We all felt incredible loss, but it was more than just the grief of knowing we’d never see our friend again. Our sorrow was compounded by having seen her suffer so much. We could sense her discomfort and even her fear that her body was breaking down. As self-aware people, we put ourselves in her place and felt her pain. We felt empathy.
That empathy is the root of compassion, and it inspires some of the greatest works that are done in this world. We feel the greatest empathy for those we love, but empathy does not require an intimate connection. Our religious and secular traditions call on us to care for the unknown poor in our communities, and the hungry and ill everywhere. Many of us donate funds or volunteer to ease the hurts of others or to better their circumstances, no matter if the victims look different or live halfway around the world. Countless nonprofit organizations are alive with this spirit, and industrialized nations give billions of dollars in aid to answer human needs in every nation.
But do we extend this same generous spirit to animals? It’s not hard for anyone to understand my distress at Pericles’s sudden death, or our anguish at Brandy’s painful decline; they were my loyal friends, eager to please me and a source of joy and companionship. But what of the animals we never name or know—the stray dogs and cats at the local shelter, the animal victims of disasters like Hurricane Katrina or the Gulf oil spill of 2010, the seal pups on the ice floes of Canada, the sows imprisoned in crates on an Ohio factory farm, the zebras confined on a Texas hunting ranch? That’s a more complicated question, but still a relatively easy one to answer. Of course we should care about the suffering of these creatures, and all the more so when their afflictions are laid on them by human beings. Almost to a person, we would care and hurt for these creatures if we saw their suffering up close, just as we care for the animals we know and love as our pets. Often the only difference—the only thing that dulls or quiets our empathy—is the simple fact that they are far away and out of sight. And the people who profit from harsh and cruel practices want to keep it that way.
The Moral Scale and Humane Living
FOR ALL THE VARIOUS theories of rights concerning animals, the cause of animal protection appeals ultimately to our sense of fairness, to our capacity for mercy, and to standards of conduct that are ancient and universal. When we read in Proverbs that “the righteous man regardeth the life of his beast, but the tender mercies of the wicked are cruel,” that’s the language of humanity speaking, and it’s heard in every culture and every time. In fact, far from advancing novel theories and new agendas, often the greatest challenge of the animal-welfare movement is to remind people of things they already know to be true—that to mistreat any animal is beneath us, that cruelty of any kind is dishonorable and inexcusable, and that we all have duties of kindness and self-restraint in the treatment of our fellow creatures.
But believing in general principles is one thing; putting them into practice is another. Making choices to reduce our impact on other creatures’ lives is not a simple proposition, given our traditional dependence on animals for food, clothing, and recreation. The use of animals was long ago built into our way of life. And making adjustments and changes, even when past necessities are now simply options, and the basic needs of former times are the minor conveniences of today, still seems like asking a lot. And for many people, the big step comes when they make the connection between the animals in their own lives and animals in general, and empathy and moral concern begin to extend outward.
As always, there are challenges in reconciling moral concern with our daily practices, and the most problematic is our attachment to a meat-based diet. Most of us are taught as children to eat animal products to maintain our health and strength. Meat, milk, and eggs are everywhere—they are staples stocked in our refrigerators, on the shelves of our supermarkets, and on the menus of restaurants. At almost every turn, it’s presented as a given that you cannot get by without meat. And if a person is not willing to question that, or allow moral considerations to influence their choices in what to buy and eat, then often the progression is reversed: food preferences are allowed to override any further moral inquiry. Instead of thinking clearly and objectively about our real options in diet, and our real obligations to avert cruelty and suffering, many simply go along with their impulses, submitting in effect to a tyranny of whim and appetite.
In endless forms, advertising does its part to silence any serious thought about the treatment of animals, whether it’s “Beef: It’s What’s for Dinner,” “the Incredible Edible Egg,” or California’s “happy cows.” So does the federal government. When I was a kid, the federal government posted a diagram of the “Basic Four Food” groups. The message was you’d be unhealthy if you did not liberally consume meat, dairy, and eggs, since they represented half the schematic. Marion Nestle, professor of nutrition at New York University, has documented how these guidelines were formulated after heavy lobbying by the industries themselves. And though subsequent refinements have called for more fruits and vegetables in the diet, the Food Pyramid still calls for generous heapings of meat, milk, and eggs.
At the same time, the American Dietetic Association tells us that meat, eggs, and dairy are not needed to maintain good health. On the contrary, nutritionists note that these foods, consumed at today’s per capita rates, contribute to serious health problems from heart disease to cancer. In a sense, the science of nutrition, by removing its imprimatur from meat or other animal products, has opened the door to moral questions a lot of us would rather not entertain. If these products are not vital to our development and health, and in some cases are plainly harmful, then what justification is left except for taste and pleasure? Eating meat may be a powerfully ingrained and familiar habit, and it may provide a taste and texture that satisfies the palate. But when it comes at a cost of mass confinement and endless misery, at what point does the moral scale tip in favor of the animals?
