Reducetarianism, promoted most prominently by the Reducetarian Foundation, is a movement aimed (as the name suggests) at reducing, rather than eliminating, animal product consumption. The idea behind it is that it’s a mistake for the animal protection movement to, in effect, “make the perfect the enemy of the good” by insisting that the only acceptable response to one’s recognition of the impermissibility of factory farming (i.e., the industrial-style production of raising of farm animals) is to adopt a fully plant-based (vegan) lifestyle. Reducetarians point out (a) that far more people are willing to reduce their animal product consumption than eliminate it and (b) that reduction of animal production consumption is, for many, likely to be a useful stepping stone from an unthinking omnivorism to pure veganism.
I think this is basically correct, which is why I was happy to receive an invitation to speak at the 2024 Reducetarian Summit in Dallas, Texas. In my short talk, I (i) provided an analysis of the current situation for factory-farmed animals; (ii) set out a straightforward argument against factory farming, and against consuming factory-farmed animal products; (iii) identified four major obstacles to a plant-based revolution, and (iv) offered seven suggestions for how reducetarians, and the animal protection movement more broadly, might hope to make inroads over time.
The following is an essay adaption of that talk.
1. The Bleak Situation For Factory-Farmed Animals
Despite the positive development during the second half of the twentieth century of a movement aimed at bringing sentient animals into the sphere of humanity’s moral concern, it is nevertheless the case that conditions for those sentient beings whose flesh, milk, and eggs humans enjoy consuming has never been worse and is set to worsen.
At any given moment, there are upwards of 20 billion factory-farmed land animals in existence, many of whom are leading lives so bad — so filled with misery — that it would be better overall had they never come into existence. Worldwide, upwards of 80 billion factory farm animals are slaughtered for food each year (and far more if we include fish, who – though generally neither cuddly nor cute, in our eyes – nevertheless clearly feel pain, which is in-itself-bad [if anything is]). Those numbers are set to increase dramatically with time, if current trends hold.
This is a significant part of the dark side of economic development and human population growth (both of which, I should add, I regard as great goods, all else being equal1): As developing nations lift themselves out of poverty, they adopt factory farming in response to growing consumer demand for large quantities of inexpensive meat and other animal products.
2. The Basic Argument
What I’ll call the Basic Argument Against Consuming Factory-Farmed Products — the Basic Argument, for short — is trivially simple:
1. It’s wrong to inflict extreme suffering and death on sentient beings merely for the sake of relatively trivial goods.
2. Factory farming inflicts extreme suffering and death on sentient beings merely for the sake of relatively trivial goods (primarily, gustatory pleasure).
3. Therefore, factory farming is morally wrong.
4. One has strong moral reason not to make oneself complicit in a morally wrong practice, institution, or collective action insofar as one can refrain from doing so.
5. Buying factory-farmed animals products makes one complicit in factory farming.
6. Therefore, one has strong moral reason not to buy factory-farmed animal products.
Premise 1 is clearly true if there are any moral facts at all: A moral theory which regards 1 as false can and should be rejected outright.
Premise 2 is an empirical claim which can be readily confirmed by dispassionate investigation into the character of the lives of factory-farmed animals.
3 of course follows deductively from 1 and 2.
4 is, I think, also clearly true. One has strong reason, for example, not to join some firing squad about to execute an innocent person — even if one is powerless to save that person. There are questions to be asked about what, exactly constitutes complicity, and how bad complicity is in a given case, but clearly there is something in-itself-bad about about being involved in wrongdoing when it can be avoided.
5 is true insofar as factory farming ultimately arises from consumer demand — and insofar as consumer demand just is a product individual consumers buying things. It is true that any particular consumer’s causal contribution in a given context is likely to be very minor,2 but it nevertheless very plausibly amounts to a morally problematic form of complicity.3
Given all of the above, 6, like 3, follows deductively.
Now, academic philosophers in need of publications can (and do) quibble endlessly with this or that aspect of the various claims which comprise the Basic Argument, as I’ve stated it – and they can (and do) offer endless variations of it to accommodate the myriad possible quibbles. Nevertheless, this is about as straightforward as things get in moral philosophy.
3. And Yet…
And yet, it’s famously difficult to argue people into actually changing their behavior. Even many of those who can be argued into believing that they should abstain from factory farmed animal products often fail to alter their behavior accordingly.
It’s also famously difficult to keep our behavior changed over time. Hence the sobering fact that, despite the efforts of so many scholars, activists, and organizations over the past half century, only about 5% of Americans and 22% of humans worldwide follow a plant-based lifestyle (and, likely, those numbers are quite inflated due to loose definitions and inaccurate self-reporting).
