Different approaches to animal advocacy

The total approach and the sufficient approach

In this text, we’ll explore two types of approaches with the goal of getting more people to care about issues affecting animals. We’ll call them the total approach and the sufficient approach.¹ We’ll look at examples of the advantages and disadvantages of each in different contexts.

Different compatibility ranges

The different approaches we can use to try to get people to accept a given conclusion have compatibility ranges that are more or less broad. The more additional ideas someone must accept to reach a conclusion, the narrower that range is, because those who disagree with those additional ideas won’t accept the conclusion. The fewer additional ideas required, the broader the range, because people who disagree on many other issues can still accept the proposed conclusion.

For example, imagine we want to defend idea A, and we initially think that accepting it requires accepting idea B. We then start trying to get people to accept B. In doing so, we may inadvertently convey the message that those who disagree with B have no reason to accept A. However, imagine we later discover that accepting A doesn’t actually require accepting B. In that case, it would have been better to emphasize that both those who accept and those who reject B have reasons to accept A.

There are, therefore, two advantages to approaches with a broad range: (1) many more people can accept what we’re proposing, and (2) they highlight that people who disagree on certain ideas can still agree on others.

The total approach and the sufficient approach

In certain situations, someone who disagrees with certain additional ideas will still accept what we’re proposing, even if to a lesser extent than those who do accept those additional ideas. In this sense, it’s important to distinguish two types of approaches:

Total approach: defending the conclusion we genuinely believe is correct, and making explicit the additional ideas required to accept it fully

Sufficient approach: highlighting that those who reject the conclusion in its entirety because they disagree with certain additional ideas can still accept it partially

The total approach has a narrower compatibility range, while the sufficient approach has a broader one. We therefore face a dilemma:

The total approach will likely lead fewer people to accept what we propose, but they’ll accept it to a greater extent.

The sufficient approach will likely lead more people to accept what we propose, but they’ll accept it to a lesser extent.

In the following sections, we’ll look at how each of these two strategies would apply to various issues.

Who should we consider?

Total approach: defending that we should consider all and only sentient beings

Risk: those who advocate considering other types of entities (such as species and ecosystems, for example) may conclude they have no reason to consider sentient beings

Sufficient approach: pointing out that possessing sentience is sufficient to receive consideration, even if it’s not a necessary condition for it, and that there are reasons to prioritize sentient beings, even if we also consider other types of entities

Positions in ethics and politics

Total approach: defending a specific approach in ethics and politics, and showing that it leads to the rejection of speciesism

Risk: those who disagree with that specific approach may conclude they have no reason to reject speciesism

Sufficient approach: arguing for the rejection of speciesism using arguments that don’t require accepting any specific position in ethics or politics

Veganism

Total approach: defending that caring about animals entails adopting veganism

Risk: given the degree of speciesism that exists, some people may think that’s asking too much and therefore not change their behavior towards animals at all

Sufficient approach: pointing out that, even those who haven’t yet adopted veganism can do other things, such as helping animals and reducing their consumption

Speciesism

Total approach: defending that speciesism is unjust and that, therefore, nonhuman animals should receive equal consideration

Risk: those who disagree may conclude they shouldn’t consider animals at all

Sufficient approach: pointing out that, even if humans deserved greater consideration, this wouldn’t mean other animals should receive little — and much less that animal exploitation or leaving animals to their fate when they’re victims of natural processes is justified

Cause prioritization

Total approach: defending that the animal cause should be a priority (given the number of victims, the suffering per victim, the degree of neglect, etc.)

