What do you think is the "killer argument" for caring about animal suffering?

Here's the background. Recently, in Australia, there was a major animal abuse scandal that capivated the national media. Video footage came to light showing the shockingly cruel fate suffered by Australian cattle which had been shipped over to Indonesian abbatoirs. While the community reaction to the scandal was generally one of anger, not all on the left were so concerned. One progressive columnist I have otherwise admired, Guy Rundle, wrote a sloppy and disappointing column on why caring about animals is a disaster for the left. (Screenshot because it was behind paywall). It's bad to care about animal torture because it leads us to care less about refugees, apparently.

I'm looking for a way to cut through to those, like Guy, who believe strongly that human suffering matters but simply do not care about animals. His stated position (made clear in the comments section, not linked) is that animals matter less than humans because humans have language, a sense of self and other, and a higher order grasp of their own existence.

What's a fast and effective utilitarian response to this? One gambit is that this implies that the suffering of infants and the profoundly intellectually disabled does not matter; but I think anthropocentric types like Guy would simply respond that these are minority edge cases, and that the vast majority of humans are smarter than animals and therefore (as a category, notwithstanding the edge cases) humans matter more.

I don't know what would be effective, but the anyone who seriously believes in a 'categorical difference' between humans and animals seems so far beyond the pale as to not be worth according a real argument. I just want to ask him what that categorical difference is, and where the scientific paper that established it can be found.

I don't know what to say, but it is peculiar how people feel so differently about animals they eat and animals they have as pets.

Might it be possible to get people passionately defending their pets against violence and then ask them on what grounds they can? If they say "ownership" then presumably you'll be able to point out that if that's the criteria, you should be able to buy all the puppies/kittens you conversation partner's dog/kitty will bear, and torture them all year. Ask them on what grounds they think it's inappropriate to eat dogs. Ask them about extreme torture of farm animals for fun. Ask them all sorts of uncomfortable questions implied by their position.

' . . . a pig or a cow is just as cool an animal as a dog or a cat . . . '

I really think we need to generally bypass the intellectual "elite" and the so-called opinion settings and appeal to 70% of the general public (that is, we politically build a comfortable majority).

That said, a lot of good intellectual and creative work comes from seemingly unlikely settings. Kind of the "salvation in unlikely places" approach (which is also good for screenwriting), so if you catch a moonbeam to write a response, more power to you! Now, some 'Guy' (pun noticed!) who has already staked out a public position, might just stick with it. But in the whole process, you might engage some other readers.

If people are more valuable than animals because of language etc., then humans without that wouldn't be valuable. My instinct is to ask them if they really think that being the same species as an entity that can do that really matters. If someone created a sapient pig, would pigs instantly become valuable? If all of humanity was, say, asleep at the same time, would the reverse happen?

But I don't know how normal people would respond.

I wonder whether an empirical argument might appeal to those who say animal suffering doesn't matter.

Perhaps we could ask this. What is the physiological evidence that the experience of extreme pain (say being dropped alive into boiling water -- something not uncommon in some pig abbatoirs -- or beaten to death) is an order of magnitude worse for humans than for pigs? Do our language skills, sense of self and other, and other higher order traits so transform our feeling of pain that we suffer boiling water on an categorically different plane? Because the behavioural response that humans and pigs make is pretty comparable (cries of pain, writhing, trying to escape, etc).

I think another problem is getting across the subtlety of the point that we are not, in fact, asserting that animal suffering is the same as human suffering; that we are well aware of the higher order intellectual capacity of humans, and take that into account when considering their interests. It seems to me that some critics believe we hold the same views as Gary Francione-type animal abolitionists -- that human and animal rights are exactly alike, and that it is just as much of a crime to, say, keep a child in a cage as keep a bird in a cage.

How much more would humans have to matter to make eating meat worthwhile? You can try mentioning that.

Then again, normal people have a weird sense of ethics. They can think animal abuse is wrong, but that for all n, abusing one child is worse than abusing n animals.

Even if Guy wouldn't be convinced by the argument from marginal cases, I do think it's the most emotionally compelling point for most people, so it's probably the single best thing to say.

Second to that, I like Arepo's point that it's hard to clearly distinguish human from non-human: "Richard Dawkins: How would you feel about a half-human half-chimp hybrid?"

spindoctor wrote: . . . One progressive columnist I have otherwise admired, Guy Rundle, wrote a sloppy and disappointing column on why caring about animals is a disaster for the left. (Screenshot because it was behind paywall). It's bad to care about animal torture because it leads us to care less about refugees, apparently. . .

