political and legal activism for all sentient beings
TRANSCRIPT
Natalie CargillProject Manager UK, Sentience Politics
Political and legal activism for all sentient beings
Outline
1. Politics: Intuitive but ineffective?
2. The case for politics
3. Politics for all sentient beings — political and legal action in the animal advocacy movement
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I. Politics: Intuitive but ineffective?
Natalie Cargill | Sentience Politics
The standard inference of activists:
● The world is shaped largely by the effects of humans interacting with each other, i.e. by society
● Therefore, improving the world necessitates changing society
● Society is governed by politics and the law
● Therefore, changing society necessitates changing politics and the law
Is this a sound argument?
Politics — the intuitive path for activists
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Objections against the intuitive inference for doing politics● Beware of narrowing down the space of possible ways of activism too
early! How effective is political activism compared to the following?
• Non-political social movement focussing on individual behaviour change (e.g., veganism)
• Research and technology
• Business
● Political interventions are rarely successful
● Risk of backfiring, e.g. communism
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II. The case for politics
Example: the expected value of voting● Steven Levitt in Freakonomics:
Voting is irrational because the chance of your vote affecting the final outcome is negligibly small
● William MacAskill in Doing Good Better: Expected value shows voting to be highly effective: If the value of the better party winning is $314B to the people, and your vote has a 1/60M chance of tipping the election, your vote’s expected value is like a $5,200 donation to the people.
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Example: EAF’s “1% initiative” in Zürich, CH
● Ballot initiative demanding that the city of Zürich spend 1% of its budget (1% = $90 million per year) funding highly effective poverty charities
● Only 3,000 signatures to collect, overall cost around $100,000
● Base rate for initiatives being accepted: 11%
● Expected to be 300 times as cost-effective as directly donating to GiveWell charities
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Example: EAS’s “1% initiative” in Zürich, CH
● Substantial indirect benefits (even if the vote is lost!):
• All 400,000 citizens of Zürich will receive arguments backing the initiative by mail
• Media attention
• Networking with politicians and other societal influencers
• Vehicle for EA movement building
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Natalie Cargill | Sentience Politics
Risk of backfiring?● There are clear “safe bets”, e.g. closing down factory farms.
Addressing the objections
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Low chance of success?● Not negligibly small base rate for some interventions, e.g. 11% of Swiss
ballot initiatives are accepted
● Very high payoff in case of success, e.g. affecting hundreds of millions of $ or more of government funding
Effectiveness compared with other strategies?● Intrinsically hard to quantify, but: good expected value even of voting
● As we’ll see, a lot of qualitative arguments favour politics
Qualitative arguments for political strategies
● Social science/history: Moral progress was often driven by an avant-garde changing the law, majority then adjusted their behaviour
● Great platform for societal meme-spreading and movement building
● Politics vs. individual behaviour change: Sufficient to convince 51% of decision-makers rather than 100% of the whole population
● Psychology: Capitalise on “moral cheering” phenomenon, i.e. people’s drive to signal their moral values through small, non-costly actions
● Political “yes” is much less demanding than inconvenient individual behaviour change (e.g., casting a vote for animal rights on one occasion vs. daily dietary change)
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III. Politics for all sentient beings —Political and legal action in the animal
advocacy movement
Animal suffering as an ethical priority“The question is not, Can they reason? nor, Can they talk? but, Can they
suffer?” – Jeremy Bentham (1789)
Effective Altruism has to consider all beings capable of experiencing suffering, no matter their species membership (antispeciesism)
The vast majority of such beings currently are non-human animals:
• About 70 billion land animals confined and killed every year
• Trillions of fishes and other marine animals killed every year (symptomatic: common plural “fish”, no-one knows the exact number of killed beings, they are usually measured in tons)
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The food norm as status quo
● Traditional focus on individual consumption in the movement: Commitment progresses along the route reducetarian -> vegetarian -> vegan
● Activism often aims to increase the number of veg*ans
● Popular interventions (even for some ACE top / standout charities): leafleting, online ads
● ACE: €10 invested in leafleting saves >250 animals
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Downsides of individual dietary change (1)
● History: Focus on individual behaviour change has poor track record.
