The Welfarist Approach
Welfare reform and abolitionist philosophy explained.
When reading and discussing animal liberation with die-hard abolitionists and those vehemently opposed to anything under the humane myth label, I find they do not understand why welfarism exists and the strategy behind that approach. There are articles and books criticizing welfare measures by abolitionists, but in comparison, I find very little in defending welfarism against these attacks. This article is to help bridge those gaps. If you find you are not on either extreme then this article will hopefully clarify the differences between the two sides.
Terms
Welfarist - Those who support the incremental changes to the well-being of animals. Examples of welfare reforms are cage-free chickens, the removal of farrow and gestation crates for pigs, limiting the breeds of broiler chickens, and not branding cows. They typically support initiatives like Meatless Mondays, vegetarianism, and are more open to supporting plant-based diets.
Abolitionist - "There is no right way to do the wrong thing" sums up their position. They are fundamentally against doing something wrong, even if that wrong is done a little better. Abolitionists cannot support cage-free initiatives because they cannot support using chickens for food in the first place. To support welfare and humane initiatives is to still encourage the exploitation of animals. This approach and ask is straightforward: stop using animals in all forms.
1) Utilitarianism vs Deontology
Deontologists believe in fundamental rules or rights for all beings. To violate any rule or right even minorly is wrong.
Utilitarianists use a different measure. They are interested in decreasing suffering and promoting happiness, though we will limit ourselves here to the decrease in suffering. They use what is labeled as "utilitarian calculus" to measure the level of suffering and quantity of the beings involved. Whatever action brings about the least amount of pain is the right course of action.
The usual example is known as the trolley problem. A trolley is coming and will run over five people tied to the tracks. They will die if the trolley continues. You can flip a switch causing the trolley to take a different track. However, there is one person tied to this alternative track. What do you do? Kill one or kill five? The calculus is clear and simple to a utilitarianist. A pure deontologist would not move the trolley because the deontologist would then be involved in the situation and kill someone. The fact that five people will die is unfortunate, but the wrong is on the person who tied those people on the track in the first place, not the lack of action from the deontologist. A utilitarianist rejects this conclusion given they have the power to save more people.
Note that the deontologist has rules they follow. The violation of these rules is the problem, not the outcome of an action. The utilitarian in the trolley problem would ask "Do you kill one or five?" because they are solely interested in the outcome that you have control over. The deontologist would say this is a bad question because the deontologist is not involved. Being present in this situation, even if the deontologist is the only person who can save some lives, does not necessarily entangle the deontologist in the situation, therefore they have done nothing wrong by not taking action.
Welfarists are utilitarianists since they are interested in the reduction of suffering. Abolitions typically fall under the deontology umbrella.
The mainstream animal rights movement origin is typically marked by the book Animal Liberation by Peter Singer in 1970. Small groups and some Eastern religions existed before Animal Liberation's publication, but Animal Liberation gave the animal rights movement a wider foundation and sparked accelerated growth in the West. PETA and Direct Action Everywhere, for example, would likely not exist if not for Animal Liberation. For simplicity, we will say the modern animal rights movement has existed for 50 years in the West.
Measuring the number of vegans is difficult. If there has been a rise in the number of vegans in the last 50 years, it has only been recent [1]. For all the effort, strategy, and execution of vegan outreach, the number of people not eating animals has barely increased, if at all, and animal consumption has only increased across the world [2].
As those of us interested in the plight of the animals, we are obligated to ask ourselves: do we continue with the existing approaches to create more vegans? If we cannot create more vegans quickly enough then perhaps we should at least outlaw the worst of farming practices to ease the suffering inflicted on those individuals bred into a factory farm. We may not stop some people from eating animals, but those animal’s lives will be better.
Spend some time putting yourself in the shoes of the animals involved. If you were an egg-laying hen born on a farm, would you prefer to spend your two years of egg production in a wire cage so small you cannot spread your wings or on the floor where some movement is possible? If you were a pig, would you prefer being forced to lay sideways on the ground due to a crate immobilizing you, or would you like to be able to stand up as needed? If you were a cow, would you rather get your ears pierced or a red hot iron rod pressed against your flesh to brand you?