In the same way, fur coats were for ages a necessity in some regions. What are fur coats and trim today but a shallow status symbol? Household products and cosmetics tested on animals are everywhere, and the testing is not only painful but endlessly redundant. At a time when alternatives to testing on live animals are available and effective, can’t we finally call an end to this needless abuse of millions of rabbits, dogs, and other animals? There are so many other forms of violence against animals that long ago lost whatever justification they might have claimed. Yet somehow they persist, and whatever sustains these practices, it is not reason or conscience. The moral basis for these harsh uses of animals depended on human need, and when that has passed away, all that usually remains are excuses.
In a marketplace with more choices than ever, there are alternatives. But change is often inconvenient and threatening, and none of us likes to feel as if we’re being told what to do. Cruelty-free food and clothing, moreover, can be harder to find or more expensive. Eating animal products from more humanely raised animals or an entirely plant-based diet requires a shake-up in our shopping habits, along with a higher degree of discipline and personal commitment.
A new diet can be off-putting to others. It can make family members and friends feel awkward, as if a moral judgment is being made about their own choices. And it can make us feel awkward, too, since we don’t want to be seen as preachy or extreme. At that point, we have two rational impulses in conflict—a social concern for animals, and a social instinct for conformity. It’s easy to oppose animal cruelty in principle; wringing cruelty out of our lives is a much bigger challenge in practice.
I was in college when I decided to stop eating meat. I’d seen images of factory farms and gathered more details about the types of agriculture that had largely displaced traditional farming. It wasn’t done as a fad or on a whim—this lifestyle change required some measure of sacrifice, and I took that step because I thought it was the right thing to do. I also hoped my decision might prompt serious-minded people to consider factory farming as an important moral question. Just as others had caused me
to face the matter, I hoped to set an example of my own.
Whenever I explained my rationale, even when I did my best to be measured and inoffensive, the first instinct of my classmates was defensiveness, especially if the subject came up in the dining hall—where the food on our plates put the moral question literally right in front of us. “You aren’t eating meat, but you are wearing leather shoes or a leather belt, aren’t you?” Or “Yes, you are eating a veggie sandwich, but the combine that harvested those vegetables chews up rabbits, mice, and other small animals.” And without fail, “You are wearing a cotton shirt—what about the pesticides that were applied to the fields, poisoning countless birds in the process”?
They were all arguments not to act, not to care, and people can be awfully sharp and resourceful debaters when that’s the ground they’re defending. At some level, however, their arguments had a certain logic. Almost every action we take has some downstream effect on animals, even if it’s indirect and unintentional. If the aspiration is to do no harm through our diet and other consumer choices, then that’s an impossibly high standard—it’s unachievable and impractical. By leading a normal life—eating, hopping in a car or flying in a plane, buying clothes, or flipping on a light switch—we have an impact on animals, though it often goes unseen.
What struck me about my college classmates is that they often invoked these arguments not to enlighten me, or to help me sort through the most challenging moral circumstances. The strategy was simple: if they could poke a hole in my thinking, or find some inconsistency in my behavior, they could absolve themselves of any moral responsibility. In practice, it was a case for doing nothing, merely because one could not do everything. And if we followed that kind of reasoning in any altruistic enterprise, we would despair immediately and never even try to take that crucial first step. Even a lifetime’s worth of compassionate work will never be enough, by this measure, and so what is the point of even trying?
This all-or-nothing attitude had another serious flaw, and the smartest of the skeptics understood as much. If our inability to be perfectly consistent absolved us from any moral responsibility toward animals, then by this logic we had a green light to do just about anything to them. Not only were factory farms and fur production okay, but so too were puppy mills, dogfights, and even horrific abuses of pets. A world with these reductionist rules had no limits. The sophistries tossed off in the Yale dining room are equally available to the worst abusers, and liberally employed to discourage reform of any kind. If it’s all or nothing, nothing will always win. And by that logic, no objective standards are left to prohibit even the most extreme forms of cruelty.
Of course, all of my college friends, if the question were put to them, would concede that cruelty to animals was wrong and that perpetrators of malicious cruelty should be punished by law. They wouldn’t really take their insistence on perfect moral consistency to its logical end—because it would require defending all sorts of appalling and vicious things. When it came to their own pets, they opposed cruelty strenuously, even if other such wrongs could not be eradicated entirely. Whatever arguments they made, they generally shared society’s conviction that animal cruelty is a vice to be prevented and punished.
Once this dawned on them, their instinct was to pivot and attempt to distinguish one form of animal use from another. They tried hard to reconcile their basic intuition that animal cruelty is wrong with society’s acceptance that eating meat, wearing leather, and hunting is right. “Maybe anticruelty principles apply only to pets, and not to wildlife or farm animals,” they ventured. Or “perhaps it is not cruelty if it’s done for a compelling social purpose—like controlling wildlife populations, producing cheap meat, or in finding a cure for a disease.” In other words, the ends justify the means, and the material well-being of a society and our personal comfort depend upon these kinds of unpleasant trade-offs. In each case, they sought a comfortable moral resting place between two beliefs that seemed intuitively correct—objecting to cruelty and holding on to their habits involving more routine uses of animals.
