Animal Suffering and Public Relations 1032348356, 9781032348353

Table of contents :
Cover
Half Title
Series Page
Title Page
Copyright Page
Table of Contents
List of Contributors
Part I: Introduction
1 Animal Suffering, the Animal-Industrial Complex, and the Ethics of Persuasion
Part II: Public Relations, Persuasion, and Compassion towards Other Animals
2 Critical Public Relations and the Moral Consideration of Other Animals
3 On Compassion, Animal Suffering, and Persuasion
Part III: The Ethics of Persuasion of the Animal-Industrial Complex
4 Harming Animals, Degrading the Public Sphere: The Ethics of Persuasion in the Animal-Based Food Industry
Case Study: The Meat Lobby and the World Health Organization
5 Fatal Attractions: The Ethics of Persuasion in the Animal-Based Entertainment Industry
Case Study: SeaWorld against the Documentary Blackfish
6 For an Ethics of Care: The Ethics of Persuasion in the Animal Experimentation Industry
Case Study: Huntingdon Life Sciences and the SHAC Campaign
7 Deadly Influence: The Ethics of Persuasion in the Environmental Management Industry
Case Study: The Catalan Hunting Federation and Wild Boar Management
Part IV: Rejecting Speciesism
8 Lobbying and Persuasion on Behalf of Nonhuman Animals. Psychological Insights
9 Speciesism and Persuasion: A Conclusion
Index

Citation preview

“This astute volume identifies a largely ignored area of discourse about animals—the promotion of products and experiences that rely on animal exploitation—and how it needs to keep consumers from caring. Through their incisive, theoretically-informed, interdisciplinary efforts, the authors included here remedy the neglect while also demonstrating the value of compassion.” Carol J. Adams, author The Sexual Politics of Meat “This is a fascinating and highly original volume on the ways in which various industries who exploit animals attempt to persuade the public of the legitimacy of their activities. In so doing, it combines detailed accounts of these lobbying efforts with critical ethical evaluations of them and their impact. Overall, it makes for a chilling but important read for anyone interested in the plight of non-human animals in contemporary societies.” Alasdair Cochrane, The University of Sheffield “Animal Suffering and Public Relations should be required reading for all who want to learn about the deceptive practices of animal-use industries and, especially, wild animal entertainment in zoos and marine parks. This engaging read takes no prisoners as an exposé of how animal suffering is made palatable to the public.” Lori Marino, Ph.D. Executive Director, The Kimmela Center for Scholarship-based Animal Advocacy “This book is a turning point of what has been called the PR of everything and one of the milestone research on critical communication. Linking PR and animal suffering means to break the borders of what PR has been considered to move to what PR should be.” Jordi Xifra, Professor, Pompeu Fabra University “A brilliant and cutting-edge book revealing the public relations manipulation of people’s consciousness to legitimate the profitable oppression of other animals. This much needed volume highlights the problematic and unjust nature of such representations of other animals and calls for the awareness and changes necessary to advance justice for all.” David Nibert, Professor of Sociology, Wittenberg University “Exploitative capitalization upon the lives and deaths of nonhuman animal lives depends upon the highly politicized myth-making practices of corporate public relations. This necessary volume both brilliantly deconstructs these practices

and makes a very significant contribution to understandings of the broad animal-industrial complex.” Dr Richard Twine, Reader in Sociology, Centre for Human-Animal Studies (CfHAS), Edge Hill University “A needed expansion of PR and communication ethics literature in a posthumanist era that will resonate with Gen Z. Animal Suffering and Public Relations offers nuanced critiques of how corporate PR, marketing, and lobbying naturalizes and obscures nonhuman animal exploitation, impeding moral progress.” Carrie P. Freeman, Professor of Communication, Georgia State University “A powerful critical reflection on the persuasive communication exerted by the industries that participate in animal exploitation. Going through various aspects of naturalized animal (ab)use, it becomes an innovative and solid contribution for those who are committed to deconstruct the discourses that seek to perpetuate animal slavery.” Dr Alexandra Navarro, Director of Instituto Latinoamericano de Estudios Críticos Animales “This powerfully original book explores an undertheorized, yet crucially important topic—how ideas are presented impacts our thinking, our attitudes, and our actions. Animal Suffering & Public Relations brings together cutting edge thinking on the ways that all industries using animals distorts our picture of who animals are and provides moving examples of how compassionate intervention can reveal what ethical relationships with animals could be.” Lori Gruen, author of Entangled Empathy “When Edward Bernays defined the field of public relations in the early twentieth century, he took the public to be naïve, childlike, gullible, and manipulable. Nowhere is this invidious attitude more apparent today than in the animal industrial complex, an ecocidal network of corporate executives, lobby groups, and politicians who together subject the public to an incessant propaganda campaign. In Animal Suffering & Public Relations, Núria Almiron and her colleagues propose an ethics of persuasion based on the principle of compassion, a critical standard by which to hold the animal industrial complex accountable. This book deserves a wide readership among communication scholars, not-for-profit organizations, and animal activist groups.” Jason Hannan, editor of Meatsplaining: The Animal Agriculture Industry and the Rhetoric of Denial

Animal Suffering and Public Relations

Animal Suffering and Public Relations conducts an ethical assessment of public relations, mainly persuasive communication and lobbying, as deployed by some of the main businesses involved in the animal-industrial complex—the industries participating in the systematic and institutionalised exploitation of animals. Society has been experiencing a growing ethical concern regarding humans’ (ab)use of other animals. This is a trend first promoted by the development of animal ethics—which claims any sentient being, because of sentience, deserves moral consideration—and more recently by other approaches from the social sciences, including critical animal studies. In this volume, we aim to start an entirely unaddressed discussion within the field of public relations: The need to problematise the ethics of persuasion when nonhuman animal suffering is involved, particularly the impact of persuasion and lobbying on compassion towards other animals in the cases of food, experimentation, entertainment, and environmental management. This book provides an interdisciplinary, theoretical discussion illustrated with international case studies from experts in strategic communication, public relations, lobbying and advocacy, animal ethics, philosophy of law, political philosophy, and social psychology. This unique book merges the fields of critical public relations, animal ethics, and critical animal studies and will be of direct appeal to a wide range of researchers, academics, and doctoral students across related fields. Núria Almiron is a co-director of the UPF-Centre for Animal Ethics and a tenured professor in the Department of Communication at Pompeu Fabra University. Her areas of research include the ethics and political economy of communication— particularly interest groups and persuasive communication—from a critical animal studies perspective. She is the author/editor of several books in various languages, the latest being ‘Like an animal’. Critical Animal Studies Approaches to Borders, Displacement, and Othering (coedited with Natalie Khazaal, Brill 2021). Her work has been published in journals such as Journal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics, Journalism Studies, Environmental Communication, and European Journal of Communication.

Routledge New Directions in PR & Communication Research Edited by Kevin Moloney

Current academic thinking about public relations (PR) and related communication is a lively, expanding marketplace of ideas, and many scholars believe that it’s time for its radical approach to be deepened. Routledge New Directions in PR & Communication Research is the forum of choice for this new thinking. Its key strength is its remit, publishing critical and challenging responses to continuities and fractures in contemporary PR thinking and practice, tracking its spread into new geographies and political economies. It questions its contested role in marketorientated, capitalist, liberal democracies around the world and examines its invasion of all media spaces, old, new, and as yet unenvisaged. The New Directions series has already published and commissioned diverse original work on topics such as: • • • • • • • •

PR’s influence on Israeli and Palestinian nation-building PR’s origins in the history of ideas a Jungian approach to PR ethics and professionalism global perspectives on PR professional practice PR as an everyday language for everyone PR as emotional labour PR as communication in conflicted societies, and PR’s relationships to cooperation, justice, and paradox.

We actively invite new contributions and offer academics a welcoming place for the publication of their analyses of a universal, persuasive mindset that lives comfortably in old and new media around the world. Social Media for Progressive Public Relations Edited by Outi Niininen Animal Suffering and Public Relations The Ethics of Persuasion in the Animal-Industrial Complex Edited by Núria Almiron For more information about this series, please visit: www.routledge.com/Routledge-NewDirections-in-PR--Communication-Research/book-series/RNDPRCR

Animal Suffering and Public Relations The Ethics of Persuasion in the Animal-Industrial Complex Edited by Núria Almiron

First published 2024 by Routledge 4 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2024 selection and editorial matter, Núria Almiron; individual chapters, the contributors; The artwork included at the beginning of each part is by Júlia Castellano The right of Núria Almiron to be identified as the author of the editorial material, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN: 978-1-032-34835-3 (hbk) ISBN: 978-1-032-34837-7 (pbk) ISBN: 978-1-003-32406-5 (ebk) DOI: 10.4324/9781003324065

Contents

List of contributors PART I

Introduction 1

Animal suffering, the animal-industrial complex, and the ethics of persuasion

ix

1 3

NÚRIA ALMIRON

PART II

Public relations, persuasion, and compassion towards other animals 2

Critical public relations and the moral consideration of other animals

17 19

NÚRIA ALMIRON AND LAURA FERNÁNDEZ

3

On compassion, animal suffering, and persuasion

34

OLATZ ARANCETA-REBOREDO AND NÚRIA ALMIRON

PART III

The ethics of persuasion of the animal-industrial complex 4

Harming animals, degrading the public sphere: the ethics of persuasion in the animal-based food industry

51 53

EZE PAEZ AND PABLO MAGAÑA

Case study: the meat lobby and the World Health Organization LAURA FERNÁNDEZ AND NÚRIA ALMIRON

66

viii Contents 5

Fatal attractions: the ethics of persuasion in the animal-based entertainment industry

72

PAULA CASAL AND MACARENA MONTES FRANCESCHINI

Case study: SeaWorld against the documentary Blackfish

88

LAURA FERNÁNDEZ AND NÚRIA ALMIRON

6

For an ethics of care: the ethics of persuasion in the animal experimentation industry

94

FABIOLA LEYTON

Case study: Huntingdon Life Sciences and the SHAC Campaign

106

LAURA FERNÁNDEZ AND NÚRIA ALMIRON

7

Deadly influence: the ethics of persuasion in the environmental management industry

111

CATIA FARIA

Case study: the Catalan Hunting Federation and wild boar management

123

LAURA FERNÁNDEZ AND NÚRIA ALMIRON

PART IV

Rejecting speciesism 8

Lobbying and persuasion on behalf of nonhuman animals: psychological insights

129 131

DANIELA ROMERO WALDHORN

9

Speciesism and persuasion: a conclusion

149

OSCAR HORTA, NÚRIA ALMIRON AND DAYRÓN TERÁN

Index

165

Contributors

Núria Almiron is a co-director of the UPF-Centre for Animal Ethics and a tenured professor in the Department of Communication at Pompeu Fabra University. Her areas of research include the ethics and political economy of c­ ommunication— particularly interest groups and persuasive communication—from a critical ­animal studies perspective. She is the author/editor of several books in various languages, the latest being ‘Like an animal’. Critical Animal Studies Approaches to Borders, Displacement, and Othering (coedited with Natalie Khazaal, Brill 2021). Her work has been published in journals such as Journal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics, Journalism Studies, Environmental Communication, and European Journal of Communication. Olatz Aranceta-Reboredo is a PhD candidate and researcher in the Department of Communication at Pompeu Fabra University (UPF), a member of the CRITICC research group and the UPF-Centre for Animal Ethics. Their research areas include critical animal studies, interest groups, and the representation of animals in media. They graduated in English Studies from the University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU) and hold an MA in International Studies on Media, Power and Difference (UPF). Olatz is the project manager of the COMPASS project (PID2020–118926RB-I00), and has been conducting their PhD research within this project and under the supervision of Dr Núria Almiron. Paula Casal works at Pompeu Fabra University’s Law Department, having previously held positions at Reading University (2004–2008) and Keele University (1996–2004). She was also a Fellow (1999–2000) and then a Keele Research Fellow (2000–2001) at Harvard University, a Hoover Fellow at the University of Louvain (2001–2002), a Leverhulme Fellow at Oxford University (2002–2004), and a Fellow at Stanford University (2018). Her work has appeared in journals such as Ethics, Economics and Philosophy, Journal of Medical Ethics, Journal of Moral Philosophy, Journal of Political Philosophy, Hypatia, Political Studies, and Utilitas. She is an associate editor of Politics, Philosophy & Economics, co-director of the UPF Center for Animal Ethics, and president of the Great Ape Project-Spain, and has coauthored, together with Peter Singer, Los derechos de los simios (Ape Rights) (Trotta 2022).

x  Contributors Júlia Castellano is a PhD candidate and researcher in the Department of Communication at Pompeu Fabra University (UPF), a member of the CRITICC research group and the UPF-Centre for Animal Ethics. Her research areas include plant-based brand communication strategies to change attitudes and behaviours, vegan studies, and critical animal studies. She is graduated in Psychology from the University of Barcelona and holds an MA in Media, Power and Difference (UPF). Catia Faria holds a PhD in Moral Philosophy from Pompeu Fabra University and is a founding member of the Centre for Animal Ethics at the same university. She is an assistant professor in the Department of Philosophy and Society at the Complutense University of Madrid and has been a postdoctoral researcher at the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology. She works in normative and applied ethics, in particular, on issues of animal ethics, feminist ethics, and ethics of artificial intelligence. She is the author of Animal Ethics in the Wild: Wild Animal Suffering and Intervention in Nature (Cambridge University Press, 2022). Laura Fernández is Juan de la Cierva postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Library and Information Science and Audiovisual Communication at University of Barcelona. With a PhD in Communication from Pompeu Fabra University (Barcelona, 2021), she previously graduated in Social and Cultural Anthropology (Autonomous University of Madrid, 2016) and obtained a Master’s degree in International Studies on Media, Power, and Difference (Pompeu Fabra University, 2017). Her research areas mainly include critical animal studies, strategic visual communication, social movements, and representation of oppressed groups. She has authored more than ten academic publications and one book, and is a board member of the UPF-Centre for Animal Ethics. Oscar Horta is a philosopher at the University of Santiago de Compostela. He is the author of Making a Stand for Animals (Routledge, 2022), as well as of more than a hundred papers published in journals such as Philosophy Compass, The Journal of Applied Philosophy, Global Policy, Utilitas, Res Publica, and Theoria, among others. In addition, he has been involved in animal advocacy since the 1990s and is a founding member of the international organization Animal Ethics. Fabiola Leyton holds a PhD in Philosophy, a Master’s in Political Philosophy (University of Chile) and in Bioethics and Law (University of Barcelona). She is a researcher at the Bioethics and Law Observatory of the University of Barcelona, editorial coordinator of the Bioethics and Law Journal, member of the Bioethics Commission of the University of Barcelona, and member of the consolidated research group Bioethics, Law and Society of the Generalitat de Catalunya. She is the author of the book Los animales en la bioética. Tensión en las fronteras del antropocentrismo (Animals in bioethics. Tension in the borders of anthropocentrism) (Herder, 2019) and of several articles on animal ethics from an anti-speciesist perspective.

Contributors  xi Pablo Magaña holds a PhD in Law from Pompeu Fabra University (Barcelona). His main research interests lie at the intersection of political philosophy and animal ethics, with a particular focus on questions about the political status of nonhuman animals, and our reasons to politically represent their interests. He is a member of the UPF-Centre for Animal Ethics. Macarena Montes Franceschini is an attorney and holds a PhD in Law from Pompeu Fabra University. She has been a visiting researcher at the Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law in Heidelberg, and a Rights Research Fellow at the Brooks McCormick Jr. Animal Law & Policy Program at Harvard Law School, where she began a visiting fellowship in 2023. She is also a board member of the UPF Center for Animal Ethics, managing editor of Law, Ethics and Philosophy (LEAP), and the treasurer of the Great Ape Project-Spain. She has written many articles on nonhuman animal personhood and rights, several amicus curiae, and a book titled Derecho Animal in Chile (Animal Law in Chile) (Libromar, 2018). Eze Paez is a Beatriu de Pinós Postdoctoral Fellow at the Law & Philosophy Research Group at Pompeu Fabra University (Barcelona). His research focuses on the development of a neo-republican theory of the political status of nonhuman animals, as well as on our moral obligations to help wild animals suffering harm from natural causes. He has published in prestigious international journals, such as Analysis, Pacific Philosophical Quarterly, Utilitas, Bioethics, or Futures. He is a founding member of the UPF-Centre for Animal Ethics, a think tank devoted to the promotion of non-speciesist ethical approaches in academia, politics, media, and public opinion. Daniela Romero Waldhorn is a social psychologist, holds a Master’s degree in Development Cooperation, a Master’s degree in Ethics and Politics, and is a PhD candidate in Social and Organisational Psychology at the University of Barcelona. She is Director of Animal Welfare Research at the think tank Rethink Priorities, and is a member of the scientific board of the Centre for Animal Ethics at Pompeu Fabra University. Dayrón Terán is a PhD candidate at the University of Santiago de Compostela with a Galician Government Fellowship. His research is focused on the implications of longtermism in ethics, although he has also worked on related topics, including animal ethics in particular. He has published several papers on these and related areas, some of which have appeared in journals such as Utilitas, Ethics, Policy and Environment, Daimon, and Ethical Perspectives.

PART I

Introduction

1

Animal suffering, the animal-industrial complex, and the ethics of persuasion Núria Almiron

Introduction Public relations do not have a good reputation for good reasons. Corporate, for-profit public relations are driven by economic interests, whereas some nonfor-profit public relations are ideologically biased. This doesn’t prevent public relations, either with or without profit, from being conducted as a trustworthy and legitimate practice. That is, this doesn’t mean ethical public relations cannot exist. However, a large portion of the persuasive efforts by organisations, particularly the corporate ones, are closer to corporate propaganda and manipulation than to the ideal of a symmetrical, two-way balanced, dialogic communication that is not only respectful of its public but also beneficial to it (as in the fourth category of the Grunig and Hunt’s model, 1984). This ideal is even further from reality when the industry that carries out the persuasive efforts involves ethically problematic businesses, as it is the case of the industries using nonhuman animals in their activities. There is a wide acceptance of the need to problematise the ethics of businesses and their promotional efforts when having an impact on human lives or the environment as a whole. But the ethics of persuasion has been rarely discussed for industries including the use, often abuse, of individuals from other species—whether pigs, cows, chickens, mice, chimpanzees, dolphins, orcas, bees, rabbits, octopuses, elephants, deers,1 fishes, dogs, or cats, just to mention a few of the species used by humans in farms, laboratories, entertainment, or nature. All these activities, which, in this volume, we gather under the label of the animal-industrial complex, are ethically problematic by their very nature because they involve for the nonhuman animals concerned objectification and commodification at the least, abuse, suffering, and death at the worst. The persuasive efforts of this industrial complex are, unsurprisingly, among the most controversial of all public relations. Still, the ethics of persuasion of the animal-industrial complex keeps it unproblematised. Certainly, it is of no interest for the mainstream literature about public relations, which is mostly acritical and technical. But, animal advocates and critical animal studies researchers also tend to neglect it, perhaps assuming there is no need to discuss the ethics of communicating what is wrong in the first place. This volume considers otherwise. To scrutinise the ethics of persuasion of the industries using and exploiting nonhuman animals is potentially helpful in three ways. DOI: 10.4324/9781003324065-2

4  Núria Almiron First, for critical communication scholars, to expand the scope of their reflection and research; second, for the animal defence movement, including scholars working on animal well-being and/or liberation, to expand their understanding of how animal suffering is naturalised and perpetuated; and, third, for corporate practitioners of public relations, to honestly assess the ethical cost of working for these industries. I assume that the latter will be the most challenging for readers of this book. However, I am confident the majority of corporate-oriented public relations practitioners are well-intentioned individuals; they may find the discussion in this volume of value and utility. Eventually, we are talking about communicative efforts that are fated to work against the natural compassion of humans for business to continue—all of which, in the animal-industrial complex, involves greater or lesser degrees of exploitation and, in the majority of cases, also death. Inevitably, this has a major impact on how society relates with the individuals of other species in this planet and on the violence accepted and normalised within human societies. It is then worth a chance to critically reflect on the public relations efforts of these industries. This is what this volume is about. This co-authored volume is aimed to provide an opportunity to critically reflect on the ethics of persuasion in the case of industries whose profit depends on using and/or exploiting nonhuman animals, and therefore whose persuasive efforts must, to some extent, involve relativising the harms we inflict on other animals. The volume does so by addressing public relations in general, as the “Niagara of spin” conducted by the industry as defined by Kevin Moloney, with the plethora of persuasive activities this includes: Lifestyle features; ideological messages; soundbites; kiss-and-tell tales; press conferences; news leaks; special events; stunts; staged photos; consumer leaflets; corporate brands, brochures and apologia; competitions, exhibitions and incentives; road shows; conferences; policy briefings; lobbying campaigns; demonstrations; community support; sponsorships; managed issues; reassuring communications in crisis, and messages about their social responsibility. (Moloney 2006, 1) However, the reader will find an emphasis on lobbying in these pages because of the crucial hidden impact of this practice. For all the businesses in the animal-industrial complex to continue, regulation must allow it and the public opinion accept it. How society perceives animal sentience has therefore a direct impact on the legal protection nonhuman animals receive and the behaviour of humans in general. Consequently, the narrative build around the moral consideration of other animals is key. This is why the public relations of these industries is very focused on promoting a narrative that frames as normal, natural, and necessary their activities, services, and products (Joy 2010). The discourse supported by this narrative is in plain opposition with common sense: the use and exploitation of sentient beings may have been normal (regular) and natural (traditional) in human history but that does not make it neither right nor necessary. The ethics of such a discourse needs to be problematised.

Animal suffering, the AIC, and the ethics of persuasion  5 In the following pages of this introductory chapter, the reader will find a short description of the theoretical stance of this volume, a definition of the animalindustrial complex and a description of what is meant in this volume by the ethics of persuasion. This chapter ends with a summary of the contributions provided by the authors of this book. A non-speciesist, compassionate stance The monograph you are holding in your hands makes a rather unprecedented proposal within the public relations field: it offers an ethical assessment of persuasive communication as deployed by some of the main businesses involved in the animal-industrial complex—the industries participating in the systematic and institutionalised use and exploitation of nonhuman animals. In doing so, we adopt a critical stance towards speciesism—the set of ideas that justify discriminating nonhuman animals for species membership because they are not human and therefore considered inferior and not deserving moral consideration or deserving less. Ethics and science have extensively shown there is no objective grounding for such a stance. This volume departs from the need to acknowledge this lack of grounding for speciesism, also within the public relations field, and to incorporate the moral progress experienced by society regarding ethics and science. Human culture has undergone a growing ethical concern regarding our relationship with other animals. This is a trend first promoted by the development of animal ethics—which claims any sentient being, because of sentience, deserves moral consideration—and secondly by other approaches from the social sciences, including critical animal studies—which advocates for antihierarchical stances and for using theory as a tool for political action and social commitment.2 These, and other non-anthropocentric, stances, are furthermore increasingly supported by science, with the Cambridge Declaration on Consciousness providing an excellent summary of the reasons for this support: The absence of a neocortex does not appear to preclude an organism from experiencing affective states. Convergent evidence indicates that non-human animals have the neuroanatomical, neurochemical, and neurophysiological substrates of conscious states along with the capacity to exhibit intentional behaviors. Consequently, the weight of evidence indicates that humans are not unique in possessing the neurological substrates that generate consciousness. Non-human animals, including all mammals and birds, and many other creatures, including octopuses, also possess these neurological substrates. (Cambridge Declaration 2012) To possess these neurological substrates means that nonhuman individuals—for sure all vertebrates and very likely a large number, if not all, of invertebrates—are able, as humans are, to experience negative and positive mental states, including all types of suffering. This is a knowledge that intuitively much of us already have,

6  Núria Almiron which many people also believe at present without having ever heard about the Cambridge Declaration on Consciousness. Still, many of the behaviours and activities we consider legitimate and normal at present contradict this scientifically proven intuition. To adopt a non-speciesist stance is therefore not a postmodern trend or an eccentric imposition on society by a minority group, rather it is to live aligned with this scientifically proven intuition. It is the acknowledgement and acceptance of the need to morally progress towards a society with less violence and more compassion— the latter a key element for justice to flourish. To adopt a non-speciesist stance is necessary, in the first place and foremost, to reduce and ideally eradicate the extreme suffering other animals experience because of our actions or the lack of them—when help can be provided and we do not. But the implications beyond other animals of a non-speciesist stance are in no case trivial. For adopting an animal standpoint theory has radical benefits for human society and the environment.3 This is so because, as Steven Best put it, this theory looks at the fundamental role animals play in sustaining the natural world and shaping the human world in co-evolutionary relations. While animals have constituted human existence in beneficial ways, they have seldom been willing partners. The main thesis of animal standpoint theory is that animals have been key determining forces of human psychology, social life, and history overall, and that the domination of human over nonhuman animals underpins the domination of humans over one another and over the natural world. (Best 2014, 1) More in particular, adopting a non-speciesist stance in this volume, devoted to the ethics of persuasion of public relations, has three main research and academic benefits. First, the ethical discussion of persuasion here introduced provides an expanded approach on compassion. Compassion related to humans is still a rather underresearched topic in persuasive communication research, scarcely addressed by public relations theory. This volume contributes to this field with an expanded view, by including compassion, and therefore justice, towards nonhuman animals. Second, this expanded view incorporates a non-anthropocentric critical perspective to both public relations and the ethics of persuasion, including the need for them to reject speciesism. This stance is still a research and reflection gap within critical communication theory, much desirable to align the discipline to the moral progress of society and the development of science. Finally, the volume offers a multidisciplinary approach to the service of critical public relations theory. The authors and contributions of the volume involve expertise in strategic communication, public relations, lobbying and advocacy, animal ethics, bioethics, philosophy of law, political philosophy, global justice, and social psychology. All the authors share the goal of promoting a non-speciesist stance and conduct a cross-disciplinary reflection. The result of this multidisciplinary effort is a unique merging of animal ethics, critical public relations, and critical animal studies. While the ethics of our treatment of other animals is a flourishing

Animal suffering, the AIC, and the ethics of persuasion  7 field in philosophy and law, the critical approach to animal suffering has been typically absent of critical public relations and persuasive communication theory and research. This volume’s stance aims at starting to address this gap. The animal-industrial complex The term industrial complex refers to the entanglement of business with social and political institutions for the sake of maximising profit. U.S. President Dwight Eisenhower popularised the concept in the 1960s by applying it to the military. With it, he pointed to the confluence of the military industry’s economic interests and militaristic or imperialist policies. Eisenhower, a military man himself, employed this concept at the end of his term, in 1961, to refer to American industrial groups interested in maintaining the arms race during the Cold War for economic benefit. Currently in the United States, the term also encompasses the broad network of contracts and cash flows and resources that flow between private defence contractors, the Pentagon, Congress, and the government. This relationship of interest is what is known as the military industry lobby, which, to a lesser extent, exists in all countries that have a military armaments industry. Eisenhower’s phrase has inspired other fields and authors, including those critical of animal exploitation. Dutch anthropologist Barbara Noske (1989) was the first to mention the “animal-industrial complex”, a concept that Richard Twine (2012) later elaborated on further. Noske’s phrase referred mostly to animal exploitation in the food system and addressed the political economy of this exploitation, that is, the distinct interests entangled within it, which cannot be properly understood outside of the corporate capital accumulation process. Twine produced a definition that applies not only to animal exploitation for human food but also to all other types of animal exploitation. He defined the animal-industrial complex as: A partly opaque and multiple set of networks and relationships between the corporate … sector, governments, and public and private science. With economic, cultural, social and affective dimensions it encompasses an extensive range of practices, technologies, images, identities and markets. (Twine 2012, 23) These and other industrial complexes, not only the military but also the prisonindustrial complex, the entertainment-industrial complex and the pharmaceuticalindustrial complex, to name the most widely studied ones, are undemocratic forces—Eisenhower himself described the military-industrial complex as a “threat to democratic government” (NPR 2011). This is so because they are able to de facto rule in society without being democratically empowered to do so: that is, they are able to condition, even determine, regulation; to set the agenda of media; to frame the topics of discussion in the public sphere; to shape the public opinion. Such a political power is not allocated to them by means of representative, democratic election, but taken over by the industry, because of its economic strength and capacity for establishing a dominant discourse.

8  Núria Almiron In the definition of the animal-industrial complex as an entanglement of economic, political, and social interests, it is necessary to stress at least two aspects: first, the role of communication and media in normalising, naturalising, and framing as necessary the use of nonhuman animals by the industries. Second, the elitist quality of this entanglement, in alignment with C. Wright Mills’ idea of a power elite. Mills believed that we should overcome the “simple” Marxian and liberal views that make “the big economic man the real holder of power” and “the big political man the chief of the power system”, respectively. It is so as to avoid these “oversimplified” accounts that Mills employed the term “power elite” (Mills 1956/2000, 277). The participants in Mills elite need neither be nor act as a homogeneous pack and may compete or even clash with each other, although they may act together when it is convenient to do so. This perfectly reflects the functioning of modern-day industrial complexes. Adapting from Noske and Twine, the animal-industrial complex is defined for this volume as a partly opaque and multiple set of networks and relationships between the economic, political, media, academic, and social elites to produce, promote, and perpetuate a systematic and institutionalised exploitation of nonhuman animals in all areas of business—mainly food, experimentation, entertainment, and nature—, with the result of nonhuman animals turned into forced labourers or participants, mere units of the productive system. Every year, trillions of terrestrial and aquatic animals are killed for food or to become accessories (for their skin or fur, for instance), millions of animals are used in laboratories (mainly for basic—not applied research and toxicology tests), millions are hunted (mostly by the canned hunting and the environmental management industries) or used for entertainment (in zoos, circus, aquaparks, fighting, local festivities, etc.). The magnitude of the harm these activities inflicts on them is described in the chapters of Part III of this volume together with the examination of the ethics of persuasion used by the animal-industrial complex to get social acceptance of it. The ethics of persuasion As Joan Dunayer (2001) disclosed more than two decades ago, the language, frames, and rhetoric predominantly used in society to refer to nonhuman animals originate, to a large extent, in the language, frames, and rhetoric of the industries that use and exploit them. These language, frames, and rhetoric justify and promote the use and exploitation of other sentient beings, regardless of the suffering this causes on them. In the midst of the 21st century, with the highest development of technology and science ever and a globally connected world, nonhuman animals are still predominantly seen merely as productive machines, pets, resources, goods, objects of experimentation, property, or entertaining actors for humans to use, amongst other objectifying views and treatments. This is, to a large extent, a major success of the public relations achievements by those industries. The animal defence movement has never before been as widespread as it is today. However, the capacity of influence of the actors concerned for animal

Animal suffering, the AIC, and the ethics of persuasion  9 suffering does not bear any comparison with the capacity of influence of the industries making profit by means of animal-based businesses. The influence of the narrative of the industry, together with their economic strength, is crucial in how policy-making and media shape our relationship towards other animals. Amongst the public relations tactics, the use of lobbying and discourse dissemination are remarkable. As a matter of example, we can look at the power of the animal agriculture and food industry, which has been very successful in delaying any real discussion about the misery inflicted on nonhuman animals in farming and the need of a dietary shift, even if we have been knowing for decades about the dreadful reality within farms and the negative impact of the animal-based diet on human health, the environment, and human society as a whole. This knowledge, however, has not been sufficient for producing a change beyond the bourgeoning market niche that veganism has reached in capitalism. Policy (in)action and media framing have been strongly influenced by the fierce opposition to change of the animal-based food business. To the extent that the topic has been absent in the United Nations Climate Change Conferences organised every year since 1995, only for the first time timidly addressed in a side event in 2019, and still until 2022 with summits including animal-based menus in their canteens. The high-impact, high-cost political lobbying power of the around 30 meat companies that control the global exploitation of farmed animals, which very effectively gather under trade group associations to defend their interests, is behind the meat taboo in UN conferences and in general (Almiron 2016, 2020). This lobbying capacity ensures not only policy delay, global discussion obstruction and complicit media coverage, but it is capable of a discursive coalition and networking action that, puzzlingly, guarantees that the animal-based food industry is positively linked to food security and to animal welfare. The successful results of the industry’s actions are undisputable: despite decades of ethical and pragmatical claims by animal and climate defenders (appealing to the suffering of nonhuman animals, to human health, social justice and nonviolence, and, lately, also planetary health), we are facing a global increase of animal-based food consumption and even the approval of new species (some insects) to be farmed and consumed by humans in Europe. This public relations success doesn’t come for free in the reputation of the animal-industrial complex. There is a split in reality between the high impact of these industries’ public relations on policy-making and the mainstream narrative, on one hand, and the negative image these persuasive practices actually produce in a large portion of society, on the other. The latter justifiably adds to the negative image public relations have in general—as propaganda and manipulation in disguise. Overall, the result is that the animal-industrial complex needs to redouble efforts to promote their narrative—this complex being therefore extremely dependent on strategic communication and lobbying. To discuss the ethics of persuasion seems an unavoidable task for corporate business in general, but it is particularly necessary in the case of animal exploitation and use, for the large number of sentient beings involved, the high impact of

10  Núria Almiron speciesism on human society and the lack of critical analysis of the communication practices of these industries. For a general definition of the ethics of persuasion, I suggest to follow Margaret Duffy and Esther Thorson’s (2016) work that, expanding from Cunningham (1999), define strategic communication ethics as “what is right or good in the conduct” of communication practitioners and what is concerned “with questions of what ought to be done, not just with what legally must be done” (Duffy and Thorson 2016, 7). In the case of this volume, the ethics of persuasion discusses the wrong and harm promoted by the public relations of the industries exploiting nonhuman animals, with an emphasis on the influence on policy-making, the media, and society—to convince the latter on the normal, natural, and necessary characteristics of the activities conducted by the animalindustrial complex. Public relations has mainly to do with getting attention, protecting reputation, and taking advantage. This involves the promotion of ideas in the marketplace of ideas, what is done mostly by the industries gathered under interest groups (not only lobbies but also think tanks and other dissemination platforms; e.g. Almiron 2016; Weidenbaum 2011). The use of strategic communication for the promotion of ideas is a practice that actually predates modern public relations; it can be traced back to the history of ideas (Moore 2014). As for the corporate context, by the promotion of ideas, I refer here to any effort to publicise, and turn into mainstream, the opinions and beliefs that are convenient for business to continue as usual. This critical approach is particularly suitable for industries that are ethically problematic and, thus, need to invest extra energy in convincing their publics not only of the quality of their products or services, but of the legitimacy of their activity and the organisations themselves. As Moloney (2006) emphasised, these promotional and idea dissemination efforts can be done more in relation to the general public, in which case public relations is mostly media relations, or with a higher concern put on policy-making, in which public relations turn mostly into lobbying. However, the latter very rarely can be exerted successfully without the former, since a change in regulation or corporate habits usually needs the support of the public opinion or at least an apparent support or benefit for society. In all cases, however, public relations is “promotional communication, minus most advertising, done by organisations (corporate bodies) and by groups (voluntary associations and causes)” (Moloney 2006, 4). For this volume, the public relations of the animal-industrial complex refers to the promotion of the ideas that help normalise, naturalise, and convince of the necessity of the exploitation of sentient beings of other species for human benefit. According to classical public relations theory, the promotion of ideas can be put forward through a four-category model that has become a paradigm, as established by James E. Grunig and Todd T. Hunt in 1984. The four models of public relations include: • the press agentry/publicity model in which complete truth is not considered neither necessary nor helpful and communication is one way; • the public information model in which complete truth is considered necessary but still communication is one way;

Animal suffering, the AIC, and the ethics of persuasion  11 • the two-way asymmetric model in which truth is considered necessary and there is a pretended two-way communication, only to create the impression that the organisation is listening to the public; therefore, unbalanced effects are still present since communication is intended to influence and change behaviour of the publics alone; • the two-way systematic model in which the goal is to achieve a true mutual understanding and satisfying the mutual interests of both the organisation and its publics; this model assumes the need for organisations to change their behaviour, not only of changing publics’ behaviour. This categorisation attempts to differentiate propaganda—communication beneficial for the sender alone—from a communication benefitting all, organisations and their publics. This paradigm has become over time a classic theory in the public relations field. Under honest scrutiny, however, it is difficult to find for-profit organisations that apply the second, third, and, much less, the fourth category. As a matter of fact, the application of the fourth model would inevitably mean the reversal of the principal aim of any capitalist organisation (the main goal is profit first, not altruism). Though capitalistic proponents argue that you need to make profit in order to be able to share any wealth, this is a very narrow view of what altruism is and neglects the harms that the accumulation of capital by only a few produces in the rest of society. In practice, the idealistic fourth category of public relations by the Grunig-Hunt paradigm is absent in corporate public relations. Kevin Moloney, talking about the UK but translatable to most other Western countries, states that most public relations is public communication designed to manipulate or persuade, what he defines as weak propaganda (2006). The major exception to this is likely non-profit public relations. While the public relations of the animal-industrial complex can straightforwardly be labelled as ideological propaganda most of the time, a number of not-for-profit organisations working in animal defence use strategic communication very much in alignment with the fourth Grunig-Hunt model: embracing a dialogue with society, in this case with the moral and scientific progress experienced in our relations with other animals, and campaigning accordingly. The contributions in this volume This volume addresses this major gap in the discussion of the ethics of persuasion: the need for a critical analysis of public relations conducted by the animal-industrial complex. It is the result of the reflection conducted within the COMPASS research project (Lobbying and Compassion. Interest groups, discourse, and nonhuman animals in Spain),4 which examines how our internal moral compass, compassion, may be prevented from flourishing and developing by persuasive communication in general and public relations and lobbying in particular. All the authors of this book are members of the project, with the exception of Pablo Magaña, Paula Casal, Macarena Montes, and Dayron Teran, who kindly accepted our invitation to participate in it. As mentioned before, it is worth noting not only the multidisciplinary profile they reflect but the interdisciplinary effort conducted by all of them.