A deontologist would say all these practices are wrong and therefore we should be against them all, but the reality is that these animals are going through these practices right now. A welfarist says we are not persuading the public enough to stop using animals, so we should remove the worst practices that cause animals harm.
If we are concerned only with suffering, we need to look at the number of individuals involved and the extent of the suffering. For the number of individuals, chickens rank number one [3]. For the level of suffering, being immobilized in a cage is considered the worst [4]. Hence why groups like the Humane League are almost solely focused on cage-free initiatives for chickens.
If you care more about rules being followed or rights not being infringed on for any reason, the appeals of utilitarianism will fall flat. Suffering for a deontologist is not the measure of morals. A utilitarianist, on the other hand, the idea that we can take action to avoid some suffering is more important than the moral purity of claiming we followed some particular rule. Meaning, that if you gravitate towards one ethical framework, the approach of the other in the struggle for helping animals will be wrong. Given the other side is wrong, we see constant arguments within the animal liberation movement about what we should be doing.
2) Increase the Cost of Animal Agriculture
Animal agriculture exists because they make money. Factory farms and the abhorrent practices within them exist to maximize profit. Government subsidies serve to pad any loss of the farmer. Money goes into lobbying efforts to keep this system afloat. Therefore, any cost added or any measurement to slow the farming efficiency process down is a strain on the system's ability to function at the same profit level that it does. This loss of money means the loss of political power (less money for lobbying) and would serve to dissuade farmers and their families from continuing to farm animals [5].
The profit margin of eggs is extremely small in comparison to most products and goods being sold in general [6]. Getting egg-laying hens out of cages means farmers are forced to get new barns and new equipment which is costly in both time and money. Increasing the cost of eggs at the store will therefore deter customers from buying as many eggs which then will cause the system to lose money. Cage-free eggs cost more, so if all eggs cost more then some people will be priced out of buying eggs.
Each welfare measure not only decreases suffering but incurs an additional cost to animal agriculture. With enough additional costs, animal product consumption will decrease, resulting in the loss of political power. Less political power means a snowballing effect of more pro-animal measures that can pass in legislation.
3) Humane Labeling Battle
Regardless of which side of the debate you fall on, you will have to fight against animal agriculture marketing. All farmers will claim they are following the law and the best ethical standards. All products will contain pictures of happy animals on a happy farm. Anonymous for the Voiceless puts factory farm footage in front of people to show the reality of farms to combat animal agriculture marketing. Anonymous for the Voiceless is an abolitionist group. The Humane League shares pictures of the conditions of chickens in cages. The Humane League focuses on welfare initiatives. Yet both expose the realities of animal farms in their strategies.
The Humane Hoax [7] claims that welfarists are handing animal agriculture their marketing material since animal agriculture can print "cage-free" on their eggs or "humanely slaughtered" on their beef. Taking cage-free eggs as an example, this does not change anything about our message whether we are an abolitionist or welfarist. When someone says they purchase cage-free eggs, I ask what about male chicks put in grinders, debeaking, overuse of antibiotics, lack of sunlight, chickens living in filth, no roosting options, gross environmental waste, and cramped conditions. The cages might be gone, but there are still many issues with farming chicken eggs. Welfarists simply attempt to remove one bad practice at a time.
What we mean by the terms we use is important, and we often are not clear when debating. A welfarist would use the term "humane" to mean "more humane" while an abolitionist uses the term to mean "completely ethical". Abolitionists would say there is no humane way to use an animal while a welfarist would say there are more humane ways we can treat animals that exist on our farms. Abolitionists do not believe in "more humane" because ethical issues are binary. They are either right or wrong.