Here is the greatest challenge in the cause of animal protection: the problem is not disagreement with the broad principle that animals deserve kindness and protection, but in the consistent application of that truth. Observance of anticruelty ideals demands something of us, especially in a world where the mistreatment of animals is rampant and, therefore, moral opportunities abound. It is challenging at times to live by the highest application of these principles, and we may continually struggle with the boundaries of ethical conduct. But those difficulties should not prevent us from doing anything at all. Here, as in other matters of conscience, we should be wary of arguments that try to smother doubts and advocate a course of action that requires no reflection, no inconvenience, and no sacrifice.
Rhetorical Camouflage: Debating Opponents of Animal Protection
IN THE YEARS AFTER graduation and finding my way into full-time advocacy, the question of animal protection became more than Ivy League table talk. Now that I was campaigning nationally on behalf of animals, my actions had real-world consequences. My goal from the start was not to prescribe all personal behavior relating to animals, but instead to prevent and ultimately end the worst abuses.
In my new role, I encountered the many actors on all sides of the debate about animals. There were animal advocates loudly protesting outside fur stores, and others lobbying their elected officials. There were hunters and factory farmers defending everything about their industries, while a handful among them saw the need for some reform. And then there were those not nearly as engaged—members of the general public who had become increasingly familiar with the issues but was still sorting through their own conflicted views and habits.
Among animal advocates, there were more women than men and more whites than blacks or Latinos or Asians. There were more college graduates than working-class folk, and more people from the cities than from the country. More often than not, advocates started with a keen affection for their pets that led to a broader awareness of animal cruelty. But there were still animal advocates of every background, with diverse beliefs. Some were particularly passionate about companion dogs or feral cats, others about laboratory monkeys or farm animals, and still others about wild mustangs or endangered wolves. Some were vegetarians, while others minimized their meat consumption or tried to source it from more humane farms. But they shared common goals: to live with greater ethical consistency, to raise society’s awareness, and to make life more bearable for animals.
Like advocacy groups of most every kind, their mission is to draw public attention to great wrongs and needs. The public, by definition, was not nearly as engaged as the activists, but neither were they hostile to the cause. If asked, most people would agree that cruelty was wrong and show no sympathy for animal fighting and other malicious acts toward animals. A majority, if given the chance, would vote for a ballot measure to ease the suffering of farm animals or to ban steel-jawed leghold traps or canned hunts. Some even boycotted fur, meat and eggs from factory farms, and cosmetics and household products tested on animals. Others contributed money to animal charities, especially during times of heightened awareness, as we saw after Hurricane Katrina or the revelations about Michael Vick’s dogfighting.
Then there were the die-hard opponents. My work has brought me into contact with trophy hunters, bear baiters, seal clubbers, factory farmers, commercial breeders, and dogfighters. I debated them on television, on radio, and on college campuses. I appeared at legislative hearings, with the room packed full of cockfighters and trappers. I saw them out in the field—on the ice floes, in the hunting fields, or on their factory farms. I addressed hundreds of outdoor writers and farm broadcasters at their conventions. And I subscribed to the major hunting, cockfighting, and farm publications, acquainting myself with their thinking and their strategies. Typically, they were angry about the criticisms we leveled and they were overtly hostile to the goals of animal protection. Through the year
s I’ve heard almost every imaginable argument against the ethic of animal protection, or at least against reform when it came to their brand of cruelty.
I’ve also seen a lot of cruel practices grow from bad to worse. The agribusiness and hunting industries have strayed farther and farther from mainstream sensibilities, treating animals like a harvestable crop, and using technologies that destroy any claim they ever had to benign husbandry or sportsmanship. More hunters are using laser sights, radio tracking collars on dogs, robotic ducks, automated corn feeders, night-vision goggles, and high-fenced, “guaranteed kill” properties that make sport hunting ever more unfair. And factory farmers are using severe confinement systems, fast-growing breeds, hormones and antibiotics, genetic engineering and cloning, and other methods that show no respect for animals’ dignity as living creatures. As the public learns of these routine practices, they’re growing increasingly skeptical of industry leaders’ claims to respect animal welfare, and increasingly supportive of laws to restrain their conduct.
Our opponents have sensed this shift in public opinion, and they’ve been trying to adapt. Two decades ago, these hardened political opponents took a disdainful attitude toward our movement. They viewed animal advocates as meddlesome outsiders and treated us with contempt, arguing that animals had no rights, that humans could act more or less as they pleased, and that, in any case, what they did with their animals was nobody else’s damn business. They especially disliked what they perceived as our air of moral superiority. This new movement was, as they saw it, a threat to their lifestyles and livelihoods.
But as the years passed and the momentum for reform increased, the dismissive tone gave way to a more nuanced rebuttal, and brusque denials gave way to comforting euphemisms. Realizing that the general public believed animals should be treated humanely, the savvier spokesmen for industry began arguing that any business using animals had an interest in their welfare, because sick and maltreated animals are less productive and therefore less profitable. They drew a distinction between “animal welfare,” which they professed to support, and “animal rights.” Giving their rhetoric a make-over, factory farmers suddenly became advocates of “science-based animal production,” hunters suddenly did less killing and more “harvesting,” and trappers and sealers were now the exemplars of the “sustainable use” of wildlife.
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