The Use of Anthropocentric and Environmentalist Arguments in the Animal Cause

Original text Luciano Carlos Cunha · Volume VIII, p. 30 of the PDF edition · English translation

4.1. The strategy of using anthropocentric or environmentalist arguments

There are many ways of advocating for the moral consideration of all sentient beings. These include not only presenting arguments for rejecting speciesism and other forms of discrimination against sentient beings, but also any other forms of activism that promote this consideration, even if indirectly.

One example of an indirect strategy is to argue against animal exploitation, but with arguments not centered on consideration for animals. Examples include arguing:

• That animal agriculture has a negative environmental impact.
• That animal products are harmful to human health.
• That consuming animals is not natural for humans.
• That torturing animals is training for torturing humans.
• That the way animal products are made is disgusting.
• That animal experimentation poses risks to humans.
• That animal agriculture is related to human hunger.
• That a plant-based diet was the original way of eating of certain peoples.

...and so on.

This strategy is based on two premises:

• The first is the belief that the consequences for animals are the same whether people stop exploiting them out of consideration for them or for other reasons (“for animals, what matters is what you do, not what you think”).
• The second is the belief that these anthropocentric or environmentalist arguments are more efficient at leading people not to exploit animals because, since people are speciesist, they would be more easily convinced by them.

In this text, we will discuss this strategy³⁶.

4.2. Some problems with the use of anthropocentric and environmentalist arguments

There are at least two ways in which the two premises above can be questioned:

• It is not only the exploitation of animals that matters. Also mattering are the harms suffered by animals in the wild as a result of natural processes³⁷ and the new forms of suffering that may arise in the future³⁸. As we will see in the next section, anthropocentric and environmentalist arguments, besides not addressing these problems, may increase them.
• Contrary to what may initially seem to be the case, the different motivations for ceasing to exploit animals do not have the same consequences.

Both points will be explained in more detail in the next section.

4.3. Why different motivations have different consequences

In planning a strategy, we need to take into account all the likely consequences we can estimate, and not just some of them. Thus, we have to take into account not only the direct impact of the use of animal products but also, crucially, the impact of the worldview we strengthen with each strategy.

The influence each person has through their consumption lasts until the end of their life. The effects of the worldview they pass on, by contrast, extend over centuries or millennia, since they affect how other people will decide and how they will influence still other people to decide. The values people adopt guide the way they make all their decisions throughout their lives, and they also determine which values they pass on to other people, including future generations. In short, there is a snowball effect.

With this in view, we have reasons to think that arguments centered on consideration for animals would have a better impact, especially in the long term, since they help increase moral consideration for sentient beings, something no other argument does. In fact, as we will see in the following sections, the use of arguments not centered on consideration for animals could even increase the harms to sentient beings.

4.4. Do indirect arguments make it easier to accept considering sentient beings?

It could be objected that speciesism is often defended not because people believe it is correct, but as an excuse, simply because they like the taste of animal products. Thus, in defense of using anthropocentric or environmentalist arguments, it could be said that, if people stop consuming animals, for whatever reason, it will be easier for them to accept an antispeciesist view later on.

The same would hold for other forms of animal exploitation, such as animal experimentation. According to this view, the people who defend it do not do so because they consider it just, but simply because they do not want to give up the benefits they have obtained from it (for example, having built scientific careers performing experiments on animals).

Therefore, according to this view, getting people, by whatever means, to stop exploiting animals may be more efficient for achieving a world in which sentient beings receive full consideration than advocating for that consideration itself.

This argument is based on an idea that seems correct. However, if the argument succeeds, the conclusion that follows is that we should combine this strategy with advocacy of consideration for sentient beings. Why? Because the argument only indicates that lines of argument not centered on consideration for animals would help with consideration for sentient beings. But that consideration would still be necessary to prevent harms in the long term. Thus, even if the argument were correct, the use of arguments not centered on animals would at most facilitate the expansion of moral consideration for animals. However, if this is so, then it makes sense to think that, to achieve it, it is probably more efficient to spread it directly than to spread other ideas.

Moreover, it is possible that people who defend animal exploitation do so simply because they give very little consideration to nonhuman animals (and not because they consider exploitation wrong and defend it simply to disguise the fact that they do not want to give up consuming animal products). If they considered animals even a little, the enormous amount of suffering and death caused by animal exploitation should already be a minimal motivating reason for them to try to give up, or at least reduce, their consumption of animals. Now, if this does not happen, and if these people would give up consuming animals for anthropocentric or environmentalist reasons, this is a sign that they strongly believe in anthropocentric and environmentalist values. So it is at the very least uncertain whether their stopping consuming animals for anthropocentric or environmentalist reasons would make it easier for them to later accept considering all sentient beings.

4.5. Risks of using arguments not centered on consideration for sentient beings

The risk of implying that animals do not matter

There is also the risk that the use of anthropocentric and environmentalist arguments may delay (or even prevent) consideration for sentient beings. For example, if even when the subject is the exploitation of animals the arguments used to address the issue have nothing to do with the harm to animals, this may help emphasize that the suffering and death of animals is something that does not matter much (or even that does not matter at all). Thus, the use of arguments not centered on consideration for animals may help strengthen the speciesist view, which is precisely the cause of the terrible situation in which animals find themselves.

The risk of strengthening views opposed to consideration for animals

Since anthropocentrism and environmentalism involve values diametrically opposed to consideration for sentient beings, using arguments grounded in these values carries a great risk of making it harder to accept sentience-centered values.

The risk of increasing animal exploitation

Another possible effect of using indirect arguments is to convey the idea that, if animals are being harmed without negatively affecting humans or the environment, then that is fine. This may help encourage the search for more sustainable ways of exploiting animals that may be even worse for them, such as confining them in even smaller spaces, or promoting the consumption of aquatic animals and insects, which would cause a vastly greater number of animals to die, since these animals are much smaller. These practices may even be beneficial for humans or from an environmentalist point of view.

In these cases, the use of arguments not centered on animals may help considerably increase the number of exploited animals, resulting in more animals being killed than even if nothing had been said against animal exploitation.

The risk of increasing the suffering of wild animals

The use of anthropocentric and environmentalist arguments may also contribute to neglect of the suffering of wild animals resulting from natural processes and to a rejection of the proposal to help them³⁹. Besides possibly leading people to approve of forms of animal exploitation that are sustainable or advantageous to humans, it may also lead people to advocate practices such as the expansion of natural territory⁴⁰, space colonization⁴¹, and disregard for possible future nonorganic sentient beings⁴². All these risks, if realized, would generate much more suffering than animal exploitation⁴³.

4.6. Conclusion

One of the main reasons why there are risks that suffering of astronomical magnitude will be generated in the future is the fact that those who could affect sentient beings positively or negatively do not give them moral consideration. Thus, to reduce such risks, it is essential not to postpone advocating for the moral consideration of all sentient beings.