This is kind of a standard Left position clunkily applied.

Now, as a disclaimer, I bat from the left side of the plate. (I am an America. My country is currently pretty conservative. That's just where many of my fellow citizens are at this particular time. So, even though I think I bat from the left side of the plate, compared to people in other countries, I might actually be pretty centralist.)

The classic Left sometimes criticizes the middle-class ('bourgeois') for focusing on small, petty issues when there are real problems going on. For example, the news stories on whether a person should take yet another personal health precaution on what's a pretty marginal risk to begin with, and how few stories on . . . Not even clean water in many parts of the developing world. And how infantile diarrhea is a major cause of death. That is, what is a mere embarrassment to those of us in the rich West is literally life and death to people with less money and less access to resources. And, that around June 2009, the World Health Organization announced success with a trial of rotavirus vaccine. Should have been a major news story, with lots of good background coverage, and generally was not. Or, to take another issue, as I understand it is a major problem that women in the developing world breath smoke from cooking fires on a longterm basis. In fact, I've heard this called something like a quiet catastrophe.

That said, Guy Rundle is just plain mistaken about this mistreatment of cows.

It is not a trivial amount of suffering. People are directly right to care about it. And indirectly, it's good that people exercise their heart muscle so to speak, that they get good at publicly speaking out about something and being active as citizens, and win (if possible) and see that substantial improvements are made. And this may carry over in positive, unexpected ways. That is, this flowing approach is much better than trying to build walls and tell people they should care about certain things and not care about other things. People care about what they care about.

Alan Dawrst wrote:Even if Guy wouldn't be convinced by the argument from marginal cases, I do think it's the most emotionally compelling point for most people, so it's probably the single best thing to say.

Second to that, I like Arepo's point that it's hard to clearly distinguish human from non-human: "Richard Dawkins: How would you feel about a half-human half-chimp hybrid?"

My sister told me that in one of her college classes, the professor raised the question, What if one of the earlier humans, say Australopithecus, had survived down to the present time. How would we treat them?

Well, the initial answer is, if we know anything at all about modern humans, we would treat them appallingly.

But, often we do abuses to "prove" that some person or group is inferior. And with Australopithecus obviously being intellectually inferior (although not necessarily in other ways), we may not have a strong desire to do so.

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And sorry, cannot resist making this note: As I understand it, not only are all modern humans in the same species, we're in the same subspecies. And I recall reading in a biology book that, compared to a lot of animals, we modern humans actually have a relatively small amount of genetic diversity.

Snow Leopard wrote:That said, Guy Rundle is just plain mistaken about this mistreatment of cows.

Nice reply, Snow Leapord!

I prefer to say "chicken" or "fish" as my synecdoche for "factory-farmed animals," because I worry that some people might misread my statement as suggesting that it's better to eat chicken/fish than cows, which would be worse than having said nothing at all.

In an article about the campaign for cage-free eggs at Harvard, I came across very sad replies by readers in the Comments section. It's useful to remember that not everyone is on the same page as far as caring about animal suffering.

HAHAHAHA HAHAHAHAHA HAHAHAHA AHAHA AAHAHAHA … This makes the sponge bob story look minor.. REALLY OVER AN EGG. How about trying to get car manufactures to create better fuel burning vehicles, How about creating greener fuel for homes,, How about making solar more affordable for home owners, Stop the food costs going up, Get big oil from getting so greedy.. So many better things to do ,, But complain about whether the eggs are from caged or free range,… WOW I believe some folks in this country have issues.
Now can I get a 3 egg omelet with ham, Swiss, onions, peppers, & tomatoes, don’t care where they come from.

War in the Middle East, high unemployment, rising prices for everything and these nitwits are concerned with eggs from one chicken who is running free or another who is not. Anyone want to bet that the “Chicken 21″ “push” on every door that says “pull”. I’ll bet that a few of them have even cried over this non-issue. Now I think I’ll get back to planet Earth.

The really sad thing is, because of the lax regulations on 'free range' in the US they probably have a point. It might offer a marginal improvement, but really there are better things to fight over - like US regulation of 'free range' animals, for eg.