Risk: those who prioritize other causes may conclude they have no reason to give significant importance to the animal cause

Sufficient approach: pointing out that, even if someone prioritizes another cause, they would still have reasons to give significant importance to the animal cause

The magnitude of the harm of death

Total approach: defending the fact that someone doesn’t belong to the human species doesn’t necessarily mean she is less harmed by death²

Risk: those who believe humans are always harmed more than other animals by death may conclude that nonhuman animals are harmed very little by death

Sufficient approach: pointing out that, even if humans were necessarily harmed more by death, this wouldn’t mean other animals are harmed little by death

The harm of death

Total approach: defending that nonhuman animals are harmed by death

Risk: those who disagree may conclude that exploiting them or not helping them when they’re victims of natural processes is justified

Sufficient approach: pointing out that, in the vast majority of cases, opposing animal exploitation and favoring helping animals in the wild requires only recognizing that they are harmed by suffering

The long-term future

Total approach: defending the prioritization of the long-term future, because it will contain an enormously greater number of sentient beings than the short term

Risk: those who prioritize the short term may conclude they have no reason to care about the long term

Sufficient approach: pointing out that, even those who prioritize the short term should recognize that issues related to long-term suffering are very important

The situation of animals in the wild

Total approach: defending that, given the number of victims and the degree of neglect of the problem, the situation of animals in the wild should be a priority

Risk: those who prioritize exploited animals may conclude they have no reason to try to change the situation of wild animals

Sufficient approach: pointing out that, even those who prioritize exploited animals have reasons to devote a portion of their activism to the situation of animals in the wild

The origin of harm and moral responsibility

Total approach: defending that the strength of reasons to prevent a given harm should depend on the magnitude of that harm and the possibility of preventing it, not on whether it originates in human practices or natural processes

Risk: those who believe we should prioritize harms arising from human practices may conclude that it’s justified to ignore natural harms

Sufficient approach: pointing out that, even if we should prioritize preventing anthropogenic harms, this wouldn’t mean we bear no responsibility for natural harms, nor that such responsibility should be small

The relationship between helping wild animals and veganism

Total approach: defending that we should adopt veganism and also seek to reduce the suffering and deaths of animals in the wild

Risk: some people may conclude they should only care about helping animals in the wild if they one day become vegan

Sufficient approach: pointing out that, if we can do something to help, we should do it, even if we aren’t doing other things we should be doing

Activism strategies

Total approach: defending certain activism strategies we consider more efficient

Risk: those who believe other strategies are more efficient may conclude that no collaboration with us is possible

Sufficient approach: pointing out that it’s possible to disagree on certain strategies and agree on others, and also that, even if we disagree entirely on strategies, the goal being pursued is shared

Sentience and the nature of consciousness

Total approach: defending a specific position in philosophy of mind and emphasizing that it implies recognizing that organisms possessing a nervous system with a certain degree of centralization are sentient

Risk: those who adopt another position in philosophy of mind may conclude that this implication follows only from that specific view

Sufficient approach: pointing out that there is a correlation between brain states and mental states, whatever we think about what consciousness is³

The possibility of combining both approaches

What we’ve illustrated above shouldn’t be taken to suggest that the sufficient approach is necessarily better. Despite having a broader compatibility range, it also has serious limitations: (1) it doesn’t delve into the issues at stake, but simply avoids addressing them; (2) it involves moderating our position rather than genuinely defending the one we believe is best; and (3) in most cases, it is only necessary because the total approach isn’t deeply understood (this can be seen in the risks identified in the sections above).

The idea behind the sufficient approach is to moderate the goal being sought in the hope that more people will accept it partially (that is, “more people doing less will have a greater impact”). The idea behind the total approach is the opposite: defending the goal in its entirety, in the hope that fewer people doing more will have a greater impact.

Obviously, to know which of these approaches will work better in each context, we need to know how likely it is that more people will accept the sufficient approach, and how much more those who would accept the total approach would do for animals. This can vary from one context to another.

The choice between one approach or the other, or the decision to combine them, will depend in each case on the context, the audience we’re addressing, and the specific goals we’re pursuing. There is no single answer as to which of the two strategies will have a greater impact in favor of animals. What does seem clear is that being aware of this distinction allows us to make more considered decisions about how to communicate our positions, and avoid inadvertently conveying — through the way we defend our ideas — the message that those who don’t fully share them have no reason to act for the benefit of animals.

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Notes