has
produced a number
of very large animal welfare and animal rights
societies, which became powerful and politically
influential.
The larger such a society, the more mainstream
and tame it will be. In Austria, though, there
is a clear
move of large societies to become more radical
and pro vegetarian. All those groups together earn
30
million euro per year in Austria in donations alone,
and even if only a small part of that money is
spent on spreading compassion and empathy for animals
amongst
the public, it will serve to build fertile grounds
for animal rights. Some of those societies actually
explicitly promote veganism in their literature.
If all animal groups would have to change to purely
abolitionist campaigning, they would drastically
shrink to the size of vegan societies and would
lose all their influence and ability to promote
veganism
too.
- In principle, using
film material that shows particularly shocking
animal abuse, must be called reformist propaganda.
After
all, those pictures suggest that keeping these
animals without the cruelty is alright. That means,
those
pictures do not question animal use, but animal
abuse. By rejecting such films, though, the movement
would
be stripped off the most powerful weapon in the
propaganda wars. In reality, since there is a psychological
continuum from animal welfare to animal rights,
those
films actually do produce vegans and animal rights
activists, which once again shows that the abolitionist
argument is false.
- Reformist campaigns
bring successes. The last 10 years of reform campaigning
in Austria produced a formidable list of such successes,
which clearly make the Austrian animal law the
best in the world. But successes are the lifeblood
of
activism, because activism costs energy and to
sustain activism for long, you must be highly motivated.
If you can see that your activism actually changes
society that boosts morale and your motivation
to
stay active rises. But for vegan outreach, there
is no similar feeling of success. Many people,
who did turn vegan, fall back to consuming animal
products.
And society at large does not seem to change at
all – after 130 years of such campaigns. It is
extremely
unlikely that a significant amount of activists
can sustain friendly vegan outreach without recognizable
successes for a very long time.
Summary
The analysis of political
activism for animals together with data on experiences
so far, suggests the following approach for achieving
animal rights in the long run:
The primary aim of
the animal rights movement must be to produce political
pressure to achieve incremental reforms towards animal
rights. A reform is a step towards animal rights
if it significantly damages animal industries, i.e.
if it weakens them and/or forces them to use more
expensive production systems. That is so, because
the only enemy in the political conflict to achieve
animal rights is the animal industries. Without them,
animal rights would be reality. Weakening animal
industries through tough animal laws serves a purpose
in two ways. Firstly, it weakens the opponent for
future animal laws, and secondly it makes animal
products more expensive so that fewer people will
buy them and the vegan alternatives will have a better
chance when competing on the free market. Stricter
animal laws do not hinder people becoming aware of
animal rights issues, but they actually promote that,
because animal welfare is the psychological basis
for animal rights.
To produce enough
political pressure, a large number of activists and
the sympathy of the public are advantageous. But
both of those aims are secondary aims, because they
only serve to help achieving the primary aim, to
weaken animal industries.
To try and convince
individual people, person for person, is a tactic
which cannot but fail, as long as the system is not
changed. That is so, because the system in society
determines the behaviour of people in it. In an extremely
speciesist society, to live vegan costs an enormous
amount of energy, so that only a tiny minority will
ever have enough motivation and resolve to be able
to sustain it for longer. On the other hand, a system
in society that does not provide animal products,
will automatically make people lead a vegan life,
and latest in one or two generations of young people
growing up in a vegan society, the awareness of animal
rights will follow.
Using purely rational
arguments, we can argue convincingly that animal
rights is the ethical ideal. We do not need to use
empirical data of human psychology or concern ourselves
with the political situation at a particular time
in society for that. The ethical ideal is founded
on deontological and not consequentialistic justifications.
But if we want to
put that ethical ideal into practice and change society,
we do depend entirely on psychological input. Politics
are good, if they change society successfully towards
the ethical ideal. That means, in contrast to the
situation before, the value of politics is solely
measured consequentialistically, i.e. only by its
consequences. There are no politics, which are right
or wrong by themselves, like Immanuel Kant claimed
for example for lying, which supposedly was unethical
by itself, even if lying in certain circumstances
could save lives or move society towards the ethical
ideal.
It is basic knowledge
on human psychology that humans are much more social
than rational animals. If humans were purely rational
animals, we could ignore psychology in politics and
solely argue rationally, without the use of empirical
data. Theory and practice would be the same. But
humans are indeed much more social than rational
animals. And that means for the animal rights movement:
- Social entities
like compassion, empathy and suffering are very
important factors to motivate humans to change
their behaviour.
In contrast, abstract-rational entities, like personhood
or rights, do not.
- One of the most important aspects determining
human behaviour is their social environment.
Humans want
to be well integrated into their society and
live in harmony with it.
- Humans have a strong need for social security,
i.e. they generally want that things stay as
they are and that change happens slowly and
in a controlled
way.
The animal rights
movement must adapt their political campaigning strategies
to these psychological facts. That means, political
campaigns must incorporate the following aspects:
- Centre your
campaign material on presenting suffering and stimulate
compassion
and empathy in people. Abstract-rational phrases
using terms like rights or personhood should play
no significant role.
- The goal of the campaign should be presented
to the public in a way that it seems to them
that if
it was achieved, a certain clearly distinguishable
aspect of suffering of animals will be totally
alleviated.
- The aim of the campaign must be to change society,
the social system in which people live, and
not individual people’s minds.
- The campaign should not demand huge changes
in society. The goal must be realistic and
should not
lead into the unknown. The whole development
of society must be slow and continuous.
Hence, it is of vital
importance to distinguish between the abstract-rational
philosophy on a deontological basis in theory to
justify the ethical ideal, and applied-social psychology
on a consequentialistic basis in practice to justify
campaign politics.
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