12  Núria Almiron The volume is divided into four parts, with this introduction as Part I. Part II includes two chapters critically reflecting on the theory of public relations, persuasion, and compassion with regard to animal abuse and exploitation, authored by communication authors. Part III includes an examination, by animal ethicists, of the ethics of persuasion of nonhuman animals in four main areas of the animalindustrial complex: food, entertainment, experimentation, and nature. Part IV incorporates a psychological reflection on the cognitive heuristics that can be used for persuading others within an animal ethics perspective and a conclusive reflection for the volume. Part II starts with Chapter 2, in which, Laura Fernández and myself argue that the ethical framework raised by previous critical literature is already of use to justify the cultivation of compassion towards other animals in persuasive communication. This is particularly true for the critical public relations perspective, which we revisit and for which we discuss the opportunities brought about if the animal standpoint is incorporated—that is if a non-anthropocentric, non-speciesist gaze is adopted. We deem this gaze is actually compulsory for the field if we want to further the study of power, hegemony, ideology, propaganda, and social change, and contribute to accomplish the emancipatory role of research in critical public relations. In Chapter 3, with Olatz Aranceta-Reboredo, we expand on what is compassion as applied to persuasive communication, departing from the definition of Martha Nussbaum as a moral compass. To this end, we examine first the role of compassion as a strong motivator for prosocial behaviours, as discussed by philosophy and social psychology. Second, we discuss the role of persuasion and influence in the case of compassion towards nonhuman animals. We conclude by encouraging the use of persuasion for not blocking but promoting compassion towards nonhuman animals. Part III is devoted to four main areas of the animal-industrial complex. In order to provide the necessary context, all chapters begin with a description of the basic facts about the harms that nonhuman animals suffer in each industry and conclude with a case study, authored by Laura Fernández and myself, which illustrates the chapter with an example summarising the lessons that can be drawn from a case of lobbying against compassion in each particular industry. This section starts with Chapter 4 by Eze Paez and Pablo Magaña focused on the animal-based food industry. These authors argue that the food industry, through public relations and lobbying, unjustifiably thwarts the interests of nonhuman animals, which is not only wrong in itself but also has a negative impact upon the public sphere, both on the quality of public discussion and on political freedom and equality. This chapter is illustrated with the case study “The meat lobby and the World Health Organization”. In Chapter 5, Paula Casal and Macarena Montes address the ethics of persuasion of the animal-based entertainment industry, mostly animals exhibited in zoos, circuses, and other facilities that they consider entertainment-oriented. The authors argue these businesses present the animals in whatever way makes the practice appear less immoral, claim to have education and conservation as their mission,

Animal suffering, the AIC, and the ethics of persuasion  13 and present their entertainment businesses as altruistic charities. This chapter is illustrated with the case study “SeaWorld against the documentary Blackfish”. Chapter 6, by Fabiola Leyton, discusses the ethics of persuasion in the case of animal experimentation, which involves the nonhuman animals used in research. Leyton argues that the persuasive rhetoric of this industry is based on a patriarchal, speciesist, and anthropocentric paradigm, which undermines and damages the compassion and empathy of the public, relevant decisions-makers, and society as a whole. She discusses some dilemmas that arise from the persuasive action of this industry and suggests to overcome the speciesist bias with an ethics of care. This chapter is illustrated with the case study “Huntingdon Life Science and the SHAC Campaign”. This section concludes with Chapter 7, by Catia Faria, which addresses the ethics of persuasion in the case of the environmental management industry, the groups of actors who derive certain benefits from environmental management policies impacting nonhuman animals in nature (from the hunting sector to environmentalist NGOs). By focusing on paradigmatic instances of persuasive strategies by this industry, Faria claims these persuasive efforts fail to qualify as ethical in a strong sense, since they disregard the well-being of individual animals in nature and reinforce speciesist attitudes. This chapter is illustrated with the case study “The Catalan Hunting Federation and Wild Boars Management”. In Part IV, Daniela R. Waldhorn reviews in Chapter 8 some evidence about why it’s so difficult to ethically think straight about animals, especially those used for human consumption. It is argued that such a challenge is related to broader psychological phenomena, according to which people tend to react and reason about new upsetting information in ways that aim to justify their previous beliefs. To this end, Waldhorn reviews Robert Cialdini’s set of persuasion principles based on cognitive heuristics. The volume concludes with Chapter 9, including some final remarks by Oscar Horta, Dayron Teran, and myself wrapping up with a discussion of persuasion versus manipulation—in which the persuasive efforts of the animal-industrial complex are described as instances of manipulation–and the need for public relations to reject speciesism—by arguing that the main reason why they are morally objectionable is the fact that they promote harm suffered by nonhuman animals. I want to thank all the authors of this volume for their excellent contributions, including Júlia Castellano for her drawings, which accompany the front page of each part. My gratitude necessarily extends also to the rest of the COMPASS research project and UPF-Centre for Ethics’ members, as well as to the several critical animal studies and animal ethics fora whose discussions and reflections have illuminated and greatly helped the envisioning of this volume—and of the whole COMPASS project indeed. Last but not least, I want to thank the commissioning editor of this book at Routledge, Alex Atkinson, and the editorial assistant, Manjusha Mishra, for their kind support throughout the preparation and editing of this book. This volume may be blamed for not offering solutions on how to conduct ethical public relations within the animal-industrial complex. We do not do so first

14  Núria Almiron because it is out of the scope of the volume to produce any recommendations, with the volume devoted to examine the ethics, that is what is wrong in the persuasive practices of the animal-industrial complex. That is with our main aim to produce food for thought, for ethical reflection. But, we do not produce answers because there is no way, in our view, to ethically communicate a moral wrong, in this case, corporate activities that create suffering and death for so many sentient beings. The goal of the volume is to provide critical researchers, animal advocates, and concerned public relations practitioners with an ethical assessment of public relations when animal suffering is involved. I hope this volume helps us all realise that an ethics of persuasion that incorporates compassion towards the suffering of other animals—and therefore avoids endorsing animal suffering—is unavoidable for public relations to contribute in a really positive way to society. Notes 1 Speciesist language, such as language objectifying nonhuman animals, is avoided in this chapter and throughout the volume, like the use of a singular noun to refer to a plurality of individuals or the discriminatory dualism perpetuated every time we use the word “animals” to refer only to nonhuman animals. 2 For some key recent literature on animal ethics, see for instance Alice Crary and Lori Gruen (2022) for a general new critical theory, or Catia Faria’s work (2022) for a reflection on animal suffering in nature. For recent key works on critical animal studies, see, for instance, Poirier et al. (2022) and Nocella II and George (2022). 3 For the benefits on human society of a nonviolent relationship with other animals, see, for instance, the work of Aysha Akhtar (2012; 2019). For a comprehensive exposition of the benefits on human health, see, for instance, Greger (2017). For a summary on the impact of the animal-based diet on the environment, see, for instance, Kemmerer (2014) and Schlotmann and Sebo (2018). 4 The COMPASS project (Lobbying and Compassion. Interest groups, discourse and nonhuman animals in Spain) is funded by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation and State Research Agency (Agencia Estatal de Investigación, AEI) under grant PID2020–118926RB-100/MICIN/AEI/10.13039/501100011033.

References Akhtar, Aysha. 2012. Animals and Public Health: Why Treating Animals Better Is Critical to Human Welfare. London: Palgrave MacMillan. Akhtar, Aysha. 2019. Our Symphony with Animals: On Health, Empathy, and Our Shared Destinies. New York: Pegasus Book. Almiron, Núria. 2016. “The Political Economy Behind the Oppression of Other Animals: Interest and Influence.” In: Critical Animal and Media Studies. Communication for Nonhuman Animal Advocacy, edited by Núria Almiron, Matthew Cole and Carrie P. Freeman, 26–41. New York: Routledge. Almiron, Núria. 2020. “Meat Taboo: Climate Change and the EU Meat Lobby.” In: Meatsplaining. The Animal Agriculture Industry and the Rhetoric of Denial, edited by Jason Hanan, 163–186. Sydney: Sydney University Press. Best, Steve. 2014. The Politics of Total Liberation. Revolution for the 21st Century. New York: Palgrave MacMillan.

Animal suffering, the AIC, and the ethics of persuasion  15 Crary, Alice and Lori Gruen. 2022. Animal Crisis – A New Critical Theory. Cambridge: Polity Press. Cunningham, Anne. 1999. “Responsible Advertisers. A Contractualist Approach to Ethical Power.” Journal of Mass Media Ethics 14 (2): 82–94. https://doi.org/10.1207/ S15327728JMME1402_2. Duffy, Margaret and Esther Thorson. 2016. Persuasion Ethics Today. London: Routledge. Dunayer, Joan. 2001. Animal Equality. Language and Liberation. Derwood, MD: Ryce Publishing. Eisenhower, Dwight. 1961. “President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s Farewell Address.” National Archives. https://www.archives.gov/milestone-documents/president-dwightd-eisenhowers-farewell-address. Faria, Catia. 2022. Animal Ethics in the Wild: Wild Animal Suffering and Intervention in Nature. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Greger, Michael. 2017. How Not To Die: Discover the Foods Scientifically Proven to Prevent and Reverse Disease. London: Pan books. Grunig, James and Todd T. Hunt. 1984. Managing Public Relations, New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston. Joy, Melanie. 2010. Why We Love Dogs, Eat Pigs and Wear Cows: An Introduction to Carnism. 10th Anniversary Edition. Newburyport, MA: Red Wheel/Weiser. Kemmerer, Lisa. 2014. Eating Earth. Environmental Ethics and Dietary Choice. New York: Oxford University Press. Mills, C. Wright. 1956/2000. The Power Elite. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Moloney, Kevin. 2006. Rethinking Public Relations. PR Propaganda and Democracy. London: Routledge. Moore, Simon. 2014. Public Relations and the History of Ideas. New York: Routledge. Nocella II, Anthony J. and Amber E. George, eds. 2022. Critical Animal Studies and Social Justice: Critical Theory, Dismantling Speciesism, and Total Liberation. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books. Noske, Barbara. 1989. Human and Other Animals. London: Pluto Press. NPR. 2011. “Ike’s Warning of Military Expansion, 50 Years Later.” NPR, January 17. https:// www.npr.org/2011/01/17/132942244/ikes-warning-of-military-expansion-50-years-later. Poirier, Nathan, Anthony J. Nocella II and Annie Bernatchez, eds. 2022. Emerging New Voices in Critical Animal Studies: Vegan Studies for Total Liberation. Bern: Peter Lang. Schlotmann, Christopher and Jeff Sebo. 2018. Food, Animals, and the Environment: An ­Ethical Approach. London: Routledge. Twine, Richard. 2012. “Revealing the ‘Animal-Industrial Complex’ – A Concept & Method for Critical Animal Studies?”, Journal for Critical Animal Studies 10 (1): 12–39. Weidenbaum, Murray. 2011. The Competition of Ideas. The World of the Washington Think Tanks. London: Transaction Publisher.

PART II

Public relations, persuasion, and compassion towards other animals

2

Critical public relations and the moral consideration of other animals Núria Almiron and Laura Fernández

Introduction Public relations is about influence and persuasion. For the mainstream paradigm of public relations, this means mostly using strategic communication to improve the reputation of organisations and increase the support they (or their products, services, or leaders) receive. However, the line separating persuasion and manipulation is a thin one, and the techniques used by public relations—including public affairs, interest groups, and lobbying—often only contribute to the economic wealth of a few humans, rather than the well-being of a majority of individuals. In response to this reality, critical research in public relations emerged to incorporate critical theory into the study, teaching, and practice of public relations, producing what Jacquie L’Etang defined as a “major discursive turn within the field …; a reorientation away from the U.S. towards other cultures and histories …; and a merging with media sociology” (2005, 522). The range of authors participating in this turn is wide and has continued to grow. Together, they conform what has been defined as critical public relations. Despite the above, major gaps remain within critical public relations, one of which this chapter is intended to address: the need for a consideration of animals within this discursive turn; that is, the incorporation of non-anthropocentric, nonspeciesist gazes within critical public relations research, teaching, and practice. In this chapter, we argue that including the animal standpoint within the critical public relations perspective can not only be very fruitful, but it is also necessary if the aims of the latter are to be fulfilled. By including the animal standpoint, we do not mean only taking into consideration the nonhuman animals’ perspective but also the consequences of human domination over them, and therefore the need to rethink our relationship with other animals and incorporate moral consideration towards them in communication research and practice. To support this argument, the text is divided into two main sections. Firstly, we identify the ethical frameworks proposed by previous critical public relations literature, which can also be used to justify the practice of compassion towards other animals within public relations. And secondly, we review what constitutes critical public relations and introduce the challenges and opportunities the animal standpoint brings to it. In this regard, we discuss key fields of research DOI: 10.4324/9781003324065-4

20  Núria Almiron and Laura Fernández where this contribution may be more fruitful, including discourse studies, visual communication, and political economy. These three areas involve some of the more relevant objects of research in communication studies (normativity/duties, content/ texts, and organisations/structures, with only audiences/reception being left out from McQuail’s classification of areas, McQuail 2010) and serve our purpose here to encourage expanding research within the field of critical public relations by including moral consideration towards nonhuman animals. The ultimate aim of the chapter is to show how critical public relations is ready to adopt a non-anthropocentric stance, and how this can further the study of power, hegemony, ideology, propaganda, and social change, and contribute to accomplishing the emancipatory role of research sought by critical public relations. Ethical frameworks within critical public relations In this section, we address some ethical frameworks proposed by scholars, mostly, but not only, from the critical public relations field that serves to justify the cultivation of compassion towards other animals or, alternatively, to question the lack of it. As defined by Perloff (2017), persuasion is an attempt by an individual or a group of individuals to shape, alter, and reinforce the perception, cognition, affect, and behaviour of another. Naturally, this can be done with both good and bad intentions, and difficulties arise when attempting to agree on what is acceptable and what is not. However, as Lee reminds us, persuasion may conflict “with certain human values, including truth, autonomy, free will, and intent”, and it is important to reflect on what constitutes ethical persuasion (Lee 2016, 225). Persuasion is controversial—with public relations practitioners persistently trying to distance their work and themselves from propaganda. Furthermore, it is difficult to sustain that there is a clear divide between persuasion and what is usually mentioned as its contrary: information. In the words of Duffy et al. (2016), “all communication is persuasive” (14). Truth-telling is, therefore, as important in public relations as in any other type of communication. Regardless of its proponent, any persuasive intent must be in accordance with truth or, at least, in accordance with the commitment to avoid deception. Lee (2016) defines telling the truth as “to present facts that are in accordance with fact or reality” (227). Nevertheless, as critical discourse analysts know very well, not telling true facts is not the sole untruth that can be promoted; omitting facts is also a significant form of bias. That is, the dissemination of selective truth can also constitute untruth, fabrication, or misrepresentation. In 2001, Baker and Martinson produced a model of persuasive communication— the TARES framework—that represents an interesting normative attempt to relate persuasive communication to the duties and responsibility, that is, ethics, of the public relations practitioner. The TARES model establishes ethical boundaries for persuasive communication by means of five principles: the truthfulness of the message; the authenticity of the persuader; respect for the person being persuaded; equity of the persuasive appeal; and social responsibility for the common good. In 2009, Carrie P. Freeman argued in favour of applying the TARES model to

Critical PR and the moral consideration of other animals  21 the communications of counter-hegemonic movements such as the animal rights movement. Here, we would stress the importance of testing this model on the other side of the spectrum: namely, on the corporate public relations involved in animal exploitation businesses. The aim of this would be to determine how corporate communication practices impact on the development of compassion among their audiences and would mean asking questions like the following: Truthfulness: Are the public relations claims made and/or lobbying activities carried out by the industry truthful with regard to the impacts its activity has on animal well-being? Does any relevant omission (like the suffering produced in other animals by farming, experimentation, or their final killing) lead message receivers to false beliefs regarding animal well-being? Authenticity: Are the lobbying and public relations of the industry sincere in their claims of concern for animal well-being? Respect: Is the industry respectful towards the public that do not consume their products for animal ethics reasons? Equity: Do the public relations claims made and/or lobbying activities carried out by the industry exploit people’s anxieties, fears or low self-esteem (like including threats to the public’s health if they do not consume animal-based food)? Social Responsibility: Are the public relations claims made and/or lobbying activities carried out by the industry aligned with the current moral progress and scientific knowledge available to society? Thus, TARES may also be a valuable tool for ethically addressing the persuasive communication of the industries exploiting nonhuman sentient beings. Furthermore, this normative model is not an isolated attempt, but rather one widely supported by theory. A long list of theoretical reflections can be found in the literature that point to problematic frames or arguments very much related to this model. Due to space limitations, we can only mention a few here. For instance, Stephanie Geise and Renita Coleman (2016) identified a number of ethical frames in persuasive communication that are useful here, in spite—or perhaps because—of the context in which they are produced (health communication; health as a topic easily related to some of the uses related to animal exploitation). These authors focus on questionable frames that must be challenged or even need to be completely avoided in ethical persuasive practice. We agree with these authors that framing involves a morality function that cannot be neglected. In their words: Communicators should be concerned whether their messages may be interpreted as blaming, victimizing, or offering moral evaluation of others. Rather than pointing fingers, a moral standard should be to protect people who are already in a weak position from further harm. (Geise and Coleman 2016, 189) Given that nonhuman animals are in the weakest position on the planet as sentient beings (Faria 2014), this reflection should also incorporate them within its

22  Núria Almiron and Laura Fernández concerns. Of course, this questions the very essence of any industry exploiting nonhuman animals. However, the difficulty of the task cannot refrain us from addressing the issue. Geise and Coleman’s (2016) ethically questionable frames are: negative emotional; individual responsibility; and stereotype priming. Amongst the negative emotional frames identified by the literature mentioned by these authors, fear is the most recurrent. Public relations and lobbying tactics by the animal experimentation industry usually develop fear tactics when justifying the harm their business inflicts on other animals: the fear/threat, for instance, that human medicine cannot progress without animal experimentation (e.g. Almiron and Khazaal 2016). Tactics like fear-mongering provide disincentives to act on sympathetic feelings, which in turn blocks sympathy towards nonhumans (e.g. Luke 2007). For its part, the individual responsibility frame blames individuals while absolving society, government, and corporations. This can be found every time an animal-based food corporation uses the argument “we only give the public what they want”, and in doing so ignores the many social structures that normalise, naturalise, and make the consumption and use of other animals appear necessary (Harrison 2013; Joy 2010). These structures are heavily influenced by corporate public relations. Finally, stereotype priming refers to the use of stereotypes that resonate with our pre-existing ideas about something. Similar to the bullfighting industry (Codina Segovia 2018), the animal-based food industry has typically promoted gender stereotypes to reinforce the link between the consumption of red meat and masculinity (Rozin et al. 2012), to mention just two examples. The use of these frames by persuasive communicators should immediately trigger an alarm regarding the sincerity and truthfulness of messages emitted by these industries. Reflections on the ethics of public relations have also included theorising public interest, humane conversations, and types of empathy. Brunner and Smallwood (2019) suggest prioritising public interest in public relations or public interest relations (PIR). PIR recognises that public relations practitioners “have a civic duty to create spaces for dialogue; encourage and listen to diverse viewpoints; offer honest analysis and synthesis toward recommendations that advocate for the public interest; and act in the public interest, while also advancing organizational goals” (245). The authors posit that PIR strengthens trust, community-building, and goodwill. Maier’s (2015) vision of public relations practice is grounded in humane conversation, following R. Edward Freeman and Richard Rorty’s work, particularly the notions of contingency, irony, and solidarity in such practice. Yeomans (2016) theorises empathy in public relations by employing two distinct notions of it: true empathy (driven by concern for the other) and instrumental empathy (reflecting self-orientation). The latter concept resonates loudly in the persuasive messages of industries exploiting nonhuman animals in their, so often, instrumental (calculated) attempt to align with the ethical progress experienced by society regarding violence against other animals. Weaver (2016) brings Marx’s work to the field of critical public relations and Marxist criticism to contribute to our understanding and theorising of public relations. The effort is fruitful for training our ethical gaze and particularly interesting

Critical PR and the moral consideration of other animals  23 for obtaining insights into the social, political, and economic structures that public relations and lobbying efforts work to maintain, including the exploitation of other sentient beings and the need to curb compassion generation in society so as to continue with business as usual. Some authors have argued that nonhuman animals must be included in business ethics from a stakeholder perspective. Clancy defined nonhuman animals as “community stakeholders” (2014). Connolly and Cullen called them “silent stakeholder(s)” (2018, 410). Merskin (2021) adds they are “silenced stakeholders”. Since other animals have interests in decisions that affect them, they should be included in the array of stakeholders, “the argument being they are not only silent but also silenced as have been marginalized human groups” (103). For Merskin, if public relations is to be ethical, inclusive, and socially responsible, nonhuman animals must be affirmed within the circle of responsibility of communication theory and practice. Reviewing Freeman and Reed’s (1983) theory for considering who a stakeholder might be, Merskin points at the anthropocentric character of that theory. Nonhuman animals are missing from the theory but they constitute the sense of stakeholders since nonhuman animals are “moral agents with a stake in what happens to them” (107). Finally, some leading critical public relations scholars have made a very strong point on the negative influence that public relations exerts on democracy. Kevin Molony (2006) equated public relations with weak propaganda, while Kristin Demetrious (2022) makes a strong argument regarding the negative impact on democracy brought about by neoliberalism’s infiltration of public relations, since this produces an “impoverished public debate” (Demetrious 2022, 8). The argument of public relations damaging democracy fully informs our assertions in this chapter, given that real discussion is a must if society is to address the wrongs of our relationship with nonhuman animals. In the next section, we further explore how the paradigm of critical public relations can be useful for animal ethics. Critical public relations and the animal standpoint1 Filling the ethical gap in public relations

Critical work in public relations has blossomed since the end of the 1990s, drawing on the same sources shared by all critical communication studies: the critical theory proposed by the Frankfurt school and the need to challenge current assumptions and thereby alter boundaries to produce paradigm shifts and a critique of mainstream theories, policies, and practices (L’Etang, 2005). In this sense, critical public relations (CPR) is essentially about power. As Motion and Weaver (2009, 50) put it: The task for the critical public relations scholar is to investigate how public relations practice uses particular discursive strategies to advance the hegemonic power of particular groups and to examine how these groups attempt to gain public consent to pursue their organizational mission.

24  Núria Almiron and Laura Fernández The main aim of CPR is to challenge the dominant paradigm in public relations and, to do so from the margins, “geographically, ideologically and methodologically”, as stated by L’Etang (2005, 523). In The Routledge Handbook of Critical Public Relations, Heath and Xifra stress that the aim of the field is to go beyond the simple criticism of public relations and aspire “for a social critique that leads to human and social emancipation” (Heath and Xifra 2016, 200). However, human and social emancipation through communication practices will not be possible if we continue to replicate what could be the most common bias in the social sciences and humanities: the positioning of humans at the very centre of meaning, value, knowledge, and action—and the consequent devaluing of, or even obliviousness to, the effects of our actions on the rest of life on the planet due to this alleged human superiority. In this respect, it is worth remembering that the object of study in critical communication studies is not human beings themselves, but the communication processes by means of which humans interact and, more specifically, how these processes perpetuate or prevent domination and oppression. The violence and commoditisation we force upon other animals must therefore be recognised as a social phenomenon, inasmuch as what can be deemed to be social in a human society cannot be restricted to only some selected human deeds. All our actions comprise this conceptualisation of social. For these reasons, the ethical, political, economic, and social implications of our exploitation of nature and other animals must also be considered part of what we accept as being social—and therefore of interest to communication studies of all kinds. The above being said, a research gap still exists regarding the harm caused to other animals by human behaviour, not only in public relations studies in general but also in the critical approach to public relations. And yet CPR could be much enriched, both methodologically and ideologically, by adopting the animal standpoint. There have, in fact, already been claims from CPR studies that suggest the field might benefit from adopting a critical stance towards how humans treat other animals, including the claim that CPR must explore how public relations serves some classes more than others and in what ways (L’Etang 2005). Interestingly, the entanglements between human and animal oppression can also be considered as class issues (Hribal 2012; Nibert 2002). There are some differences or levels in class category with regard to the treatment of nonhuman animals that need to be acknowledged. These are essentially the result of non-anthropocentric speciesism—that is, the type of anthropocentrism that discriminates between different nonhuman animal species. In this respect, depending on where you live, in the human hierarchical mindset, it is not the same to be a dog or a cat as to be an exploited animal within the meat industry. In all cases, however, the social class where we position other animals is so low that we do not even want to recognise it is a class. Yet, the class relationship has been expressed historically, from slave narratives to the current experiences of refugees, when it is said that they are treated worse than or equal to animals (Hribal 2012; Khazaal and Almiron 2021). Certainly, the concept of class helps us see

Critical PR and the moral consideration of other animals  25 the strong role that political and economic interests play in such entanglements. It is also significant that the system is supported by state and economic institutions. As Nibert (2002) put it, “the horrid treatment of other animals and devalued humans over the ages was conditioned by economic arrangements and validated by political and ideological systems that supported the oppression” (31). Black feminists, ecofeminists, and critical race scholars, following Crenshaw’s (1989) seminal conceptualisation of intersectionality, have also introduced an intersectional analysis to human–nonhuman animal relations, underlining the limitations of binary thinking, the problem of animalisation of those considered others and close relations between white supremacy and human supremacy, among other important issues (Deckha 2012; Kemmerer 2011; Ko and Ko 2017). The entanglements between human, animal, and earth abuse are what have led critical animal scholars like Steven Best (2014) to assert that “human, animal and earth liberation movements are different components of one inseparable struggle” (xii). Therefore, addressing how humans treat other animals not only fits within the aspirations of CPR, but it is actually mandatory to the field if real human emancipation (i.e. suppression of all types of violence) is envisioned. In the next section, we attempt to contribute to critical work in public relations by discussing ways in which the animal standpoint can be incorporated within CPR work, including a discussion of some prominent early works. Due again to space limitations, we have narrowed our proposal to three main perspectives and areas of research: language, discourse, and rhetoric; visual communication; and the political economy of communication. Applying the animal standpoint to CPR research Language, discourse, and rhetoric

The critical analysis of language, discourse, and rhetoric around exploited nonhuman animals is aligned with the mission of CPR to search for the meaning and power of discourses in public relations (Motion and Leitch 2016). The words we use as a society give clues to and reveal our social and moral beliefs, as author Joan Dunayer argued in her seminal book Animal Equality: Language and Liberation (2001). Dunayer’s theoretical exploration turned into an in-depth analysis of the effects that the animal exploitation industries’ rhetoric—as expressed through public discourses, campaigns, and marketing strategies—have on perpetuating anthropocentrism and speciesism. This language objectifies nonhuman animals and ignores their sentience and individuality, therefore reproducing an anthropocentric and human supremacist logic that suggests their existence consists in fulfilling human interests. Dunayer noticed that words and expressions such as it instead of he/she or anything/something instead of anyone/someone were examples of how nonhuman animals are given the moral status of things, resources, or machines, rather than sentient living individuals who deserve protection from suffering, respect, care, and recognition of their main interests.

26  Núria Almiron and Laura Fernández Arran Stibbe (2001) highlighted the suitability of critical discourse analysis (CDA) for examining animal exploitation industries’ discourses and counterarguing their anthropocentric messages towards nonhuman animals. The main goal of CDA is to enquire about the relationship between language, ideology, power, and social structures. Cathy Glenn’s (2004) CDA of the U.S. factory farm industry discourse in advertising is a good example of this. Glenn (2004) detected two mechanisms from the industry regarding their discourse: they used “doublespeak” to describe particular processes internal to the industry and construct nonhuman animals as commodities, at the same time that the industry promoted a discourse based on anthropomorphised speaking animals in advertisements, who sell their own body parts as products of those industrial processes. Glenn (2004) identified a dual discourse within the industry that promotes the commodification of nonhuman animals while at the same time reinforcing it by means of an industrial appropriation of farmed animals’ voices and subjectivities in the eyes of the public. Melanie Joy’s (2010) concept of carnism also points to the way that agribusiness’ interests perpetuate and promote the objectification, use, and exploitation of farmed animals and legitimise their activities by controlling the discourse and presenting animal oppression as normal, natural, and necessary, rather than as an ethical problem that needs to be urgently addressed. More recent empirical research has shed light on the ways in which the vivisection-industrial complex’s speciesist discourse has manufactured consent regarding the use of nonhuman animals for experimentation (Almiron and Khazaal 2016) and how the animal-based entertainment industries have used public relations for the same goal in the case of orcas enclosed in aquaprisons (Almiron 2017). Research on the Swedish dairy industry has examined the use of public relations activities such as pasture releases and open farm events to legitimise the industry’s welfarist values and ideals, perpetuating speciesism and romanticising oppression through the rhetoric of new carnivorism/happy meat (Canavan 2017; Linné and Pedersen 2016; ). Carreras (2021) has extensively analysed the discourse and influence on food orientations of the European dairy lobbies. The book Meatsplaining (Hannan 2020) discusses how the agri-food business lobbies create a speciesist discourse coalition to protect their economic interests while perpetuating nonhuman animal oppression and accelerating the climate deadlock. These are just some examples of how CPR can be enriched by an analysis of the animal exploitation industry’s discourses, terms, and rhetorical mechanisms. Such application illustrates how the animal-industrial complex (AIC) strategically uses language to conceal activities that damage nonhuman animals, persuade consumers in their favour, limit social compassion towards other animals, and, ultimately, spread speciesism and other oppressive ideologies. Visual communication

Animal exploitation industries benefit from the power of visual narratives to promote an image of the industry’s activities as necessary, altruistic, sustainable, caring, and beneficial to the community through their audiences. Due to their high

Critical PR and the moral consideration of other animals  27 emotional content and symbolic value, visuals and audiovisuals are valuable tools for persuasion and social manipulation. The animal exploitation industries make extensive use of strategic communication to reinforce their productive activities and promote the consumption of nonhuman animals as products (food, clothing, etc.) or services (entertainment, nonhumans as objects for experimentation, work, or companionship, etc.). The contrast that usually exists between undercover investigations by photojournalists and activists into the opaque animal exploitation industries and the cheerful and colourful advertisements of the latter is striking. While the former provide overt examples of speciesist violence in its most explicit manifestation, the latter is an idealised, softened, sanitised, and caricatured version of it, or what Keri Cronin and Lisa A. Kramer (2018) called the iconography of oppression. Visual communication of the harsh confinement, exploitation, and killing of nonhuman animals usually generates moral shock (Jasper and Poulsen 1995), which creates an arousal of emotions and promotes public compassion towards nonhuman animals and indignation over their suffering. To a large degree, this moral shock and feeling of atrocity moves audiences to reduce or eliminate their collaboration with these industries (Fernández 2021). In response, the industries’ sanitised and humane-washed communication tactics struggles to counteract this emotional response and pacify consumers’ consciousness, while promoting a speciesist visual discourse that commodifies nonhuman animals and encourages the consumption/use of their bodies in the form of products or services. Furthermore, research has shown that the iconography of oppression is constantly updated and adapted to consumers’ social concerns through discourses of sustainability—green-washing, green meat, or postcommodity fetish (Cole 2016; Stãnescu 2019)—or animal welfare—humane-washing or happy meat. For example, Linné (2016) studied how the Swedish dairy industry made use of social media (Facebook and Instagram) to promote a visual and interactive discourse of interspecies intimacy that profits from cows’ digital and emotional labour to perpetuate their own exploitation through the idealisation of speciesist oppression. The visual advertising and public relations campaigns run by animal exploitation companies often target children in the form of stories, films, series, videogames, and in-person and online events, amongst others (e.g. Korimboccus 2020), where nonhuman animals are embedded in a process of cutification (Cole and Steward 2014) to generate affective feelings in children that promote strategic ignorance (Korimboccus 2020), thereby blurring the exploitation and suffering of flesh-and-blood nonhuman animals and limiting the flourishing of truly compassionate interspecies relations. An intersectional approach to the iconographies of oppression perpetrated by the animal exploitation industries reflects how nonhuman animal objectification is entangled with other forms of human oppression and cannot be dissociated from sexist and misogynist (e.g. Adams 2016), or racist (e.g. Plec 2016), logics, amongst others. In short, a critical analysis of the animal industries’ visual and audiovisual output represents a prolific research area for CPR.