• E.g., the 19th century “free produce movement” advocating a boycott of goods produced by (human) slaves failed. Rather, the abolition of slavery was achieved through political means
• Psychology: The food context creates biases, e.g. people considering typical farmed animals to be less sentient than other animals
• Dietary change is particularly demanding: habits that are relevant >3 times per day need to be changed, suboptimal supporting infrastructure, sometimes social costs, …
• Discussion is being sidetracked by dietary fads, e.g. paleo diet
• Risk being perceived as a dietary rather than an ethical movement
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Downsides of individual dietary change (2)Symptomatic: Psychologist Jonathan Haidt about his reaction to reading ethical arguments against eating animals:
“Since that day, I have been morally opposed to all forms of factory farming. Morally opposed but not behaviorally opposed.”
Haidt is typical:
• In Western countries, only ~1% of the population is vegan (probably 3-4% vegetarian), and 4 out of 5 veg*ans eventually relapse to eating animals
• But in polls, a majority (up to 94%!) oppose cruelty to animals, animal abuse, and factory farming => Need for other ways to express this opposition!
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Example: Ballot initiatives by Sentience Politics (1)● Basel, Zürich, Lucerne, Berlin:
Demanding vegan options in public canteens
● Collect only thousands of signatures, but get 100,000+ people to vote
● Lucerne: got signatures in 48h
● Substantial indirect benefits, e.g. being featured in documentary
● Reputation as serious political player in CH
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Example: Ballot initiatives by Sentience Politics (2) ● Cantonal initiative in Basel-City:
Fundamental rights for primates
● Only few animals directly affected, BUT:
● Avoid biases of food context, capitalise on widespread opposition to animal testing
● Debate can be focused on speciesism and animal rights
● Would be an antispeciesist legal milestone
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Example: The Nonhuman Rights Project
● Judicial analogue to the legislative Basel campaign: Getting courts to acknowledge certain nonhuman animals as legal persons
● Common law (e.g., UK, 49 US states): judges have a lot of leeway, possible to obtain legal personhood and thus fundamental rights for nonhuman animals in individual court cases that would then set a precedent
● Historical precedent for the importance of legal milestones: 1772 common law case James Somerset vs. Charles Steuart (=> legal abolition of slavery in the UK)
● Interaction with movement building: Can we have our own judges in place in 10-20 years?
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Example: Cultured meat campaign by Sentience Politics● Open letter to German government,
backed by reputable academics
● Demand: state funding for cultured meat research
● Appeal to scientists, politicians, and other influencers
● Debate can be focused on speciesism and animal rights
● Would be an antispeciesist legal milestone
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Takeaways: Upsides of politics
● Reach many people with little required resources
● Can be targeted both to masses (e.g., ballot initiatives) and to societal influencers (e.g., open letter)
● Avoid biases of food context and allow people to express their moral views through non-demanding actions
● Avoid being sidetracked by food discussions and focus the discussion on the animals, antispeciesism and animal rights
● Reputation benefit for the movement: establish a scientific/political think tank, appeal to rational societal decision-makers
● Complement/multiply the impact of individual dietary change or tech/business strategies!
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Synthesis: Politics for all sentient beings
● Effectiveness of individual change (e.g., veganism) vs. tech fixes (e.g., cultured meat) vs. political action?
• Great empirical uncertainty, quantification difficult; BUT:
• We therefore need robust strategies such as movement building, and political action is a great vehicle for that
• Even if individual change or tech fixes are the way to go, political action can be a highly effective way to direct more resources to those areas
• Therefore, all strategies that have a shot at being most effective should be explored to gather more data.
• In particular, SOMEONE should do politics. At the same time, political action is neglected in the animal advocacy and EA movements
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How YOU can help Sentience Politics put antispeciesism into political practice● Get involved in Berlin ballot initiative, signature collection starting NEXT
WEEK! (-> [email protected])
● Planned ballot initiative to put a ban on factory farming into the Swiss constitution: We’re hiring campaign managers!
● International movement building and political action: India, China/Hongkong, US, UK, Latin America, Australia, maybe more?
• 1st step: Country directors will work on political strategy guides, your input is appreciated! (-> [email protected])
• UK: Lawyers needed!
• US: Campaigners needed!
• Donations: 10-35k/year is an additional full-time job in above countries
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