Welfare vs Rights – A counterproductive false dichotomy

A false dilemma (also called false dichotomy, false binary, black-and-white thinking, bifurcation, denying a conjunct, the either-or fallacy, fallacy of exhaustive hypotheses, the -fallacy of false choice, the fallacy of the false alternative, or the fallacy of the excluded middle) is a type of informal fallacy that involves a situation in which only limited alternatives are considered, when in fact there is at least one additional option. (Wiki)

In 2008, while conducting an online campaign to stop the Onderstepoort Biological Products horses from going to slaughter after the organisation was finished with them, I founded an organisation called ARC (Animal Rights Coalition) with a view to having an official platform from which to direct the campaign.

I was immediately taken to task by various animal rights activists for using the term ‘animal rights’ and was told that the organisation was really a ‘welfarist’ organisation and that our approach was not consistent with the animal rights movement. It seemingly did not matter that we were campaigning for the right we believed these horses had to life, and none of these activists assisted in any manner to the campaign; it seemed that the use of the right term was more important. That we were also focused on companion animals and what we perceived to be fundamental rights they should have was also of less importance than that we conformed to their terms and ideology.

Having subsequently studied the Animal Rights position and it’s most extended expression, the Animal Liberation movement, and having worked in animal welfare, specifically rescue and rehoming of companion animals, and having thought about the supposed differences, I found myself having some difficulty with the manner in which many animal rights activists dismiss animal welfare work as if it is of no value.

It’s important that I make it clear, from the beginning, that I most certainly support animal rights. But I also support welfare activities, which is not to say I believe factory farms when they say that ‘animal welfare is their number one priority’. What they mean by animal welfare and what I mean by it are a chasm apart, one that cannot be bridged by intentions or politically correct press releases. So welfare in the sense they mean, ‘healthy enough to slaughter for safe human consumption’ is not welfare, it’s exploitation. But I support any initiative to make the animals’ lives easier while they live, including the banning of gestation crates for pigs and the extremely cruel veal crates. I’d ideally like to see the entire practice of breeding animals for food stop but I suspect it will take a long time, and in the meantime there is suffering that can be reduced. If you have ever been in captivity and in pain, you might know what I am talking about. To do nothing is to abandon the animals currently in the system, and for me this is abdication of responsibility.

I also support companion animal welfare – the type that rescues, rehabilitates and rehomes companion animals. Of course, what constitutes a companion animal is largely a matter of opinion, and it is always more than somewhat perplexing to me when people claim to love animals and may have dogs, cats, horses, mice or hamsters, on their property and regard them as family, but will think nothing of consuming cows and calves, pigs, chickens, ducks and other sentient animals. I remember someone once saying to me that ‘they’re food animals’, as if this was a divine directive, cast in stone by the creator.

The fact is, the discrimination is an arbitrary one, decided purely by human historical association with some species. There is no substantive argument for doing so – pigs are at least as intelligent as dogs if not more so; in some countries horses and dogs are regarded as food animals, to the horror of some people in the West, but to be honest there is no difference between eating pigs and dogs. To condemn the eating of dogs and horses while eating cows and pigs yourself is fundamentally hypocritical.

So there are inconsistencies in both the Animal Rights and the Animal Welfare positions. Animal Rights seeks absolute outcomes and sees anything less as an immoral compromise; Animal Welfare makes compromises that may be beneficial in the short-to-medium term but may entrench the perception that animals are food.

“…animal welfare advocates of which I am one, believe it is best to get incremental change to a situation to improve welfare such as a slight improvement in a law or an increase in people buying higher welfare meat. Animal rights advocates tend to desire complete change in one go such as an outright ban and dismiss incremental change as either not good enough or even selling out.” – David Bowles

Animal Rights activists claim that Animal Welfare is ‘incremental’, but what is more incremental than individuals choosing not to eat meat and the number of such individuals growing over time? It’s also an immensely slow process, trying to stem the flow of growing demand for meat from a largely ignorant or uncaring public. I remember a vegan once saying to me that ‘more animals are saved through rights than through welfare’ and my response was that it very much depends on how long it takes to bring about animal rights, a time period we cannot possibly predict. In the meantime, there are animals suffering in the system…

As a pragmatist, I am less interested in absolutist philosophy than I am in practical, real world outcomes. I am not sure that academic perfection is useful in a real world of grey areas. So I will fight for rights while supporting welfare, because I think that progress for the whole will recapitulate progress for the individual. Nobody was born vegan, we all had to learn about animal sentience and the deprivation and pain we subject animals to, whether food animals, animals in entertainment, or animals in laboratories. Once we have that knowledge, we are in a better position to decide for ourselves. We should not make the mistake of assuming everyone is in that position, nor should we regard everyone as having the same capacity for making what we perceive to be moral decisions; cultural preconceptions play a huge role in our perceptions, and they are not easy for most people to set aside. Also bear in mind that people are assaulted by pro-meat propaganda, most of it misinformation, from all sides.

For me, the pragmatic approach is to recognise that welfare is the gradual incline along which rights are accepted as necessary – it is unusual for one to arrive at a ‘rights or bust’ signpost and make the decision there and then. In my case, I started with companion animal welfare, graduated to giving up red meat, then chicken and fish, and so on, over a period that took several years.

The condemnation of people who have not made the transformation to what some define as moral behaviour towards animals, by others who consider themselves judges, is entirely inappropriate and counterproductive. It’s unlikely that anyone will respond well to personal censure. The ‘moral higher ground’ claimed to be the baseline for animal rights is impossible anyway. Even the production of vegetables kills animals; less of them certainly but it’s difficult to see how anyone can claim ‘perfection’. And unless you can, judgement and condemnation are irrational. We’re all in the same boat here – it’s a matter of degrees of conformance to an ideal, and comparisons are odious…

Finding reasons to be divided rather than finding common ground is mutually destructive and creates an additional front to fight on that is unnecessary; it wastes time and energy.

“Humans are more social than rational/autonomous animals, and hence social environment – which emerges from wider power distributions in society – has the greatest influence on their behaviour. Therefore, psychologically and politically, AW and AR are overlapping zones on a continuum rather than completely coherent and separate ideologies.” – Dan Lyons

From a practical political perspective, rather than a purely philosophical perspective, AW and AR are certainly interconnected. It makes little sense when both groups clearly have the interests of the animals in mind – we all care about animals. Whether each of us is completely coherent in this caring is possibly debatable, but if at the core that caring exists then there is potential there, and we destroy that potential when we marginalise others on the basis of a purported higher moral ground, which I would argue is a mirage.

Let’s move past the labels and the absolutes and find common ground for our common compassion. Are we not companions in the struggle, whatever the outcomes we are trying to achieve?

Derek du Toit

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