28  Núria Almiron and Laura Fernández The political economy of communication

The political economy of communication (PEC) is still a minority perspective in the field of CPR. From an animal standpoint, this analytical perspective is interested in the structural dimension of the speciesist ideology and is key to understanding the economic substratum related to the entangled oppression of human and nonhuman animals (Nibert 2002, 2013). PEC has proven to be a valuable research perspective due to its capacity to shed light on the economic relations underlying the exploitation of other animals and the discourses that justify it. A critical PEC approach, as summarised by Murdock and Golding (2005) and Mosco (2009), has the following foundational basis: (i) it gives priority to understanding social change and historical transformation; (ii) it takes into account the wider social totality; (iii) it is oriented by social values and by conceptions of appropriate social practices; and (iv) it merges research with praxis (that is, it is committed to the aim of improving the world and oneself). This means that political economists of communication contribute to critical communication studies by addressing the moral challenges of our time linked to power relations behind the media, communication, and culture. Due to its critical approach, PEC has engaged in interdisciplinary exchange and rethought and broadened its scope, including addressing its anthropocentric and speciesist biases. Analyses based on the PEC of animal exploitation pay attention to the network of economic interests, such as lobbies, think-tanks and discourse coalitions, and examine how they relate to media and public relations to build and sustain economically driven and ideology-based discourses and values that perpetuate the oppression of nonhuman animals. The AIC—which overlaps with other very powerful industrial complexes such as that of health, energy, fashion, chemical-pharmaceutical, military and entertainment industries—have historically used public relations to their advantage: from traditional lobbying to influence policies, legislation, and the various stakeholders involved in achieving their business interests to the dissemination of scientific discourse by promoting think-tanks or research institutes and funding researchers and experts favourable to their economic benefits. Examples of research considering the animal standpoint from a PEC perspective can be found in some of the literature previously mentioned with regard to discourse analysis (Almiron 2017; Almiron and Khazaal’s 2016; Carreras 2021) and also in Almiron’s (2016) analyses of the dynamics of manufacturing public consent perpetrated by the animal-based food industries. In the particular case of aquaprisons and the animal-based entertainment industry (Almiron 2017), we see how discourse is related to political economy. The bad reputation of orcas, considered “killer whales”, was initially a consequence of economic interests related to fishing. This public image of orcas was later reframed for highly profitable human entertainment purposes, thereby merchandising curiosity and interspecies intimacy through the creation of marine parks and aquaria, which Dunayer (2001) rightly labelled as aquaprisons. These businesses hold a welfarist rhetoric of we do care and use advertising and public relations, mostly lobbying,

Critical PR and the moral consideration of other animals  29 to conceal the fact that they wish business to simply continue as usual, free from any true commitment to marine mammals, which would imply their liberation from captivity. The case study “SeaWorld against the documentary Blackfish” included in this book exemplifies the public relations crisis experienced by Seaworld and its efforts to conceal orcas’ resistance to their captivity and exploitation in the tanks from the public. Finally, PEC research also shows that the persuasive efforts of the AIC contribute to delaying action, casting doubt, and manufacturing ignorance at different levels (Almiron 2020; Stãnescu 2020). An example of how agribusiness has also distorted the human health effects of consuming animal flesh can be consulted in the case study “The meat lobby and the World Health Organization”, also in this book. Conclusion All things considered, there is both theoretical grounding and space for an ethics of public relations that cultivates the ethical emotion of compassion amongst the public, and specifically the inclusion of the animal standpoint supported in this chapter. CDA, visual communication, and the PEC have proven to be interesting areas of research for this incorporation. We believe that moving away from anthropocentric perspectives and including speciesist oppression in our analyses is relevant for many reasons. It is a matter of ethics, compassion, and egalitarianism towards nonhuman animals, one of the planet’s worst oppressed groups given the scale, intensity of violence, and social legitimisation of their oppression. However, there are other very important reasons: analysing how the powerful AIC influences society to promote disconnection and a lack of compassion is a way of protecting the human right to not be a perpetrator of speciesist violence (Boyer et al. 2020). Also, in relation to research, incorporating the animal standpoint is a way of broadening our understanding of speciesism as a system of oppression (Best 2014; Nibert 2002) and of the entanglements of speciesism with other oppressive ideologies; that is, a way of fulfilling the emancipatory role of research promoted by CPR. Summary • CPR emerged to incorporate critical theory into the study, teaching, and practice of public relations. However, major gaps still remain within this discursive turn, namely, the need for an animal focus within this discursive turn, that is, the incorporation of non-anthropocentric, non-speciesist gazes within the field in relation to research, teaching, and practice. • Including the animal standpoint in CPR means taking into consideration the nonhuman animals’ perspective and the consequences of human domination over them. Therefore, it refers to the need to rethink our relationship with other animals and incorporate moral consideration towards them in communication research and practice.

30  Núria Almiron and Laura Fernández • There already exist ethical frameworks proposed by scholars, mostly from the CPR field and critical animal studies, that are useful in our reflection to justify the cultivation of compassion towards other animals within the public relations practice or, alternatively, to question the lack of it. • We discuss three main areas for CPR to incorporate the animal standpoint. They do not represent all possible research fields, but three that have shown potentially fruitful results: language, discourse, and rhetoric; visual communication; and the PEC. • Moving away from anthropocentric perspectives and including speciesist oppression in our analyses of public relations is relevant for at least three main reasons: (i) as a matter of ethics, compassion, and egalitarianism towards nonhuman animals; (ii) as a way to protect the human right not to be a perpetrator of speciesist violence; and (iii) to fulfil the emancipatory role of research in CPR. Notes

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3

On compassion, animal suffering, and persuasion Olatz Aranceta-Reboredo and Núria Almiron

Introduction This chapter takes as its starting point Martha Nussbaum’s (1996, 2001) affirmative view of compassion as a moral compass—not as an irrational emotion but rather a moral one, a prosocial behaviour, a response to the suffering of others, and a willingness to alleviate it. We, therefore, argue that compassion should be cultivated, not blocked by communication practices—including corporate persuasive communication, public relations, and lobbying. Nussbaum and an increasing number of ethicists support the idea that such cultivation must be conducted using an interspecies gaze: i.e., incorporating individuals from other species into our circle of compassion. The interspecies ethics concept does not only reflect scientific findings regarding nonhuman animals’ capacity to suffer (Cambridge Declaration 2012) and the evolution of ethical positions on this matter (mostly since Singer 1975 and Regan 1983/2004) but also reflects the need to build a new ethical consensus that at the very least mitigates violence in human societies and contributes to human and planetary well-being in general. In respect of this, we align ourselves with Willet (2014) in that any interspecies ethics must develop a communitarian model for multispecies ethics that rebalances the overemphasis on competition in the Darwinian and Neo-Darwinian paradigms. This can be done by stressing the cooperation aspects of evolutionary theory through mutual aid (as emphasised by authors like Kropotkin 1902/2022). In our view, an interspecies ethics is not merely a matter of justice (or moral rightness) but, above all, one of cultivating care and peace; that is, of helping all sentient beings, whatever the species, to reconstruct society as a place of altruism, nonviolence, and compassion, rather than a place of self-interest, competition, and moral indifference. The above being said, however, the reader does not need to share our mutual aid paradigm to agree on the basic terms of our premise: that all sentient beings matter in moral terms and efforts should, therefore, focus on cultivating and developing compassion rather than discouraging it. Though widely shared and on the rise, time and again, this agreement is contravened by corporate communication practices. More particularly, the need to develop compassion towards other animals is often ignored or even undermined by the persuasive efforts of industries that exploit other animals. While these industries have strategically adhered to the animal DOI: 10.4324/9781003324065-5

On compassion, animal suffering, and persuasion  35 welfare rhetoric of our time, the truth is that their business depends on preventing compassion towards the exploited animals from fully flourishing. From the perspective of interspecies ethics—that is, an ethics that also allocates moral consideration to individuals not belonging to the human species—it is not possible for strategic communication that endorses activities involving animal suffering to contribute to forms of public relations that support ethical practice (Almiron and Fernández 2021). In this chapter, we explore the need to adopt a critical stance towards what we call lobbying against compassion, defined here as those lobbying activities aimed at influencing policy-making and society in order to further business interests based on animal exploitation and, therefore, preventing natural compassion towards other animals from flourishing in humans. To this end, we first examine the role of compassion as a strong motivator for prosocial behaviours, as discussed in philosophy and social psychology. This will allow us to identify those aspects that can be promoted or obstructed by public relations related to compassion, as adapted here to the case of the strategic communication of animal exploitation industries—like those profiting from animal-based food, animal experimentation, and animal-based entertainment, including animals living in nature. Following this examination, we discuss the role of persuasion and influence in the case of compassion towards nonhuman animals. We conclude by encouraging the use of persuasion in all public relations practices, including corporate and for-profit, not to block but rather to promote compassion towards nonhuman animals. The role of compassion as a strong motivator for prosocial behaviours Long before Western philosophers discussed its quality as a moral emotion, the idea of compassion has been at the core of a number of Eastern approaches to ethics (be it for intellectual or enlightenment purposes or as a moral compass in our current understanding). For example, in Mahayana Buddhism—one of the main types of Buddhism prevalent in Tibet, Korea, China, Japan, Taiwan, Vietnam, and Singapore—wisdom (Skt. prajñā) and compassion (Skt. karunā) make up the two primary virtues. In this tradition, compassion is essential in minimising (or ideally eliminating) suffering and achieving inner peace and enlightenment (the awakening from dualistic ignorance). Compassion involves these capacities due to its acknowledgement that all things are connected. As the Dalai Lama (1999) states: “We practitioners of the Mahayana should not be concerned with our own benefit but with a single-pointed mind should develop the courageous altruistic attitude, taking upon our own shoulders the responsibility of working for all sentient beings” (180). Thus, one of the highest expressions of ethical behaviour is compassion, the desire to help others, and the desire to stop the suffering of all sentient beings. It follows that having a self-centred view is unproductive since we need others to progress. This is why for Mahayanists compassion is at the core of any ethical behaviour (see, for instance, the classic The Way of the Bodhisattva (2011) by Indian philosopher and poet Shāntideva). For the sake of space and

36  Olatz Aranceta-Reboredo and Núria Almiron maintaining a practical focus, we will not address the very rich and broad literature on compassion in Eastern traditions here. This brief mention of it is merely to acknowledge such relevant non-Western legacies in this respect: compassion has been viewed as an ethical, and therefore prosocial, behaviour for a very long time. In Western literature, compassion is addressed and defined in different ways, depending on the discipline we take into consideration. Generally speaking, however, it is mainly understood as a responsive emotion that results from another’s suffering. It can also be used to name a character trait or a virtue (Arteta 2019; Price and Caouette 2018) or even “a deeply affective way of sharing another’s emotion” (Arnould-Bloomfield 2015, 1467). Nussbaum simplifies it by saying it is “a painful emotion occasioned by the awareness of another person’s undeserved misfortune” (2001, 301). However, how does this apply to our relationship with nonhuman animals? Overall, compassion is a fundamental emotion for strengthening and expanding existing ethical bonds with other animals and even bridging new connections and overcoming barriers in ethics, such as species-related ones. A number of animal ethicists acknowledge the essential role that compassion plays in both animal liberation discourse and theory, as it “motivates moral actors to relieve the severe harms that other animals face or, at the very least, compassion moves actors not to participate in or cause these harms,” making it a duty to cultivate and promote compassion for other animals (Abbate 2018, 33). In the ongoing polarised debate regarding emotions and reason in ethics, opposite views towards the role of each can be found. Compassion is defined accordingly. However, regardless of how it is defined, the number of authors still reluctant to include nonhuman animals in our circle of compassion grows fewer with each passing day. Here, we take as our starting point the idea that compassion can and should be expanded to all sentient beings; one, as Puleo (2021b) reminds us, that can be acquired, taught, and learned through the moral education of sentiments. This requires overcoming generalised dualisms, such as, for instance, awarding humans and nonhumans higher and lower traits, respectively. We are thus aligned with Nussbaum’s conception of compassion, seeing “all animals as entitled to support for their agency and striving” (Nussbaum 2013, 121). When examining compassion as a motivator for prosocial behaviours, we must first differentiate it from other emotions, like empathy. Singer and Klimecki (2014) noted that empathy is a self-related emotion, while compassion is an other-related emotion. In fact, one of the most singular aspects of compassion is that the distress felt by empathising with the sufferer does not stop there but rather “implies a concern for the sufferer and hence a desire or wish to help them” (Price and Caouette 2018, X). Most interestingly, compassion serves as a response to suffering that prevents it from turning into distress. Unlike empathy, compassion does not mean sharing the suffering of the other: instead, it is characterised by feelings of warmth, concern and care for the other, as well as a strong motivation to improve the other’s wellbeing. Compassion is feeling for and not feeling with the other. (Singer and Klimecki 2014, R875)

On compassion, animal suffering, and persuasion  37 Therefore, its differentiation from empathy and other similar emotions clearly leads to an understanding that prosocial skills can be trained through practising compassion as a virtue or trait. Philosophical accounts reinforce this differentiation. Nussbaum, for instance, explains that for compassion to flourish, one must: (i) judge that someone else suffers in a significant way; (ii) judge the suffering as non-fault in origin or disproportionate; (iii) believe that there are similar possibilities or vulnerabilities of seeing oneself in the other’s situation; and, finally, (iv) apply eudaimonistic thought—this judgement places the suffering individual as relevant in the life of the compassionate person and will require broadening the circle of concerns (Nussbaum 2013, 142–144). With different adaptions, all of the above can be applied to a compassion that includes all animals. Regardless of whether Nussbaum’s criteria fully convince us, this and similar philosophical explanations of compassion show that prosocial skills are trained through the practice of compassion. As Donovan puts it, contrary to empathy or just sympathy, compassion is an emotional and cognitive exercise: it requires faculties for evaluation, judgement, and the ability to observe and be concentrated (2007, 179, 180). From an interspecies perspective, this also helps prosocial attitudes to flourish because it offers the opportunity to reduce the supposed ontological differences between human and animal pain “through the work of the imagination” and also bring it to “moral similitude” (Arnould-Bloomfield 2015, 1470). Due to our shared sentience (Cambridge Declaration on Consciousness 2012), we can figure out what other animals’ lives under exploitation are like, including their suffering. Contrary to many Eastern traditions, compassion has been viewed as a minor moral quality in the Western history of philosophy and virtue (Puleo 2021b, 114). Part of the opposition to the inclusion of emotions in ethics is rooted in underlying ontological sexism, which, together with the presence of hierarchical dominative dualisms, subordinates traditionally feminised matters such as care and compassion (Donovan and Adams 2007; Gruen 2014; Velasco 2016; Puleo 2021b). Contemporary ethics would reflect “a male bias towards rationality” (Donovan 2007, 174, 175). As Nussbaum pointed out, however, a compassionate community can be built “without sacrificing the Enlightenment’s commitment to reason and reflection” (1996, 28). Donovan and Adams (2007) added that rationality could not be objective without emotions: both need each other. Gruen (2014) later pointed out that “we might theorize in a way that recognizes that our moral experiences are so diverse and so complex that they cannot be reduced to [rational] abstractions” (24). In order to achieve complete ethical theories, defenders of compassion1 argue that emotion needs to be included, as this would help address the hierarchical evaluative thinking system in which humans are considered both opposite and superior to nonhumans (Velasco 2017). After all, some philosophers consider compassion a common ground for all virtues: a moral sentiment, vulnerability, and the responsibility one feels towards another (Arteta 2019, 282). The virtue and care approaches that support this view go even further, and the authors of this chapter fully align themselves with it. Interspecies ethics within

38  Olatz Aranceta-Reboredo and Núria Almiron virtue and care approaches consider the reason/emotion divide unnecessary and unrealistic; hierarchical and evaluative thinking is counterproductive for justice and nonviolence. Aiming for absolute “objectivity” will not weigh all information and necessary perceptions (Nussbaum 1996, 56). As Gruen pointed out: “When dualisms become value dualisms—distinctions that elevate one side of the dualism and diminish the other, …—they provide the conceptual bases for exploitative and oppressive practices” (2014, 45). In the context of animal ethics, these dualisms include the understanding of humans as “above the beasts” and define humanity by referring to “allegedly” only human characteristics (Nussbaum 2013, 138). Even the debate surrounding justice and care involves specific binaries presented as opposites, constructing justice and care separately. Gruen pointed out the need to have theories that bridge “perceived gaps between reason/emotion or self/other by recognizing the ways that each side of the bridge shapes the other without collapsing into it” (2014, 28). In this context, compassion can be of service to the cause of justice precisely by counteracting egoistic or malicious motives even if the concern for justice is understood as independent of compassion (Persson 2021, 6). From a psychological perspective, the reinforcing of prosocial behaviours, thanks to compassion is even more strongly stated. Compassion is classified as an emotional reaction and an underlying psychological mechanism; it is connected to an awareness of need, solicitation, and altruistic behaviour (Erlandsson et al. 2021). However, psychologists have been more prone to use the concept of empathy, rather than compassion, as a central idea aligned with the distancing from emotions promoted by the androcentric gaze dominating academia and the sciences. In this respect, the theories related to empathy-altruism are worth mentioning and are expandable to other animals within an interspecies ethics. These theories do not agree on the reasons that trigger altruistic behaviour (like self-interest in the social exchange theory or pure altruism in the work of C. Daniel Batson 2021). However, they all agree that this altruistic behaviour, a key component of compassion, happens regularly and is in itself a prominent prosocial behaviour. In the case of Batson’s (2011) empathy-altruism hypothesis, it is implied that pure altruism is possible and that psychological egoism is false in what is the most substantial proposal of people acting purely out of the goodness of their hearts. Regardless of whether we agree with one reason for altruism or the other, if the response to another’s suffering is the willingness to alleviate it, then compassion is definitely a valuable emotion as a source of prosocial behaviour. Hence, blocking compassion or inhibiting prosocially oriented beings, which might impair engagement, should be deemed problematic. The role of persuasion in compassion towards nonhuman animals Narratives can either promote myths and confusion—by disseminating disinformation and inaccurate representations of nonhuman animals—or habituate the public to their suffering, thereby increasing tolerance and normalising it. Within the field of psychology, Abbate reminds us that, amongst other positive and even innate feelings for other animals, compassion is likely to be “corrupted by speciesist culture

On compassion, animal suffering, and persuasion  39 and political influences, resulting in a tendency to feel that humans are superior to animals and that animals are the type of beings who can be exploited for human interests” (Abbate 2018, 37). That is, current capitalist societies, with their profitable exploitation of other humans, are ideologically prone to justify speciesism rather than oppose it. At the sociological level, David Nibert’s theory of oppression (adapting Donald Noel’s theory of ethnic stratification) explains how the above happens through economic exploitation and competition, power exertion (largely vested in control of the state) and ideological control: First, humans compete with other animals for economic resources, including the use of land. Second, the exploitation of other animals serves numerous economic ends for human animals, providing sources of food, power, clothing, furniture, entertainment, and research tools. … Finally, ideological conditioning is the third essential requirement for oppressive social arrangements. Oppression requires rationalisation and legitimation; that is, it must appear as the right thing to do, both to the oppressing group and in the eyes of others. A set of ideas that devalues an entire group—an ideology, such as racism, sexism, or speciesism—thus is socially constructed. That ideology provides explanation and support for the development and perpetuation of social institutions that are deeply rooted in the elimination or exploitation of the oppressed group. (Nibert 2002, 212, 213) The third factor, ideological control, is very much related to influence. Therefore, animal exploitation’s political economy depends entirely on persuasion strategies and tactics. Research has widely shown that when it comes to the role of public relations and lobbying, compassion can be radically buried, while the fraudulent nature of current social consent towards animal use and exploitation is reinforced (Almiron 2016; Almiron and Khazaal 2016; Hannan 2020; Nibert 2002, 2013). By expanding the ideas of care to include nonhumans, this role can be interpreted as violence—not only because it promotes direct violence but because it involves structural and cultural violence (Galtung 1990). The undermining of care of others is also pushed with cultural and psychological violence, as happens when discriminations like sexism, racism, or classism are misrecognised, unrecognised, or socially practised. In all these cases, undermining the care of others later results in harm (LaMothe 2016, 48). It is precisely through inadvertent violence that “indifference, depersonalisation, and complete absence of caring imagination … which deaden one’s psyche from experiencing guilt associated with recognizing that the harm done is to another” (LaMothe 2016, 49), something that is certainly pushed by the lobbying against compassion. In this context, we can identify three main strategies involving compassion used by lobbies of the animal-industrial complex (AIC): fake compassion (which we define as a type of propaganda), covert blocking of compassion, and the normalising of harm (of non-compassionate states).

40  Olatz Aranceta-Reboredo and Núria Almiron Fake compassion

A significant proportion of legislative advocacy to protect nonhumans–conductes by animal defence NGOs–focuses on combating harmful proposals pushed by corporate lobbying on behalf of industries that exploit other animals. Industries that do business out of exploiting nonhuman animals sustain lobbying apparatuses that work for the industries’ own continued existence, and the influence they wield, as Grossman stated, “cannot be underestimated” (2019, 522). Power relations are efficiently naturalised when ideologies operate invisibly, and the dominant group makes its own interests appear universal. When these interests are aligned with the exploitation of nonhumans for profit, Sorenson states that the strategies used in lobbying “demonstrate the determination of animal exploiters to maintain hegemony over the status of animals in our society” (2003, 379). By lobbying against both animal welfare regulation and abolitionist animal rights movements, and adopting welfare-friendly discourses, industries partake in such violence; they adopt an an ethical façade while reinforcing a non-compassionate ideology, speciesism. The countermovement against animal rights through lobbying includes powerful industries within the AIC, particularly the agribusiness and the vivisection business, as well as prominent organisations and political action committees (Spasser 2013, 29). One of the strategies it employs is the construction of sentimentalised images of animal exploiters while claiming a consensus on the normalcy of animal use: Attitudinal hegemony is established, and alternative views are marginalised as deviant. Once consent is manufactured and the routine, industrialised but supposedly ‘humane’ torture and slaughter of animals is defined as part of their ‘welfare’, animal exploiters can define themselves as compassionate and caring. They can claim to ‘love’ the animals they kill. (Sorenson 2003, 392) Appealing to ethics for their own benefit results in the embodiment of a fake compassion, an empathy that is confused with comforting lies. In such cases, the subjectivity of the exploiters being upheld as compassionate is ensured (Khazaal and Almiron 2016, 384). Here, we understand fake compassion, following LaMothe (2016, 47), as the display of an absence of empathic imagination toward nonhuman animals, as well as a lack of understanding of their real needs, experiences, and struggles, while at the same time providing the façade of an ethics of care, of concern for the same animals’ needs, experiences, and struggles that the industry actually neglects. Furthermore, such assertions of care for animals can be made using rather aggressive strategies (Almiron and Khazaal 2016) aimed at conferring a cover of authority and conviction on the we do care strategy. In fact, the we do care strategy demonstrates the use of propaganda techniques, which typically include bold assertions, selective omissions, twisting and distorting, providing data out of context, or meshing facts with opinions (MacLean 1981). We deem this strategy to be propaganda since the end goal of fake compassion is to influence the public’s beliefs and ideas regarding how we treat other animals and,

On compassion, animal suffering, and persuasion  41 in doing so, to perpetuate speciesism (i.e., violence against nonhuman animals) under a façade of care (i.e. rhetoric of nonviolence). Marlin’s definition of propaganda supports this view. According to this author, propaganda is “the organised attempt through communication to affect belief of action or inculcate attitudes in a large audience in ways that circumvent or suppress an individual’s adequately informed, rational, reflective judgment” (Marlin 2013, 12). In light of this, fake compassion towards other animals is speciesist propaganda. Blocking compassion

As we have shown, compassionate behaviour towards nonhuman animals is not only aligned with current scientific knowledge and ethical progress but also positively affects human ethics. It follows, then, that the opposite is also true: failing to be compassionate towards other animals has a negative impact on social and moral progress. This is why theorists look for the de-centring of suffering and projection of the self in compassionate connections. For instance, Arnould-Bloomfield (2015) argued that human experiences related to other animals should overcome passive spectatorship, and connections and vulnerabilities must be acknowledged. This author argues that, in doing so, compassion could be conceptualised as a deeply affective way of sharing another’s emotion that offers a new understanding of responsibility and relationships. That is why even the development of indifference as a response to another’s suffering is problematic, as indifference represses action (Abbate 2018, 42). By way of example, constant exposition and habituation to suffering limit compassion and may provoke a numbing of the individual, which would, as a result, normalise violence in a way that affects society in both an individual and collective way (Codina Segovia 2018, 25), which is why blocking compassion to any degree can be seen as a problematic and harmful communication strategy in ethical terms. However, blocking compassion—even if mostly surreptitiously—is a common outcome of the AIC’s lobbying and public relations practices. Via notions like divine permission and emotionally distancing ourselves from animals by regarding them as subhuman or irrational, these strategies of blocking sympathy towards nonhumans work through one of two processes: blocking awareness so that connection cannot arise or providing disincentives for acting on the sympathetic feelings felt (Luke 2007, 138). As examples of the former case (blocking awareness), we find distraction (Nussbaum 1996, 38) or desensitisation by exposition, which both obstruct value by affecting one’s judgement, as the sufferer is not seen or considered worthy of moral consideration. As a result, people might choose not to acknowledge or experience cognitive dissonance. Empathy towards nonhumans is blocked precisely through “denial, routinization, justification, objectification, de-individualization, dichotomization, rationalization and dissociation” (Joy 2011, 19). The mechanism of emotional numbing—as a psychological process—is shaped by dominant ideological assumptions, with the inestimable help of the media, which “are among the top disseminators of such assumptions” (Khazaal and Almiron 2016, 375).

42  Olatz Aranceta-Reboredo and Núria Almiron On the other hand, amongst disincentives for compassion, we find fear and disgust, which, together with not wanting to know and portraying certain animals as deserving of their suffering, render nonhuman animals undeserving of compassion (Codina Segovia 2018, 56). However, the most relevant disincentive for compassion might be the institutionally backed structural and ideological context. As Price and Caouette (2018) pointed out, “it is not clear that cultivating compassion is a matter only for individuals: there are social and institutional barriers to compassion too” (xiv). Oppression ideologies (like speciesism) promote the blocking of compassion employing its inherent structural and psychological dualism and hierarchy bias. As Nussbaum (2001) explains, according to Russeau’s thinking, it is not the classification per se but the hierarchical dimension of it that, through ranks and distinctions, “make it difficult for people to see their own possibilities in the sufferings of another,” up to the point of seeing oneself “invulnerable” (342). If one feels invulnerable, they care less for others since a distancing from the others’ suffering is experienced; one alienates themselves from the other, and the other’s experience becomes estranged, which results in disaffection emerging rather than compassion. Under capitalism, a particular way of disincentivising compassion is the invisible rendering of nonhumans systematically conducted by the industries exploiting other animals. In this way, sentient beings (human and nonhuman) become mere things in a capitalistic production system. Systematic political analyses are therefore required to address these oppressions. In this respect, Adams (2007) identified three mechanisms that can be linked to the disincentivising of compassion: the use of “false mass terms,” such as meat and food (23–26); the oppressionenabling framework of being treated like animals, where the subhuman beingness of nonhumans simultaneously justifies their use and enables its extension to other marginalised groups to justify their abuse (26–28);2 and “the original oppression,” speciesism being a model of structural oppression that, by using an evolutionary continuum,3 categorises individuals derogatorily in a hierarchy (28–31). Subhuman beingness is deeply intertwined with the process of dehumanisation, understood as a devaluating process, which often employs the emotion of disgust. This “serves the purpose of setting us at a distance from our own animality and mortality” and has historically “been associated with, indeed projected onto, groups by reference to whom privileged groups seek to define their superior human status” (Nussbaum 2001, 347). By preconditioning repulsive responses from individuals, such as nonhumans labelled as vermin, their existence is automatically devalued and will not even be considered part of the circle of concern; a compassionate response is thus neutralised, even when explicit suffering is involved. Normalising harm/non-compassion

A third common strategy in the use of persuasion towards other animals in capitalism is the normalising of harm. This is done not only by corporate interests but by public institutions as well, all of whom tend to present animal (ab)use as normal

On compassion, animal suffering, and persuasion  43 and respectable. Luke (2007) already pointed out the existence of “guilt-mediating mechanisms around systems of animal exploitation, “as much social energy is spent to “forestall, undermine, and override our sympathies for animals, so that vivisection, animal farming, and hunting can continue” (136). Puleo (2021b) added that once they are normalised enough to be considered traditions, the possibility of questioning them is reduced even further. That is why paying attention to the labelling of certain practices as traditional, be it consuming certain animal-based products in the form of food or entertainment, is so important. The normalising rhetoric of harm has been well documented in animal experimentation and tauromachy, for example (Codina Segovia 2018). Strategies aimed at manipulating the public’s opinion regarding animal sentience and their moral consideration include controlled explosions of contrary opinions and burying opposition discourses. This strategy has been used by the bullfighting lobby, according to Codina Segovia (2018), and includes: the “taurinización” (bullfighting-isation) of historical figures, the mitigation of anti-bullfighting discourses, downplaying the position of important figures in the anti-bullfighting movement, denial that an anti-bullfighting movement and radical opinions exist in history by selective forgetting, and the disqualification of the anti-bullfighting movement through ridicule and by labelling opponents as censors of freedom or frustrated individuals unable to appreciate it. Unsurprisingly, the rhetoric of normalisation can be seen in public discourses in several dimensions. For instance, it is seen in the language and perspectives employed by governmental statistics regarding animals farmed and killed for food or testing every year, in school textbooks when referring to agriculture and food, in news cover stories and advertising, and of course, in the public relations of the industries using nonhuman animals for profit. In general, all social institutions replicate the language of the industry (as unveiled by Dunayer 2001), which normalises harm through the use of euphemisms, romantic and bucolic frames, and by denying animal subjectivity by constructing nonhumans as willing victims or machines and derogating sympathies for animals through gender-specific ways based on sexism. The industry’s public relations machine has certainly been very successful in imposing its language and, therefore, its mindset in Western societies. Concerning this capacity for normalising harm, Pohlmann’s (2022) study of moral appeals based on compassion towards consumers -specifically regarding their food choices - is worth mentioning. The results of this study show that although compassion mediates ethical food choices, it is moderated by a denial of the harmful consequences of meat production. Moreover, threats to masculinity— often associated with meat advertising—increase the likelihood of men choosing meat over a vegetarian option. This reveals an interesting connection: compassion is, firstly, not recognised as valuable due to ontological sexism, and it is then unable to flourish fully because of the gendering of consumption habits that associate meat-eating with masculinity. That is, sexist stereotypes in society normalise speciesist stereotypes against other animals.

