Normative Objections Disguised as Strategic Objections

Original text Luciano Carlos Cunha · Volume VIII, p. 59 of the PDF edition · English translation

8.1. Normative objections and strategic objections

Sometimes someone does not agree with a given goal. We will call this a normative objection. At other times, someone agrees with the goal but believes that a given strategy will not be efficient for achieving it. We will call this a strategic objection.

Sometimes people sincerely report whether their objection is normative or strategic. However, there are cases in which someone says their disagreement is strategic, but in fact does not agree with the proposed goal. In this text we will explore how this happens in debates on questions of animal ethics.

8.2. The claim that “this would be great, but it won’t work”

There are many cases in which someone states that they agree with a certain proposal but claims that defending it would be futile (that is, that it would have no effect) or even counterproductive (that is, that it would have the opposite of the intended effect).

Arguments of this kind frequently arise against any position that points out that we should be concerned with something that until then we had not seen as a problem. Below we will look at some examples.

8.3. Examples in questions of animal ethics

Below are examples of arguments of this kind in seven different contexts:

Example 1. Faced with the proposal to give moral consideration to animals, saying something like:

“I agree that we should consider animals. However, if it is already hard for people to consider humans, let alone other animals. So it is better to leave the defense of animals to future generations and for now defend only humans, since that is what will make it possible for people in the future to come to consider animals. Pointing out now that the reasons for considering humans imply considering animals will only make people find the very idea of moral consideration absurd and then refuse to consider even humans.”

Example 2: Faced with the proposal to fight speciesism, saying something like:

“I agree that we should reject speciesism. However, if it is already hard for people to reject racism and sexism, let alone speciesism. So it is better to leave the fight against speciesism to future generations and for now focus only on fighting racism and sexism, since that is what will make it possible for people in the future to reject speciesism. Pointing out at the present moment that rejecting racism and sexism implies rejecting speciesism will only make people reject neither racism nor sexism.”

Example 3: Faced with the proposal to advocate the abolition of animal exploitation, saying something like:

“I agree that animal exploitation should be abolished. However, if it is already hard for people to accept exploiting animals less, let alone accept abolishing exploitation. So it is better to leave the advocacy of abolition to future generations and for now focus only on reforms of animal exploitation, since that is what will make it possible for people in the future to accept abolishing it. Advocating abolition now will only make people reject even reducing the suffering of exploited animals.”

Example 4: Faced with the proposal to draw attention to the situation of invertebrates (since they are the vast majority of animals, both in the system of exploitation and in the wild), saying something like:

“I agree that we should consider invertebrates. However, if it is already hard for people to consider vertebrates, let alone invertebrates. So it is better to leave the defense of invertebrates to future generations and for now focus only on vertebrates, since that is what will make it possible for people in the future to consider invertebrates. Defending invertebrates now will only make people refuse to consider even vertebrates.”

Example 5: Faced with the proposal to help wild animals who are victims of natural processes saying something like:

“I agree with the proposal to help wild animals who are victims of natural processes. However, if it is already hard for people to accept being vegan, let alone accept caring about suffering and death that do not result from human practices. So it is better to leave this question to future generations and for now focus only on veganism, since that is what will make it possible for people in the future to accept the proposal to help wild animals. Pointing out now that considering animals implies, besides rejecting their exploitation, also helping wild animals will only make people fail to reject even exploitation.”

Example 6: Faced with the proposal that we should do something to prevent suffering from being multiplied to astronomical levels in the future, saying something like:

“I agree with concern for the long-term future. However, if it is already hard for people to care about the present or the short term, let alone the long term. So it is better to leave the advocacy of concern for the long term to future generations and for now focus only on the present or the short term, since that is what will make it possible for people in the future to accept concern for the long term. Pointing out now that considering the sentient beings of the present or the near future implies considering the sentient beings of the distant future will only make people refuse to consider even the sentient beings of the present.

Example 7: Faced with the proposal that, if nonorganic sentient beings come to exist in the future, they should receive as much consideration as any other sentient being, saying something like:

“I agree with consideration for nonorganic sentient beings. However, if it is already hard for people to accept considering animals, let alone accept considering nonorganic sentient beings. So it is better to leave the defense of all sentient beings, organic and nonorganic, to future generations and for now focus only on animals, since that is what will make it possible for people in the future to accept considering nonorganic sentient beings, should they come to exist. Pointing out now that considering animals implies considering nonorganic sentient beings, should they come to exist, will only make people refuse to consider even animals.

The examples above are just a few samples of this type of argument. As should now be clear, they all follow the same pattern (which we will detail in section 8.7), and this pattern appears in many other contexts. However, the examples above are sufficient for what this text aims to discuss.

8.4. One possibility: the real motivation is not the one stated

Something common to all the examples above is that the objections are presented as strategic objections. That is, the person raising the objection emphasizes that they agree with the proposed goal, but claims that defending it (or at least defending it now) will be futile or even counterproductive.