Suffice it to say that a plant-based revolution — in which most humans freely choose to abstain from animal products on the basis of moral conviction, alone — is very far away (and may well never come). The animals can’t wait for it.
4. The Four Major Obstacles
I think there are four major obstacles to a plant-based revolution’s coming about.
First, there is the obstacle of social conformism: Consumption of animal products is so entrenched — in culture, history, and social life — that the ordinary human, as a conforming social animal, will (all else being equal) continue to engage in it and regard it as normal, even after being presented with something like the Basic Argument.
Second, there is a biological obstacle: Humans really, really like the taste of meat – not only because we’ve been culturally conditioned to do so, but because our brains evolved to reward us for ingesting nutrient-rich, high-fat, high-protein foods. We have to be honest with ourselves about this.
Third, there is the fact that the gruesomeness of factory farming is mostly concealed: Consumers are not ordinarily confronted with the scene of a pig who is scalded to death in boiling water because its throat wasn’t slit in time, or of the chicken writhing in pain packed into a cage with other several other chickens experiencing the same fate. Consumers simply see bacon and filets of chicken meat in tidy cellophane-covered packages at the grocery store.
Fourth, there is the perception of causal impotence: Consumers perceive that their individual actions are inconsequential in the grand scheme of things and so tend to feel unmotivated to abstain from the foods they enjoy and have consumed all their lives.
5. Seven Recommendations
In view of these obstacles, I’ll offer seven recommendations which, in my view, are likely to help us make inroads over time.
First: Highlight the inconsistency between (i) the way in which so many people in contemporary society relate to their companion animals, on the one hand, and (ii) their financial support of factory farming, on the other. In doing so, we can hope to create cognitive dissonance which is then resolved in many cases by ceasing to support factory farming.
Second: Remember that less suffering is better than more. People should be encouraged to take whatever steps they feel motivated and able to take towards causing less suffering (no doubt this will generally be smaller and fewer than the most convicted activists would prefer to see — but such steps are vastly preferable to none at all).
Third: Embrace innovation. Cultured meat (i.e., “lab-grown meat”) and affordable animal product replacements are going to be critical to moving forward. Realistically, the vegan revolution will happen when, and only when, the ordinary person – in the midst of all life’s difficulties and temptations – has to make neither financial nor taste sacrifices in giving up animal products. To that end, it’s extremely important to push back against lab-grown meat bans — which, I’m afraid, will become more common in the U.S. especially given the influence of agribusiness within the political system.
Fourth: Untether the animal movement from broader ideological associations it’s accumulated – political, cultural, and otherwise; certainly the common perception that it’s just one more pet cause (no pun intended) of the political left – or that one must be aligned with the political left in order to have a place in the animal movement – is no favor to animals.
Fifth: Harness religion by emphasizing those strains (they do exist) within all the major world religions which promote animal friendly attitudes. It’s certainly bad for the animal movement to be perceived as hostile to religion, both given religion’s place in human culture and its power to facilitate moral transformation.
Sixth: Highlight a diverse range of widely admired figures who embrace a plant-based lifestyle. Humans are driven to emulate those we admire (probably much more than we’re driven to respond rationally to philosophical arguments).
Finally: Promote what in moral philosophy is known as the Clean Hands Principle, according to which one should (to the extent practically feasible) simply not be party to collective wrongs (keeping one’s hands clean). It’s simple, recommended by all our best moral theories, and bypasses the whole web of complexities pertaining to the question of how much harm an individual can expect to cause by consuming an animal product in a particular context.
In conclusion, I should say that I think there’s room — and, indeed, need for — a plurality of perspectives within the animal protection movement. Insofar as the ultimate aim, or end goal, is a state of affairs in which the human desire for gustatory pleasure does not result in the mass immiseration of sentient, sensitive beings, it’s good to have some purists who are impatient with the pragmatism of the reducetarian position. But I suspect it’s best, at least for the time being, for the more prominent position to be the reducetarian one, insofar as it’s the one which will find the greatest number of receptive ears.
I am no “de-growther” or antinatalist.
This does, I think, seriously mitigate the degree of wrongness that attaches to a given consumer’s purchasing a factory-farmed animal product.
Consider that it would be a bizarre, if not simply nonsensical, position to hold (a) that factory farming is morally terrible but also (b) that no particular consumer has reason to avoid contributing to demand for it.
I know that Gary Francione has been controversial, but what I most appreciate about his philosophy is his insistence on treating veganism as the non-negotiable moral baseline in all questions concerning animals. The simplicity and consistency of his approach have been deeply inspirational to me, and are largely why my spouse and I have both been vegan for over 20 years. We have also inspired others along the way.