44  Olatz Aranceta-Reboredo and Núria Almiron Using persuasion to promote compassion towards other animals Defenders of compassion have long contended that this moral emotion reduces or even erases the distance between the one feeling compassion and the one suffering (Arteta 2019, 60). Therefore, blocking compassion perpetuates indifference, hierarchy, and dualistic views with their pairs of rights/wrongs through which other animals are always devalued (see Fernández 2018). Compassionate action through persuasive communication can be faked, blocked, and normalised or, alternatively, increased, cultivated, and developed. The list of authors supporting the latter is long. By way of example, emotions and care can be taught to public relations practitioners as both a perspective and a discipline. One way of increasing compassion, or counteracting objectification and its blocking, is raising awareness of cultural ideologies that can be promoted through education. On an individual psychological level, some studies have revealed how “shortterm compassion training of several days was able to increase positive affect and activations in a neural network usually related to positive emotions” (Singer and Klimecki 2014, R877). Regarding social institutions, Nussbaum has requested that they should “teach citizens definite conceptions of basic goods, responsibility, and appropriate concern, which will inform any compassion that they learn” (2001, 405). As important social institutions, actors such as universities (in their teaching of public relations and persuasive communication) have the power to not only promote or discourage but also to shape emotions that block compassion, such as shame, envy, and disgust. Training and education have shown that there are ways to overcome “psychological obstacles to universal compassion and to nurture compassionate thoughts and wishes” (Price and Caouette 2018, xiv) by conditioning the response. Such awareness would enable “the formation of appropriate ethical actions, because it helps to explain who profits from certain practices, such as meat-eating, and who therefore continues to promulgate propaganda on their behalf, “and countering these lies and propaganda would “lift the veil on animal agony” (Donovan 2007, 188). Educating public relations practitioners and lobbyists about compassion may seem a naïve proposal. However, it would certainly generate change, or, at least, a shift towards non-active participation in causing misfortunes to nonhuman animals (as Abbate suggests for education in in general; 2018, 44). Authors like Puleo and Velasco defend an ecological education in which scientific knowledge, solidarity, empathy, and compassion are connected and taught (Puleo 2021b, 311, 312). This kind of moral education of sentiments would require overcoming oppressive dualisms such as the human/animal divide. These authors propose programmes such as Roots & Shoots by Dr Jane Goodall as an excellent example of a successful attempt to achieve this (Puleo 2021a, 96). Pedagogical compassion is a virtue and good because it creates positive action and is necessarily productive and respectful (Cokelet 2018, 20, 21). After all, Puleo (2021b) reminds us, sensibilities are already educated to conceal violence through defensive distortions. Another of the most often mentioned ways to promote compassion is by controlling “media-generated experiences” because, through the responsible institutions,

On compassion, animal suffering, and persuasion  45 these “can be controlled to ensure that they are positive and empathy-inducing”, which would be easier than other methods such as “face-to-face contact” (Batson 2011, 180). The negative side of this is also true. In this regard, Edwards (2021) argues that “the role of the public relations industry in the disinformation debate has been largely overlooked”, while disinformation is, in fact, “a well-established tool in public relations work” used as a “commercial opportunity and a platform for demonstrating professional legitimacy” (168). Place and Vardeman-Winter (2013) also pointed to public relations as a biopower tool, aligning society with hegemonic industry discourses regarding the control and management of life. The control and management of nonhuman animals in farms, labs, or exhibition parks can be included within biopower—a political rationality that takes the administration of populations and life as its subject (Foucault and Gros 1978). The compassionate understanding we may develop towards these practices can be radically shaped by public relations practices. As Grossman stated, “lobbying for change is a vitally important means for creating a society that upholds those values that are widely held by its constituency”, even if there are many failures, “the inertia that is often the norm in Congress can impact public discourse and lead to changes via other routes, for example, corporate policies, regulatory or executive actions, state, and local laws, or simply by affecting consumer behaviour” (2019, 527). We are definitely in a context of increasing public compassion toward nonhuman animals and taking into account that compassion is both a prosocial mindset and a proactive behaviour against suffering, this increase should be encouraged and “seen as progress toward a more ethical society” (Almiron and Khazaal 2016, 2). In short, compassion is a crucial trigger for prosocial behaviour, and as such, blocking it is inherently problematic. Strategies used in corporate lobbying show the interests of animal exploiters in maintaining the use and status of animals as oppressed individuals. Compassion is directed away from nonhumans and into the subjectivity of their exploiters. This, as well as disincentivising compassion and normalising the (ab)use of other animals, legitimises the propaganda employed by the industry benefitting from animal exploitation. Moreover, as we have seen, fake compassion is used as an ethical façade to reinforce speciesism, a non-compassionate ideology. By blocking, twisting or faking compassion towards nonhuman animals, interest groups also affect the moral education of society as a whole. Hidden violence becomes normalised by promoting an indifferent rather than a prosocial response to other animals’ suffering. Summary • Compassion plays an essential role in both animal liberation discourse and theory. It is a fundamental emotion for the motivation of prosocial and altruistic behaviours, as well as for the strengthening and expanding existing ethical bonds with other animals. There is an increasing number of authors including nonhuman animals in our circle of compassion. • Complete ethical theories should include both reason and emotion, as failing to do that perpetuates an unrealistic divide and does not necessarily problematise

46  Olatz Aranceta-Reboredo and Núria Almiron

•

•

•

•

•

hierarchical evaluative thinking systems. This kind of thinking is not only counterproductive for justice, but also for nonviolence. Therefore, aiming for a neutrality or absolute objectivity would result in incomplete ethical theories. While animal exploiting industries have strategically adhered to the animal welfare rhetoric of our time, the truth is that their business depends on preventing compassion towards the exploited animals from fully flourishing. There are three main strategies involving compassion that is used by lobbies of the AIC: fake compassion (which we define as a type of propaganda); covert blocking of compassion; and the normalising of harm (of non-compassionate states). Communication, be it informative or persuasive, can be practised ethically. When there is a persuasive intent, it must be in accordance with the truth or, at least, with the commitment to avoid deception. The political economy of animal exploitation is dependent on persuasion strategies and tactics and, from the perspective of interspecies ethics, it is not possible for strategic communication that endorses activities involving animal suffering to contribute to forms of public relations that support an ethical practice. Communication practices that block the development of compassion instead of supporting it, and do not integrate and/or generate compassionate values, would have to rethink their future and essence, as they cannot align with an ethical communication practice. Pushing and lobbying against compassion must be problematised, given that these activities influence policy-making and society in order to further business interests based on animal exploitation, and as a result, prevent natural compassion towards other animals from flourishing in humans. Persuasion can be used to promote compassion towards other animals. Emotions and care can be taught to public relations practitioners and lobbyists, and through pedagogical compassion, a moral education of sentiments would require overcoming oppressive dualisms (e.g., the human/animal divide).

Notes 1 Defenders of compassion or an equivalent emotion for our purposes here. Authors are not homogeneous in the use and differentiation of compassion, empathy, and sympathy. For instance, Donovan includes the characteristics of compassion in sympathy, and Gruen does the same in his concept of empathy. 2 For more on this, See Khazaal and Almiron, 2021. 3 Justifications for human domination over animals almost always rely on comparing the abilities and traits of humans and nonhumans, using an ableist logic to function in a scheme where fewer abilities imply not only the superiority of specific individuals but also a justification for using others; ability ends up determining the moral relevance of subjects, and even whole species (Taylor 2017).

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On compassion, animal suffering, and persuasion  49 Sorenson, John. 2003. “‘Some Strange Things Happening in Our Country’: Opposing Proposed Changes in Anti-Cruelty Laws in Canada.” Social & Legal Studies 12 (3): 377–402. https://doi.org/10.1177/09646639030123005. Spasser, Alison J. 2013. “Winning Hearts and Minds: Using ‘Ag-Gag’ Outrage and Corporate Rebranding to Achieve a Public Image Makeover for the Animal Rights Movement.” Master’s Projects and Capstones, University of San Francisco. https://repository.usfca. edu/capstone/4. Taylor, Sunaura. 2017. Beasts of Burden: Animal and Disability Liberation. New York: The New Press. Velasco Sesma, Angelica. 2016. “Ética del cuidado para la superación del androcentrismo: hacia una ética y una política ecofeministas.” CTS: Revista iberoamericana de ciencia, tecnología y sociedad 11(31): 195-216. Velasco Sesma, Angélica. 2017. La ética animal ¿Una cuestión feminista? Madrid: Plaza y Valdés. Willet, Cynthia. 2014. Interspecies Ethics. New York: Columbia University Press.

PART III

The ethics of persuasion of the animal-industrial complex

4

Harming animals, degrading the public sphere The ethics of persuasion in the animal-based food industry Eze Paez and Pablo Magaña

Introduction It is common in the animal-based food industry to portray nonhuman animals (hereinafter, animals) used for food as enjoying happy lives or to mislead the public about the need to consume their products in order to have a healthy diet.1 It is also common for this industry to pressure governments into enacting regulations and implementing policies that promote their interests, such as the so-called ag-gag laws that punish activists that reveal abuses in industrial farms2 or generous public subsidies.3 In this chapter, we argue that these and similar public relations and lobbying strategies pursued by the animal-based food industry are morally wrong. This is so, we believe, because we have reasons not to facilitate the infliction of unjustified harms on animals as well as not to undermine the operation of democratic institutions through manipulation and deception. As we will see, PR and lobbying for the food industry fail on both counts. We start by summarising some basic facts about the harms that animals suffer in the industry. Later on, we argue that sentient animals are morally considerable individuals whose interests we must take into account. Since the food industry unjustifiably thwarts those interests, we have compelling reasons not to support it—including reasons against engaging in public relations and lobbying strategies on its behalf. Finally, we claim that those strategies can also have a negative impact upon the quality of public discussion and on political freedom and equality. We end with some concluding remarks. The case study box by Laura Fernández and Núria Almiron that can be found at the end of this chapter analyses the lobbying efforts of the animal food industry to discredit studies linking red meat consumption with cancer risk. How animals are harmed in the food industry The food industry concentrates the overwhelming majority of nonhumans exploited by humans. Between one and three trillion animals are killed each year worldwide in this industry (FAO 2020; Mood and Brooke 2017, 2019). In this section, we will describe some of the most serious harms that these animals suffer. Later on, we will argue that both directly causing these harms and facilitating them are seriously morally wrong. We shall focus first on land animals and then turn to aquatic animals.4 DOI: 10.4324/9781003324065-7

54  Eze Paez and Pablo Magaña Land animals

Mammals, including cows and pigs, might be some of the land animals in the food industry with whom we most easily empathise.5 Cows are exploited for their milk. They are continuously impregnated, in a cycle that only ends when, being no longer sufficiently productive, they are killed, at around six years of age out of their average natural lifespan of 25. In the dairy industry, calves are separated from their mothers soon after birth, which appears to be a very painful experience for both (Flower and Weary 2003). Calves and steers used for meat are either killed after one or two days since birth or suffer between 3 and 18 weeks confined in small crates (Jensen 1999). In addition, bovines suffer due to branding, tail docking, castration, and dehorning (Bretschneider 2005; Graf and Senn 1999). For their part, sows used to breed pigs are confined for weeks in very small gestation crates that severely limit their ability to move, causing them serious harms. Shortly before birth, they are moved to farrowing crates, in which they are similarly immobilised to prevent them from accidentally crushing the piglets. As with cows, the cycle of continuous impregnation and birth only stops when sows are no longer sufficiently productive, after which they are killed. For their part, pigs exploited for their meat are usually kept in very painful conditions, displaying stereotypical behaviour, indicative of their poor mental condition. This includes attempts to bite their companions’ rails, which in turn leads farmers to perform often painful teeth and tail clippings. Birds, though perhaps less likely than mammals to arouse our sympathy, are the most exploited land vertebrates in the food industry. Some 70 billion chickens are raised for their meat (so-called broiler chickens) and hens used for laying eggs are killed annually around the world (FAO 2020). Their painful and stressing housing conditions elicit behaviours such as feather pecking or cannibalism, which farmers usually tackle through painful methods of beak trimming. In the egg industry, male chicks are discarded shortly after hatching and are either killed or thrown away alive in trash containers (Krautwald et al. 2018). The most intensive forms of hen farming involve storing them in so-called battery cages the size of a sheet of paper, where they cannot clean themselves or stretch their limbs (Appleby 2011). The artificial selection to which they are subjected results in their laying much more eggs per year than their wild ancestors, which can produce several diseases, such as decalcification (Webster 2004). Whatever their raising conditions, hens are killed as soon as they become unprofitable. Broiler chickens, like hens, have been artificially selected over the years to maximise meat production. Artificially induced growth (over 2 kg in just 6–7 weeks of life) also causes serious injuries and diseases (Julian 2004). Aquatic animals

According to some estimates, between 0.79 and 2.3 trillion fishes6 are caught every year in the wild (Fishcount 2019). As with other vertebrates, the scientific consensus is that they are sentient and, therefore, able to suffer (Low 2012). Fishes caught in the wild with fishing nets or lines are harmed in various ways. They suffer from

Harming animals, degrading the public sphere  55 asphyxiation after being extracted from the sea, from decompression (which causes their organs to explode), can be crushed by the weight of other fishes, or are sometimes frozen alive (Mood 2010). In addition to the one to three trillion fishes caught in the wild, each year 51–167 million are killed in fish farms (Mood and Brooke 2019). High-density storage methods (typical of intensive farming) cause them pain and stress (e.g., Barton et al. 2005).7 As we have seen, then, the food industry seriously harms farmed animals. Most of these animals are reared in factory farms, under the worst of the conditions described above. Still, to obtain a full picture of their situation, we must additionally take into account the harms they suffer while transported to the slaughterhouse and during the killing process itself. Overall, the lives of animals exploited in factory farms are probably net negative. It would have been better for them never to have existed at all. The wrongness of helping others harm animals Some believe that the harms sentient nonhuman animals suffer in the food industry are either morally justified or of little moral importance. In this section, we will argue that this is mistaken. These harms are generally seriously morally wrong, and we plausibly possess compelling reasons not to facilitate its persistence. Unless we have sufficiently strong countervailing reasons (and it is difficult to imagine what those might be), we are morally required not to whitewash this industry for the general public, nor to lobby governments into enacting favourable regulation. Our argument will be quite straightforward. We will start by (i) arguing that all sentient individuals, including sentient nonhuman animals, are morally considerable. We will then (ii) elaborate on what interests animals have. This will allow us to conclude that (iii) the harms they suffer in the food industry are unjustified and that, therefore, we have compelling reasons not to contribute to their persistence. The moral considerability of sentient nonhuman animals

Moral philosophy is, in large measure, about determining what we owe each other. Prior to that, however, we must first identify who are these others to whom we may owe anything at all—who falls, in short, within our “moral circle”, to use Peter Singer’s phrase (Singer 1981). The first question, then, is whether nonhuman animals are morally considerable. In spite of the many differences between ethical theories, it is common to claim that at least part of what matters morally is how our choices impact, either positively or negatively, those who might be affected by our decisions. Therefore, when deliberating morally, we should take into account the harms or benefits that the different alternatives at our disposal may produce. We fail to do that, for instance, when we incur in unjustified discrimination, understood here as the disadvantageous consideration or treatment of an individual’s interests, relative to the interests of another individual, based on the belief that the former does not belong to a certain group to which the latter presumably belongs (Lippert-Rasmussen 2014, 45, 46). An instance of discrimination will be

56  Eze Paez and Pablo Magaña justified only if membership in the group on which it is based is a morally relevant attribute. Otherwise, it will constitute an instance of unjustified discrimination. This is what happens, for instance, when an individual is disadvantaged because of their gender, sexual preferences or identity, or the colour of their skin—what we know as sexism, homophobia, transphobia, or racism. In human societies, animals’ interests are unfavourably considered relative to human interests. Moral philosophers call this attitude speciesism. It consists in discriminating against the interests of an individual because they do not belong to a certain species (Dunayer 2004; Horta 2010). For instance, it is commonly considered unproblematic to eat pigs, but deeply disturbing to eat dogs, and outright horrible to eat other humans. Starting with Peter Singer (1975) or Tom Regan (2004 [1983]), contemporary animal ethicists have spent a great deal of effort in order to show that speciesism is, like sexism or racism, just another kind of unjustified discrimination. Vindicating speciesism requires showing, first, that there are two kinds of entities, namely, those that merit full moral considerability and those that merit negligible or no moral considerability, and, second, that this division perfectly coincides with the distinction between human and nonhuman animals. This might be the case, for instance, if mere membership in the human species were itself relevant for determining who matters morally. Nevertheless, that seems implausible. On the one hand, ‘species’ is a mere taxonomic category that we use due to its explanatory capacity in the natural sciences. On the other hand, the distinction among species is based on the possession of certain genes or the capacity for interbreeding within the same group of organisms. These also seem irrelevant attributes, from a moral standpoint. The claim that species membership is indirectly relevant does not seem plausible either. A view of this sort, in order to vindicate speciesism, must identify a morally relevant attribute that is possessed by all human beings, and only by them—since, otherwise, some humans would lie beyond the circle of full moral considerability, or some nonhuman animals would have to be included in it. The gist of the so-called argument from species overlap is that no such attribute exists (other than mere species membership).8 Let us consider, for instance, complex cognitive capacities, such as rationality or autonomy, which are frequently employed to argue that only humans merit full moral considerability. If these characteristics effectively grounded moral considerability, we might then permissibly disregard the interests of the other animals, or at least give them much less weight than similar human interests. Nevertheless, not all human beings have these cognitive capacities: some temporarily lack them (like young children), others will never acquire them (due to some genetic condition), and still others may lose them due to illness, accident, or old age. If possession of these complex cognitive capacities determined full moral considerability, only the interests of the more intelligent human beings should be given full weight. For many, these implications are unacceptable. It seems implausible to claim that we can frustrate the most basic interests of, say, human beings with severe

Harming animals, degrading the public sphere  57 intellectual disability to feed or entertain ourselves, or for biomedical research (as we do with animals). And yet, if we consistently apply the criteria on which animals are excluded from the sphere of full moral considerability, that is the conclusion that seems to follow. What then is an adequate attribute for the purposes of grounding moral considerability? The one most widely accepted in the literature is sentience, defined as the capacity for positive and negative experiences. These are to be understood in the widest possible manner. From the pleasure we feel when satisfying our hunger, or the pain caused by a wound, to the joy of the company of our loved ones, or nostalgia for their absence. Only sentient individuals can be affected for good or ill by events, since only they can be harmed by some occurrence, thereby causing their life to go worse, or benefited by it, thereby causing their life to go better. Thus, only sentient individuals possess a well-being of their own that can be taken into account in our moral deliberation. If we identify an individual as sentient, then we must take into account how our decisions may affect them. Refusing to do so amounts to an unjustifiable exclusion from our moral deliberation of the harms and benefits we may cause them. This begs the question of which entities are sentient. Obviously, most human beings are. According to the scientific consensus, all vertebrate animals are sentient too (Low 2012). We also have strong evidence for the sentience of some invertebrates, like cephalopod molluscs and decapod crustaceans (Birch et al. 2021). Regarding other invertebrates, our evidence is mostly inconclusive. More research is needed before their sentience can be confidently confirmed or ruled out. However that might be, it must be stressed that our conclusions apply solely to sentient animals. The interests of sentient animals

Sentient beings possess two basic interests: in avoiding suffering and in having positive experiences. This is, of course, compatible with the fact that sometimes it may be instrumentally good for an individual to experience pain (if this brings about more positive experiences) or instrumentally bad to enjoy positive experiences (if this ends up producing a larger amount of suffering). Is death bad for animals? It has been argued that if an individual is deprived by death of a future of value—that is, of a future that would have contained more of what makes life worth living than worth ending—then dying is bad for them (Bradley 2016; Marquis 1989; Nagel 1979). Other authors claim, contrariwise, that having an interest in living requires desiring not to die (Tooley 1983; Williams 1973). This is sometimes coupled with the claim that animals do not have the psychological capacities that would allow us to attribute them such a desire or, at least, not a desire to live that covers all their future existence (Belshaw 2016; Cigman 1981; Singer 2011 [1979], 94–122). Even others additionally claim that an individual’s interest in continuing to live depends on their strength of their psychological connectedness with their future selves, which would allegedly be weaker for animals relative to a typical adult human (McMahan 2002).

58  Eze Paez and Pablo Magaña We are persuaded by the view that having a net positive future is sufficient for an individual to have an interest in living. Nevertheless, it must be noted that the question whether animals have an interest not to die is not particularly pressing for our specific discussion. As we explained above, the overwhelming majority of animals subjected to harms in the food industry (those reared in intensive farms) plausibly have net negative lives (i.e., their lives contain more of what makes live worth ending than worth living). If so, even in our preferred view, it would not be the case that these animals have an interest in living that is frustrated when they are killed at the slaughterhouse. Thus, the main wrongness of intensive farming does not lie, according to this view, on the fact that animals are killed at the end of the productive process, but on the fact that such a process causes animals to have lives of suffering. Be these animals’ existence long or short, that suffices to render intensive farming morally objectionable. Our duties towards animals reared in the food industry

If the interests of animals have any moral relevance at all, we must concede that we are morally required not to inflict them serious harms in pursuit of trivial human ends. This entails that those economic activities that cause such harms to animals are morally wrong.9 These include, among others, the animal-based food industry, which as we described above (see section “Introduction”), concentrates the overwhelming majority of animals used by humans. According to the scientific consensus, a strict plant-based diet is perfectly healthy in all stages of human development, provided it is adequately supplemented (Melina et al. 2016). Thus, consuming animals for food is totally unnecessary for human health, let alone for human survival. The benefits humans derive from eating animal-based products merely consist in the additional enjoyment caused by experiencing a certain taste. If we reject speciesism, then surely animals’ interests not to suffer and not to die must be considered weightier than the pleasure that human beings derive from savouring them. This has several normative implications. The most fundamental of these is that it is morally wrong for someone to personally harm animals in order to enjoy eating them or products derived from them. In addition, we are also plausibly morally required not to assist someone in committing some serious wrongs when we can avoid doing so at little to no cost to ourselves. This entails that, whenever those conditions are met, it is morally wrong to help sustain the animal-based food industry. We contribute to the persistence of this industry if, as investors or consumers, we provide it with the financial support it needs to survive or expand, but also with our labour if our job consists in manipulating or deceiving others about its negative effects for animals. The same applies if our job consists in lobbying governments into enacting legislation that makes it easier for this industry to operate. Here the assumption is that, because of our efforts, more people will consume animal-derived products or have a positive attitude towards the animal-based food industry. This will cause more animals to be harmed (or be harmed more seriously) than would have otherwise been the case.

Harming animals, degrading the public sphere  59 The wrongness of degrading the public sphere Besides helping sustain the existence of a harmful industry, the public relations and lobbying strategies of the food industry can also be objectionable because they have a negative impact on the public sphere. Let us begin with the basics. It is widely assumed that the democratic ideal requires that citizens have adequate opportunities (both in quantitative and qualitative terms) to access politically relevant information (Dahl 1998, 37; Habermas 2006; Levitsky and Ziblatt 2018). The lobbying efforts of the food industry can hamper the realisation of this ideal, by manipulating the attention that different reasons and views receive in the public sphere. Some examples include funding campaigns that increase the availability of certain views, or promoting the adoption of laws that severely punish the dissemination of information about the situation of animals in the food industry— e.g., the so-called ag-gag laws mentioned above. The negative impact of those efforts on the public sphere can be divided into three potential harmful effects: (i) an impact on citizens’ freedom of choice, (ii) an impact on political equality, and (iii) an impact on democratic deliberation. By presenting those effects separately we do not wish to claim that they are unrelated. Still, from an analytical standpoint, it is advisable to distinguish them—if only because some readers might not find all of them equally convincing. Negative impact on citizens’ freedom of choice

According to political philosopher Philip Pettit (2012, 54), freedom of choice requires, inter alia, “the cognitive resources needed to identify and understand the options on offer, to see that you are in a position to choose any of them, and so to decide on what you prefer.” When others possess unchecked control over those resources, one is vulnerable to deception (when certain options—such as views, or reasons—are removed from our choice set) and/or manipulation (when we are prevented from adequately exercising our cognitive capacities—e.g., hypnosis or rhetorical abuses). The lobbying efforts of the animal food industry can possibly manipulate citizens—for instance, overloading them with rhetoric that biases their reasoning. But even more clearly, it can deceive them about their own options (say, by making some reasons more accessible than they would otherwise be, or by directly attempting to prevent the dissemination of relevant information). For instance, as we can see in the case study box, some researchers appear to have been used to disseminate misleading ideas about the relationship between consuming red meat and cancer risk. Such a strategy aims at inflating the perceived credibility of sceptical views (compared with their degree of acceptance among the scientific community), capitalising on the perceived trustworthiness of scientists, and distorting the perceived choice set of citizens. Far from being an isolated case, this is unfortunately a widespread public relations and lobbying practice. Importantly, the existence of those effects does not necessarily hinge on whether the food industry deliberately intends

60  Eze Paez and Pablo Magaña to manipulate or deceive citizens; in many cases, public relations officials might sincerely believe what they defend. Even in those cases, however, citizens’ grasp on their options is blurred and biased in ways that are normatively problematic. When that happens, Pettit (2012, 54) notes, “the set of options you confront, according to your perceptions, is not X, Y, and Z, but a set in which one or another option is removed or replaced or a further option is added.” Which means, in short, that one is acting on someone else’s terms. Negative impact on political equality

Quite uncontroversially, democracy requires political equality. This is typically understood as involving equal opportunities for exercising political power or influence (regardless of whether each citizen exercises those opportunities or not). Less uncontroversially but still quite plausibly, the democratic ideal also requires that citizens be able to make meaningful decisions (that is, decisions that are the product of a rational decision-making process). When those elements are combined, we get a conception of political equality that requires roughly equal opportunities for exercising meaningful political decisions. Now, when the food industry’s public relations and lobbying efforts succeed in either manipulating or deceiving citizens not only is their freedom jeopardised, but also their equality. For, as we pointed out, in such cases, citizens are deciding on someone else’s terms. Arguably, this entails that, as political agents, they do not enjoy roughly equal opportunities for exercising meaningful political decisions. If my choice situation has been set by others with a particular agenda, we do not enjoy an equal meaningful opportunity to shape decisionmaking. In the political domain, when someone successfully deceives me into pursuing their own goals, they are enjoying two opportunities for influencing political decision-making: through their own agency, and—indirectly—through my own agency. Suppose, somewhat simplistically (but still usefully for illustrative purposes), that employers’ associations successfully finance a campaign against unionisation, such that workers come to see it as being outside their (feasible) set of alternatives. In this case, it would be implausible to claim that workers and employers are enjoying equal opportunities to influence policy-making. Importantly, though, this would be the case even if employers are right regarding the substance of their claims: the problem is not necessarily that their claims are false, but that they are availing themselves of unjustified opportunities for political influence. Moving to the food industry, suppose that producers of animalbased products manage to finance a campaign that successfully makes consumers believe using the traditional name of an animal-based food in the labelling of their plant-based food counterparts (e.g., hamburgers or sausages) would fatally impair their ability to choose what to purchase with adequate information. Again, under such circumstances, it might be claimed that those who defend, without analogous material resources and political clout, that such labels are perfectly comprehensible, are not really enjoying a fair shot at influencing public debate and the political agenda.

Harming animals, degrading the public sphere  61 Negative impact on democratic deliberation

Among contemporary democratic theorists, the ideal of deliberative democracy has become prominent. Deliberative democrats hold that we should not see democracy as being primarily a mechanism for the aggregation of preferences. Rather, we should focus on the potential of deliberation to guide the formation, discussion, and revision of preferences. Ideal deliberation should be inclusive, and proceed under conditions of mutual respect, equality, sincerity, publicity, accountability, and, first and foremostly, absence of coercion (Cf. Bächtiger et al. 2018). As Habermas (1996, 305) famously put it, democratic decision-making should be shaped mainly by the “unforced force of the better argument.” According to many deliberative democrats, only if political decisions are the upshot of rational and inclusive discussion will they be justified to those subject to it. In addition, many also believe that, under the right conditions, deliberation can help individuals—at least in the long run—to make epistemically better (i.e., true or more justified) judgements (Cf. Goodin and Spiekerman 2018). The food industry’s public relations and lobbying efforts can thwart both aspects of the ideal. On the one hand, initiatives that aim at restricting the number of reasons, views, and discourses that citizens can deliberate upon will hardly lead to outcomes that are products of the “unforced force of the better argument.” Rather, these outcomes will arguably be the result, at least in part, of the persuasive force of the most skilful lobbyist. Moreover, when the reasons offered to the general public by the food industry PR agents in support of a policy or law differ from the reasons why they really support them, the requirements of sincerity and publicity are also violated. Again, attempts to forbid using the traditional name of an animal-based food in the labelling of some plant-based counterpart provide a good case in point, since the arguments offered are implausible enough that the main goal is simply to sabotage the marketing efforts of their competitors.10 On the other hand, those initiatives might also reduce the epistemic potential of deliberation. One influential theory (Landemore 2013), for instance, holds that deliberation is truth-conducive as it capitalises from the benefits of cognitive diversity (which involves, inter alia, the inclusion of different perspectives about one issue). Now, when some considerations, views, or arguments are prevented from entering the informational pool of democracy, overall cognitive diversity diminishes. Conclusion In this chapter, we have tried to show that the public relations strategies of the animal food industry can be objectionable on two counts. On the one hand, they help sustain an industry that systematically thwarts some important interests of animals—wrongs that, if we take animal interests seriously (as we have argued that we must), we should avoid supporting. On the other hand, they can also jeopardise the interest of humans in living under operative democratic institutions. Some authors have argued that the long-term survival of well-functioning democratic

62  Eze Paez and Pablo Magaña institutions requires that we uphold and nurture norms of respectful, open, and conscientious engagement (Levitsky and Ziblatt 2018). Manipulation and deception (or, more generally, biasing citizens’ grasp on their political options), though, contribute to erode those norms, and also threaten our political freedom and equality. Summary • Sentient nonhuman animals are morally considerable individuals. We must take into account their interests not to suffer, to enjoy their lives and, on some views, not to die. • The animal-based food industry causes serious harms to those sentient nonhuman animals subjected to it. • It is generally seriously morally wrong to cause such harms. Derivatively, it is similarly wrong to engage in PR and lobbying strategies that facilitate causing those harms. • The PR and lobbying strategies of the animal food industry can also degrade the public sphere, by negatively affecting our political freedom and equality, and the quality of democratic deliberation. • We should uphold the conditions under which democratic institutions and practices can flourish. Thus, the PR and lobbying strategies of the animal food industry are objectionable. Notes 1 Examples abound. In 2015, the scientific advisory committee tasked with elaborating the U.S. Dietary Guidelines claimed that a move towards plant-based diets was advisable on the basis of public health and sustainability considerations. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the USDA, though, did not mention the issue in the published version of the guidelines (Cf. Reese 2018, 21). In 2021, Tyson Foods recognized that, in declaring to be committed to “excellence in animal welfare,” it was stating “merely opinions, predictions, and aspirations at best.” See Organic Consumers Association v. Tyson Foods, Inc., Accessed: 14 July 2022. 2 During the last decades, these kind of laws have cropped up in Australia, Canada, and the United States; for an overview, see Ceryes and Heaney (2019). 3 This is notoriously the case of the European Union’s Common Agricultural Policy, which heavily subsidises animal farming. See, for instance, Shankar, Priyanka, Thin Lei Win, and Ludo Hekman. ‘Exposed: How big farm lobbies undermine EU’s green agriculture plan.’, DW.com, 29/10/2021 . Accessed: 14 July 2022. 4 In what follows, we draw heavily from the resources referenced in the sections on animals exploited for food featured in the Animal Ethics Foundation website: www. animal-ethics.org/animals-used-food-introduction/ (accessed 13 July 2022). 5 Around 1.5 billion pigs and 300 million cows are killed each year over the world (FAO 2020). Other exploited land animals include, asses, buffaloes, camels, goat, and sheep. 6 In this chapter, we follow the convention of using a regular, countable plural for ‘fish’ so as to emphasise their individuality.

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64  Eze Paez and Pablo Magaña FAO. 2020. “Statistics Division: Production, Live Animals”. http://www.fao.org/faostat/ en/#data/QA/visualize. Fishcount. 2019. “Estimated Numbers of Individuals in Annual Global Capture Tonnage (FAO) of Fish Species (2007–2016).” http://fishcount.org.uk/studydatascreens/2016/ numbers-of-wild-fish-A0-2016.php. Flower, F.C. and Weary, D.M. 2003. “The Effects of Early Separation on the Dairy Cow and Calf.” Animal Welfare 12: 339–348. https://doi.org/10.1016/s0168-1591(00)00128-3. Goodin, Robert E. and Kai Spiekermann. 2018. An Epistemic Theory of Democracy. New York: Oxford University Press. Graf, B. and M. Senn. 1999. “Behavioural and Physiological Responses of Calves to Dehorning by Heat Cauterization With or Without Local Anaesthesia.” Applied Animal Behaviour Science 62: 153–171. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0168-1591(98)00218-4. Habermas, Jürgen. 1996. Between Facts and Norms, trans. William Rehg. Cambridge, MA: MIT University Press. Habermas, Jürgen. 2006. “Political Communication in Media Society: Does Democracy Still Enjoy an Epistemic Dimension? The Impact of Normative Theory on Empirical Research.” Communication Theory 16 (1): 411–426. https://doi.org/10.1111/ j.1468-2885.2006.00280.x. Horta, Oscar. 2010. “What Is Speciesism?” Journal of Agricultural and Environmental ­Ethics 23: 243–266. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10806-009-9205-2. Horta, Oscar. 2014. “The Scope of the Argument from Species Overlap.” Journal of Applied Philosophy 31: 142–154. https://doi.org/10.1111/japp.12051. Hursthouse, Rosalind. 2000. Ethics, Humans, and Other Animals: An Introduction with Readings. New York: Routledge. Jensen, Margit Bak. 1999 “Effects of Confinement on Rebounds of Locomotor Behaviour of Calves and Heifers, and the Spatial Preferences of Calves.” Applied Animal Behaviour Science 62: 43–56. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0168-1591(98)00208-1. Julian, R.J. 2004. “Evaluating the Impact of Metabolic Disorders on the Welfare of Broilers.” In: Measuring and Auditing Broiler Welfare, edited by C. Weeks, and A. Butterworth, 51–60. Wallingford: CABI Publishing. Krautwald Junghanns, M.E., K. Cramer, B. Fischer, A. Förster, R. Galli, F. Kremer, E.U. Mapesa, S. Meissner, R. Preisinger, G. Preusse, C. Schnabel, G. Steiner and T. Bartels. 2018. “Current Approaches to Avoid the Culling of Day-Old Male Chicks in the Layer Industry, With Special Reference to Spectroscopic Methods.” Poultry Science 97 (3): 749–757. https://doi.org/10.3382/ps/pex389. Landemore, Hélène. 2013. Democratic Reason: Politics, Collective Intelligence, and the Rule of Many. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Levitsky, Steven and Daniel Ziblatt. 2018. How Democracies Die. London: Penguin Random House. Lippert-Rasmussen, Kasper. 2014. Born Free and Equal?: A Philosophical Inquiry into the Nature of Discrimination. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Low, Philip 2012. “The Cambridge Declaration on Consciousness.” http://fcmconference. org/img/CambridgeDeclarationOnConsciousness.pdf. Accessed: 13 July 2022. Lowery, Alex. 2019 (January 25). “Fake Meat Bill Passes House, Heads to Senate.” Mississippi Farm Bureau. https://msfb.org/2019/01/25/fake-meat-bill-passes-house-heads-to-senate. Marquis, Don. 1989. “Why Abortion Is Immoral.” The Journal of Philosophy 86 (4): 183–202. McMahan, Jeff. 2002. The Ethics of Killing. Problems at the Margins of Life. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Harming animals, degrading the public sphere  65 Melina, Vesanto, Wilson Craig and Susan Levin. 2016. “Position of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics: Vegetarian Diets.” Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and ­Dietetics 116 (12): 1970–1980. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jand.2016.09.025. Mood, Alison. 2010. “Worst Things Happen at Sea: The Welfare of Wild-caught Fish. Summary Report.” Fishcount.org.uk. http://www.fishcount.org.uk/published/standard/ fishcountfullrptSR.pdf. Mood, Alison and Brooke, Phil. 2017. ‘Numbers of farmed decapod crustaceans’ in Fishcount.org.uk. http://fishcount.org.uk/fish-count-estimates-2/numbers-of-farmeddecapod-crustaceans. Mood, Alison and Brooke, Phil. 2019. “Estimated Numbers of Individuals in Global Aquaculture Production (FAO) of Fish Species”. Fishcount.org.uk. http://fishcount.org.uk/ studydatascreens2/2017/numbers-of-farmed-fish-A0-2017.php?sort2/full. Nagel, Thomas. 1979. “Death.” In: Mortal Questions, 1–10. New York: Cambridge University Press. Pettit, Philip. 2012. On the People’s Terms: A Republican Theory and Model of Democracy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Pluhar, Evelyn B. 1995. Beyond Prejudice: The Moral Significance of Human and Nonhuman Animals. London: Duke University Press. Reese, Jacy. 2018. The End of Animal Farming. Boston, MA: Beacon. Regan, Tom. 2004 [1983]. The Case for Animal Rights. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. Singer, Peter. 1975. Animal Liberation. Nova York: HarperCollins. Singer, Peter. 1981. The Expanding Circle: Ethics and Socio-biology. New York: Farrar Straus & Giroux. Singer, Peter. 2011 [1979]. Practical Ethics, 3rd edition. New York: Cambridge University Press. Tooley, Michael. 1983. Abortion and Infanticide. New York: Oxford University Press Webster, A.B. 2004. “Welfare Implications of Avian Osteoporosis.” Poultry Science 83 (2): 184–92. https://doi.org/10.1093/ps/83.2.184. Wickins, John F. and Daniel O’C Lee. 2002. Crustacean Farming: Ranching and Culture, 2nd edition. London: Wiley-Blackwell. Williams, Bernard. 1973. “The Makropulos Case: Reflections on the Tedium of Immortality.” In: Problems of the Self 82–100. New York: Cambridge University Press.

