Incremental Approach to Ending Animal Exploitation

Dara Lovitz’s talk confirmed for me that movement towards humane treatment of animals will only come in small increments. Our country is very entrenched in its current ideology that animals, especially farm animals, are meant for human use. The majority of Americans have ingrained views and customs concerning the consumption of meat. I do as well, although this class has led me to reconsider my actions and beliefs. Given the majority opinion radical change will not likely take place. Small changes which are more humane, but not completely humane and far from ideal, must take place first before humane treatment is reached for all animals. Dara’s discussion of Prop 2 which removed some inhumane conditions for calves and hens still left these animals in only minimally more humane conditions. Still, this is a small victory for advocates of animal rights law. However, it is a small increment in the right direction and next hopefully another small increment of success will build off of it. Eventually, I think these increments will build up until all animals are treated humanely in the United States.

The idea of incremental success reminded me of our readings on animal law. Tom Regan points out the difference between immediatists and gradualists. Gradualists believe in, “making the lives of some animals better today and in ending all animal exploitation in the future” (617). I agree with this stance. While it would be better to erase animal exploitation, it does not seem like a realistic goal in the short term. However, over the long term with small victories it does seem possible. Also, Peter Singer’s approach based off of Henry Spira’s ideas towards creating change in the treatment of animals makes sense to me as well. He advocates making changes that the public is ready for, which means choosing the goals which are the most likely to be met. By picking goals which few people would agree with are going to hit a brick wall. Goals which people outside the animal rights community could be persuaded to support will be met faster and gain momentum for the movement. For instance, I think persuading people to support changes in animal welfare laws to include pet stores may be a reasonable short term goal, however it does not solve the problem of persuading people to adopt shelter animals rather than buying an animal at pet store. Inhumane activities would continue, but the lives of some animals would be made better. This makes me think that small increments are worth fighting for.