Add deontology or philosophy of duty and a holistic, ecological systems approach, then diet change and plant-based food system change outperform animal welfare.
Thanks for this open dialogue Bruce and Lewis.
Lewis' (1) and (5): Diet change campaigns are good at developing movement capacity including volunteers, activists organizers and cadres who populate the movement, make up vegan influencers, start vegan businesses and hopefully enter politics with new groups focusing on this. Lewis you are right to not just focus on diet change. We also need to focus on plant-based food system change and many groups are doing that and deserve a massive influx of resources from city and national action plans for plant-based food, to plant based school meal replacement, to plant-based by default, to meat free days and changes in procurement at various institutions and food service providers, and public education campaigns like Project Slingshot. Coefficient Giving is already wisely pivoting here. My argument is we need a full on pivot, as explained below.
(2) Diet change approaches need more resources. Why do meat, dairy and egg companies outspend us so much in ads aimed at bad diet change? Do they know something we don't? Let's not give up the rich variety of diet change campaigns from bearing witness to farmed animals going to slaughter (many people have had an epiphany after bearing witness and joining an animal vigil, including myself), vegan outreach, public education campaigns including cooking demonstrations and digital ads, and community organizing including in black communities as argued in Carol Adams et al., edition,The Good It Promises, The Harm it Does: Critical Essays on Effective Altruism (Oxford University Press, 2023). We need to spend way more in diet change.
Your (3) and (7) arguments identify the crux of the matter. We live in a polycrisis of interlinked crises centred around farmed animals, the climate, freshwater withdrawals, biodiversity loss, acidification, eutrophication, pandemic risk, food insecurity and other injustices and unsafe planetary boundaries. The present EA mathematics for animals is too simplistic and unreal. We need two things: (i) to broaden philosophy beyond Peter Singer's utilitarianism to deontological philosophies like Tom Regan's animal rights approach; and (ii) to adopt a holistic, ecological systems approach which does not treat climate, health, and animal persons as externalities. Animal welfare approaches like cage free are worse for the climate, acidification, eutrophication and land use than caged systems; same for health and perhaps pandemic risk; whereas plant-based outperforms animal welfare campaigns across the board in complex systems "EA mathematics for animals" (pattrice jones came up with that phrase a few weeks ago when I speaking to her). When you do that you'll find highly rated ACE groups working on animal welfare do not take into account externalities whereas plant-based food approach do and are win win for animals, the climate, health, reduced pandemic risk and a more resilient food system. These same wonderful NGOs could be working entirely on menu change. We need them. For systems approaches see everything from
systems theorist Fritjof Capra'sThe Turning Point which proposes a paradigm shift from mechanistic to holistic views of nature and technology (made into a thought-provoking film calledMindwalk starring Liv Ullmann and Sam Waterston),
George Monbiot's (the winner of the 2022 Orwell Prize for Journalism)Regenesis (chapter 2),
Kate Raworth's (a vegan Oxford Economist, formerly with UNDP and Oxfam)Doughnut Economics (Chapter 4: "Get Savvy with Systems: from mechanical equilibrium to dynamic complexity"),
and the recent fabulous bookPositive Tipping Points (Oxford University Press, 2025) by Prof. Tim Lenton (University of Exeter) who was featured on the BBC Climate Question.
This is a vital discussion at this critical juncture as we see growing numbers of farmed animals bred and killed, a looming climate catastrophe, a high risk of more pandemics including bird flu, and a food system that is less and less resilient according to George Monbiot. We can do better. And it isn't hard: plant-based diet change and food system change are win-win-win-win. It'd be great to have town hall meetings, citizen assemblies, and roundtables of experts. Thank you for engaging.
Add deontology or philosophy of duty and a holistic, ecological systems approach, then diet change and plant-based food system change outperform animal welfare.
Thanks for this open dialogue Bruce and Lewis.
Lewis' (1) and (5): Diet change campaigns are good at developing movement capacity including volunteers, activists organizers and cadres who populate the movement, make up vegan influencers, start vegan businesses and hopefully enter politics with new groups focusing on this. Lewis you are right to not just focus on diet change. We also need to focus on plant-based food system change and many groups are doing that and deserve a massive influx of resources from city and national action plans for plant-based food, to plant based school meal replacement, to plant-based by default, to meat free days and changes in procurement at various institutions and food service providers, and public education campaigns like Project Slingshot. Coefficient Giving is already wisely pivoting here. My argument is we need a full on pivot, as explained below.
(2) Diet change approaches need more resources. Why do meat, dairy and egg companies outspend us so much in ads aimed at bad diet change? Do they know something we don't? Let's not give up the rich variety of diet change campaigns from bearing witness to farmed animals going to slaughter (many people have had an epiphany after bearing witness and joining an animal vigil, including myself), vegan outreach, public education campaigns including cooking demonstrations and digital ads, and community organizing including in black communities as argued in Carol Adams et al., edition, The Good It Promises, The Harm it Does: Critical Essays on Effective Altruism (Oxford University Press, 2023). We need to spend way more in diet change.
Your (3) and (7) arguments identify the crux of the matter. We live in a polycrisis of interlinked crises centred around farmed animals, the climate, freshwater withdrawals, biodiversity loss, acidification, eutrophication, pandemic risk, food insecurity and other injustices and unsafe planetary boundaries. The present EA mathematics for animals is too simplistic and unreal. We need two things: (i) to broaden philosophy beyond Peter Singer's utilitarianism to deontological philosophies like Tom Regan's animal rights approach; and (ii) to adopt a holistic, ecological systems approach which does not treat climate, health, and animal persons as externalities. Animal welfare approaches like cage free are worse for the climate, acidification, eutrophication and land use than caged systems; same for health and perhaps pandemic risk; whereas plant-based outperforms animal welfare campaigns across the board in complex systems "EA mathematics for animals" (pattrice jones came up with that phrase a few weeks ago when I speaking to her). When you do that you'll find highly rated ACE groups working on animal welfare do not take into account externalities whereas plant-based food approach do and are win win for animals, the climate, health, reduced pandemic risk and a more resilient food system. These same wonderful NGOs could be working entirely on menu change. We need them. For systems approaches see everything from
This is a vital discussion at this critical juncture as we see growing numbers of farmed animals bred and killed, a looming climate catastrophe, a high risk of more pandemics including bird flu, and a food system that is less and less resilient according to George Monbiot. We can do better. And it isn't hard: plant-based diet change and food system change are win-win-win-win. It'd be great to have town hall meetings, citizen assemblies, and roundtables of experts. Thank you for engaging.