Case study The meat lobby and the World Health Organization Laura Fernández and Núria Almiron

The World Health Organization announcement on red meat, processed meat, and cancer On 26 October 2015, the World Health Organization (WHO) launched a press release explaining the results of a research monograph by their cancer agency, the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) and created a Q&A page on their website dedicated to the issue (WHO 2015a). In the monograph, they evaluated the carcinogenicity of consuming red and processed meat through a literature review of 800 different studies (IARC-WHO 2015; WHO 2015a). In the press release, the IARC defined red meat as “all types of mammalian muscle meat, such as beef, veal, pork, lamb, mutton, horse and goat” (IARC-WHO 2015, 2), and processed meat as nonhuman animal flesh “that has been transformed through salting, curing, fermentation, smoking or other processes to enhance flavour or improve preservation” (IARC-WHO 2015, 2). The press release stated that the scientific literature review conducted by a group of 22 experts from 10 countries “classified the consumption of red meat as probably carcinogenic to humans” (IARC-WHO 2015, 1) and processed meat as “carcinogenic to humans” (IARC-WHO 2015, 1). The monograph recognised the differences in meat quantity and type and the percentage of people eating meat in different countries, presenting the following argument: “The experts concluded that each 50 gram portion of processed meat eaten daily increases the risk of colorectal cancer by 18%” (IARC-WHO 2015, 1). The response from the Global North meat industry The United States and European meat industries had prepared themselves for the IARC report. Three days prior to the agency’s press release, the media agency Reuters was already announcing that this industrial complex was generating strategies to prevent and counteract the potential negative effects of research associating the consumption of red and processed meat—and especially the latter—with cancer (Reuters Staff 2015). The National Cattlemen’s Beef Association (NCBA) in the United States, a trade association and lobbying group, launched a press release on the same day that the WHO announced the link between red/processed meat and cancer. The text argued DOI: 10.4324/9781003324065-8

The meat lobby and the World Health Organization  67 that there was a lack of scientific consensus on the connection and quoted a scientist from the NCBA’s public relations company Beef Checkoff (NCBA 2015). Among those mentioned in the press release was James R. Coughlin, president and founder of the consulting firm Coughlin & Associates, who has a long track record of working with trade associations. The press release stated the following: Coughlin, a toxicologist with more than 40 years of experience in meat and cancer, is critical of the IARC review process due to the lack of transparency, selective inclusion or exclusion of studies and broad interpretation of study results that are inconsistent with the conclusions of the study authors. (NCBA 2015) Furthermore, the North American Meat Institute (NAMI) released a factsheet on diet and cancer research in January 2015, in which they concluded that the IARC research was inconclusive and recommended that the public “focus on the big picture” and “eat a balanced diet that includes lean meat” (NAMI 2015a). Then on 26 October 2015, the same day as the publication of the WHO report, they released a statement denouncing the “dramatic and alarmist overreach” of the news regarding the IARC’s research (NAMI 2015b). Their statement underlined the alleged health benefits associated with meat consumption and emphasised the inherent complexity in understanding the factors that produce cancer. The NAMI websites Meat Safety (www.meatsafety.org) and Meat & Poultry Naturally Nutritious (www.meatpoultrynutrition.org) include specific sections denying and undermining the IARC’s results and other scientific evidence associating meat and cancer while offering a list of resources with the stated aim of helping society “interpret their findings” (Meat & Poultry Naturally Nutritious 2015). For example, Meat Safety has a section entitled “Cancer Prevention and Myth”, where the organisation argues that the conclusions of the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine are biased,1 produced by activists, and not supported by science (Meat Safety 2022a). However, they do not include any conflict-of-interest statement, despite approaching the issue from their trade association position. In their arguments against the evidence found on the link between meat and cancer, they mix messages about the misuse of epidemiological studies, the critique of media advertising on the issue and children’s taste preferences for hot dogs (Meat Safety 2022b). In the European Union, the Liaison Centre for the European Associations of Meat Manufacturing Industries (CLITRAVI) strongly rejected the new classification in a press release, considering it “inappropriate to attribute any single factor to an increased risk of cancer” (CLITRAVI 2015). In their announcement, CLITRAVI recommended “a more holistic approach, considering the wide range of meat products produced in the European Union (EU) all with optimal nutritional value, that meet the various different requirements of consumers” (CLITRAVI 2015) and underlined the European Meat Manufacturing Industry’s commitment “to improve the nutritional composition and to optimise the nutritional value of the meat products” (CLITRAVI 2015).

68  Laura Fernández and Núria Almiron The European Commission report “Can processed and red meat cause cancer? The WHO’s classification raises concerns” examined stakeholders’ reactions to the WHO classification (Scholz 2015). Research institutes and experts confirmed the known scientific results, while the EU meat industry opposed and denied them and government bodies generally called for calm in the face of a potential public alarm (Scholz 2015). The tremendous pressure following the announcement prompted the WHO to issue a statement three days later clarifying that “[t]he latest IARC review does not ask people to stop eating processed meats, but indicates that reducing consumption of these products can reduce the risk of colorectal cancer” (WHO 2015b). The fact that the WHO felt it necessary to issue this notification demonstrated the level of confrontation in the nonhuman animal exploitation industries’ response to the call for a mere dietary reduction in animal flesh and by-products. Public relations strategies employed by the international meat industry The EU agribusiness and food sector, including the meat industry represented by CITRAVI, was the most influential sector lobbying in Brussels in 2017 (Bartz 2017), and the meat industries in the United States and the EU have used various public relations strategies to counter the negative influence of the WHO statement on their economic interests. The public relations strategies most employed by the industry included spreading doubt through the use of expert voices, issuing mixed messages and implementing the “mistake” thesis—totally or partially denying the veracity and relevance of the given research and its implications. Large corporations and commercial meat organisations made use of public relations and advertising campaigns to reject the veracity of the IARC’s scientific review. These firms hired scientific experts from various health-related disciplines to cast doubt on the monograph, spreading the idea that there was no scientific consensus on the association between high consumption of red and processed meat and colorectal cancer (Rejón 2016). The industries used expert voices and hid the business links of these health professionals, keeping the enormous conflict of interest invisible. In this way, literature reviews or documents on the issue compiled by industry organisations ended up underlining the importance of balanced meat consumption due to its high nutritional benefits, while also suggesting that the association reported by the WHO was weak and insufficient, even an error, both for methodological reasons and due to the complexity of researching the causes of cancer, which is still insufficiently explored and whose cause is multifactorial. The industry invested large sums of money in promoting scientific publications (e.g. Ruxton 2016) and public campaigns that whitewashed the image of the sector and reinforced the message about the importance of meat for human health. The industry’s discourse was reflected on websites such as Carne y Salud (www.carneysalud.com) in Spain or Meat & Poultry Naturally Nutritious (www. meatpoultrynutrition.org) in the United States, which promote the interests of the

The meat lobby and the World Health Organization  69 meat sector through recipes and data on meat, nutrition, and health. In the case of Spain, the campaign carried out by the National Association of Meat Industries of Spain (Asociación Nacional de Industrias de la Carne de España, ANICE) cost over €100,000 (Rejón 2016), while the NAMI invested US$249,988 in business lobbying in 2015 according to the organisation Open Secrets (Open Secrets 2022). Interestingly, in 2016 alone, the EU’s Research Executive Agency funded several campaigns for the European Meat Industry to promote animal products both in the EU and globally. Some paradigmatic examples were “Pork Lovers Europe”, led by the Spanish Inter-professional Agri-Food Organization for White Pork (INTERPORC),2 “Trusted Pork from Europe”, led by the Dutch meat association Centrale Organisatie voor de Vleessector and “European Authentic Pleasure”, led by the Italian association Istituto Valorizzazione Salumi Italiani. The Global North’s meat industry has the capacity to influence society’s consumption decisions, promoting dietary choices that can harm human health, damage the environment by promoting climate change (Almiron et al. 2022), and especially, as shown in this book, limit human compassion towards nonhuman animals, sentient beings whose interests are denied due to the economic benefit created by their exploitation within these industries. Today’s industrial food complexes may have a social influence similar to that of the tobacco industry in the past (Lauber et al. 2021); in fact, they follow the same strategies successfully applied by the industry—such as “casting doubt”—(Oreskes and Conway 2010) and are certainly a commercial determinant of health, as recently recognised by the WHO (2021). Recent campaigns have also shown that international meat industries multiply their influence and obstruct social and political change in the face of climate emergency and nonhuman animal advocacy in order to protect their economic interests (Almiron et al. 2022; Hanan 2020). A paradigmatic example of this type of campaign in the current context of climate deadlock was the controversial EU-funded “Become a Beefatarian” in 2019 (Campbell 2020). Lessons from the case of the WHO vs the meat industry The reaction of the Global North’s meat industries to the WHO’s announcement on the health risks of excessive meat consumption highlights how these powerful industrial complexes use public relations tools to maintain their economic power, even if it means denying scientific evidence and risking human health. This case study shows how the industry’s public relations campaigns create doubt among the population and promote confusion and disinformation. It also reveals that the WHO announcement challenged the international meat industry’s discourse on the link between meat consumption and health. The meat industry could have used the IARC’s scientific review as an opportunity to begin a transformative industrial transition towards less harmful food alternatives—for human health, for the environment, and for nonhuman animals. However, they decided instead to implement the use of their influence to cast doubt on the report, counteract scientific evidence, and perpetuate social, environmental, and interspecies injustice.

70  Laura Fernández and Núria Almiron Notes 1 The Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM) are a nonprofit organization of physicians whose mission is to save and improve human and nonhuman animal lives through plant-based diets and ethical and effective scientific research. The organization has devoted lots of its efforts on cancer prevention as one of its key projects. 2 Note on the label “white pork”: the industry employs the word “white” not only to refer to the breed of the exploited pigs, but also to convey the idea that pig flesh is a type of “white” rather than “red” meat.

References Almiron, Núria, Miquel Rodrigo-Alsina and Jose A. Moreno. 2022. “Manufacturing Ignorance: Think Tanks, Climate Change and the Animal-based Diet.” Environmental Politics 31 (4): 576–597. https://doi.org/10.1080/09644016.2021.1933842. Bartz, Dietmar, ed. 2017. “EU Lobbying. Big Business in Brussels.” In: Agrifood Atlas. Facts and Figures About the Corporations that Control What We Eat, edited by Heinrich Böll Foundation, Rosa Luxemburg Foundation and Friends of the Earth Europe, 44, 45. https://eu.boell.org/sites/default/files/agrifoodatlas2017_facts-and-figures-about-thecorporations-that-control-what-we-eat.pdf. Campbell, Maeve. 2020. “‘Become a Beefatarian’ Says Controversial EU-funded Red Meat Campaign.” Euronews green, November 25, 2020. https://www.euronews.com/ green/2020/11/25/become-a-beefatarian-says-controversial-eu-funded-red-meatcampaign. CLITRAVI. 2015. “Press Release on the IARC Monograph ‘Carcinogenicity of Consumption of Red and Processed Meat.’” CLITRAVI. October 26, 2015. http://clitravi.eu/pdf/35.pdf. Hanan, Jason, ed. 2020. Meatsplaining. The Animal Agriculture Industry and the Rhetoric of Denial. Sydney: Sydney University Press. IARC-WHO. 2015. “Press Release Nº 240. IARC Monographs Evaluate Consumption of Red Meat and Processed Meat.” International Agency for Research on Cancer. World Health Organization. October 26, 2015. https://www.iarc.who.int/wp-content/ uploads/2018/07/pr240_E.pdf. Lauber, Kathin, Harry Rutter and Anna B Gilmore. 2021. “Big Food and the World Health Organization: A Qualitative Study of Industry Attempts to Influence Global-level Noncommunicable Disease Policy.” BMJ Global Health 6: e005216. https://doi.org/10.1136/ bmjgh-2021-005216. Meat Safety. 2022a. “Cancer Prevention and Myth: Meat and Cancer Hypothesis - Fact & Fiction.” Meat Safety. http://www.meatsafety.org/ht/d/sp/i/41359/pid/41359. Meat Safety. 2022b. “Doctors, Nutritionists and Scientists...”. Meat Safety. http://www. meatsafety.org/ht/d/sp/i/43344/pid/43344. Meat & Poultry Naturally Nutritious. 2015. “IARC Report on Red and Processed Meat.” Meat & Poultry Naturally Nutritious. October 23, 2015. http://www.meatpoultrynutrition. org/content/iarc-report-red-and-processed-meat. NAMI. 2015a. “Factsheet: Diet and Cancer Research.” North American Meat Institute. January, 2015. https://www.meatinstitute.org//index.php/a/GetDocumentAction/i/82881?ht=a/ GetDocumentAction/i/82881. NAMI. 2015b. “News Reports Point to Dramatic and Alarmist Overreach By IARC on Meat Vote.” North American Meat Institute. October 23, 2015. https://www.meatinstitute.org/ index.php?ht=display/ReleaseDetails/i/116609.

The meat lobby and the World Health Organization  71 NCBA. 2015. “Science Does Not Support International Agency Opinion on Red Meat and Cancer.” NCBA News. October 26, 2015. https://www.ncba.org/ncbanews/news-releases/news/details/25068/science-does-not-support-internationalagency-opinion-on-red-meat-and-cancer. Open Secrets. 2022. “North American Meat Institute. Cycle 2016.” Open Secrets. https:// www.opensecrets.org/orgs/north-american-meat-institute/summary?toprecipcycle=2022 &contribcycle=2022&lobcycle=2022&outspendcycle=2022&id=D000068604&topnum cycle=2016. Oreskes, Naomi and Conway, Erik M. 2010. Merchants of Doubt: How a Handful of Scientists Obscured the Truth on Issues from Tobacco Smoke to Global Warming. New York: Bloomsbury Press. Rejón, Raúl. 2016. “Así maniobró la industria cárnica en España para contrarrestar el informe sobre el cáncer de la OMS.” elDiario.es. March 2, 2016. https://www.eldiario.es/ sociedad/estrategia-industria-carnica-informe-oms_1_1158968.html. Reuters Staff. 2015. “Meat Industry Braces for WHO Cancer Risk Verdict.” Reuters. October 23, 2015. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-meat-idUSKCN0SH1XP20151023. Ruxton, Carrie. 2016. “Red Meat. Cutting Through the Confusion.” CN Focus 8 (2): 70–73. June 2016, Available at: http://clitravi.eu/docs/01022017/2016-CN-meat-and-cancer.pdf. Scholz, Nicole. 2015. “Can Processed and Red Meat Cause Cancer? The World Health Organization’s Classification Raises Concerns.” In: At a Glance. European Parliamentary Research Service. October 30, 2015. https://www.europarl.europa.eu/thinktank/en/ document/EPRS_ATA(2015)571308. WHO. 2015a. “Cancer: Carcinogenicity of the Consumption of Red Meat and Processed Meat”. World Health Organization, October 26, 2015. https://www.who.int/newsroom/questions-and-answers/item/cancer-carcinogenicity-of-the-consumption-of-redmeat-and-processed-meat. WHO. 2015b. “Links Between Processed Meat and Colorectal Cancer.” World Health Organization, October 29, 2015. https://www.who.int/news/item/29-10-2015-linksbetween-processed-meat-and-colorectal-cancer. WHO. 2021. “Commercial Determinants of Health.” World Health Organization, November 5, 2021. https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/commercialdeterminants-of-health.

5

Fatal attractions The ethics of persuasion in the animal-based entertainment industry Paula Casal and Macarena Montes Franceschini

Introduction The animal entertainment industry includes a variety of practices. First, some people seek entertainment in an activity that consists of torturing an animal to death, as in bullfighting and countless other popular festivities and traditions.1 Second, some seek entertainment in watching an animal endure captivity, which can be another form of torture.2 Third, some seek entertainment in forcing captive animals to perform the same routine several times daily. This usually happens in aquariums or zoos containing aquatic mammals, or in circuses containing terrestrial mammals that are moved around in small trailers. The entertainment business presents the relevant animals in whatever way that makes the activity appear less obviously immoral. For example, bulls may be portrayed as fierce, dangerous, unstoppable demons that must be subdued by the heroic matador. This is inapplicable to caged animals that remain still from panic or depression. These are then described to the public as resting or napping, as if they were enjoying an enviable life of leisure. Animals that have endured endless hours of discipline to contort their bodies in unnatural positions are presented as if they were spontaneously greeting the audiences and being their quirky, cheeky selves. All this happens because some businesses manage to persuade enough people to seek entertainment in these ways. This chapter examines the harms caused by the animal entertainment industry and discusses the ethical problems that arise from this industry’s persuasion efforts. It begins by listing the physical and psychological harms caused by captivity and forced labour. It then turns to the justifications the industry offers for imprisoning and enslaving animals, and it ends by discussing the ethics of spreading messages that have been carefully spin-doctored, involve considerable deception, or are simply false. Physical harms of captivity Surprising as this may sound, bullfighting bulls are perhaps among the luckiest animals in the entertainment industry, for at least they are reared in open fields. Many bulls and cows employed in amateur bullfighting, however, are not freerange. Neither are the millions of animals employed in traditional festivities around DOI: 10.4324/9781003324065-9

Fatal attractions  73 the world that end up impaled, burnt alive, drowned, chased, and beaten to death by human crowds, in various forms of traditional entertainment (Casal 2021). Those reared to be released and shot are also among the luckiest, if we compare them, for example, to those raised to fight each other, as in dogfighting, cockfighting, and scripted orangutan boxing. Performing animals in zoos, circuses, and aquariums are particularly unlucky because the reason they can learn to perform such long and complex shows is that they are extremely intelligent and emotional, and can be conditioned to seek approval. In fact, numerous philosophers and lawyers consider many performing animals, such as great apes, elephants, and captive cetaceans, to be moral and legal persons, because of their cognitive capacities and awareness of their identity and situation (Cavalieri and Singer 1993; Casal and Singer 2022; Poole and Moss 2008; White 2007; Wise 2000). They can recognise themselves in a mirror and imagine themselves somewhere other than where they are (Gallup Jr. and Anderson 2018; Delfour and Marten 2001; Marino 2022; Plotnik et al. 2006). They can remember their past, imagine and desire freedom, retain or lose the hope of regaining it, and resent us for their imprisonment (Martin-Ordas et al. 2013; Osvath and Martin-Ordas 2014, 5). Performing animals are generally large because large animals are generally long-lived, and it is feasible and worthwhile for parents to invest many years in the education of each offspring if only one, long-lived, offspring is born of each pregnancy. During their protracted childhoods, these creatures develop strong emotional bonds, an intense social life, and a complex culture (Busson et al. 2019; Douglas-Hamilton et al. 2006; Poole and Moss 2008; Rendell and Whitehead 2001; Whiten et al. 1999). Their great intelligence is necessary for cultural transmission and peaceful coexistence in such complex societies. The marine mammals used in performances include orcas, bottlenose dolphins, belugas, walruses, and sea lions. These are large, long-lived, intelligent, social, and emotional creatures that invest greatly in their scarce offspring. Other performing animals like bears and large parrots also largely fit into this pattern. Captivity is extremely bad for all of them and causes multiple physical and psychological harms. Captive animals suffer from medical conditions that can cause premature death, such as capture myopathy, where a spike in adrenaline and stress hormones injures the pumping chambers of the heart, blood stops circulating, and death occurs (Braitman 2014, 192). Heart problems, which free gorillas lack, affect 70% of captive male gorillas, killing 41% of them (Krynak et al. 2017; Langlois 2018). Emotional shock and chronic stress also cause immunodepression, leading to chronic, frequent, or multiple infections, and even death (Casal and Marino 2022). Captive orcas suffer from pneumonia, gastrointestinal illnesses, encephalitis, meningitis, candidiasis, and kidney disease (Casal and Marino 2022; Jacobs and Marino 2020). Elephants suffer from tuberculosis, herpes, arthritis, and skin problems (Casal and Marino 2022; Hittmair and Vielgrader 2000; Sample 2008). Acute and chronic gastroenteritis, enteric parasites, wounds, fractures, bacterial abscesses, obstetric problems, osteoarthritis, and pneumonia are all common in zoos (Martin Clancy 2021). Additionally, zoos are full of health hazards like

74  Paula Casal and Macarena Montes Franceschini paint, chlorine, bleach, and other cleaning products, and various objects that lead to gastrointestinal foreign body pathologies when swallowed. Restricted movement may cause obesity, lameness, stress, and reduced brain blood flow. Free elephants, for example, travel between 15 and 120 miles daily, whereas captive elephants travel three miles at most (Jacobs and Marino 2020). Their enclosures are typically 100 times smaller than the smallest natural territories (Sample 2008). Free orcas swim over 150 miles daily. Captive orcas do not, as pools are around 10,000 times smaller than their natural habitats, and they are often held in tiny pools next to the performing area (Jacobs and Marino 2020). Captivity is disastrous for orcas, as shown in the documentary Blackfish (Cowperthwaite 2013). One can see that they have flopped dorsal fins and no teeth due to harming themselves against the pool’s edge. This, in turn, causes infections or the use of antibiotics (Jacobs and Marino 2020). Those surviving all the above may be killed by the zoo, police, or security personnel using bullets rather than darts if animals accidentally find themselves on the wrong side of a fence or in excessive proximity to an employee or visitor. This is what happened to the gorilla Harambe, who was shot, just in case, because a child snuck into his enclosure (Casal 2016), and to runaway chimpanzees in Amsterdam (Vives 2020). Human life is granted absolute priority even when the human is an adult who trespasses voluntarily, for a thrill, a dare, a selfie, or a clear wish to commit suicide, as happened in a lion’s enclosure in Chile (BBC News 2016). The San Diego Zoo is supposed to be one of the best in the world, and yet, a study once showed “widespread malnutrition among zoo animals; high mortality rates from the use of anaesthetics and tranquillisers; serious injuries and deaths sustained in transport; and frequent occurrences of cannibalism, infanticide and fighting almost certainly caused by overcrowded conditions” (Jamieson 1985). It has probably improved since then, but other zoos in the world are where this one was once. Psychological harms of captivity Captivity may be even worse for animals’ mental health than it obviously is for their physical health. In fact, most of their physical problems are caused, at least partly, by their suffering. Captive animals’ desires are systematically thwarted. They cannot go where they want, be with whom they want, avoid those they want to avoid, eat what or when they want, or choose what to do next (Casal and Marino 2022). We are all meant to suffer momentary stress, for example, when chased by a predator, but we are not meant to live under constant stress (Sapolsky 2004, 2008; Sapolsky and Heminway 2008). The latter is extremely harmful, particularly in situations where we feel powerless, causing cumulative stress disorder, which makes any additional source of stress extraordinarily stressful. This condition is associated with frequent colds, headaches, muscle pain, and skin and stomach problems, all the way to various forms of cancer, as well as to apathy, sleep disorders and depression, irritability, and increased aggression, causing more group stress. Given the different origins of different individuals in the same enclosure and the superimposed zoo rules, there is a mixture of cultural loss, fragmentary

Fatal attractions  75 acculturation, and conflicting norms, known to cause mental illness in humans (Berry 1997; Hovey 2000). Without their native culture and natural social group, some animals lack the framework that can help them deal with events in their lives like giving birth and they do now know what to do when it happens and become confused and stressed. It is against this background of cumulative stress that these deeply social and emotional animals endure additional stressful experiences like transfers (of themselves or their friends), illnesses, and deaths. To make matters worse, although some animals attempt to distract bereaving individuals to help them forget, they have nothing to distract themselves with. Boredom itself is already disastrous for curious and cultural animals with brains designed to absorb and process complex information constantly (Casal and Singer 2022, 34; Jacobs and Marino 2020), so that even if no deaths or transfers happen, captive animals suffer from imprisonment itself. Having evolved to travel the world’s oceans, or its vast jungles or savannas, they cannot do well in concrete enclosures. Most of the time, they are kept in small tanks or concrete rooms, so that performing or being exhibited seems like the lesser of two evils. They make countless unsuccessful attempts to escape and remain immensely frustrated when they feel they have no control over their lives at all. For example, a study of 40 chimpanzees living in groups and relatively good conditions, showed that all of them had signs of mental illness, and it was not possible to find any cause other than captivity itself (Birkett and Newton-Fisher 2011). The way confinement restricts or prevents normal behaviour causes chronic frustration and affects the hippocampus, which oversees memory functions, and the amygdala, which processes emotions, thus elevating stress hormones, damaging and killing neurons in both brain regions, and disrupting the serotonin balance, destabilising the animal’s mood (Jacobs and Marino 2020). Captivity can seriously damage intelligent animals’ brains and even cause brain atrophy. The cerebral cortex, which is the part responsible for voluntary movements, memory, planning, and decision-making, becomes thinner. The capillaries shrink, reducing the flow of oxygen, dendrites become shorter and simpler, and neurons become less able to process information efficiently (Jacobs and Marino 2020). Unsurprisingly, captive animals often need antidepressants and antipsychotics (Braitman 2014, chap. 5), like Haldol (haloperidol), to withstand captivity and reduce harmful and compulsive behaviours. For example, the sea lions of SeaWorld and the walruses of Six Flags Marine World that compulsively regurgitate food, or the gorillas that engage in self-injury from separation anxiety all take Haldol. Other frequently used drugs are Diazepam, Klonopin, Zoloft, Paxil, Xanax, Buspar, Prozac, Ativan, Versed, and Mellaril (Braitman 2014, 204–206). With stress, depression, poor health, atrophied brains, and various drugs at once, they may develop trichotillomania (hair-pulling disorder) and stereotypical behaviours like walking in circles or moving their heads back and forth, due to a dopamine and serotonin imbalance, affecting their ability to modulate movement (Jacobs and Marino 2020). They suffer from mood changes, anxiety, panic attacks, dysfunctional aggression, post-traumatic stress disorder, and self-injury (Casal and

76  Paula Casal and Macarena Montes Franceschini Marino 2022; Jacobs and Marino 2020). For example, Florida’s orca Hugo and Seattle’s orca Namu both smashed their head repeatedly against the side of their tank (Braitman 2014, 181). Captivity also causes eating disorders, ranging from anxiety- and boredominduced overeating to vomiting, anorexia, bulimia, compulsive regurgitation, and coprophagia (faeces-eating) (Braitman 2014, 206, 207). Depression may also cause them to do nothing at all. Even orcas may remain at the bottom of the pool, in a corner with their head to the wall, or just floating (logging) (Casal and Marino 2022). Passivity in turn worsens health problems and depression. It is all one massive vicious circle. To overcome depression, psychologists recommend us to exercise, change scenery, be in nature, and choose our company carefully. Animals are denied all exits, while the cause of their depression remains present. Another vicious circle, which also operates in human prisons, involves the abuse that abused individuals inflict on others. This is to be expected when captivity thins the cortex, increases irritability and aggression, and causes a fixation on sex as the only available pleasure. This happened to the bonobo Brian, separated from his mother at birth and caged with his father at the Yerkes National Primate Research Center at Emory University. Bonobos are amiable and there is no record of any bonobo killing another. They often greet each other affectionately, with sexual offerings to express cooperation and trust, and engage in genital rubbing but not sodomy (Braitman 2014, 146, 147). However, Brian’s father was so damaged by captivity that until Brian was 7, he sodomised him. Brian would vomit up to 50 times a day and move around in circles all day. He also self-injured by tearing off his fingernails, thrusting his fist up his rectum, and rubbing his genitals on sharp objects. Brian became very distrustful, had no social culture, was scared of other bonobos, and could be extremely aggressive with his zookeepers (Braitman 2014, 145). “By touching himself, even in a hurtful way, Brian was trying to make himself feel better in a world in which he had no other means of comfort and no control over his own life” (Braitman 2014, 148). The slavery of the talented Egalitarian philosopher Ronald Dworkin (2000, 90) coined the expression “the slavery of the talented” to express his concern with interpretations of equality that place such burdens on those who have been favoured by nature, that being born unusually intelligent or strong could become a curse and lead to enslavement. Some animals are also especially chased, captured, and enslaved, precisely because of their extraordinary intelligence, and liveliness. It is somewhat paradoxical to harm most those we admire most, but that is what happens to humans who are captured and raped for their attractiveness or enslaved for their strength, and to the animals that are captured and forced to perform up to five times daily because of how wonderful nature made them in various ways. As explained earlier, to learn elaborate routines, animals need to be very intelligent, and intelligent animals tend to be very large. Large, intelligent animals can

Fatal attractions  77 easily kill humans, and it is remarkable that they do not do so more often. To minimise risks, particularly nasty things are done to these animals. For a start, males are typically discarded, as females tend to be easier to subdue. People do not normally know this, as lions are the only performing animals where the absence of males would immediately be noted by the public. Generally, the public cannot tell a female from a young male, nor whether cruel training, sedation, declawing, or tooth-filing has taken place, or even that Samu or Chita are not individuals but brands, with the animals that impersonate them being replaced by others as they die, because of the public relations benefits that the illusion of longevity confers. Performing animals may be drugged or subdued by having to perform in pain. The elephant Delhi, for instance, performed while suffering chemical burns by having her feet soaked in undiluted formaldehyde (Braitman 2014, 161). Animals may also be painfully restrained in ways the public cannot see, such as when the bracelets around an elephant’s legs have sharp nails pointing inwards, so that they will stab themselves if they try to break free. The intelligence and memory of performing animals allows trainers to punish them later if they disobey a command during the show. They will fear punishment from the moment they deviate from the script. Sometimes performing animals are killed during a show, either as part of the spectacle, as in bullfighting or animal fights, or because they try to escape. For instance, the African elephant Tyke had tried to escape from other circuses where she was abused before and became nervous when performing for Circus International in Honolulu on August 20, 1994. As the video shows (PETA 2014), when pushed and prodded, she knocked the trainers over and escaped. They killed her by firing over 80 shots at her (Braitman 2014, 160). In North America alone, there are records of over 100 hundred elephants being shot dead during escape attempts since 1987 (PETA 2021). Businesses obviously hide attempts to flee, but all animals, from apes to zebras, attempt to escape (Henderson 2016). The chimp Oseye escaped and climbed a post, just metres from us, as we wrote these very lines (Metropoli 2022). Some apes return to their enclosure, fearing reprimands, while others prefer to risk death and run. Some also stop eating or, like the orca Hugo, hurt themselves so much they die. Bullfighting bulls are lucky compared with other performing animals also because, although people may cause them pain to make them look fiercer, they do not have to learn a routine. In fact, those bulls that are not killed as part of the spectacle are later killed anyway, because bullfighters do not want to deal with resabiado bulls. Resabiados are either over four years old or have encountered bullfighters before and therefore cannot be fooled. Performing animals may be trained with whips, tight collars, muzzles, electric pods, and hooks, and kept hungry, so that they perform for small bits of food. Food is often preceded by clicks that trainers use to indicate to the animal precisely what the reward is for. Captive dolphins have a double chin because they must live vertically and with lowered heads to see their trainers’ orders (Meah 2017). Others are forced into unnatural and undignified positions (Gruen 2014, 235) for the sake of bike riding, one-legged dancing or standing, or tea parties (Braitman 2014, 170). Jumping

78  Paula Casal and Macarena Montes Franceschini through loops and fire rings in noisy conditions can be dangerous as well (Braitman 2014, 2). Even when there is no danger, as in elephant painting, individuals suffer from being isolated and disciplined from infancy until they learn that there is nothing they can do but obey and execute the same painting perfectly several times daily. And even when we see animals displaying natural behaviours, they may have been trained to display such behaviours at particular times and spots, so the public can see them well (Gruen 2014, 241). Performing animals arrive at sanctuaries in particularly poor condition because of the chronic stress, fear, frustration, injuries, and years of discipline and training they have endured. Circus animals are usually traumatised, distressed, frightened, and present severe stereotypical behaviour and mental illness (Úbeda et al. 2021). Finally, the slavery of performing animals is, in some ways, worse than the slavery Dworkin criticised, for it is not directed towards meeting the basic needs of the worst off, but rather the trivial preferences of the well-off humans who can afford these pricey shows. The justifications The animal entertainment industry engages in perhaps the most clearly objectionable use of animals, for at least five reasons. First, this industry depends on the capture or captive breeding of the most intelligent, social, and emotional animals, which can be more easily threatened or manipulated because they seek affection, social contact, cooperation, and approval. It exploits females more because males are harder to control, are less needed for breeding, and do not attract as many visitors as females with babies. Second, the industry has historically contributed to massacres of entire families or groups to capture infants and continues to incentivise the poaching of many species, from great apes to tigers, and to drive various species, like orangutans, towards extinction. Third, entertainment is perhaps the most frivolous and trivial motive for animal exploitation. Fourth, nobody can plausibly claim to need animals for entertainment. We have spectacles, sports, activities, films, and human shows to fit any taste and level of physical or intellectual ability. What we normally lack is leisure time. Finally, while it is necessary to harm animals to satisfy other trivial purposes, we do not need to harm animals to be entertained by them. Even if all we wanted to do was watch bulls being stabbed to death, there are enough recordings to keep us watching for a lifetime. And if we want to see animals enjoy themselves rather than suffer, we can also watch documentaries, snorkel, or walk in sanctuaries or nature. In the 18th century, the exhibition of mentally ill patients was a popular spectacle, and watching patients at London’s Bethlem Royal Hospital, for instance, was considered greatly entertaining (Braitman 2014, 13). This was wrong, even though the patients were not forced to perform in order to eat, had not been made physically and mentally ill by the institution, and entertainment was neither the institution’s raison d’être nor its source of income.