It is possible that, in several of the cases in which the above claims are made, the reservation really is strategic. However, there is at least one other possibility: the person does not in fact agree with the proposed goal, but says they are against defending it for strategic reasons.

In short, it may be that, although what is said is “don’t do this because it won’t work,” the real fear is exactly the opposite: “don’t do this because it might work, and I don’t want that result.” That is, although what is said is “there’s no point in defending this because no one will accept it,” it may be that the real fear is that people will accept what is being proposed. In these cases, what is sought is to get the other person to give up defending an idea one disagrees with, while pretending to agree with it.

This does not mean that it is necessarily done deliberately. It may be deliberate in some cases, and done unconsciously in others. But, whether conscious or unconscious, it is a normative objection disguised as a strategic objection.

8.5. Is it possible to detect a disguised normative objection?

Is there a way of knowing when someone presents a strategic objection to disguise the fact that their disagreement is normative? One possible test would be to ask: “if you found out that you are mistaken, and that defending the idea in question now is the best way to achieve it and to achieve the other goals we want, would you still be against defending it?” If in that case the person is still against it, then their objection is normative.

However, this test will not succeed if the person who disguises their normative objection as a strategic objection does so deliberately and realizes that we are trying to find out whether their reservation really is strategic, as they say. If they realize we are testing them, they may lie, claiming that, if defending the idea in question now were a good strategy, they would readily agree to defend it.

However, this test will work if the aim is to find this out about ourselves. As we will see in more detail in section 8.7, a normative objection is sometimes disguised as a strategic objection unconsciously. So it is always possible for someone to ask themselves: “if it were proven that defending the idea in question now is a good strategy for achieving what it proposes, would I still be against it?” If so, the disagreement is normative.

8.6. Why does this happen?

If someone disagrees with a certain goal, why do they not simply say that their disagreement is normative, instead of saying that their objection is strategic when that is not the case? There are several reasons why this may happen. Below are four examples.

A first possibility is that the person does this so that it does not become explicit that they have no good arguments for rejecting the proposed goal.

A second possibility is that the person thinks the disguise will make it easier to convince the other person. For example, someone may think that the other person will not listen to those who disagree with their goal, but will listen to those who accept the goal but think that defending it now will be futile or counterproductive.

A third possibility is that someone realizes that the idea in question is becoming increasingly accepted, and that disagreeing with it could be frowned upon. Let us take an example involving the moral consideration of nonhuman animals. In previous decades, objections to such consideration used to be explicitly normative: it was argued that we have no obligations toward animals, that humans should receive privileged treatment, that animal exploitation is justified, and so on. However, over the years an increasing number of people have come to reject speciesism. Thus, if someone realizes that defending speciesism may “not look good,” this may lead them to say that their disagreement is strategic (to disguise the fact that the objection is normative). The same holds for the contexts of the other examples we have seen.

Finally, a fourth possibility is the desire to avoid cognitive dissonance, that is, the discomfort that results from holding beliefs that conflict with one another or from having attitudes that conflict with our beliefs. For example, someone may believe that the proposal in question has good reasons in its favor, but it runs counter to beliefs and attitudes they have cultivated for many years. So they start claiming that defending the proposal in question will not work, so that they can keep holding the beliefs and attitudes they held before and thus escape cognitive dissonance. A good example is when it is claimed that helping wild animals would only make everything even worse, despite good intentions, without investigating whether this would really happen.

When those claims we saw in section 8.3 are made, their proponents rarely investigate whether or not what they claim would be very likely to happen. If there is no such investigation, then the claim is most likely made only to avoid cognitive dissonance, and not because the person really has good data to claim that what they allege would in fact happen. We will say more about this below.

8.7. A common pattern in objections of this kind

In the previous section we talked about possible motivations behind the claims we saw in section 8.3. Does the person really disagree for strategic reasons, or are they disguising their normative disagreement? If the latter, do they do so deliberately or unconsciously? Whether deliberately or unconsciously, why do they do it?

All this is interesting from a psychological point of view. However, to assess whether or not the claims in question are plausible, this investigation into the real motivation behind the claims is not necessary. In this and the next two sections we will discuss the plausibility of the claims.

To begin with, it is important to note that there is a common pattern in all of those claims:

(1) That no one will accept what is being proposed until another attitude is accepted.

(2) That getting people to accept this other attitude is so crucial for paving the way for the acceptance of what is being proposed that we should focus exclusively on this other attitude and leave the defense of what we want to propose to the next generations.

(3) That defending the proposal in question now will make people not accept other positions that we want them to accept.

Below we will discuss who bears the burden of proof with regard to these claims.

8.8. Who bears the burden of proof?

The proponents of those claims often assume that those who disagree with them have to prove that they could not be true. That is, they assume that the mere fact that it is not impossible for these things to happen shifts the burden of proof to the other side. But that is not how it works. The burden of proof lies entirely with those who make such claims, to show that these things would in fact happen (or, at least, that they would be highly likely to occur).

