I want to start by noting that I am amazed and somewhat in awe of what's been accomplished by the EA animal welfare movement. I am enthusiastically supportive of all campaigns that make living and dying conditions less bad for farmed animals.
I worked on such campaigns for almost 20 years, and I'm proud of that work.
That said, I do think it's a strategic error that the EA animal movement has so thoroughly moved on from advocacy for animal liberation and diet change.
There are two central arguments for that decision that I hear in EA circles and that I think are worthy of reconsideration:
1) These efforts have been tried and failed. Let’s move on.
2) Everyone agrees with us on factory farming, so let’s focus there and stop talking about whether eating meat is unethical; that’s where we meet overwhelming pushback.
I don't agree with either of these statements, and I believe that some of the influx of money we’re expecting for animal protection should be spent on animal liberation and diet change advocacy.
Here are some thoughts and questions that I think support my point-of-view. I look forward to hearing what others think.
1) The value of saying what’s true, because it’s true
EA places a hefty premium on saying things that are true, noting that this free exchange of ideas tends to lead to the best outcomes. Most recently, that’s been one argument in favor of talking about animal suffering when we discuss the harms of factory farming.
It strikes me as obviously true that there’s no moral difference between eating a dog or a pig, a cat or a chicken; if anything, eating a well-treated dog or cat would be morally preferable to eating a factory farmed chicken or pig.
It’s also true that other animals have the same range of emotions and feel pain in the same way and to the same degree that we do. As slaughterhouse designer Temple Grandin has written, other animals may suffer much more than humans do, since for many (most?) non-human animals, the mental and physical anguish of confinement or mutilation is, in that moment, their entire world.
Finally, it’s simply true that eating animals entails paying for abuse so extreme that almost everyone is repulsed by it.
But as far as I'm aware, we have no one with an EA mindset focused on how we make these arguments most effectively. And it seems that none of the potential influx of AI funding is going to go toward changing societies in the direction of these observations.
Is that the right decision? I doubt it.
2) Are there other justice movements that ignored the fact that they were justice movements?
I understand that the abolition, suffrage, and other liberation movements took what they could get and didn't demand immediate and only liberation, of course. If all you can get is better laws around education, Sundays off, and so on -- then that's what you agitate to make happen.
But have other liberation movements owed some part of their success to focusing only on welfare improvements and the most extreme rights violations?
Did any of them avoid the intellectual and ethical foundations of their movements and their most fundamental demands for justice?
Because that’s what EAs are doing with regard to animals, or so it seems to me.
3) Might an aversion to liberation messaging be sending top talent to other cause areas?
In my new book Meat, chapter 5 is mostly about why I don’t think vegan and meat reduction advocacy will stop the upward trajectory of global meat consumption, at least until we have price and taste competitive alternative meats.
But I also point out that a belief in vegetarianism and/or animal liberation motivated many cultivated meat founders to start their companies. It's also why almost all of the sector’s early investors chose to fund them.
I'm pretty sure the cultivated meat industry would not exist if not for investors who believe in animal liberation.
(As an aside, rumors of cultivated meat's death have been greatly exaggerated -- see my Substack essay on this topic, which will post on Saturday morning ET).
I think this observation is even more true where farm animal welfare is concerned: I don’t know everyone in the EA animal welfare movement, but I know all of the OGs, and I’m pretty sure they are all vegan. I’m also pretty sure all of them got involved in animal protection because of their belief in animal rights.
If we don’t tell the world why animals matter (i.e., that their suffering is not significantly less important than our suffering), will we attract people with the passion and focus on maximum impact that comes with knowing you’re in a liberation struggle?
EDIT/ADDITION: After I posted this reflection, Aidan Kankyoku posted his reflection on "The Campaigner Crunch," and there are some insights in his post that I think may be relevant here. I haven't fully worked this out in my brain, but I'm thinking about where he talks about how hard it is to find great campaigners and leaders, because the best people came up as volunteers or low-level staff. Their motivation was, I think, animal liberation.
4) Did animal liberation advocacy make farm animal welfare improvements possible?
It seems to me quite possible that advocacy on behalf of animal liberation is what shifted the Overton Window with regard to farm animal welfare. If so, would continuing to push for animal liberation and diet change have a positive impact on what’s possible in the realm of farm animal welfare?
Put another way, if people don’t think animals have interests that matter, are they going to care what happens to them?
Or in more practical terms: Yes, we have the world on our side where factory farming is concerned, but it’s not a top issue for almost anyone — other than those of us who believe in animal liberation. Should this observation change how we think about our advocacy?
It’s all well and good to say “95% of Americans agree with us,” but if the issue is largely an afterthought with no impact on behavior (as it is for almost almost everyone), perhaps it's worth putting some resources into changing that.
As just one example, would our efforts on behalf of farm animal welfare be more successful if some part of our movement were focused on making sure that every single student who graduates from one of the world’s top 100 universities has spent 4 years saturated in animal liberation and diet change messaging?
Lawrence Tribe believes in animal liberation. So does Cass Sunstein. And Richard Dawkins. So did Charles Krauthammer. And Jane Goodall.