Fatal attractions  79 The animal entertainment industry obviously exists to profit from using animals for entertainment. Their advertisements to attract customers make this plain. The most frequently repeated words in them are “enjoy,” “fun,” “dazzling,” and “thrill.” However, since the industry realises that it cannot justify what it does to animals just for entertainment, it claims to have other purposes. Let us review them briefly. Tradition

Tradition is the main argument for bullfighting and other popular activities that involve having fun at an animal’s expense during local festivities or religious celebrations. Arguments appealing to religious freedom fail, as no religion requires animal cruelty (Casal 2003). Appealing to tradition also fails because tradition is only conditionally valuable (Casal 2021). The reason we do not weigh the disvalue of slavery against the fact that it had a long history, is that we can have moral reasons to repeat an act only if the act is permissible in the first place. If it is not, then the fact that something is traditional does not justify it (Casal 2021). Circuses also claim to maintain old traditions or appeal to the right to a nomadic lifestyle. Maintaining the circus lifestyle, however, does not require animals. In fact, the best circuses avoid them or use animal holograms (Katz 2019). Conservation

If zoos’ mission is conservation, then why force animals to perform several times daily? (SeaWorld San Antonio 2022; SeaWorld San Diego 2022b; SeaWorld Orlando 2022b). They cannot plausibly portray themselves as conservation charities, which reluctantly engage in these practices as a necessary sacrifice to fund conservation, and yet refuse the transparent accounting that one would expect if this were true. Mining companies also invest a portion of their vast profits in facesaving environmental donations. This does not mean that their mission is conservation, nor that such donations offset their environmental harms. When zoos breed more animals than is profitable to keep, they sell them to circuses, hunters, or exotic pet owners, or simply kill them, even great apes (Horton 2021; Kleiman et al. 2012). Sometimes they also release them as a public relations stunt, but without investing in ensuring their survival. Aquariums may also heal injured animals brought to them. This is a cost-effective public relations investment once they have veterinarians on their payroll who are happy to appear as heroes. If conservation were a zoo’s mission, it would breed different species in different locations, and do so as part of ongoing breed-release-and-monitor programmes. Instead, they choose species for their capacity to attract clients with their beauty or shock value. This explains why aquariums typically exhibit the lionfish. A single lionfish “residing on a coral reef can reduce recruitment of native reef fish by 79 percent”, and the species is colonising the world, most likely because aquarium owners released them (NOAA Fisheries 2022). Zoos not only breed animals that are never released, but also animals that must not or cannot be released, for example, because infants cannot survive alone and

80  Paula Casal and Macarena Montes Franceschini zoo life makes the adults too unfit and cultureless to survive in nature. The albino gorilla Copito was brought to Barcelona Zoo on the grounds that albinos have low survival rates. And yet no other gorilla sperm was more expensive and sought after than his, with the zoo extracting it electrically every time he was sedated for one reason or another, producing 22 offspring, only three of which survived. Alba, the free albino orangutan, by contrast, has been repeatedly spotted in good health (Katz 2020). The fact that zoos have bred ligers and tigons (born of lions and tigers) and elephant hybrids shows that their motive is not conservation but profit. In fact, the industry has created various conservation nightmares, from the free breeding of escaped animals like the Colombian hippopotamuses and the massacres to obtain trainable babies, to genetic problems like inbreeding and hybridisation. For example, chimpanzees from different parts of Africa belong to four subspecies with distinctive genetic, anatomical, and cultural traits, yet zoos around the world have bred them together, with no intention of reintroducing them. They could not attempt crossbreeding lowland and mountain gorillas because captivity is so terrible for mountain gorillas that they quickly die. But they have even crossbred bonobos and chimpanzees, as well as orangutans of different species. Now the problem is not just whether descendants could survive, if released, but also whether they could harm native groups by spreading alien genes. While various sanctuaries reintroduce apes to nature, virtually no zoo does so. Instead, they create conservation nightmares by depriving apes of their culture, inbreeding them, mixing different species, subspecies, and cultures, and incentivising ape poaching. The claim that zoos have contributed to cetacean conservation is even more ludicrous. Dolphin, orca, and beluga shows are disastrous for conservation, as they incentivise wild captures worldwide, which also disregard genetic and cultural differences. Even if some zoos make some genuine contribution to conservation in order to substantiate their publicity, the issue is whether these cases can offset all the conservation harms they have caused since their creation, through hybridisation, inbreeding, wrong releases, and promoting captures worldwide. For, even after some cease to obtain their own animals from the wild, they continue to promote zoo-going as a vacation highlight, fostering the creation of similar facilities in other tourist destinations, which in turn obtain their animals from the wild, or from somebody who obtained them from the wild. Research

Much zoo-based research concerns how to keep and breed animals in zoos, or zoo hazards like paint chewing (Jamieson 1985). Behavioural research in zoos is very controversial because animals do not behave normally in zoos. One actually wonders what remains of the original species when the sign says “Siberian Wild Horse” (Jamieson 1985) or “Indian Ocean Flying Fox”, since the first is neither wild nor in or from Siberia, and the second is inland and cannot fly. Supposing there is some research that is urgent and reliable, and cannot take place elsewhere, if the justification is research, then the Reduce-Refine-Replace

Fatal attractions  81 rule should apply: zoos should then keep no more animals than is necessary for that research, minimise their suffering, and stop whenever alternatives emerge (Casal 2021, 467). Education

If zoos’ objective were education, they would be the least cost-effective and least evaluated educational system ever. Studies on whether zoos actually educate have yielded negative results. Zoo-goers are remarkably ignorant about animals (Jamieson 1985, 43). What most of them say about the observed animals is that they are “dirty”, “lazy”, “weird”, or “cute” (Ludwig 1981). People even find dolphins’ double chins amusing (Niles n.d.). Disclosing conflicts of interest is compulsory because authors tend to be unconsciously or deliberately biased in their selection of evidence. Entrusting zoos with education about animals is like entrusting fast-food providers with educating society about nutrition. For example, what are the chances of a zoo explaining to its visitors that a female orca could live as long as a woman but, in the zoo, they die in their teens? (Arroyo 2022). Zoo-goers learn that it is perfectly normal to keep animals captive for their entire lives in case we have nothing better to do on a Sunday, and they are deluded, sometimes willingly so, into thinking that with their loud music, colourful banners, and cheery slogans, these are happy places where animals enjoy themselves, rather than prisons for innocent individuals that become mental patients. The Barcelona Zoo was educational, but certainly not as advertised, for the schoolchildren who were there when the zoo decided to kill Alicia the elephant matriarch, who had eaten some bunting (Vásquez 2022). The children cried as she was shot with darts, while her best friend, the elephant Susi, tried to protect her, pulling the darts from her body with her trunk. Zoo operatives then proceeded to chop her up with chainsaws in front of Susi. At closing time, they left, leaving the job unfinished and Susi with the chopped-up body of her best friend all night. Susi almost died of sadness and the traumatised schoolchildren said they had learned what zoos are really like (Sanz 2021). Propaganda

If a product is marketed with pictures of fruits and the caption “made with real fruit juices and other natural ingredients” the reasonable consumer assumes the product is made with natural ingredients. If only 5% of the ingredients are natural, the statement remains true, but it is misleading (Shiffrin 2018). In evaluating the ethics of advertisement, then, what matters is not merely whether a statement is true, but whether that statement, repeated in conjunction with certain images, generates false beliefs in typical or reasonable consumers, for example, by redirecting their attention and emotions away from whatever may put them off (Shiffrin 2018). SeaWorld stresses that orcas are “limitless” and the “ocean’s most powerful predator,” (SeaWorld Orlando 2022b) thus making us focus on how mighty and

82  Paula Casal and Macarena Montes Franceschini dangerous they are, rather than towards their vulnerable and sorry condition, being forced to perform over 800 times yearly in a small pool. Orcas and dolphins are described as “ambassadors of the ocean” that “show off their incredible athleticism and celebrate life” (SeaWorld San Diego 2022a; SeaWorld Orlando 2022a), as if each of their 1,200 performances a year were spontaneous expressions of joy (SeaWorld Orlando 2022b). Zoos stress that animals are “playful” and describe the animals’ obedience to their trainers as “collaboration” with their “carers” or “friends” in order to make people believe they jump for fun, like dogs in the park, rather than to escape punishment. Similarly, when sued for cruelty, zoos and aquariums repeat that their employees love the creatures they control. This suggests that their critics falsely deny the existence of such love. However, those unverifiable sentiments are not the grounds for the legal suits they face. These businesses also claim that their facilities are embassies, and that their animals are ambassadors of their respective nations. This would be an accurate metaphor if ambassadors were usually kidnapped or prison-born, kept caged and disconnected from their societies, and mentally ill to the point of eating their own faeces. Large zoos also stress that they no longer do the things that they and other zoos used to do. But in promoting the zoo culture, they indirectly promote poorer zoos around the world that still practice whatever it is they now want to distance themselves from. Having been accused by PETA of orca maltreatment, Loro Parque’s owner Wolfgang Kiessling published a video saying: “Paradoxically, just when nature needs us more, it is when we face the hardest attacks by groups of organizations dedicated to creating negative publicity with the sole purpose of making money” (Loro 2022). How nature needs him, and why animal activists and not zoos are moved by money is not explained (Huerta 2021). The tycoon also sued PETA for defamation but lost (Público 2017). Zoos and aquariums are not embassies but lucrative businesses that hire publicists and spin doctors to disguise the facts and present themselves in the best possible light. Behind their colourful banners and blaring music, circuses, zoos, and aquariums are depressing prisons for innocent, intelligent, and emotional creatures that are suffering life sentences with forced labour. Their immorality is invisible to most people because of their great investment in public relations and advertising. It is wrong to collaborate with their public relations, advertisements, and general discourse because it i intends to, or is likely to, create false beliefs in the reasonable public (Shiffrin 2018), and is manipulative and deceitful, ii generates demand for these businesses, increasing their number or the number of animals they exploit and/or their suffering, and iii increases their already large profits, enabling them to use their economic power and public image to increase their political influence, and lobby against any animal welfare legislation that can set back their interests. This can be harmful for all animals, and not just those inside a given facility.

Fatal attractions  83 Summary • The industry includes practices like torturing animals to death, watching animals suffer in captivity, and forcing very intelligent and emotional animals to perform. All such practices cause numerous physical and psychological harms. • Additionally, performing animals suffer a sort of “slavery of the talented,” which, unlike that envisioned by Ronald Dworkin, serves the trivial interests of the minority that can afford the pricey entrance fees. • The industry portrays animals as “mighty,” “playful,” “lazy,” or whatever else makes their practices appear less obviously immoral. It portrays itself as being focused not on entertainment but on more respectable missions like tradition, research, conservation, and education. It describes the centres where animals are held captive as “embassies” and pretends not to be interested in profits but to act altruistically, focused on attempting to save the world. Such claims do not withstand scrutiny. • Zoos, aquariums, and circuses are prisons involving not only life sentences but also forced labour. They are not the happy places they pretend to be, and their focus on profit and entertainment is obvious. • They cannot be justified by appealing to tradition, which is only conditionally valuable, or to research, for various reasons. Inter alia, such highly artificial experimental conditions can greatly alter results, and they do not fulfil any of the rules for permissible research on animals, such as minimising both the number and the suffering of the animals involved, and employing alternatives whenever possible. • If these businesses’ mission was conservation, they would have very different practices and facilities. Instead, they cause various conservation nightmares, such as the free breeding of escaped animals, genetic problems related to hybridisation and inbreeding, and the incentivising of wild captures for themselves or for similar businesses around the world. • Education should not be in the hands of businesses with obvious conflicts of interest and powerful incentives to conceal or twist certain facts. They are clearly unqualified to teach ethics, as they attempt to persuade people that there is nothing wrong with keeping animals captive, or with forcing them to entertain us. • It is morally objectionable to disseminate such businesses’ public relations materials for various reasons. First, they are likely to create false beliefs in the reasonable public, they are misleading, deceitful, and hide or spin-doctor important truths. Second, they are essential for enabling the industry to continue to cause animal suffering. Third, they are key to allowing the industry to continue to increase its mighty economic power to further its political clout and prevent inconvenient animal welfare legislation. Notes 1 See a long list of such events in (Casal 2021). 2 Sanctuaries also house captive animals, but while the goal of a zoo is to maximize the profits derived from human entertainment, the goal of a sanctuary is to maximize the

84  Paula Casal and Macarena Montes Franceschini well-being of animals that cannot return to the wild. Sanctuaries usually house injured, abused, and confiscated animals, and have larger spaces so that the animals can move and interact more freely in a space designed for optimal comfort, not optimal viewing. In fact, human interactions and visitors are limited. Moreover, sanctuaries do not buy, sell, borrow, loan, or breed animals (Stella 2017).

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86  Paula Casal and Macarena Montes Franceschini Martin-Ordas, Gema, Dorthe Berntsen and Josep Call. 2013. “Memory for Distant Past Events in Chimpanzees and Orangutans.” Current Biology 23 (15): 1438–1441. https:// doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2013.06.017. Meah, Jonny. 2017. Inside the Tanks. USA. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hy9gt-f3I6Q. Metropoli. 2022. “Un chimpancé se escapa del Zoo de Barcelona y vuelve más tarde,”August 29. https://www.metropoliabierta.com/vivir-en-barcelona/chimpance-escapa-zoo-barcelonavuelve-mas-tarde_60178_102.html. Niles, Lizzy. n.d. “Double Chin on a Dolphin.” Pinterest. Accessed October 11, 2022. https://www.pinterest.es/pin/double-chin-on-a-dolphin-shes-so-sweet-thoughhahah--122582421077423845/. NOAA Fisheries. 2022. “Impacts of Invasive Lionfish.” National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration U.S. Department of Commerce. July 29. https://www.fisheries.noaa.gov/ southeast/ecosystems/impacts-invasive-lionfish#:~:text=Lionfish%20are%20native%20 to%20coral,the%20world%20to%20see%20them. Osvath, Mathias and Gema Martin-Ordas. 2014. “The Future of Future-Oriented Cognition in Non-Humans: Theory and the Empirical Case of the Great Apes.” Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B 369: 1–8. https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2013.0486. PETA. 2014. “Tyke the Elephant’s Last Day on Earth,” August 15. https://www.peta.org/ features/tyke-elephant-video-death/. PETA. 2021. “Elephant Incidents in North America.” https://www.peta.org/wp-content/ uploads/2021/06/Elephant-Incident-List-US-only.pdf. Plotnik, Joshua M., Frans de Waal and Reiss Diana. 2006. “Self-Recognition in an Asian Elephant.” PNAS 103 (45): 17053–17057. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.0608062103. Poole, Joyce H. and Cynthia J. Moss. 2008. “Elephant Sociality and Complexity: The Scientific Evidence.” In: Elephants and Ethics: Toward a Morality of Coexistence, edited by Christen Wemmer and Catherine A. Christen, 69–98. Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press. Público. 2017. “Un juez rechaza la demanda de un parque acuático a PETA por difamación al publicar fotografías de orcas con heridas,” November 14. https://www.publico.es/sociedad/juez-rechaza-demanda-parque-acuatico-peta-difamacion-al-publicar- fotografiasorcas-heridas.html#:~:text=El%20juez%20ha%20rechazado%20la,cubiertas%20de%20 cicatrices%20y%20heridas. Rendell, Luke and Hal Whitehead. 2001. “Culture in Whales and Dolphins.” Behavioral and Brain Sciences 24 (2): 309–382. https://doi.org/10.1017/s0140525x0100396x. Sample, Ian. 2008. “Stress and Lack of Exercise Are Killing Elephants, Zoos Warned.” The Guardian, December 12. https://www.theguardian.com/science/2008/dec/12/ elephants-animal-welfare. Sanz, Ana Luz. 2021. Susi, una elefanta a l’habitació. Spain: TV3. https://www.ccma.cat/ tv3/alacarta/sense-ficcio/susi-una-elefanta-a-lhabitacio/video/6108005/. Sapolsky, Robert M. 2004. Why Zebras Don’t Get Ulcers, 3rd edition. New York: Henry Holt. Sapolsky, Robert M., and John Heminway. 2008. Stress: Portrait of a Killer. Washington, DC: National Geographic. SeaWorld Orlando. 2022a. “Dolphin Adventures.” https://seaworld.com/orlando/shows/ dolphin-adventures/. SeaWorld Orlando. 2022b. “Park Hours and Experience Times.” https://seaworld.com/ orlando/park-info/theme-park-hours/. SeaWorld San Antonio. 2022. “Park Hours and Experience Times.” https://seaworld.com/ san-antonio/park-info/theme-park-hours/.

Fatal attractions  87 SeaWorld San Diego. 2022a. “Dolphin Adventures.” https://seaworld.com/san-diego/shows/ dolphin-adventures/. SeaWorld San Diego. 2022b. “Park Hours and Experience Times.” https://seaworld.com/ san-diego/park-info/theme-park-hours/. Stella, Alexis. 2017. “Sanctuaries Not Zoos.” The Reflector, October 11. https://reflector. uindy.edu/2017/10/11/sancuaries-not-zoos/. Shiffrin, Seana. 2018. “Deceptive Advertising and Taking Responsibility for Others.” In: The Oxford Handbook of Food Ethics, edited by Anne Barnhill, Mark Budolfson and Tyler Doggett, 470–493. New York: Oxford University Press. Úbeda, Yulán, Jaume Fatjó, Carles Rostán, Dietmar Crailsheim, Alba Gomara, Javier Almunia and Miquel Llorente. 2021. “A Preliminary Investigation on the Evaluation of Psychopathologies in a Group of Ex-Pet and Ex-Performer Chimpanzees (Pan Troglodytes).” Journal of Veterinary Behavior 41: 52–64. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jveb.2020.08.006. Vásquez, Ángela. 2022. “Susi, Yoyo y Bully: las elefantas que agonizan en el Zoo de Barcelona.” Metropoli, May 28. https://www.metropoliabierta.com/el-pulso-de-laciudad/susi-yoyo-bully-elefantas-agonizan-zoo-barcelona_54948_102.html. Vives, Judith. 2020. “Quejas animalistas por la muerte a tiros de dos chimpancés escapados de un zoo.” La Vanguardia, November 6. https://www.lavanguardia.com/natural/faunaflora/20201106/49267027877/quejas-animalistas-muerte-tiros-chimpances-escapadoszoo.html. White, Thomas I. 2007. In Defense of Dolphins: The New Moral Frontier. Malden, MA: Blackwell. Whiten, Andrew, Jane Goodall, William C. McGrew, Toshiada Nishida, Vernon Reynolds, Yukimaru Sugiyama, Caroline E. G. Tutin, Richard W. Wrangham and Christophe Boesch. 1999. “Cultures in Chimpanzees.” Nature 399: 682–685. https://doi.org/10.1038/21415. Wise, Steven M. 2000. Rattling the Cage. Boston, MA: Da Capo Press.

Case study SeaWorld against the documentary Blackfish Laura Fernández and Núria Almiron

SeaWorld Entertainment SeaWorld Entertainment, Inc. is a theme park and entertainment company that was founded in March 1959 with the opening of Busch Gardens in Tampa, Florida. Later, in 1964, the first SeaWorld opened in San Diego, California. The company was founded by four UCLA graduates, who initially planned to build an underwater restaurant before eventually conceiving a marine zoological park (Niles 2013). SeaWorld started its business with captive dolphins and sea lions forced to perform and then brought individuals from other species such as orcas, which quickly became the park’s main attraction. In 1965, SeaWorld bought its first orca, Shamu, which had been captured from the southern resident pod in Washington’s Penn Puget Sound and was sold to SeaWorld after two months at the Seattle Aquarium (Niles 2013). Shamu was the park’s flagship performing orca until April 1971, when she attacked Anne Eckis, a SeaWorld employee, who had been told to ride her as part of a filmed publicity event. In the attack, other workers were forced to come to Eckis’ rescue as Shamu refused to release her. While Eckis did survive Shamu’s attack, Shamu died four months afterwards. SeaWorld purchased many more orcas after Shamu, some of them directly captured from the ocean and some of them bought from other aquaria. Some were also bred in captivity after the park created its own reproduction programmes for the species. SeaWorld became an increasingly successful business, expanding to open two more parks, SeaWorld Orlando in Florida in 1973 and SeaWorld San Antonio in Texas in 1988. The orcas, along with other nonhuman animals such as fishes, turtles, octopuses, crustaceans, birds, and land and marine mammals, are kept captive and exploited in their facilities for human entertainment purposes. In particular, live shows (also known as Shamu shows) became very popular, where the orcas performed jumps and spins following the orders of their trainers. SeaWorld is currently the world’s largest captor of orcas (Almiron 2017, 57), with a total of 19 orcas surviving at SeaWorld’s three aquaprisons in June 2022: Corky, Ulises, Orkid, Nakai, Ikaika, Kalia, Keet, Shouka, and Makani at SeaWorld San Diego; Makaio, Malia, Trua, Katina, and Nalani at SeaWorld Orlando; and Kyuquot, Takara, Sakari, Tuar, and Kamea at SeaWorld San Antonio. DOI: 10.4324/9781003324065-10

SeaWorld against the documentary Blackfish  89 Blackfish and orca resistance at the tanks Blackfish is a 2013 documentary directed by Gabriela Cowperthwaite. It tells the story of Tilikum, a male orca who was captured from the Ocean in 1983 to be exploited in orca shows. Tilikum became well-known while captive in SeaWorld because of his rebellious actions of resistance against confinement and training routines (Hribal 2015): he attacked and killed three human beings between 1982—when he was captured—and 2016 (Almiron 2017, 57). Through Tilikum, in Blackfish Cowperthwaite addresses the suffering of these marine mammals in captivity and the detrimental effects on their physical and mental health due to their confinement in aquaprisons. Some of these effects include: skin damage due to pool water conditions; damage to the teeth and eyes; the collapse of male orcas’ dorsal fins; reduced life expectancy; stereotypies and zoonoses; aggression and violence unprecedented in the wild; separation of mothers and calves; and psychological suffering resulting from isolation and lack of stimulation in the tanks (Almiron 2017, 56, 57; Boissat et al. 2021, 1180). Blackfish also explores the lives and deaths of orca trainers, especially the case of SeaWorld orca trainer Dawn Brancheau, who was killed by Tilikum during a show in the summer of 2010. In the film, Cowperthwaite critically examines the history of this entertainment industry sustained by the capture of orcas from the Ocean to imprison, train, and perform, turning sentient and complex individuals into tourist attractions. The documentary premiered at the Sundance Film Festival on 19 January 2013 and was subsequently shown in theatres from July of the same year. It first aired on CNN in October 2013, and it was at this point that its media impact began to make a dent in SeaWorld’s multi-billiondollar business. The “Blackfish Effect” and the SeaWorld Public Relations Crisis Blackfish had a major impact and significantly influenced public opinion, helping to increase the already existing social awareness and actions surrounding the ethics of nonhuman animal captivity. The effects of the documentary soon had repercussions for SeaWorld’s finances and reputation, as it faced a huge corporate and public relations crisis affecting customers, investors, employees, and partners. Following the rise of Blackfish, several artists and musicians cancelled their concerts at SeaWorld and objected to the use of their songs in orca shows (Duke 2013). Southwest Airlines and British Airways ended their partnerships with the company following the release of the documentary and Virgin America stopped including SeaWorld in its frequent flyer programme in October 2014 (Montgomery 2014). In April 2015, the well-known toy company Mattel announced that it would stop manufacturing and marketing the SeaWorld trainer barbie (Greenwood 2015). In the same month, the third class-action lawsuit was filed against SeaWorld, alleging a lack of transparency about the physical and mental well-being of orcas and misrepresentations in its advertising misleading consumers (Lynch 2015). In addition, the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration cited SeaWorld

90  Laura Fernández and Núria Almiron four times for failing to instruct trainers on safe orca–human interactions. These citations resulted in fines of US$25,770 (Perry 2015). Thus, the “Blackfish effect” was evident in public life and soon felt in the stock market. Following the documentary, SeaWorld’s stock went into notable decline from 2013, dropping from US$28.77 in December 2013 to US$17.90 by the end of 2014 (Almiron 2017, 62). The company initially resisted admitting that attendance had declined due to the documentary; however, when it finally did on 13 August 2014, the stock plummeted by 33% (Manskar 2020). SeaWorld’s failure to publicly acknowledge this business crisis led numerous investors to join a class-action lawsuit, alleging that they had been misled about the effects of the documentary on the theme park’s declining attendance. Eventually, SeaWorld announced that it would pay US$65 million to settle this long-running lawsuit (Weisberg 2020). SeaWorld’s manipulation of public opinion in the face of the early reactions and effects of the documentary affected its public credibility (Waller and Iluzada 2020). By way of example, on 31 December 2013, the Orlando Business Journal posted a poll on their website asking, “Has CNN’s ‘Blackfish’ documentary changed your perception of SeaWorld?” Although the results indicated that opinions had not changed, it was later discovered that 55% of the votes originated from a single SeaWorld-hosted IP address (Bilbao 2014). Furthermore, the actions SeaWorld instigated as part of its public relations counter-campaign were insufficient and often served to further diminish its credibility. The company’s swift response consisted in denying the veracity of the documentary and branding it as propaganda that emotionally manipulated viewers. It released the document “69 reasons you shouldn’t believe Blackfish”, which reviewed the documentary footage and presented alleged evidence against its veracity, accompanied by the Twitter campaign with the slogan “RT the truth”. The social media campaign is reported to have spent US$10 million on marketing (Titlow 2015). However, the Blackfish documentary team once again responded to this document by providing further evidence. Far from increasing SeaWorld’s credibility, its public relations reaction only augmented the backlash, especially on social media, as the public realised that Blackfish had made more scientifically accurate claims. For example, SeaWorld claimed that it does not separate mothers from their calves, and this statement was only true if one defines a calf as one-yearold or younger, as SeaWorld did (Almiron 2017, 65). In March 2015, SeaWorld launched the Twitter campaign #AskSeaWorld, where veterinarians and trainers answered questions from the public. The campaign is proof of how SeaWorld misused Dr Ingrid Visser’s research to deny the dorsal fin collapse in captive orcas. When Visser asked about the issue, social media managers responded by misquoting her own research. SeaWorld’s public relations strategies also included the creation of the “SeaWorld Cares” section on its website (SeaWorld Parks and Entertainment 2015), with posts emphasising education, conservation, and “animal welfare”. The company’s strategic use of language also played to its interests: while the word captivity did not appear at all in its 2014 annual accounts, the word care appeared more than 32 times (Almiron 2017, 64). In short, as Almiron noted, “reframing the reality of

SeaWorld against the documentary Blackfish  91 nonhuman animals in parks by means of the education-research-caring tactic has been the main aim of the industry’s lobby groups since their creation” (2017, 64). Finally, after this reframing and rebranding of the company via an emphasis on education and science, SeaWorld’s ultimate strategy was to transmit the idea that it was partially embracing the public outcry in support of orcas, which of course it only did to the extent necessary to satisfy its own economic interests. These actions, announced between 2015 and 2016, consisted of bringing an end to orca shows in favour of “encounters”, and terminating the captive orca breeding programme (SeaWorld Parks and Entertainment 2017). However, behind this kindly façade and the seemingly nice words in favour of social mobilisation for nonhuman animal rights, SeaWorld’s refusal to go further and free nonhuman animals from captivity stood in stark contrast to the ethical and scientific evidence that no theme park enhancement can compete with the quality of life of an orca’s natural environment. Moreover, the public relations tactic of “We also care” is the visible part of other less visible lobbying strategies. These would include the enormous pressure exerted by the international organisation Alliance of Marine Mammal Parks and Aquariums, of which SeaWorld is a member, against the release of orcas from captivity by denying the effective results of release, such as those seen with Keiko in 2002 (Almiron 2017, 65). Regarding the end of orca shows and breeding programmes, SeaWorld presented these changes as its own decisions, without recognising the tremendous influence of legislation in this regard, namely the California Coastal Commission’s 2015 stipulation that the captive breeding of orcas be brought to an end as a condition for the approval of plans for a new and expanded orca habitat in the park. Lessons from the SeaWorld vs Blackfish case Research on the case has revealed that “the impacts of Blackfish are multifaceted, complex and ongoing” (Boissat et al. 2021, 1189), and that, along with a previous climate of animal activism against captivity, the release of the documentary fostered a “perfect storm” that resonated with the public, affected SeaWorld’s finances, and sparked global activism against nonhuman animal captivity (Boissat et al. 2021). Although SeaWorld suffered a huge financial and public relations crisis in the aftermath of the documentary, it continues to be open to the public and profit from the confinement of nonhuman animals, making it a paradigmatic example of the tremendous political and economic power of the animal-based entertainment industry. Several economic experts predict a positive future for the business (Molnar 2018), and SeaWorld plans to expand with a new park in Abu Dhabi at the end of 2022 (SeaWorld Abu Dhabi 2022). In January 2017, just five years after the premiere of Blackfish, Tilikum, the orca whose actions led to an unstoppable series of events that would change the way thousands of people view aquariums, died in captivity. This case shows how industry public relations can reach extremes when it comes to propaganda, fake news, and disinformation. It also reveals that the “Blackfish effect” did significantly challenge SeaWorld’s business, and that the company could have used the documentary and the social support it gained as an opportunity

92  Laura Fernández and Núria Almiron to recognise its own mistakes and start a truly transformative change by encouraging ethical public relations, rather than using the powerful strategies and tools of public relations to defend the indefensible. References Almiron, Núria. 2017. “Slaves to Entertainment: Manufacturing Consent for Orcas in Captivity.” In: Animal Oppression and Capitalism. Volume 2: The Oppressive and Destructive Role of Capitalism, edited by David A. Nibert, 50–70. Santa Barbara, CA: Praeger. Blackfish. 2013. Directed by Gabriela Cowperthwaite. United States: CNN Films and Manny O. Productions. Film. Bilbao, Richard. 2014. “Something’s Fishy with this SeaWorld/’Blackfish’ Poll.” Orlando Business Journal. January 2, 2014. https://www.bizjournals.com/orlando/blog/2014/01/ somethings-fishy-with-this.html. Boissat, Laure, Laura Thomas-Walters and Diogo Veríssimo. 2021. “Nature Documentaries as Catalysts for Change: Mapping Out the ‘Blackfish Effect’.” People and Nature (3): 1179–1192. https://doi.org/10.1002/pan3.10221. Duke, Alan. 2013. “Martina McBride, 38 Special, cancel SeaWorld gig over ‘Blackfish’ backlash.” CNN. December 16, 2013. https://edition.cnn.com/2013/12/16/showbiz/ seaworld-martina-mcbride-cancels/. Greenwood, Arin. 2015. “Barbie Quits SeaWorld In Move Hailed As Victory For Animal Welfare.” HuffPost, April 29, 2015. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/seaworldbarbie_n_7164102. Hribal, Jason. 2015. “The Tilikum Effect and the Downfall of SeaWorld”. Counterpunch. October 9, 2015. https://www.counterpunch.org/2015/10/09/the-tilikum-effectand-the-downfall-of-seaworld/. Lynch, Dennis. 2015. “SeaWorld Class-Action Lawsuit: ‘Tell The Truth’ About Orcas’ Well-Being, Animal Rights Group Demands.” International Business Times, April 14, 2015. https://www.ibtimes.com/seaworld-class-action-lawsuit-tell-truth-about-orcaswell-being-animal-rights-group-1882294. Manskar, Noah. 2020. “SeaWorld Settles Investor Lawsuit over ‘Blackfish’ Film for $65M.” New York Post. February 11, 2020. https://nypost.com/2020/02/11/ seaworld-settles-investor-lawsuit-over-blackfish-film-for-65m/. Molnar, Phillip. 2018. “Econometer: Does SeaWorld Have a Successful Business Model?” The San Diego Union Tribune. August 10, 2018. https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/ business/tourism/sd-fi-seaworld-econometer-20180809-htmlstory.html. Montgomery, Madison. 2014. “Virgin America Drops SeaWorld in Latest Blow to Marine Park.” One Green Planet. https://www.onegreenplanet.org/news/virgin-america-dropsseaworld-in-latest-blow-to-marine-park/. Niles, Robert. 2013. “Theme Park History: A short history of SeaWorld San Diego.” Theme Park Insider, July 5, 2013. https://www.themeparkinsider.com/flume/201307/3552/. Perry, Tony. 2015. “Cal/OSHA Cites SeaWorld San Diego for Safety Violations; Park Vows to Appeal.” LA Times, April 30, 2015. https://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-lnseaworld-citations-20150430-story.html. SeaWorld Abu Dhabi. 2022. “SeaWorld Abu Dhabi”. https://www.seaworldabudhabi.com/. SeaWorld Parks and Entertainment. 2015. “SeaWorld Cares”. https://seaworldcares.com. SeaWorld Parks and Entertainment. 2017. “SeaWorld has ended its killer whale breeding program”. June 8, 2017. https://seaworldentertainment.com/blog/future/.

SeaWorld against the documentary Blackfish  93 Titlow, John Paul. 2015. “SeaWorld Is Spending $10 Million To Make You Forget About ‘Blackfish.’” FastCompany. April 8, 2015. https://www.fastcompany.com/3046342/ seaworld-is-spending-10-million-to-make-you-forget-about-blackfish. Waller, Randall L. and Christina L. Iluzada 2020. “Blackfish and SeaWorld: A Case Study in the Framing of a Crisis.” International Journal of Business Communication 57 (2): 227–243. https://doi.org/10.1177/2329488419884139. Weisberg, Lori. 2020. “Judge Clears Way for SeaWorld to Pay Investors $65 Million in ‘Blackfish’ Settlement.” Los Angeles Times. July 25, 2020. https://www.latimes.com/ business/story/2020-07-25/judge-seaworld-pay-investors-blackfish-settlement.