This is so for a simple reason: the burden of proof always lies with whoever makes a claim that is not obvious. For example, if I claim that people whose names begin with the letter L have a predisposition to like songs that begin in the key of C minor, it is up to me to prove that this is true (and not up to whoever doubts it to prove that it is false).

To better understand why the burden of proof lies with those who make such claims, consider the following example.

Example 8: Faced with the proposal that we combat racism and sexism, someone says something like:

“I agree that we should reject racism and sexism. However, if it is already hard for people to consider individuals of their own race and their own gender, let alone reject racism and sexism. So it is better to leave the fight against racism and sexism to future generations and for now focus only on fighting for people to respect individuals of their own race and their own gender, since that is what will make it possible for people in the future to reject racism and sexism. Pointing out now that what really explains why we should respect individuals of our own race and our own gender implies rejecting racism and sexism will only make people fail to respect even individuals of their own race and their own gender.”

Faced with a position of this kind, it would be very clear that claims are being made that are, at the very least, highly controversial (and, in this case, the possibility that a disagreement that is actually normative is being disguised as a strategic disagreement would probably be readily noticed). Note that it is not impossible for such claims to be true. But, since such claims are not at all obvious (indeed, they are highly controversial), it is up to their proponents to prove that they are true (or, at least, that they have a very high probability of occurring).

But that is not what usually happens in the case of the claims we saw earlier. Usually their proponents either assume that it is the other side that has to prove them false, or else they try to “meet” the burden of proof by saying things like “it is obvious that all this would happen” or “I know of cases in which this happened.” None of this meets the burden of proof. First, because saying “it is obvious that all this would happen” is not offering any reason at all for us to think that it would happen. Second, because pointing to cases where it happened does not show that it would happen in most cases, or even that it would happen frequently.

It is not easy to meet the burden of proof with regard to the claims we saw in section 8.3. First, because each of them involves not just one controversial claim, but three. Second, because if one of the three is not proven, the argument is already greatly weakened, even if the other two were proven.

Moreover, there are several reasons to doubt such claims. In the next section we will look at each of these reasons separately.

8.9. Reasons for rejecting the claims

We saw in the previous section that the burden of proof lies with those who make those claims. In this section we will see that, in addition, reasons can be offered for doubting the claims in question. We will also see that, with regard to some of those claims, even if they were true, they would not support the conclusion their proponents are aiming for.

Consider the claim that no one will accept what is being proposed until another attitude is accepted. Suppose this were the case. The fact is that, since there are already people who accept the other attitude, whoever makes the claim would have to admit that these people could accept what is being proposed. For example, one of the claims is that, to accept helping wild animals, someone first has to be vegan. Since there are people who are already vegan, whoever makes this claim would have to admit that it is worth talking about helping wild animals with these people. The same holds for any of the claims in the other examples.

Moreover, there are cases that show that accepting the other attitude is not necessary for accepting what is being proposed. Let us again take as an example the proposal to help wild animals. In fact, several of its proponents report that it is easier for people to accept it than to accept veganism. This is because this proposal demands less of each of us individually than veganism does, since usually those who would do the helping would be the professionals of the aid programs (what each of us would have to do is support such programs), whereas veganism involves each of us changing the way we eat and dress, for example. This shows that it is false that, to accept the proposal to help wild animals, someone first has to be vegan. In any of the other examples, pointing to the case of people who accept what is being proposed but do not accept the other attitude demonstrates that accepting this other attitude is not necessary for accepting what is being proposed.

And even if accepting the other attitude were necessary for accepting what we are proposing, this does not necessarily imply that we should stop defending what we are proposing and leave that task to future generations. For example, it could be that defending both ideas simultaneously now is the best way to achieve what we aim for.

Finally, there are also reasons to doubt the claim that defending the proposals in question now will make people not accept other positions that we want them to accept. There are at least two other possibilities. First, it may be that what is being proposed has no influence at all on getting people to accept or reject these other positions. Second, there is also the possibility that what is being proposed actually helps people understand why they should accept these other positions and would thus help people accept these other positions.

For example, if we explain to someone that the sentient beings of the future matter because they too would be capable of being harmed and benefited, since they would be capable of suffering and enjoyment, it is easy to explain why moral consideration for animals (nonhuman and human) rests on the same pillars. Similarly, if we explain to someone that speciesism is unjust because it violates the principle of equal consideration, it becomes easy to explain that we should reject racism and sexism for the same reason. If we explain that we should be concerned with the situation of wild animals because they are sentient beings and natural processes harm them, it becomes easy to see that we should also be concerned with the human practices that harm sentient beings, whether domesticated or wild, and so on.

As we saw in the previous section, the burden of proof lies with those who make those claims. However, as we have seen in this section, we also have reasons, in addition, to doubt those claims.