What would it look like to make sure everyone coming out of an elite university, anywhere in the world, is clear on the concept? Making that happen would not be expensive, relative to the influx of resources we’re expecting.
My guess: There are dozens of great ideas that could change the global zeitgeist in the direction of animal liberation and a plant-based diet (especially as alt meats get better and come down in price).
5) Might AI and a massive influx of funds change what animal liberation and veg advocacy can accomplish?
I think it’s fair to say that the vast majority of EA animal welfare advocates see diet change and animal liberation advocacy as incapable of making much difference.
We tried. It failed.
This concept is captured by Aidan Kankyoku’s recent Sandcastles essay, where he says this: “In the decades since Animal Liberation, plenty of people have dared to dream of a world without animal farming. They’ve all failed to make that world a reality, or even bring it one step closer. And before you try to get clever with me, I promise you there isn’t some other magic word people haven’t sufficiently incanted. Whatever you think makes your abolitionist movement special … people have tried it before.”
Here’s my full response to his precise argument. The key points are these:
A failed attempt does not test an idea for all time. It tests one version of that idea, pursued by particular people, with particular methods and resources, under particular conditions. All aspects of those conditions change, and with them the potential for success.
Animal liberation and diet change advocacy have never operated at the scale that may soon be possible with 1) AI and 2) dramatically more resources.
Either one of those could be game-changing for their impact on past interventions that failed and, perhaps, for coming up with new ideas that have tremendous merit.
Plus, if “people have tried it before — it didn’t work” were a decisive objection, most or all previous successful movements would have been abandoned, since no movement was successful out of the gate and few (or no) tactics have been successful on their first iteration, I don't believe.
It's my understanding that most (perhaps all) social justice movements looked like failures for a really long time before they succeeded.
Conclusion: What I am not saying
I do want to be clear on one thing: I am also not suggesting that farm animal welfare groups should adopt animal rights or vegetarian talking points. I agree with the idea that each group should frame its work for maximum impact and focus on what its good at.
So GFI is not a diet change advocacy organization, and we’re not an animal rights organization; and I don't think we should be. We have no diet litmus tests. I open my book Meat with the line: “Let me get one thing out of the way right now: I don’t care what you eat.”
And for the purposes of both GFI and the book, I meant (and mean) it.
My concern is this: EA appears to have largely walked away from the moral foundation of our work on behalf of animals. So among the breadth of strategies that EA animal welfare supports, there appears to be scant (and in many cases zero) room for diet change advocacy and no room at all for animal liberation work.
That feels to me like it’s probably a mistake.
Couldn’t agree more.
First, the amount and diversity of suffering produced by animal agriculture is inconceivable. Cage size is only the tip of the iceberg. Welfare campaigns usually target one problem at a time, but farmed animals face countless harms: extreme selective breeding, separation from parents, overcrowding, behavioral deprivation, painful procedures, transport, slaughter, and probably many forms of physical and psychological suffering we do not even understand.
There is also a basic economic constraint behind it. Keeping a companion cat or dog in good welfare conditions over their lifetime cost around $10K–$100K. A chicken raised for food has to cost only a few dollars. Animal agriculture cannot provide anything close to the conditions we would normally consider humane. In contrast, reducing the number of farmed animals addresses all of these harms simultaneously.
It's true that a moderate campaign attract more audience. But welfare reform lacks a clear trajectory. Suppose we move from conventional eggs to cage-free eggs. It is still just as difficult for the consumer to move from cage-free eggs to plant-based food. Compare this with Meatless Monday. It is also moderate, but it also changes behavior: people learn what to order, what to cook, which plant-based foods they enjoy, and how to eat without meat. Each reduction can make the next one easier.
The underlying problem is that people have an interest in eating animal products. This is why we should focus heavily on PTC (price, taste, and convenience) of plant-based alternatives. A common response is that PTC is not enough because meat consumption is deeply cultural and therefore difficult to change. Of course it is cultural. But where does culture come from?
We sometimes reverse the causal story around "culture". Meat culture didn't emerge out of no where. It stems from the fact Meat is a good product. Because it's a good product, it affect individual incentives and shapes behavior. Repeated behavior then helps generate social norms, identities, and eventually culture. Culture also feeds back into behavior, but it is not independent of the material environment.
This matters because most people who try vegetarian or vegan diets eventually give them up. The common experience is expensive, inconvenient, socially difficult, or less enjoyable, so quitting is unsurprising, and the failed attempt may strengthen the belief that veganism is unrealistic.
The theory of change I find most plausible is make avoiding animal products increasingly easy, cheap, tasty, convenient.
Interests and norms reinforce each other. If eating animals remains overwhelmingly convenient and attractive, people have a strong psychological incentive to rationalize it. If alternatives become better and easier, the cost of accepting the animal-liberation argument falls dramatically.
We should invest far more in interventions that make animal agriculture easier to leave: better and cheaper AP (alternative proteins), plant-based defaults and nudges, institutional meat reduction, and repeated exposure to good plant-based food.