6

For an ethics of care The ethics of persuasion in the animal experimentation industry Fabiola Leyton

Introduction1 The societies we live in are rooted in capitalism and its knowledge-based economy. Globalisation, with its aspirations of human welfare and unlimited economic growth and progress, centres the production of knowledge and its dissemination in different productive sectors. In order to produce new knowledge, there is a strong need for economic investment and developing of technical capacity (Aboites and Soria 2008, 19). This framework leads to institutional arrangements between science and industry, where both are, essentially, activities with a high financial cost, requiring investment in training and expertise, acquisition of materials, and the development or acquisition of high-tech tools. Science and industry use nonhuman animals in their research, including for testing the toxicity of commercial products, with the advancement of science and knowledge, and the welfare of humankind as their justification. At the same time, the law defines a regulatory framework that allows such activities within certain limits and restrictions. In this regard, the animal experimentation industry (AEI, from this point onwards) is framed by a set of interests that are defended by their industrial and scientific boards through their expert staff, their public relations teams, and their legal departments. The acts of persuasion of the AEI are based on a series of rationales, statements, and claims, whose objective is to normalise the experimentation done on nonhuman animals as a basic tool for bettering human health, fostering the advancement of science, and improving the quality and safety of products for human use, making human life easier and more prosperous. What does animal experimentation imply for nonhuman individuals? Every year, in scientific and industrial research, hundreds of thousands2 of animals of different species and at different stages and ages of their lives are subjected to various experimental procedures, either in the scientific field (in the case of basic or applied scientific research projects carried out in public and private research centres) or in the industrial field (when they are required by law to, e.g., test the DOI: 10.4324/9781003324065-11

Ethics of persuasion in the animal experimentation industry  95 toxicity or safety of medical products, chemicals, or food). In the case of Europe, the legislation defines these experimental procedures as: Any use, invasive or non-invasive, of an animal for experimental or other scientific purposes, with known or unknown outcome, or educational purposes, which may cause the animal a level of pain, suffering, distress, or lasting harm equivalent to, or higher than, that caused by the introduction of a needle in accordance with good veterinary practice. This includes any course of action intended, or liable, to result in the birth or hatching of an animal or the creation and maintenance of a genetically modified animal line in any such condition but excludes the killing of animals solely for the use of their organs or tissues.3 These procedures involve genetic modification, artificial insemination, hormonal manipulation, intoxication or poisoning by different routes, and exposure to all kinds of medical and experimental procedures, some without anaesthesia or post-procedural analgesia. In these procedures, nonhuman animals are inoculated or induced with human diseases, exposed to burns, injured to varying degrees of severity and extent, have their organs transplanted or their own removed, are forcibly restrained, have their food, water, companionship, sleep, or rest restricted, are socially isolated, or separated from their groups, causing them various degrees of physical pain and psychological stress and suffering. The animals in research are used as a tool that enables the gathering of scientific and technical knowledge, which in turn can eventually have an impact on improving the physical and material conditions of society, and, marginally, the ones of other nonhuman animals (as in the case of veterinary medicine and pharmaceuticals). It is important to highlight here that animals as tools are economically expensive: carrying out research procedures using animals requires specialised personnel, scientific and technical knowledge, instruments, and ad hoc laboratories, as well as a significant investment in resources for the development and maintenance of these activities. In the aforementioned context of a global, knowledge-based economy, we can also extrapolate that animals as tools exist not only in a material dimension (as an input for research) but also in an economic one, as they become an asset that adds value to research and results in economic profit for those who create, patent, and produce them (Leyton, forthcoming). Pro-research arguments from science and industry The AEI’s public relations defence of its activity is based, at present, on at least three argumentative lines: i Animal research is beneficial to humans and animals. Research has enabled medical and pharmacological progress that increases the life expectancy and quality of life of individuals, improves public health and the quality and safety

96  Fabiola Leyton of products and goods for daily consumption. At the same time, it enables the advancement of science and scientific and technical knowledge. ii Animal research is based on a culture of care, that is, the “commitment to improving animal welfare, scientific quality, care of the staff and transparency for the stakeholders” (NORECOPA 2016).4 In this understanding, it promotes the fulfilling of the three R’s,5 the obligation to estimate the severity of harm to animals,6 vs. the expected benefits of the experimental procedures, whereby each project is evaluated by an animal research ethics committee, which ensures that the welfare of the animals is protected and that the three R’s are complied with. iii Animal research is committed to the values of responsible research and transparency. In this understanding, efforts are aligned between private research centres, public entities, patient associations, scientific societies, among others. According to the European Animal Research Association, transparency agreements7 bind them to four commitments: • To speak with clarity about when, how, and why animals are used in investigation. • To provide adequate information to the media and the general public about the conditions under which research using animals is carried out and the results obtained from them. • To develop initiatives that generate greater knowledge and understanding in society about the use of animals in scientific research. • To report annually on progress and share experiences. With these three arguments, the AEI’s discourse normalises animal research activities in order to maintain or increase public support and funding, despite the harm that it entails for the hundreds of thousands of nonhuman individuals of different species that are used every year. But let’s analyse their claims, and their flaws. Regarding (i), even if part of this argument is true, there is evidence of iatrogenic effects of animal-based research: false positives and false negatives when translating the results of animal research to clinical or toxicological tests with human individuals. In fact: A recently published summary of systematic reviews investigating the relevance of animal-based research to human medicine (Pound and Bracken 2014) provides a comprehensive consideration of the topic. The authors conclude that animal research is plagued by poor quality, typically fails to address internal and external validity, lacks randomization and blinding, engages in selective analysis and outcome reporting, and suffers from publication bias, all resulting in overstatements about the validity of entire bodies of research. (Hansen and Kosberg 2019, 276)8 Given the lack of vital attention paid to this, it is clear that more discussion is required within the scientific community to determine the actual benefits of animal research vs. its cost regarding public funding, and obviously, for the nonhuman

Ethics of persuasion in the animal experimentation industry  97 animals involved. What cannot be denied is that the animal research practices of industry and science demark a space for the exercise of biopower (Foucault 1976, 140) over the corporeality of animals, and despite acknowledging that animals suffer different types of harm, its legitimacy is sublimated to the higher good of improving human life. This is one of the manifestations of human exceptionalism regarding nonhuman animals, and it needs to be reinforced with strategies such as denying or minimising the harm suffered by research animals, denying their subjectivities and derogating sympathy for those nonhuman individuals. These anthropocentric and speciesist strategies are commonly used by the rhetoric of the AEI, seeing as they require a consistent narrative that numbs moral feelings of pity, compassion, and empathy for animals, and operates in a way that distances the public, and even, people who do research from these feelings (Birke 1994, 46 and ss.), disconnecting from them so as not to problematise the AEI’s activities because, in the end, they bring many benefits to humanity. Through a speciesist barrier, there is a tendency to place a boundary on compassion, what Adams names “a conservative economy of compassion” (2007, 22), in which this is seen as a limited resource, better invested in humans than in nonhumans, and that there is not enough to extend to everyone. This idea, deeply rooted in our societies, is alluded to by the AEI’s strategic persuasion, creating the false dichotomy a child or the lab-mouse. According to this dilemma, if we do not experiment with animals, we will not reach higher levels of human health and welfare, as if the ratio to experiment on a mouse, save one child were true and not an over-simplification of the complexities of animal-based research. Examining this statement, we should consider that there have been gains in human health that have been made without animal research, made possible by alternative and more human-relevant technologies. Furthermore, not all animal experiments are done to save human lives or improve health. Moreover, this human-supremacist economy of compassion weakens when we develop an ethics focused on nonhuman animal sentience, where moral feelings such as consideration and compassion are keys to reshaping our relationship to them, which does not deplete the sphere of moral consideration and respect for human beings. Ethics of care nurtures both: humans and nonhumans alike. For an ethics of care and compassion The criticism of arguments (ii) and (iii) will be presented concurrently in this section: the claim that animal research is based in a culture of care and is committed to the values of responsible research and transparency. These are not empty arguments: they are embodied through practice, and a series of legal regulations and best practices guides and instructions in use, agreed upon by the scientific community. But since the industry and its rhetoric do care for experimental animals as tools—as we can witness through their press releases, news, open days, transparency activities, dialogues with society, etc.—we need to present the case for animals as sentient beings that suffer in research and need to be treated as complete individuals because their sentience and interests matter.

98  Fabiola Leyton Animal ethicist Clare Palmer (2011) highlights the need to exercise responsibility towards the nonhuman animals we have domesticated and made vulnerable through life-transforming actions, undertaken for the sake of human interests, as we have done with experimental animals. There are two circumstances by which animals become dependent and vulnerable: when (1) we create them, or (2) we cause, through voluntary actions, the conditions to make them vulnerable and dependent. We can easily think of and imagine both scenarios in this particular area: when scientists genetically manipulate animals for biomedical research purposes, bonding them to some specific genetically modified strain, as is the case of transgenic animals with altered gene expressions (transgenic animals) or absent expressions (knockout animals).9 These animals would most probably not be able to survive in nature, or even worse, their fate would be the same if introduced into any environment other than the aseptic enclosure of a research laboratory. Through this voluntary human action of manipulating their genes, we transform them into something different from their natural constitution, so we cannot release them in the wild for reasons of safety, and most importantly, through our will and material determination, we deprive them of any alternative existence. In this creative operation, humans “establish certain relations with animals that change what is owed to them” (Palmer 2011, 701) because we made them unable to provide for themselves: if we manipulate a rat, or a hamster, to be prone to suffer from a human disease, we need to provide the care, attention, and help that the animal needs. This transformative human action, hence, is the basis for the obligation to take responsibility over animal lives; we have transformed their natural constitution in order to fulfil a set of determined goals relevant to science and society.10 However, this should happen beyond humane considerations of a procedure’s refinement or a reduction in the number of animals used in research: one possible way could be the ethical assessment of animal research done by ethics committees and some minimal necessary conditions for morally responsible animal research (DeGrazia and Sebo 2015). In parallel, it is important to understand compassion and empathy as keys to an ethics of care that transcends anthropocentric ethics. Compassion is connected to the suffering of others, human and nonhuman, and if animals in research are sentient beings capable of experiencing good and bad events in their lives, it is morally wrong to harm sentient living beings “unless overriding good will result for them” (Donovan and Adams 2007, 4).11 As responsible individuals, we need to pay attention to the suffering that we create, individually and collectively: this attention makes us ethically responsible. This implies the recognition of empathy and compassion as fundamental moral feelings, whose importance has been marginal to the relevance of justice or utility in the sphere of animal ethics.12 The recognition of the animal as a distinct individual requires some moral imagination, along with the scientific evidence that sentience in animals allows them to experience the world in positive or negative ways.13 If we have an effect on those individuals with our actions, then, we have to assume responsibility over them. There is a “war on pity” (Derrida 2002, 29) and a “war on compassion” (Adams 2007, 33), deeply rooted in the objectification of others, in this case, nonhuman animals. There is no need to care for an object, if the animal is considered as such.

Ethics of persuasion in the animal experimentation industry  99 Indeed, “the war on compassion has resulted in a desire to move away from many feelings, especially uncomfortable ones” (Donovan and Adams 2007, 33), and that is exactly how it is mobilised when we start thinking and talking about what we do to animals in different areas of productive relevance, among others. As mentioned previously, the scientific culture of care is the commitment to improving animal welfare, scientific quality, care of the staff, and transparency for the stakeholders. This culture of care demands adherence to the legislation regulating animal research, the promotion of the three R’s and of animal welfare, and the adoption of several good practices for scientific and technical staff, which pursue the same goal. These measures are part of what is known as responsible research and innovation. Transparency, in this particular scenario, is a key tool for guaranteeing the reputation of responsible animal research and for lobbying in a way that is convenient for its goals. However, the culture of care of animal researchers can be seen as a two-sided coin: animal researchers do care for animals, but for reasons different from how an animal rights/antispeciesist member of society would care for them. From a scientific and industrial perspective, research done under proper conditions of animal welfare and respect for animals yields reliable, replicable, and robust scientific results. Their motivations are anthropocentric. From an antispeciesist perspective, caring for animals means to prevent any harm done to animals in the name of scientific and industrial advancement, unless that experiment benefits the animal itself, or others of the same species or condition. This would mean promoting, first and foremost, ongoing efforts to validate alternatives in order to replace nonhuman animals with human-relevant technologies.14 Nowadays, promoting the culture of care for scientific/industrial anthropocentric reasons is an excellent strategy for lobbying against compassion towards animal suffering. We must be aware of the rhetoric of animal welfare as a global concept that refers to a range of practices aimed at the good treatment of animals in different areas of economic and commercial benefit and exploitation, including animal research. In the Global Animal Welfare Strategy (OIE 2017), it stated that: Animals may be kept as working animals, companion animals, for the production of food, fibre and other by-products, or for scientific or educational purposes, and are transported and traded internationally. The OIE recognises that these purposes are legitimate and involve an ethical responsibility to ensure that they are handled appropriately as defined in the OIE international animal welfare standards, in recognition of animals as sentient beings. … attention to animal welfare thus contributes … to economic prosperity.15 The speciesist-anthropocentric nomenclature of this contextual description speaks for itself. The classification of nonhuman individuals according to different economic interests is projected as a strategy and roadmap: the global One Health strategy emphasises animal welfare and its importance in the close relationship between human, animal, and environmental health. In research, specifically, this animal welfare is implemented through the three R’s, which were conceived as a tool in which replacement is the priority, followed by reduction and then refinement in order to significantly improve the treatment of animals.

100  Fabiola Leyton At the same time, complementary discursive strategies are being developed by the AEI that help to underpin scientific activity and to numb compassion for the suffering of animals in research: AEI arguments follow different strategies, such as “denying the harm done to animals, denying the animal’s subjectivity, derogating human sympathies for animals” (Luke 2007, 138), blocking people’s awareness of what they do to animals in research (or partially showing the reality of what they do in their labs, through virtual tours or open days for visitors),16 and discouraging sympathetic feelings towards animal suffering, or making the suffering of some animals more relevant—and undesirable—than others. Consider the moral outrage in public opinion when animal research is performed on dogs, cats, or any other animal for which people have a special sympathy. To follow the three R’s and replace those animals, contemporary responsible research prefers to perform experiments on animals that are less complex, such as fruit flies, zebrafish, frogs, worms, octopuses, or other invertebrates, to which people have no special sensitivity, or are unable to empathise with their suffering.17 Animal research is established as: (i) a practice that guarantees good science to yield solid scientific results in research; (ii) a practice that serves the economic interests of industry and the knowledge-based economy. Regarding (i) the main reason why animal welfare premises are followed in research is because it provides reliable, verifiable, and reproducible results. The benefit to the nonhuman animals it uses is contingent on this procedural efficacy, apparently not only proven but also verified within the scientific community. From this point of view, animal welfare is understood to be subject to what is expected from efficient science. Regarding (ii), animal welfare is constituted as an instrumental narrative that justifies a development model in a neoliberal context of knowledge-based economy, to consolidate research activity as an industrial and economic engine, and as a scientific-technical machine that, at the same time, reproduces itself (Leyton 2019, 177). As long as it produces benefits for humans, pain and suffering of other living beings are considered irrelevant, or made invisible and, therefore, denied. Furthermore, the culture of care, according to different documents emanating from the scientific community itself, is considered a step beyond animal welfare because it would seek compassionate and respectful treatment of nonhuman animals used in research.18 However, this culture of care is not yet part of the basic requirements for research activity, nor has it even become a basic principle of scientific-experimental practice on a global level. Therefore, there is a danger that, ultimately, considerations of respect and compassion for nonhuman animals in these research practices are being left to the personal and individual discretion and choices of those who design, conduct, and carry out the research. Currently, several authors are concerned that one of the major obstacles to implementing a culture of care is that when research staff, technicians, and caregivers of research animals develop feelings of compassion for these nonhuman individuals, they face significant moral difficulties and moral harm (Herrmann 2019, 13), where this derogation of sympathy is rooted in an abhorrence of any feeling associated with women/feminine traits (such as softness, care, compassion, empathy, among others), which are not allowed in laboratories. Modern medicine, and perhaps

Ethics of persuasion in the animal experimentation industry  101 science, “is a hierarchically organized, male-dominated practice, oriented around the control and invasive manipulation of bodies” (Luke 2007, 139). Another nuance derived from this disregard for the practices of care relates to the discourse and criminalisation of animal advocacy, and also of social protest on these matters. This narrative and its practices condemn animal defenders as terrorists, extremists, and criminals who threaten the prosperity of society, science, and industry. (See case study: Huntingdon Life Science and the SHAC Campaign, by Laura Fernández following this chapter.) To read animal welfare and the culture of care exclusively through anthropocentric lenses, denying or dismissing the ethical and scientific reasons for opposing research on nonhuman individuals, is to cling to a notion of omnipotent science with inescapable directives. This is what the AEI’s communicative strategies promote. If the scientific community is truly focused on the value of responsibility, it must embrace an epistemological and practical shift: to integrate experimental findings that have the potential to refute entrenched methods and explanations (Gluck 2019), such as a critical inclusion of the ethics of care. Conclusion Industrial and scientific research damages nonhuman animals, perpetuating their unfair consideration and treatment. To overcome this speciesist discrimination against hundreds of thousands of sentient individuals of other species that are annihilated in laboratories, individual and institutional actions are required to put an end to this collateral damage of globalised capitalism. Considering nonhuman animals from the perspective of an ethics of care requires recognition of the institutional structures that cause and perpetuate harm to animals in research, particularly the rhetorical machinery of AEI communication, from a theoretical and practical perspective. And this book proves to be a collective effort addressing this issue. There is, also, the need to synchronise the efforts and political commitment to enforce regulation (the Directive 2010/63/EU demands movement towards scientific research without animals) and to establish legislative changes in line with scientific knowledge, to accelerate the development of relevant and advanced human models to replace animal testing. Along the same lines, there is a need to strengthen research ethics and bioethics education and training at different levels of formal education, to include the perspective and communication of an ethics of care. While no ethics can be apolitical, there is a clear pattern of how power relationships shape scientific practices. There is a viable way to change our treatment of animals based on sympathy and caring about other living beings’ well-being, beyond their instrumental value, and based instead on their intrinsic value. Summary • The AEI’s public relations spread a narrative of caring for other animals as sentient beings. However, the industry uses nonhuman animals as tools for its

102  Fabiola Leyton advancement, dismissing or ignoring their suffering, and violating their most basic interests as sentient beings. • Public relations claims by the AEI in favour of animal research are based on its benefits for humankind (and marginally, nonhuman animals). • Animal welfare, three R’s, and culture of care are key for the AEI’s public relations rhetoric and its practices. These concepts are characterised by a speciesist, human-supremacist, and anthropocentric view of nonhuman animals. • The responsibility of science needs to exceed the culture of care, embracing an ethics of care, in order to fully consider the moral value of nonhuman individuals, rather than as industrial tools. Notes 1 In this chapter, I use the term ‘animals’ to refer to both human and nonhuman individuals. I use italics in the specific context of research: animals, animals in experimentation, animals in laboratories…, and when making a speciesist reference to nonhuman animals. As a tool for inclusive language, I avoid the use of the masculine as a false generic, using collective nouns (the research community), or periphrases (people who do research). 2 In Europe alone, the latest available public statistics show that in 2019, more than 10 million nonhuman animals (specifically, 10.401.673) were used for research, testing, routine production, and education and training purposes. More than half of those animals were mice (52.49%), followed by fish (19.63%), rats (9.41%), and domestic fowl (4.99%). See European Union ALURES statistics, available at https://webgate. ec.europa.eu/envdataportal/content/alures/section1_number-of-animals.html. A global estimation is between 100 and 150 million of nonhuman individuals used every year in research, worldwide (Taylor et al. 2008). 3 Directive 2010/63/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council of 22 September 2010, on the protection of animals used for scientific purposes, art. 3. The three R’s were originally put forward by the scientists W.M.S. Russell and R.L. Burch in 1959 in their book “The Principles of Humane Experimental Technique”. 4 An interesting transparency tool is the website LabAnimalTour, from Understanding Animal Research (UK), which offers online tours in 360° inside animal research facilities of MRC Harwell Institute, Pirbright Institute, University of Bristol and University of Oxford: https://www.labanimaltour.org/. 5 Replacement of animals with validated alternative methods, Reduction of the number of animals used, and Refinement of research techniques to cause as less pain, suffering, and stress as possible. 6 Severity that is measured as mild (minimal or no pain, suffering, or distress, e.g. noninvasive imaging), moderate (short-term moderate pain, suffering or distress, or longlasting mild pain, suffering or distress, e.g. surgical procedures under general anaesthesia and with post-operative pain relief), severe (severe pain, suffering or distress, or longlasting moderate pain, suffering or distress, e.g. testing of devices, such as a cardiac assist, where failure may cause severe pain, distress, or death), and non-recovery (the animal does not regain consciousness when the entire procedure is carried out under general anaesthesia). Source: Website of European Commission: “Animals used for scientific purposes”, URL https://ec.europa.eu/environment/chemicals/lab_animals/index_en.htm. 7 The list of countries signing these transparency agreements is growing every year. Nowadays, they exist in the United Kingdom (2014), Portugal (2018), Belgium (2019), France (2021), Germany (2021), the Netherlands (2021), New Zealand (2021), and Switzerland (2022). In the case of Spain, the signatory is COSCE (Confederation of

Ethics of persuasion in the animal experimentation industry  103

8 9

10 11 12

13

14 15 16

17 18

Spanish Scientific Societies, for its Spanish acronym), which declares: “The Agreement aims to show that scientists have nothing to hide and to emphasize the need for [animal research] continuity because the solution to many now incurable diseases will be found in animal research” (COSCE 2016). https://www.eara.eu/transparency-agreements. Other sources: Sharpe (1998), Greek and Greek (2002), Knight (2011), Akhtar (2015). Moreover, the design, manipulation, and exploitation of these nonhuman beings does not apply exclusively to the individual animal, but also extends to other experimental subsidiary activities, such as the care, maintenance, and treatment of animals, laboratory environment, and lab maintenance operations. These circumstances described by Palmer, unfortunately, apply to a wide number of animals, far beyond the realm of animal experiments in science and technology (see Chapters 5, 6, and 8 of this book). This idea is not different from the protection that we provide to particularly vulnerable individuals in research procedures. Cfr. Carol Gilligan who describes caring and justice as different moral frameworks. Justice is characterized as abstract, by the application of general rules, a concern for consistency, among others, while caring focuses on the concrete and particular, emphasizing the connection and the satisfaction of needs (Gilligan1993, 73 ss.) For a more comprehensive recount, cfr. Donovan and Adams (2007, 3–15). Or even further: “(…) the weight of evidence indicates that humans are not unique in possessing the neurological substrates that generate consciousness. Nonhuman animals, including all mammals and birds, and many other creatures, including octopuses, also possess these neurological substrates” (Cambridge Declaration on Consciousness 2012). Check Blattner (2019) and Taylor (2019). OIE Global Animal Welfare Strategy, May 2017, P.3: https://www.woah.org/app/ uploads/2021/03/es-oie-aw-strategy.pdf. Highlights in italics are my own. There is a wide narrative of the experimental animal as a colleague and companion that cooperates in the research. Cfr.: Arluke (1994). Also: Video: Speaking about animal research, Leibniz- Gemeinschaft, URL: https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=O9sDQ3emkUk. Which is also ethically problematic since there is a growing body of evidence indicating the existence of pain and suffering in invertebrates and cephalopods. Cfr. Crespi-Abril and Rubilar 2018, 223 and ss. See the different Transparency Agreements at https://www.eara.eu/transparencyagreements.

References Aboites, Jaime and Manuel Soria. 2008. Economía del conocimiento y propiedad intelectual. Lecciones para la economía mexicana. Xochimilco: Siglo XXI Editores, Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana. Adams, Carol. 2007. “The War on Compassion.” In: The Feminist Care Tradition in Animal Ethics, edited by Josephine Donovan and Carol J. Adams, 21–36. New York: Columbia University Press. Akhtar, Aisha. 2015. “The Flaws and Human Harms of Animal Experimentation.” Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics 24 (4): 407–419. https://doi.org/10.1017/ S0963180115000079. Arluke, Arnold. 1994. “We Build a Better Beagle’: Fantastic Creatures in Lab Animal Ads.” Qualitative Sociology 17: 143–158. Birke, Lynda. 1994. Feminism, Animals and Science. The Naming of the Shrew. Buckingham: Open University Press.

104  Fabiola Leyton Blattner, Charlotte E. 2019. “Rethinking the 3Rs: From Whitewashing to Rights.” In: Animal Experimentation: Working Towards a Paradigm Change, edited by Kathrin Herrmann and Kimberley Jayne, 168–193. Boston: Brill. https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004391192_007. Confederation of Spanish Scientific Societies (COSCE). 2016. Acuerdo de transparencia sobre el uso de animales en experimentación científica en España. Madrid: Gráficas Del Rey. Crespi-Rubilar, Augusto C. and Tamara Rubilar. 2018. “Ética e invertebrados: análisis de los casos de los cefalópodos y equinodermos”. Revista Latinoamericana de Estudios Críticos Animales 5 (1): 211–233. DeGrazia, David and Jeff Sebo. 2015. “Necessary Conditions for Morally Responsible Animal Research.” Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics 24: 420–430. Derrida, Jacques. 2002. “The Animal that Therefore I Am (More to Follow)”. Critical Inquiry 28: 369–418. Donovan, Josephine and Carol J. Adams. 2007. The Feminist Care Tradition in Animal ­Ethics. New York: Columbia University Press. Foucault, Michel. 1976/1990. The History of Sexuality I. Harmondsworth, London: Penguin. Gluck, John P. 2019. “Afterword: Evidence over Interests.” In: Animal Experimentation: Working Towards a Paradigm Change, edited by Kathrin Herrmann and Kimberley Jayne, 689–691. Boston, MA: Brill. https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004391192_030. Greek, C. Ray and Jean Swingle Greek. 2002. Sacred Cows and Golden Geese. The Human Cost of Experiments on Animals. New York: Continuum. Hansen, Lawrence A. and Kori Ann Kosberg. 2019. “Ethics, Efficacy, and Decision-making in Animal Research.” In: Animal Experimentation: Working Towards a Paradigm Change, edited by Kathrin Herrmann and Kimberley Jayne, 275–317. Boston, MA: Brill. https:// doi.org/10.1163/9789004391192_012. Herrmann, Kathrin. 2019. “Refinement on the Way Towards Replacement: Are We Doing What We Can?” In: Animal Experimentation: Working Towards a Paradigm Change, edited by Kathrin Herrmann and Kimberley Jayne, 3–64. Boston, MA: Brill. https://doi. org/10.1163/9789004391192_002. Knight, Andrew. 2011. The Costs and Benefits of Animal Experiments. Hampshire: Palgrave McMillan. Leyton, Fabiola. 2019. Los animales en la bioética. Tensión en las fronteras del antropocentrismo. Barcelona: Ed. Herder. Leyton, Fabiola, (forthcoming). “Lenguaje especista y experimentación.” En: Lenguaje y Especismo, edited by Faria, Catia and Almiron, Núria. Madrid: Plaza y Valdés. Luke, Brian. 2007. “Justice, Caring and Animal Liberation.” In: The Feminist Care Tradition in Animal Ethics, edited by Josephine Donovan and Carol J. Adams, 125–152. New York: Columbia University Press. NORECOPA. 2016. Culture of Care, online, available at https://norecopa.no/more-resources/ culture-of-care. Palmer, Clare. 2011. “The Moral Relevance of the Distinction Between Domesticated and Wild Animals.” In: The Oxford Handbook of Animal Ethics, edited by Tom Beauchamp and R. G. Frey, 701–725. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Pound, Pandora and Michael B. Bracken. 2014. “Is Animal Research Sufficiently Evidence Based to Be a Cornerstone of Biomedical Research?” British Medical Journal 30: 3387. Sharpe, Robert. 1998. The Cruel Deception: The Use of Animals in Medical Research. Wellingborough, England: Thorsons. Taylor, Katy, Nicky Gordon, Gill Langley and Wendy Higgins. 2008. “Estimates for Worldwide Laboratory Animal Use in 2005.” Alternatives to Laboratory Animals 36: 327–342. https://doi.org/10.1177/026119290803600310.

Ethics of persuasion in the animal experimentation industry  105 Taylor, Katy. 2019. “Recent Developments in Alternatives to Animal Testing.” In: Animal Experimentation: Working Towards a Paradigm Change, edited by Kathrin Herrmann and Kimberley Jayne, 585–609. Boston, MA: Brill. https://doi.org/10.1163/ 9789004391192_025. VV.AA. 2012. Cambridge Declaration on Consciousness, Cambridge. URL: https:// fcmconference.org/img/CambridgeDeclarationOnConsciousness.pd. World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE). 2017. OIE Global Animal Welfare Strategy. Online: https://www.woah.org/app/uploads/2021/03/en-oie-aw-strategy.pdf.

Case study Huntingdon Life Sciences and the SHAC Campaign Laura Fernández and Núria Almiron

Huntingdon Life Sciences Huntingdon Life Sciences (HLS) was a contract research organisation for the pharmaceutical, biopharmaceutical, crop protection, chemical, veterinary, and food industries. The company was founded in Cambridgeshire, England, in 1951. Originally called Nutrition Research Co. Ltd., it changed its name to Nutritional Research Unit Ltd. in 1959. In 1964, it was acquired by the U.S. medical supply firm Becton Dickinson and expanded its business to the United States. It changed its name again in 1985, becoming Huntingdon International Holdings plc. During the 1990s, the company began to specialise in life sciences, seeing that these services were more profitable. From 1995 onwards, the business expanded further, now having two laboratories in the United Kingdom (Cambridgeshire and Suffolk) and one in the United States (New Jersey). In 1997, Huntingdon International Holdings changed its name to Huntingdon Life Sciences Group, although in the United Kingdom, it was called simply Huntingdon. Following the influence of the Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty (SHAC) Campaign in 2002, HLS moved its financial headquarters to the U.S. In September 2015, Huntingdon (UK), Huntingdon Life Sciences (HLS, US), and Harlan Laboratories announced that the combined companies would merge to form the corporation Envigo (Garde 2015). HLS had been in the spotlight of the U.K. and U.S. animal rights movements since the 1970s, because one of its main commercial activities involved nonhuman animal testing in its facilities. For the duration of the SHAC Campaign (1999–2014), HLS killed around 75,000 nonhuman animals for their research annually, around 500 per day, including rats, rabbits, pigs, dogs, marmosets, and macaques (The SHAC Justice Project 2022a). Prior to 2014, HLS was Europe’s largest and leading contract animal research organisation and offered contract research services involving nonhuman animal testing of commercial products, such as paint, household cleaners, pesticides, food additives, energy drinks, chemicals for use in industry, and drugs for use against Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, diabetes, multiple sclerosis, and cancer (Reference for Business 2022; The SHAC Justice Project 2022a).

DOI: 10.4324/9781003324065-12

Huntingdon Life Sciences and the SHAC Campaign  107 The SHAC Campaign The British animal rights movement had focused its campaigns on animal testing facilities throughout its history. Major breeders for laboratory supplies such as Regal Rabbits, Shamrock Monkeys, Consort Beagles, and Hillgrove Cats were shut down as a result of activist pressure campaigns in the 1990s (The SHAC Justice Project 2022b). The ambition to target a larger objective, together with the 1999 Channel 4 broadcast of an undercover investigation into the HLS facilities carried out by the organisations People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), Animal Defenders International (ADI), and the BUAV gave rise to the SHAC advocacy campaign, expanding the pre-existing campaign “Animal Death Science” (The SHAC Justice Project 2022b). In line with previous campaigns, SHAC activists focused on putting financial pressure on powerful individuals and corporations who were enriching themselves by exploiting nonhuman animals as laboratory objects. SHAC’s initial strategies in the United Kingdom included “protests, nonviolent direct action, civil disobedience, vigils, letter writing campaigns, phone calls, emails and a plethora of other nonviolent protest tactics” (The SHAC Justice Project 2022b), which were carried out consistently and forcefully with the aim of achieving the total closure of the company. As HLS began to feel the repercussions of the campaign on its reputation, public image, and economics, the company moved its financial headquarters to the United States. SHAC’s message and anti-vivisection activism had also spread there, however, and HLS met resistance through a strong and committed campaign on the other side of the Atlantic. Over time, SHAC would grow into a global campaign present on six continents (The SHAC Justice Project 2022b). The success of the SHAC campaign was in part due to the creative and convincing way in which activists generated social pressure to reduce financial support for HLS. Because HLS was publicly traded at the time in the United Kingdom, animal rights activists focused on three levels of action: customers, suppliers, and financial institutions (The SHAC Justice Project 2022b). Given that it was a large company with a lot of power, SHAC targeted the smaller businesses that HLS needed to sustain itself: on the one hand, those companies that contracted HLS’ animal testing services, and on the other, all those companies that provided services to HLS, from basic cleaning services to the chemical gases needed to kill the nonhuman animals after the experiments. In 2001, SHAC managed to leave the company with no bank account or insurance, the Royal Bank of Scotland withdrawing its £12m bank loan. However, the British government rescued HLS by providing it with both a bank account—the first time in history that a company had had one with the Bank of England—and insurance (The SHAC Justice Project 2022b), via a loan to the U.S. insurance company Stephens Inc. Despite the arrests of activists in the UK and Europe in 2007, the campaign continued. In 2008, SHAC managed to convince Fortress, HLS’ new financial lenders, to withdraw its services. And finally, in 2014, 13 more activists were arrested and the SHAC campaign officially ended (The SHAC Justice Project 2022b).

