Do you think the winner of the election will make a difference to antispeciesist utilitarian goals (or, specifically, to promoting utility among nonhuman animals)? I think it's at least conceivable that corporate personhood would be weakened if Obama nominated the next SC nominees and strengthened if Romney did, and that corporate power is a major obstacle to antispeciesism.

Neither leading candidate seems to care at all about speciesism, although I suspect that non-human animals would be slightly better off under Obama. It may be worthwhile to vote for Jill Stein, the Green Party candidate. She's not going to win, but your vote may help promote concern for animal welfare.

I think Democratic Party is less linked to religious groups, and that is definitely better for animals.

There are several American politicians that want to attack the animal rights movement, but there are Democrats and Republicans there. AETA (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal_Ent ... ection_Act) was supported by several Democrats and Republicans (Dennis Kucinich was an exception), so I guess there is not much difference.

Good point about religion. Here's a little bit of interesting information. http://peopleforanimals2011.wordpress.com/2012/01/08/921/ I say a little because it barely touches on animal agriculture and says nothing about speciesism as a problematic ideology but it's better than having no information.

Thanks, LJM1979! See also a very similar discussion with Hutch.

Probably a Democrat/Green candidate is good for memetic and anti-religious reasons, although support for habitat preservation is troubling. Probably the differences aren't stark enough to spend a lot of time worrying about the question (and certainly not to campaign around it).

I agree that the actual anti-speciesism policy difference between Obama and Romney is really small, and that the main difference between the two candidates is in general long term pro-rationality/anti-religion/anti-suffering views. That being said, I'm not sure I agree that this is a negligible factor: it's the long term that matters, and in the long term the extent to which Policy views of elite and of others is governed by religion/tradition vs rationality/utilitarianism is in some sense the most important thing there is in terms of eradicating anti-speciesism.

I agree, Hutch. I hope that Obama wins, because I guess he is (a bit) better for animals.

But must we campaign for Obama? I don't think it. It's nearly impossible that we change election results with our time and resources, and there are more cost-effective campaigns for using our time and resources.

I guess there are two questions about campaigning:

(1) Is it a better use of time than having fun/playing games/hanging out with friends?
(2) Is it a better use of time than doing other utilitarian things, be they making money to donate, promoting animal welfare directly, arguing for utilitarianism, or something else of that ilk.

My off the cuff impression is that the answer to (1) is yes, and that (2) is much more complicated. BTW I looked a bit at the effects of voting and donating money to congressional candidates here.

I was thinking that perhaps the most cost-effective actions in political arena is to campaign against the most radical anti animal-rights candidates. For example: http://www.republicreport.org/2012/utah ... farm-bill/

Mathis will try to get the seat another time on November 6, 2012 (Utah, District 55). I think it would be a good idea if animal advocates support the Democrat candidate.

Unfortunately I think there's very little that can be done to unseat Mathis; he won about 77% of the vote last time...

Also, oddly enough he used to be a veterinarian...

If nothing else you can see an actual anti-speciesism difference (wrapped in environmental differences) in places like this.

Hutch wrote:that (2) is much more complicated. BTW I looked a bit at the effects of voting and donating money to congressional candidates here.

Without having done calculations, my gut reaction is that it shouldn't be that cost-effective for us to focus on tipping elections, because most political tugs of war are negligible in terms of their impact on animals or the ideology of future civilization.

Things like tax cuts, health care, abortion, military intervention, creating jobs, death penalty, and all the rest do matter, but they matter so much less than insect suffering or cultivating values of empathy among future generations. Yet there are many segments of society that care deeply about these conventional political issues that it seems hard to imagine that the returns from political donations haven't already been saturated.

The signal-to-noise ratio of a political donation is just so low for utilitarian causes. (Note: Targeted political lobbying may be very different. But when you're just funding a party or a candidate, all the causes get mushed together.)

I'm glad to have my mind changed on this subject by learning more.

My gut reaction is that you're correct that the issues themselves don't matter, but that making the country as a whole more liberal does, and that they causation in politics goes both ways: voters decide the views of the elected, but the elected also probably influence the views of the people.

Yep, that's right. Changing society's views is probably the biggest impact from politics right now. But because the spillover consequences are so oblique, it seems arguably better to focus on changing views directly? Veg outreach, utilitarian programs for young people, the importance of wild-animal suffering, etc.

Brian Tomasik wrote:Probably a Democrat/Green candidate is good for memetic and anti-religious reasons, although support for habitat preservation is troubling. Probably the differences aren't stark enough to spend a lot of time worrying about the question (and certainly not to campaign around it).

(The important part is in bold.)

I think support for habitat preservation is actually preferable to apathy. Many people who care about biodiversity or the like do care about individual animals, but have a poor understanding of what actually promotes the animals' welfare. Furthermore, it seems that people who care about habitat preservation tend to care more about animal welfare.

The Green Party is the only major party I know of that takes an official stance on animal welfare:

We reject the belief that our species is the center of creation, and that other life forms exist only for our use and enjoyment. Our species does not have the right to exploit and inflict violence on other creatures simply because we have the desire and power to do so. Our ethic upholds not only the value of biological diversity and the integrity and continuity of species, but also the value of individual lives and the interest of individual animals.

MTGandP wrote:Many people who care about biodiversity or the like do care about individual animals

I've actually been thoroughly surprised to the degree, in my personal experience, environmentalists have sought to preserve the environment for its own sake, not really giving much thought to the fact that the environment is only worth preserving insofar as it serves and facilitates the needs of animals (humans included).

Thanks, MTGandP!

MTGandP wrote:I think support for habitat preservation is actually preferable to apathy.

I think I disagree on this point. For one thing, habitat preservation will hurt animals in the short run. But even if we're just focused on long-term memetic trajectories, I fear that ecological sentiments may be strongly anti-utilitarian. For example, think how bioconservative environmentalists can be -- e.g., Enough by Bill McKibben. This is not the kind of ideology that's going to bring about a utilitronium shockwave, nor probably even the abolition of suffering among wild animals. (Ned Hettinger: "Respecting nature means respecting the ways in which nature trades values, and such respect includes painful killings for the purpose of life support.")

MTGandP wrote:The Green Party is the only major party I know of that takes an official stance on animal welfare

Yeah, this is one nontrivial upside for the Greens, although as your quote points out, they mix deep ecology together with humane moralism (concern for individual animals) in order to broaden their ideological tent.

Green Parties use to promote animal welfare, but they mix it with environmental anthropocentrism or deep ecology. I think this is very problematic, because they promote an idyllic view of natural processes, and they take critical voter (specially young people) to environmentalism.

I think it's better that Green Party don't get become the "alternative" party. I prefer that critical voters abstain / spoil the ballot or vote for Democrats (in USA) / social democrats (in Europe) when there is no animal rights party.