Arepo wrote:The really sad thing is, because of the lax regulations on 'free range' in the US they probably have a point. It might offer a marginal improvement

Do you think HSUS is mistaken about the degree of benefit that cage-free offers? I don't know the literature in detail, but my impression is that cage-free is significantly better (like maybe -4 instead of -10 in terms of suffering per day). I think Bailey Norwood believes that conditions are better, and I tend to assume he knows what he's talking about. From one article that he coauthored:

It is true that the UEP standards are based on scientific studies, but there are many studies backing HSUS’s claim that cage-free eggs are superior to cage eggs in terms of animal welfare, and the ranking of a system depends on the rankers’ particular values and perceptions (Fraser, 2002). In fact, every study we know that ranks egg systems in terms of animal welfare ranks cage-free systems ahead of cage systems in terms of providing animal care (De Mol, 2006; LayWel, 2004).

They certainly know better than me. What I'd read is that the legal definition of 'free range' in the US was something like 'can see the sun at least once per day'. It might have changed, been wrong, or been misremembered (by me).

Arepo wrote:They certainly know better than me. What I'd read is that the legal definition of 'free range' in the US was something like 'can see the sun at least once per day'. It might have changed, been wrong, or been misremembered (by me).

They certainly know better than I do, too.

If I'm not mistaken, "cage free" is weaker than "free range." I'm not sure if they get any sunlight, but the idea is that they at least won't be confined in cages that are 50 square inches.

Brian Tomasik wrote:

Snow Leopard wrote:I prefer to say "chicken" or "fish" as my synecdoche for "factory-farmed animals," because I worry that some people might misread my statement as suggesting that it's better to eat chicken/fish than cows, which would be worse than having said nothing at all.

If they start to develop a self-image as someone who cares about animals, I think it might be better eventually. Once you do that, you may be more receptive to the point you linked to. But I'm assuming humanity is going to last for quite a while after this.

The best elevator pitch I can think of is: "Imagine that veganism was the position that the majority of society expected. What food was made available in the average restaurant, festival, or dinner party would be cooked for vegans, and being vegan would be easy. Most people would probably go along with it. And they would all believe the arguments that you've heard a million times from vegans. So for most people, in a very important sense, the position they defend with arguments they believe are their real reasons is not their own. You are a celebrity of some sort, and have influence over society. Please don't just follow the people who are following you."

Brian Tomasik wrote:In an article about the campaign for cage-free eggs at Harvard, I came across very sad replies by readers in the Comments section. It's useful to remember that not everyone is on the same page as far as caring about animal suffering.

HAHAHAHA HAHAHAHAHA HAHAHAHA AHAHA AAHAHAHA … This makes the sponge bob story look minor.. REALLY OVER AN EGG. How about trying to get car manufactures to create better fuel burning vehicles, How about creating greener fuel for homes,, How about making solar more affordable for home owners, Stop the food costs going up, Get big oil from getting so greedy.. So many better things to do ,, But complain about whether the eggs are from caged or free range,… WOW I believe some folks in this country have issues.
Now can I get a 3 egg omelet with ham, Swiss, onions, peppers, & tomatoes, don’t care where they come from.

War in the Middle East, high unemployment, rising prices for everything and these nitwits are concerned with eggs from one chicken who is running free or another who is not. Anyone want to bet that the “Chicken 21″ “push” on every door that says “pull”. I’ll bet that a few of them have even cried over this non-issue. Now I think I’ll get back to planet Earth.

It's funny how people seem to care so much about effective altruism when it comes to rejecting animal welfare issues, but no one cares if you advocate for some really ineffective or inefficient charity. Take that organization that makes wigs for kids with cancer. I've never heard anyone say, "Why do you care so much about giving kids hair when there are wars in the Middle East?" And most people would consider that rude.

Michael Dickens wrote:It's funny how people seem to care so much about effective altruism when it comes to rejecting animal welfare issues, but no one cares if you advocate for some really ineffective or inefficient charity. Take that organization that makes wigs for kids with cancer. I've never heard anyone say, "Why do you care so much about giving kids hair when there are wars in the Middle East?" And most people would consider that rude.

Great point. Some causes are immune to criticism. The only plausible justification I can see is that these causes might fall into the fuzzies category, while animals and the Middle East fall into the utilons category. In that case, donating for cancer wigs would be like buying yourself a pair of expensive shoes.

Spindoctor, is your desired pitch to be delivered in person or online?

One thing I do is point to surveys which show that the vast majority of people believe that the kind of cruelty suffered by animals on farms is immoral and should be illegal, and add that a large fraction of people are consciously trying to reduce their meat consumption, the number of vegans has doubled in the last few years, etc.

Appealing to herd mentality is probably not the classiest move, but it seems effective (anecdotally, anyway), and by making a "third person" statement ("people should do X" instead of "you should do X") I think there's less cognitive dissonance etc.

We need to focus on PR and marketing loads!