Traditional Welfare and New Welfare.

[Words To Inspire Debate.]

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Q: Could you please explain the definition of “new welfarism” and why you feel this approach is harmful to animals that are currently being enslaved? Would it not be more humane to improve conditions for these animals as much as possible during their lives, which surely will bring awareness to the general public and lead to abolition in the future?

Vincent Guihan:

 

New welfarism is the poopheaded view (technical term) that working on anything but abolition will lead to abolition. It describes groups like PeTA who put forward slogans like: Animals are not ours to use! But then buy stock in agribusiness, commission studies like CAK that promote cheaper ways to kill animals, and in PeTA's case, killing adoptable cats and dogs.

 

Francione argues in Rain Without Thunder, and I agree, that this isn't to say there is absolutely no difference at all between new welfare and traditional welfare groups. It just means the practical differences are minor enough that it is practical to think of new welfare groups as more like regular welfare groups than they are abolitionist in nature. In terms of why new welfarism doesn't work, AE has a lot of views on what the education problem is, but I don't believe raising awareness that people use nonhuman animals is a all that meaningful of an activity.

 

I blog a lot about this, but raising awareness that animals suffer when we use them strikes me as a bit odd. But the awareness that needs to be raised, in my view, is around the idea of nonhuman animals as rightholders and veganism as the baseline to taking their rights and their morally relevant interests seriously.

 

So, what I think we really need to do is to educate and radicalize people insofar as they are able to understand, not just that many nonhumans feel pain or that many have rich emotional lives. People do know that animals are harmed to make meat, leather, etc, but they generally just "don't want to think about it". What we need to do is to educate them on WHY they should think about it, why they should take animals seriously.

Jo Charlebois:

 

 

Focusing on the "worst abuses" leads people to think that these are special cases, that they animals *they* eat aren't treated like that, that they can buy "humanely" raised meat and their moral obligation is done.

[Carolyn Bailey]

I dislike the term "new welfarist", as I believe it has become used as a tool for attacking other advocates, in quite a nasty manner. But I strongly agree with what was said in this exchange. Particularly: 

raising awareness that animals suffer when we use them strikes me as a bit odd. But the awareness that needs to be raised, in my view, is around the idea of nonhuman animals as rightholders and veganism as the baseline to taking their rights and their morally relevant interests seriously.