Focusing on Veganism versus Focusing on Reducing Consumption

Original text Luciano Carlos Cunha · Volume VIII, p. 69 of the PDF edition · English translation

9.1. Avoiding biases when assessing strategies

If what we aim for is to benefit animals in the best way possible, then we need to resist the temptation to reject or approve a certain strategy in advance, based on our intuitions (that is, our initial responses), before properly understanding what its possible positive and negative effects are.

Confirmation bias inclines us to notice what confirms what we already thought and to neglect what goes against our prior beliefs. This bias influences our attitudes in general, including when we assess activism strategies.

Another related bias is the take-the-best heuristic, a mental shortcut we use when choosing between alternatives, so as to decide quickly without needing to know all the information about each alternative. When we use this heuristic, instead of considering all the reasons why we might choose one alternative over another, we pick one reason and base our decision exclusively on it.

Let us look at an example. People generally consider that pointing out a single benefit of the strategy they intuitively sympathize with is already enough to prove that it is a good strategy. Similarly, they consider that pointing out a single negative effect of the strategy they intuitively dislike is already enough to prove that it is not a good strategy.

This way of thinking keeps us from making good decisions. For example, a strategy that has positive effects may have other, greater negative effects, resulting in a negative net balance overall. Similarly, it is possible that a strategy that has negative effects also has other, greater positive effects that give it a positive net balance. And even the fact that a strategy has a positive net balance does not show that there is no better strategy that could be tried in its place. A further complication is that sometimes one strategy carries fewer risks than another, but also has fewer positive effects. There are a series of difficulties we need to face if our goal is to help efficiently.

Analyzing the potential effects of each strategy is not an easy task. That is precisely why we should not rush to reject or embrace a strategy before investigating its likely effects.

9.2. Understanding when the disagreement is about strategies and when it is about goals

Sometimes disagreements that are strategic (that is, about the most efficient means of achieving the same goal) are mistakenly understood as if they were disagreements about the goals themselves, giving the impression that the degree of disagreement is greater than it really is. This makes it impossible to adopt mutual commitments that might have been possible had it been perceived that the disagreement is strategic.

Consider, for example, the following question: is it better to focus on trying to get people to adopt veganism or to get them to reduce their consumption of animal products?

This debate is often understood in the following terms: “advocates who focus on veganism believe that animal exploitation is unjust and aim to abolish it; advocates who focus on promoting reduced consumption, by contrast, believe that the problem is excessive consumption of animals and that, once it is reduced, there is nothing wrong with animal exploitation.”

This may be the case for many advocates, but it is certainly not the case for all of them. For example, there are advocates who focus on reduction but have the same goal as the advocates who focus on veganism: they aim for the abolition of the use of animals. However, they believe that, to achieve this goal, trying to convince people to reduce their consumption of animals is more efficient than trying to convince them to become vegan. Therefore, their disagreement is not about the goal: it is about which strategy is best for achieving that goal.

This does not mean that focusing on reduction is necessarily a better strategy than focusing on veganism, or vice versa. Next, we will look at some possible positive and negative effects of each of these strategies. The important point to note now is that disagreement about strategies does not necessarily indicate disagreement about goals. Realizing this (and also that the efficiency of the different strategies is, at least to some degree, uncertain) opens space for mutual understanding, avoiding the thought that people who follow strategies different from ours are bad or ignorant people.

As said before, examining each strategy carefully before approving or rejecting it is what is expected of those who aim for the best for animals. That is what we will try to do below.

9.3. The reasoning behind the focus on reduction

The main argument in favor of focusing on reduction is the following. Even if adopting veganism is an obligation in terms of justice toward animals, given the speciesist mentality of most people, if we ask them to do what is right, most people may find the required standard too high (although it really is not), and then simply continue to consume animals exactly as much as they did before. On the other hand, if we ask people only to reduce their consumption of animals, even though this is not what is truly just toward animals, since the demand is much smaller, many more people may come on board.

In short, the main argument in favor of focusing on reduction is this: by focusing on veganism, we may manage to convince a much smaller number of people and, although each vegan person prevents the deaths of many more animals than each person who merely reduces consumption, a much larger number of people doing less may, in the end, represent a much greater reduction in the number of animals killed than a much smaller number of people doing a lot.

Those who adopt this strategy may recognize that veganism is the ideal. However, they could argue that, given how humans are, if demanding the ideal greatly increases the risk of not achieving even the minimum, it is better to secure the minimum, even if this means calling for something that is not the ideal.

Of course, there are also serious arguments for adopting a focus on veganism (which we will see in section 9.5). Below are listed some arguments in favor of each of these approaches, which are a summary of the discussion contained in this list.