4) Not Everyone Needs to be Vegan for Animal Liberation
How to Create A Vegan World by Tobias Lennaert lays out the thesis that we do not need a significant number of people to become vegan to create a vegan world. What we need is for animal agriculture to lose their political power enough for pro-animal laws to take hold. As mentioned in the "Increase the Cost of Animal Agriculture" section, animal agriculture losing money to the extent they can no longer maintain the cozy relationship they currently hold with the government is key. This can happen when the demand for animal products hits a critical low. This lack of demand does not need to come from vegans but can be distributed across the population.
To illustrate this: A vegan does not eat meat seven days a week, but ten people taking part in Meatless Mondays nets ten days of no meat consumption compared to the seven days from the vegan per week. What is easier to create: a vegan or ten people reducing their consumption of animals for one day a week? Expand these numbers to the entire population and we will see a significant impact on animal agriculture. With more people open to eating plants, they will likely be more open to pro-animal reforms [8], which will aid the snowball effect of compounding on itself. Add this to the other ideas presented here for reducing the political power of animal agriculture, and we have a solid plan for animal liberation.
5) Welfarists are Ultimately Abolitionists
After reading the Humane Hoax, I found abolitionists are either ignorant or acting in bad faith by implying those working on welfare campaigns will pack up and go home once their welfare policy passes. While anecdotal, I have yet to read or hear from anyone who supports welfare reforms that those reforms are the end goal. Animal liberation and an anti-speciesist society are the goals of all abolitionists and reformists. Welfare reforms are a strategy to get us to that goal, just as vegan outreach and other system-level disruptions are too. So for abolitionists to pretend that getting chickens out of cages is the only goal of welfarists is absurd and incorrect.
Conclusion
Deontology vs utilitarianism has been debated within philosophical circles for well over a hundred years. Welfarism vs abolition is the deontology vs utilitarianism debate in action. We went through these details to understand the foundation of the thought process on both sides and to understand this divide is nothing new when discussing ethics. Hence, this will likely not be solved anytime soon either.
Abolitionists and welfarists have the same end goal: stop the exploitation and use of animals. Welfarists prioritize reducing suffering and increasing the cost of farming animals. Abolitionists try to get people to go vegan and directly disrupt institutions of violence. Both approaches ultimately have a similar effect on removing money from the system of farming animals and decreasing the use of animals.
Neither side has a monopoly on effective strategy as neither side has produced the winning formula for animal liberation. Therefore, I usually encourage anyone to do whatever they can with the path they find more interesting, motivating, and tangible given their ability. What is most important is that we do something while not blocking others. Internal debates on philosophy and strategy are of course important (and sometimes fun!) but resources should never be spent on publicly shaming and criticizing the other side given we have a common enemy that brutalizes billions of individuals every year, which I find to be far more important. But that might just be the utilitarianism in me coming out.
[1] https://sentientmedia.org/increase-in-veganism/
[2] https://ourworldindata.org/meat-production
[3] https://ourworldindata.org/how-many-animals-get-slaughtered-every-day
[4] https://www.ciwf.org.uk/media/5235306/The-life-of-Broiler-chickens.pdf
[7]
https://www.humanehoax.org/
[8] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0195666310003648?via%3Dihub=
I deeply resonate with your distinction and frustration between a welfarist and an abolitionist/deontologist.
I don’t think vegans need to back down from deontology to non-vegans though. I’ve been saying this… If you are firmly in support that pigs should have more space / cows more time with their babies / chickens to be cage-free…..then how the hell would you justify KILLING that creature you just advocated welfare for?
If you give ONE inch of welfare to animals in factory farms, why the hell are you then for killing it? The classic example… if I gave my dog a perfect life for 5 years then killed it on it’s 6th birthday for its meat, would that be okay? NO.
It would only be justified if we NEEDED to eat animals. THEN it would be worth giving them the best life then ending it in the least painful way possible. But obviously we don’t.
Great read! You make some really good points here. I didn't realize there were two types of vegan activists. I'd identify more as a welfarist for sure. Obviously animal liberation is the end goal for us all. But small wins that gradually improve animal welfare are steps in the right direction and I imagine make a big difference for the animals.