9.4. Arguments in favor of focusing on reduction

1) It is possible that many more people doing much less has a greater impact than many fewer people doing much more.

2) Asking people to reduce is less demanding and may therefore be more easily accepted.

3) It may be that, for people to call for the abolition of animal exploitation, it is enough for them to make a minimal change in their consumption.

4) If item 3 is correct, then focusing on reduction may generate broader support among the population for the cause of abolishing animal exploitation.

5) Given how hard it is to understand the difference between strategic disagreements and disagreements about goals, the focus on reduction, by providing an explanation of this, may contribute more to an activism that is sensitive to nuance and complexity.

6) Reduction does not carry the same stigma associated with veganism. Therefore, it may be more easily accepted.

7) The focus on reduction provides the opportunity to explain that the various animal products have different impacts on the suffering and number of deaths of animals. For example, it provides the opportunity to explain that the consumption of shrimp and insects causes many more deaths than the consumption of other animal products.

8) Even if what someone intends is to get people to become vegan, advocating reduced consumption may be a good “foot-in-the-door” strategy. This type of strategy consists of starting by proposing something less demanding, in order to try to make what one really aims for more easily accepted later, in stages. For example, if A asks for 5 dollars and B agrees to donate once, this increases the likelihood that B will agree to donate another 5 dollars later, more so than if A had initially asked for 10 dollars.

9.5. Arguments in favor of focusing on veganism

There are also arguments holding that focusing on veganism has better results. Below we will look at the main ones.

1) It emphasizes more strongly that consideration for animals is a serious matter and that animal exploitation is unjust.

2) Each person who adopts veganism causes a greater reduction in the number of animals exploited.

3) There is research suggesting that, on average, bigger goals produce bigger changes than more moderate goals.

4) Popularizing veganism right now, and also reducing the stigma associated with it, is important if the goal is the large-scale adoption of veganism later on.

5) Calling for reduced consumption may imply to the public that animal exploitation does not need to be abolished. So it is doubtful that, for the public to accept calling for abolition, it is enough for them to reduce their consumption.

6) Vegans seem to have more potential to become activists than those who merely reduce their consumption.

7) Asking people to reduce consumption may, paradoxically, increase the suffering and deaths of animals. This would happen if people misunderstood the message and, instead of consuming nothing of animal origin a few times a week, avoided beef but consumed more poultry, fish, or crustaceans, or avoided meat but consumed more eggs and milk, and so on. For this risk to be avoided, the message in favor of reduction has to be very clear on this point.

8) It is also possible that a smaller number of vegans has a greater impact than a larger number of people who merely reduce consumption. This is especially true if adopting veganism increases the chances of someone becoming an activist. In short, the result of each strategy will depend on these two factors: (1) how much larger or smaller the number of people reached by each strategy will be; and (2) how much benefit to animals each of these people would produce.

9) Veganism necessarily has a focus on consideration for animals. Reducing consumption, by contrast, can be done for environmentalist and anthropocentric reasons (although it can be done out of consideration for animals as well). There is a consensus among researchers that focusing on animals is not only more efficient at benefiting animals, but also that the use of environmentalist and anthropocentric arguments may be counterproductive, as we discussed in detail in Chapter 4.

10) Even if what someone intends is to advocate reduced consumption, advocating veganism may be a good “door-in-the-face” strategy. This type of strategy consists of first proposing something more demanding, so that what one really aims for will be more easily accepted later. For example, if A asks for fifty dollars and B refuses, and A then asks “what if it were just 5 dollars, would you donate?”, the probability that B will donate is greater than if A had started by asking for the 5 dollars, which is what A really wants.

9.6. Conclusion and some additional questions

Above, some arguments in favor of each type of focus were listed. However, there are also at least two other possibilities. One is to argue that there may be a better impact if different people advocate different focuses, instead of all focusing on the same strategy (or that we should try this at least as long as we do not have more precise data on the results of these different focuses). Yet another option would be for each person to try out the different focuses over the same period of time and then try to compare the efficiency of both. It is important to note that everything discussed here concerns changes in individual attitudes. Another parallel and important discussion is whether we should focus on changes in individual attitudes or on institutional changes.

The aim of this chapter, more than investigating which of these strategies is more efficient, was to show that, at least in this case, the disagreement among advocates is not necessarily about the goal. It seems to be much more about which strategy is best for achieving a shared goal, which is the end of animal exploitation. If there were a difference in goals, there would still be no reason at all for conflict and hostility, but rather for an honest and respectful debate about the goals. Now, if the goal is the same, conflict and hostility make even less sense. There are, instead, many reasons for us to carry out together — respectfully and honestly — a thoughtful and thorough examination of the pros and cons of each strategy.