108  Laura Fernández and Núria Almiron The Huntingdon Life Science public relations crisis and the Green Scare Huntingdon Life Science suffered a sustained public relations and financial crisis after the start of the SHAC campaign in the United Kingdom in 1999. The company’s public relations were affected by the extremely violent experiments recorded by, among others, undercover investigators Sarah Kite, Zoe Broughton, and Michelle Rokke and organisations such as PETA, ADI, or Uncaged from 1981 onwards (The SHAC Justice Project 2022a). Its largest financial crises were in 2000, when HLS was delisted from the New York Stock Exchange; in 2001, when the U.S. insurance company Stephens Inc. cancelled a loan to the company; in 2002, when the Marsh Company cancelled its insurance service with HLS; in 2006, when HLS shares could no longer be sold anywhere in the world; and finally in 2009, when HLS had to sell all its shares and become a private company (The SHAC Justice Project 2022b). When facing these events, the organisation avoided public statements, denied the facts of abuse, suffering, and unlawfulness reflected in the multiple undercover investigations, and generated a discourse aimed at criminalising social protest, considering animal rights activists as extremists, terrorists, and criminals who “threaten individuals and businesses”, as Brian Hass, managing director of the company at the time, stated in an article published in The Telegraph (Alderson 2009). The actions of the UK and US governments set a precedent of providing governmental financial support to big business and showed the consequences of state repression for activists who challenge the status quo (Ellefsen 2016). US independent journalist Will Potter (2011) researched the consequences of criminalising protest and limiting free speech in the wake of the SHAC campaign and other similar campaigns in defence of nonhuman animals or the environment, a process that became known as the “Green Scare”. Potter denounced the ways in which the government refers to actions of civil disobedience and property damage as “terrorism” or “eco-terrorism”. He claimed that this process of state repression affected not only the individual activists harshly criminalised for their participation in campaigns, but also present and future society through Ag-gag laws—the informal name of a set of laws criminalising social protest by repressing freedom of expression—protect the corporate interests of exploitative animal industries such as laboratories or farms (Aaltola 2012; Potter 2011). This legislation includes the U.S. Animal and Ecological Terrorism Act (AETA) and the U.K. Serious Organised Crime and Police Act (SOCPA) from 2005. The latter makes “[i]nterference with contractual relationships so as to harm animal research organisation” (article 145) and “[i]ntimidation of persons connected with animal research organisations” (article 146) a criminal offence, as detailed in the Act (Legislation.gov.uk 2005). Lessons from the HLS vs SHAC case From a public relations point of view, the SHAC campaign against HLS, now incorporated into Envigo, is a paradigmatic example of how a company gained

Huntingdon Life Sciences and the SHAC Campaign  109 public support from banks and governments to protect its financial and economic interests. It is also an example of how the state used repression to criminalise and counteract protest against nonhuman animals’ suffering and exploitation by farms, breeders, and laboratories, and to harshly punish and limit social compassion towards them (Aaltola 2012). This case also demonstrates that a decentralised, long-lasting, and global organisation of activists, employing diverse contingent communication strategies (Upton 2010) and fighting for a common goal, was able to shake the pillars of a multinational capitalist organisation based on animal exploitation like Huntingdon Life Science. Through their actions, animal rights activists were able to bring the ethical problems of animal experimentation into the social spotlight. Instead of using the SHAC protest to promote a democratic discussion about the ethics of our relations with nonhuman animals and generate a radical paradigm shift away from this injustice (Best and Kahn 2004), the governmental and economic powers of the UK and US whitewashed the image of HLS, poured public money into its financial salvation and spent millions on a campaign of systematic repression against animal rights activists involved in the campaign (Ellefsen 2016; Fitzpatrick et al. 2022). Most importantly, the SHAC campaign worked as a trigger for the blossoming of criminalisation discourses around animal advocacy within the global vivisection-industrial complex. Especially in the EU, it favoured the promotion of a terrorisation of dissent from 2008, “when the debate around Directive 2010/63/EU stirred the industry toward more aggressive lobbying” (Almiron and Khazaal 2016, 269). Following the SHAC campaign, EU Animal Research companies and organisations adopted the U.S. lobby’s language of “extremism” when referring to “antivivisection” and “animal rights”, a flagrant example of this being the website “Animal Rights Extremism” created by the British non-profit Understanding Animal Research (Almiron and Khazaal 2016). The privately held Envigo, including HLS, approached US$500 million in sales at the time of its birth, in 2015, and was “the largest provider of research services to the crop protection and chemical industries, the second largest supplier of research models and services, and the third largest in the preclinical pharmaceutical development arena” (Garde 2015). Despite its initial success, the chain of laboratory breeders was broken up in 2017, before then being purchased by the company Inotiv (Harris 2022). Contradicting its online “Animal Welfare Statement” and the incorporation of humane-washing in its pro-vivisection discourse (Envigo 2022), Envigo/Inotiv was issued with a temporary restraining order for its beagle breeder in Virginia on 21 May 2022 (PETA 2022) after the U.S. Department of Justice found dogs and puppies being kept in torturous conditions at its facilities— including being encaged and deprived of an adequate supply of food and water and suffering from wounds and dental diseases (PETA 2022). Instead of using activists’ campaigning to promote democratic transparency and stop hurting nonhuman animals, powerful communication and public relations strategies were and are used by big companies like Envigo or HLS as propaganda to promote disinformation, perpetuate injustice, and stop social compassion toward nonhuman animals, thereby restraining ethical progress in human relations with other animals.

110  Laura Fernández and Núria Almiron References Aaltola, Elisa. 2012. “Differing Philosophies: Criminalisation and the Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty Debate.” In: Eco-global Crimes. Contemporary Problems and Future Challenges, edited by Rune Ellefsen, Ragnhild Sollun and Guri Larsen, 157−180. London and New York: Routledge. Alderson, Andrew. 2009. “The Men Who Stood up to Animal Rights’ Militants.” The Telegraph. June 17, 2009. https://web.archive.org/web/20090120020357/http://www. telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/lawandorder/4276376/The-men-who-stoodup-to-animal-rights-militants.html. Almiron, Núria and Natalie Khazaal. 2016. “Lobbying Against Compassion: Speciesist Discourse in the Vivisection Industrial Complex.” American Behavioral Scientist 60 (3): 256–275. https://doi.org/10.1177/0002764215613402. Best, Steven and Richard Kahn. 2004. “Trial by Fire: The SHAC7, Globalization and the Future of Democracy.” Animal Liberation Philosophy and Policy Journal 2 (2): 1−36. Ellefsen, Rune. 2016. “Judicial Opportunities and the Death of SHAC: Legal Repression Along a Cycle of Contention.” Social Movement Studies 15 (5): 441−456. https://doi.org/ 10.1080/14742837.2016.1185360. Envigo. 2022. “Animal Welfare Statement.” Envigo. Accessed July 14, 2022. https://www. envigo.com/animal-welfare-statement. Fitzpatrick, Alfie, Tom Harris, Jason Mullen, Heather Nicholson, Gerrah Selby and Nicola Tapping. 2022. “The Big Lie. A Concise History of the Government Conspiracy to Eradicate the SHAC Campaign.” https://shacjustice.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/ The-Big-Lie_Redacted.pdf. Garde, Damian. 2015. “Huntingdon Life Sciences and Harlan Laboratories to become Envigo.” FIERCE BioTech. June 25, 2015. https://www.fiercebiotech.com/cro/ huntingdon-life-sciences-and-harlan-laboratories-to-become-envigo. Harris, Tom. 2022. “HLS’ Legacy Continues to Crumble”. The SHAC Justice Project. June 20, 2022. https://shacjustice.com/1743-2/. Legislation.gov.uk. 2005. “Serious Organised Crime and Police Act 2005.” legislation.gov. uk. https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2005/15/contents. PETA. 2022. “Envigo Tells Judge It Intends to Close Dog-Breeding Facility But Wants to Profit Off Animals First.” PETA. June 13, 2022. https://www.peta.org/media/newsreleases/envigo-tells-judge-it-intends-to-close-dog-breeding-facility-but-wants-to-profitoff-animals-first/. Potter, Will. 2011. Green is the New Red. San Francisco, CA: City Lights Books. Reference for Business. 2022. “Huntingdon Life Sciences Group plc - Company Profile, Information, Business Description, History, Background Information on Huntingdon Life Sciences Group plc.” Reference for Business. https://www.referenceforbusiness.com/ history2/92/Huntingdon-Life-Sciences-Group-plc.html. The SHAC Justice Project. 2022a. “A Brief History of Huntingdon Life Sciences.” https:// shacjustice.com/about-hls/. The SHAC Justice Project. 2022b. “A Brief History of SHAC.” https://shacjustice.com/ about-shac/. Upton, Andrew. 2010. “Contingent Communication in a Hybrid Multi-media World: Analysing the Campaigning Strategies of SHAC.” New Media & Society 13 (1): 96–113. https://doi.org/10.1177/1461444810365304.

7

Deadly influence The ethics of persuasion in the environmental management industry Catia Faria

Introduction Persuasion is the process of changing an individual or group’s attitudes or behaviours towards someone or something. As a form of influence, persuasion is ethically neutral, though when it overrides the target’s capacity for rational deliberation, it becomes a form of manipulation (Noggle 2022). To ethically persuade someone is to influence them to do or believe something they did not do or believe but which they have a good reason for doing or believing, given their previous beliefs, desires, and values. Call this the weak sense of ethical persuasion. On the other hand, persuasion may be said to be ethically justified only insofar as it conforms to ethically reasonable standards. That is, to ethically persuade someone is to influence them to do or believe something they did not do or believe but which they have a good reason for doing or believing, given beliefs, desires, and values that are themselves ethically justified. Call this the strong sense of ethical ­persuasion. This distinction is important insofar as the act of persuading an individual or a group to do or believe something may be regarded as ethical in the weak sense—it does not lead the individual or group to accept or believe something they would not accept under optimal conditions of deliberation—while being unethical in the strong sense—it leads the individual or group to do or believe something ethically unjustified. This chapter will provide an assessment of the ethics of persuasion as it manifests in the environmental management industry both in its weak and strong sense. Here I take environmental management industry broadly construed to refer to a group of actors and sectors, not always clearly delimited, generated by or associated with environmental management policies and which derive a certain benefit from them (from the hunting sector to environmentalist NGOs). I will start by exposing the harms suffered by animals living in the wild—those fundamentally targeted by environmental management interventions—both anthropogenic and naturogenic (see section “Introduction”). Then, I will focus on paradigmatic instances of persuasive strategies used in the environmental management communication, especially within the Spanish context, and assess their ethical justification. This will be done by appraising their (i) consistency with the previous beliefs, desires, and values of individuals and groups (weak sense) and (ii) their alignment with DOI: 10.4324/9781003324065-13

112  Catia Faria ethically justified beliefs, desires, and values, particularly, with the compassion due to all sentient beings (strong sense) (see section “Environmental management and anthropogenic and naturogenic harms”). Finally, it will state the chapter’s main conclusions and offer a few remarks that might be useful for strategic communication practitioners and for society at large (see section “Persuasive strategies in the environmental management industry”). Environmental management and anthropogenic and naturogenic harms It is a common assertion that there can be no universal and concise definition of environmental management (Barrow 2004). For the purposes of this chapter, however, it is sufficient to arrive at a minimal definition. Accordingly, environmental management is the administration of all living organisms inhabiting natural environments, factoring in the socioeconomic needs of present and future human populations. Certainly, within environmental management there is a certain disagreement on how to approach the overt tension between human beings and other components of the natural world, ranging from the most anthropocentric to ecocentric positions. Yet, irrespective of the position endorsed, biodiversity conservation, in particular, the conservation of species and ecosystems seems to be the common ground. Either for instrumental or intrinsic reasons—that is, either because “it provides a multitude of essential goods and services for human beings”1 or because it has value in itself—biological diversity is taken as a value to be pursued. In practice, the pursuit of biological diversity involves different measures of preservation, maintenance, and recovery of species and their natural habitats. Now, the pursuit of biological diversity is often at tension with other values, in particular, with the well-being of nonhuman individuals. It frequently involves causing harms to many wild animals—anthropogenic harms—as well as neglectfully allowing nonanthropogenic harms—naturogenic harms—to fall upon them. Let us take a look at them in detail. The control of non-autochthonous species—usually called invasive species—are part of a broader strategy for the conservation of native wild species. For instance, in Spain, the conservation status of the native white-headed duck is claimed to be threatened as a genetically pure species due to its hybridisation with the foreign ruddy duck. To reverse this situation, control measures have been taken to detect and kill all pure specimens of ruddy duck and hybrids with white-headed duck that are sighted in Spanish territory (Spanish Government 2009). Other well-known environmental targets include the hybrid wolves of Barbanza (Galicia), the result of crossbreeding between wolves and feral dogs that coexist in the Sierra—hunted and killed to protect the genetic purity of the Iberian wolf—and the wild goats of Es Vedrà (Balearic Islands)—shot to death to protect the native flora of the island. Urban and peri-urban animals are also common targets of environmental control. A salient example is the recent mass killing of monk parakeets in Madrid, to allegedly prevent agricultural damage and competition with native species, among other negligible reasons, such as noise pollution and injuries caused by falling nests (Fernández et al. 2022).

Deadly Influence  113 Control measures of non-autochthonous species are pervasive in environmental management and consist of deliberate attempts to kill nonhuman individuals and eventually eliminate a whole population from an ecosystem. According to the Spanish Ministry for Ecological Transition and the Demographic Challenge, they can be divided into physical, chemical, and biological control. Physical control involves the trapping of wild animals and their subsequent killing; in situ killing, through the use of firearms; fishing by means of electric shocks; and for certain invertebrate animals, crushing. Chemical control consists of poisoning with biocides, such as nicotine, rotenone, and arsenic salts, although limited to species considered pests. Biological control consists mainly of indirect killing through the introduction of predators, parasites, and parasitoids, toxin-producing or hypervirulent agents (Argüelles et al. 2006). The description of these measures highlights the blatantly euphemistic nature of the term control. While it is true that so-called invasive species are figuratively kept under control and are eventually eradicated, the individual animals affected are not being controlled but rather literally exterminated. In practice, the conservation of native wild species amounts to the infliction of death and atrocious suffering on a massive number of individual animals. Often, the rationale of control measures is slightly different. It is no longer about controlling the spread of non-autochthonous species, but rather about maintaining the social and ecological balance of certain areas, by keeping native populations in check, mainly through hunting. A notorious case is the control of the wild boar population in the Collserola Natural Park, in Barcelona. Wild boars have recently seen their numbers increase, mainly due to easy access to food in peri-urban areas. According to park officials, wild boars’ “population density is higher than desirable” and their numbers must be reduced to “minimise social impact”, such as damage to crops and gardens, road accidents, and risk of transmitting disease.2 Their ecological impact remains nevertheless inconclusive (Cahill et al. 2003, 3). Either due to conflicts with humans or with the conservation of other species, wild boars and many other wild animals are commonly hunted and killed as a method of environmental management. Despite hunters’ best efforts to downplay the suffering involved with the killings, there is no shooting of a nonhuman animal without suffering. To the physical suffering caused by the bullet or arrow penetrating body tissue, it must still be factored in the fear, the psychological stress and the anguish of the chase and capture that hunting entails. In addition, in all cases, the end result is death. One of the measures increasingly favoured by the environmental management industry is the restoration of natural ecosystems through the reintroduction of predators. Often, the goal is to stop certain animals from altering the ecosystem in a way considered undesirable. For example, this happens in the case of wolves reintroduced to stop deers from overgrazing an autochthonous plant (Horta 2010). When confronted with the risk of predation, preys chose to stop grazing openly out of fear of being killed by predators and hide in more scarce places where predators cannot locate them. The biological dynamics that follow from this—commonly known as ecology of fear—often imposes death by starvation on preyed animals or by other related complications caused by food and water deprivation. In addition, the

114  Catia Faria state of constant alarm in which preyed animals suddenly encounter themselves— a landscape of fear—is also responsible for triggering intense stress responses similar to Post Traumatic Stress Disorder in humans (Zoladz 2008), which can sometimes be fatal (Gregory 2008). Moreover, predatory activity itself ends wild animals’ lives in gruesome ways. The kill may be abrupt or rather slow and agonising. The capture is often preceded by intense terror and it usually involves a brutal struggle for survival. Not uncommonly, the prey is consumed while still alive. Frequently, the reintroduction of predators is a step in a coordinated effort to return the entire ecosystem to an original state, to restore and protect the natural processes of early landscapes. Such interventions, insofar as they increase predatory activity also amount to more suffering and death. To sum up, environmental management interventions often impose serious harms on wild animals. They bring extreme suffering and massive death to an otherwise already hostile natural environment. As sentient creatures, wild animals have a well-being that makes it possible for their lives to go well or badly for them. In that sense they have an interest in pursuing what increases their well-being and in avoiding what detracts from it. Whatever human action that curtails the wellbeing of wild animals, frustrates their interests, and hence, harms them. First, it harms them by making them suffer. Second, it harms them by killing them, that is, by depriving them of a life of potentially valuable experiences. Now, it would be a mistake to think that the harms wild animals suffer are exclusively anthropogenic. Other animals, like humans, suffer and die from natural causes. This is particularly common in the wild, given individuals’ high exposure to harmful natural processes and limited capacity to cope with them. Even without human interference, wild animals’ lives are short, full of suffering, and usually end up in horrible deaths. This is, in fact, likely to affect, not just a few individuals, but the majority of those who are born in the wild. Most wild animals follow a wasteful reproductive strategy, which consists of producing the maximum number of offspring to maximise the chances of passing on the genetic material to the next generation. Examples range from amphibians and fish to invertebrates and mammals, including small rodents. Given the scarce resources available, these individuals have low survival rates, most of them dying prematurely and atrociously, captured by predators, frozen or starved to death, ravaged by disease or parasites, with little to no chance of enjoying their lives. It is thus highly likely that their short lives are dominated by suffering. Since these are the majority of extant animals, suffering likely prevails in nature (Faria 2023; Horta 2017; Ng 1995; Tomasik 2015 [2009]). Moreover, even wild animals that survive to adulthood face naturogenic harms on a systematic basis. Even without human interference, wild animals are frequently wounded, often fatally. A vast number of them typically die of starvation and commonly suffer from malnutrition. Water is also scarce in the wild and many animals die of thirst, especially in times of drought. Extreme weather events often cause animals to massively freeze to death or die of heat, as well as thwart their ability to thrive by decreasing foraging and increasing risk to predation. Furthermore, wild animals are prone to be infected by a large number of parasites and are

Deadly Influence  115 highly susceptible to various forms of disease, which cause them a great suffering and often kill them, either directly, or indirectly, by increasing their susceptibility to predation and other harmful events. Psychological stress also constitutes a form of suffering to which animals living in the wild are constantly exposed.3 Fear, anxiety, and distress can be a part of wild animals’ lives as much as they can be a part of human experience. Insofar as natural processes cause suffering and death to wild animals, they are, at least, as harmful as human interventions against wild animal well-being. Nonhuman suffering is suffering, no matter who or what causes it. Death is bad for whoever suffers it, regardless of whether it is caused by gunshots, disease, or famine. Yet, unless they affect individuals of endangered species, these harms remain completely unaddressed by the environmental management industry, as they do not pose a threat to biodiversity conservation. They are, in fact, endemic to natural ecosystems as we presently know them and therefore, so the argument goes, susceptible to being preserved. No matter how harmful natural processes may be to individual wild animals, they must be protected, celebrated, and often restored to a pristine form. Wild animal well-being is thus impaired not merely by adverse environmental factors, but crucially by extreme human neglect. Persuasive strategies in the environmental management industry One may ask: How is such an enormous amount of harm passing unnoticed before our eyes? One possible answer is that people do not know the extent of the harms nonhumans endure in nature, be it anthropogenic or naturogenic. Clearly, people can only be compassionate towards a reality that they are aware of. The environmental management industry has been doing a great job of concealing its aims and methods and their harmful impact on wild animals, so as to influence individuals and societies to achieve its goals. This is done through a multilevel activity of advisory work—in education, the media, including advertisements and subtle messages in entertainment products, as well as other forms of advice—and, crucially, through lobbying for laws and regulations to be changed accordingly, at the national and international levels (Barrow 2004, 15). Insofar as environmental management influences people to believe something they would not believe if they were in possession of all the relevant information, it amounts to a form of unethical persuasion. Therefore, any strategy based on the concealment and denial of the harms involved in environmental management is ethically unjustified. Yet, the industry has recently become incapable of controlling all the information about the harms suffered by wild animals, as these have increasingly been exposed by animal advocacy. A new strategy has then been to develop an alternative narrative that fosters indifference towards individual wild animals, even in the face of all the relevant information. That is, a strategy that replaces an ‘absence of awareness’ by an ‘absence of care’.4 Plausibly, indifference fundamentally relies on self-interest. That is, on the belief that we should act guided by our own interests and not by the interests of others. This may take different forms. It may take the form of promoting the interests

116  Catia Faria of a single agent or it may take the form of furthering the interests of a class or group of which the agent is a member. As based in self-interest, indifference may then be displayed towards the well-being of all others than the agent or to all others who do not further the interests of the agent, as well as towards the well-being of social out-groups. This self-interest narrative has been undeniably present in the dominant approach to environmental management until very recently, according to which wild animals and other contents of the natural world were understood as mere resources for humans’ own advantage and well-being—at least, in the short term. This blatant anthropocentrism—i.e., unrestrained human self-interest—has now gone out of fashion and has been updated into environmental anthropocentrism—i.e., mildly restrained human self-interest—according to which, since human beings are situated in a certain ecological context, we should no longer pursue the satisfaction of human interests alone. Instead, we should also pursue other environmental values such as the conservation of biological diversity, including species, ecosystems and, eventually, the entire biosphere, insofar as present and future human wellbeing ultimately depends on it. Notice, however, that the update does not detract from the moral priority of human interests. It simply differs from the previous view in the calculation of what is most beneficial to further human interests, especially in the long run. Persuasive strategies used by the industry to influence people to endorse and value biodiversity conservation—and the harms it entails—are crucially based on a human self-interest narrative, even if mildly restrained. This narrative implies a disregard for the interests of all other than human animals, particularly wild animals, which elicits a generalised indifference towards their plight. In addition, it also allows for a differential consideration between nonhuman species depending on their instrumental value to further human interests such that indifference is directed at some species (e.g., non-autochthonous) but not at others (e.g., native). Some might say that insofar as awareness is ensured, indifference as lack of care for wild animal suffering is a mere reflection of people’s belief and value systems. People do not care about animal suffering, in general, and even less so about wild animal suffering. Inasmuch as indifference is consistent with human beings’ speciesist attitudes, a case could be made about environmental management persuasive strategies being ethical, at least in a weak sense. But are people truly indifferent to animal suffering or are they instead being persuaded by the industry to be indifferent far beyond their own beliefs and values? More importantly, are persuasion strategies employed by the industry, aligned with beliefs and values that are themselves ethically justified? That is, can environmental management persuasive strategies be regarded as ethical in the strong sense? Certainly, all humans harbour speciesist beliefs: that humans matter more than other animals (anthropocentric speciesism), and that certain nonhuman species matter more than others (non-anthropocentric speciesism). Yet, our attitudes towards other animals greatly vary along the speciesism scale (Caviola et al. 2019), depending, among other factors, on demographics, such as gender (Caviola et al. 2019; Marriott and Cassaday 2022), and age (Clemence and Leaman 2016),

Deadly Influence  117 as well as on the presence of other prejudicial attitudes, such as racism, sexism, and homophobia and associated ideological constructs (Caviola et al. 2019). This means that the alleged consistency between individuals’ prior beliefs and values and the endorsement of environmental management is not straightforward. People care about animal suffering, even if some care about it significantly more than others. Saliently, persuasive strategies aimed at the youth population, in education or entertainment, would hardly qualify as ethical, not even in the weakest sense. This is because children tend to prioritise humans over animals much less than adults (Wilks et al. 2021) Thus, indifference towards animal suffering, as rooted in human self-interest, turns out to be inconsistent with children’s prior beliefs and values. This becomes even more apparent once we realise that data on speciesist attitudes is almost exclusively limited to human attitudes towards animals under human control. In addition, as some authors have put forward (most notably, Waldhorn 2019), human attitudes to wild animals have been mistakenly framed as indistinguishable from our attitudes towards nature, thereby failing to track the relevant attitudes toward the well-being of individual wild animals. It is thus false that being influenced to endorse environmental management’s goals—via indifference for wild animal suffering—is consistent with our previous beliefs and values. Hence, it cannot be claimed to be ethical persuasion, not even in a weak sense. Moreover, people’s beliefs based on stereotypes, prejudice, or self-deception are morally outrageous. Some people still believe, overtly or covertly, that white people are cognitively superior to black people, and that as a result they should be better placed in society. But surely, no one could possibly claim that it would be ethical to persuade people into, say, accepting a particularly racist educational environment based on widespread racist beliefs. This is because ethics is not about maintaining a perfectly consistent system of immoral beliefs. Ethics is about identifying, confronting, resisting, and eventually changing unjustified, deeply entrenched, moral beliefs, including the belief on the superior moral worth of humans over other animals. Whatever attribute (e.g., language, rationality) one may use to draw a moral distinction between humans and nonhumans will exclude some humans from consideration, making it justified to disregard the harms they suffer as we currently disregard the harms suffered by other animals. This is unacceptable. When thinking about how we should act, what matters is how we can harm or benefit others. Insofar as sentience is what makes it possible for a being to be harmed or benefitted by what happens to them, all sentient beings matter and to the same extent. Therefore, we should abandon the speciesist belief on the moral priority of human beings over other animals. No matter how widespread, no belief is, or should be, immune to ethical scrutiny. Finally, people have conflicting beliefs. People may think that compassion, i.e., caring for the suffering of others and having the disposition to help them, is due to others, while simultaneously believing, for instance, that the massive killing of birds in urban areas, and hence, the disregard for their suffering, is perfectly acceptable. Again, ethical reasoning requires that we (i) identify the contradiction, (ii) assess the strength of our reasons for and against each belief, and finally (iii) abandon the belief that does not stand to be subject to ethical scrutiny.

118  Catia Faria Briefly: (i) it cannot be true that we should be compassionate and at the same time that it is sometimes acceptable to disregard the suffering of others or not to be compassionate. (ii) Perhaps, birds are not due compassion because they are not human. Yet, insofar as compassion is elicited by the suffering of others, any being susceptible of suffering is due compassion, independently of their species or any other attribute irrelevant to appraise their suffering. In response, one might insist that since birds have less complex cognitive capacities it is acceptable to disregard their suffering. Nevertheless, if cognitive complexity determines the importance of someone’s suffering, then it becomes false that compassion is due to all others, namely to many humans with less cognitive complexity. But, cognitive complexity does not affect the intensity of someone’s suffering and, in that sense, the suffering of human beings with less cognitive complexity matters as much as the suffering of human beings with a more complex psychology. And if that is so, then the suffering of birds also matters and should elicit similar compassionate responses. Therefore, (iii) we should abandon the belief that the massive killing of birds in urban areas, and hence, disregard for their suffering, is acceptable. Any attempt to persuade us to think otherwise would be unethical. This pinpoints something crucial about ethical persuasion. That it only makes sense to talk about ethical persuasive strategies if people are being influenced into believing or doing something itself ethically justified. In other words, persuasion can only be properly ethical in the strong sense. That means that whatever strategy furthers the speciesist belief on the moral priority of human beings over other animals will be unethical. Having made this clear, I will close by examining a paradigmatic strategy in environmental management and assess its ethical justification in the strongest sense. As mentioned, wild animals are systematically exposed to naturogenic harms. While human populations have increasingly been able to protect themselves from food shortages, disease, and extreme environmental conditions, they have remained unmoved by the harmful effects of natural processes on wild animal well-being. Accordingly, it is usually assumed that wild animal suffering is simply part of the natural course of events, against which we should refrain from interfering, given the risk of altering the natural balance. A paradigmatic example of this mindset can be observed in the recent awareness campaign launched by the Spanish Ministry of Agriculture, Fishing, and Food, sponsored by the Interprofessional Food and Agriculture Organization of the White-Capped Pig (INTERPORC SPAIN)—the Spanish pork lobby—which states the following: “Feeding wild animals is not natural. You change the way they act and disrupt the natural balance”.5 There are several problems with this message. First, there is no such thing as “natural balance”. Since the 1970s, science has been evolving toward more dynamic ecological models, pointing out that natural ecosystems are constantly fluctuating and changing (e.g., Kricher 2009; Simberloff 2014). This means that the conservation of a certain configuration of natural ecosystems at a certain point in time necessarily requires human intervention to contravene the natural fluctuation. The question is thus not whether or not to disrupt the natural balance, but rather at the service of which values should the disruption be undertaken. Second, even

Deadly Influence  119 if natural balance existed, it would tell us nothing about whether to preserve it or not. The idea that the current state of affairs is part of a balanced system which is good for individuals presupposes a pre-Darwinian understanding of evolutionary processes, where evolution operates in a rather purposeful way. Yet, Nature has no good purpose, since it has no purpose at all. In fact, natural selection, by focusing on reproductive fitness, systematically selects against individual well-being. This explains why human history has been a deliberate, unnatural attempt to escape from Darwinian ecosystems. That is, an effort to minimise the impact of harmful natural processes on human well-being. Now, if protecting human lives from natural harms is desirable, it seems equally desirable to improve the lives of other sentient beings, for instance by providing them with additional resources. This is, of course, compatible with recognising the need for more research to get a clearer picture of the specific needs of wild animals and how to improve their situation in a safe, responsible, and effective way. At any rate, it is perfectly feasible to improve wild animal well-being by increasing food availability, and, at the same time, devising alternative ways of preventing population growth through contraception, sterilisation, etc. Denying this is to adopt a double standard speciesist approach to environmental management. Inasmuch as persuasive strategies appeal to the natural, and surreptitiously promote, deceptive, speciesist beliefs in the moral priority of human beings they cannot be ethically justified.6 Final remarks The previous assessment does not, and could not, cover all persuasive strategies employed by the environmental management industry. The goal has been to draw attention to the harms involved in biodiversity conservation’s aims and methods in terms of their impact on wild animal well-being; to expose the underlying speciesist logic of typical persuasive strategies used to influence people to endorse those; and, finally, to offer ethical tools to evaluate different persuasion strategies. It is commonly thought that insofar as persuasion influences people to believe or do something they have good reason for doing or believing, given their previous beliefs, desires, and values, it is considered ethical. I called this the weak sense of ethical persuasion. I rejected this view and claimed that for persuasion to qualify as ethical, it must influence people to believe or do something they have good reason for doing or believing, given previous beliefs, desires, and values that are themselves ethically justified. I called this the strong sense of ethical persuasion. This distinction has allowed me to assess the content of different persuasive strategies used by the environmental management industry and claim that, even if they might qualify as ethical in the weak sense (i.e. they ensure some consistency between previous and new beliefs), they nevertheless fail to qualify as ethical in the strong sense. This is because they fundamentally aim at persuading people to disregard nonhuman well-being, particularly the well-being of individual wild animals, through reinforcing speciesist attitudes. Speciesism is an unjustified moral position that does not resist ethical scrutiny. Insofar as speciesist-based persuasive

120  Catia Faria strategies lead individuals, groups, and societies at large to do or believe something ethically unjustified, there is no way they can be ethical. Now, this is compatible with, on occasions, persuasive strategies not qualifying as ethical for overlapping reasons, that is, when influencing people to believe or do something ethically unjustified by way of simultaneously reinforcing different unjust systems. This is the case, for instance, of promoting hunting as a method of population control in environmental management. Besides exemplifying and reinforcing speciesist attitudes, hunting participates in the construction of a sexist ideal of masculinity, characterised by physical strength and emotional restraint, predatory heterosexuality, domination of the weak and ultimately the destruction of the most vulnerable, targeting both humans (most notably ciswomen) and other animals. This means that to offer a full ethical assessment of persuasive strategies we will have to look for all ways in which the beliefs, desires, and values involved might be unethical, often revealing their intersectional nature. Finally, it is important to stress that ethical persuasion strategy, within environmental management or otherwise, should not be understood as a mere procedural matter limited to avoiding shading techniques and conflicts of interest. Instead, it should be reclaimed as a substantive compromise with the public good. In that sense, it should incorporate a variety of standpoints, especially from the most marginalised communities, so as to decrease blindspots or, in their absence (e.g., nonhuman animals), make the most charitable interpretations of their needs. Only then, the public’s best interests can truly be served. Summary • Ethical persuasion might be understood in two senses. In a weak sense, to ethically persuade someone is to influence them to do or believe something consistent with their previous beliefs, desires, and values. In a strong sense, to ethically persuade someone is to influence them to do or believe something ethically justified. • Environmental management often involves causing harms to many wild animals. Sources of anthropogenic harms typically include the eradication of non-autochthonous species, the use of hunting methods to maintain ecological balance, or the recreation of ecology of fear dynamics in ecosystem restoration. • Environmental management often involves neglectfully allowing naturogenic harms to fall upon wild animals. Most wild animals die prematurely, experience physical trauma, live in places with a high density of predators or parasites, face conflicts with conspecifics and have to endure constant variations of food, water, and temperature. • Persuasive strategies used by the industry to influence people to endorse environmental management and the harms it entails are crucially based on a human self-interest narrative, even if mildly restrained. This narrative implies a disregard for the interests of all other than human animals, particularly wild animals, which elicits a generalised indifference towards their plight. • Insofar as persuasive strategies used by environmental management are consistent with widespread speciesist beliefs, they might qualify as ethical in a weak

Deadly Influence  121 sense. Yet, out attitudes towards other animals greatly vary along the speciesism scale depending, among other factors, on gender, age, and political orientation. In addition, we lack data on human attitudes toward wild animals. Therefore, many persuasive strategies are likely unethical, even in a weak sense. • Crucially, people hold conflicting and often morally outrageous beliefs. Ethics is about identifying, confronting, resisting, and eventually changing unjustified, deeply entrenched, moral beliefs. Hence, persuasive strategies can only be properly ethical in a strong sense. • Insofar as speciesist-based persuasive strategies influence individuals, groups, and societies at large to do or believe something ethically unjustified, in particular, to disregard the well-being of individual wild animals, they fail to qualify as ethical in any relevant way. Notes 1 Royal Decree 1274/2011, Spanish Government . 2 Parc de Collserola. n.d. “Watch out for the boar!” . 3 For a detailed examination of wild animals’ exposure to naturogenic harms, see Faria (2023). 4 This distinction is developed in Lillehammer (2017). 5 INTERPORC. 2021. “Cuida el Medio Ambiente”. YouTube . 6 One may also find ethically suspicious that the flag of the natural be carried, in this case, by the main lobby of the pork industry in Spain, an industry not particularly fond of the naturalness, at least when it comes to the 56.4 million pigs unnaturally confined, tortured, and slaughtered in factory farms each year all over Spain.

References Argüelles, Laura Capdevila, Ángela Iglesias García, Jorge F. Orueta and Bernardo Zilleti. 2006. Especies Exóticas Invasoras: Diagnóstico y bases para la prevención y el manejo. Ministerio de Medio Ambiente. Dirección General para la Biodiversidad. https://www. miteco.gob.es/es/parques-nacionales-oapn/publicaciones/exoticas.aspx. Barrow, Chris. 2004. Environmental Management and Development. New York: Routledge. Cahill, Seán, Francesc Llimona and Jordi Gràcia. 2003. “Spacing and Nocturnal Activity of wild boar Sus Scrofa in a Mediterranean Metropolitan Park.” Wildlife Biology 9: 3–13. https://doi.org/10.2981/wlb.2003.058. Caviola, Lucius, Jim A.C. Everett and Nadira S. Faber. 2019. “The Moral Standing of Animals: Towards a Psychology of Speciesism.” Journal of Personality and Social ­Psychology 11 (6): 1011. https://doi.org/10.1037/pspp0000182. Clemence, Michael and Leaman John. 2016. “Public Attitudes to Animal Research in 2016” Ipsos MORI Social Research Institute, Department for Business, Energy Ind Strategy. https://www.ipsos.com/sites/default/files/publication/1970-01/sri-public-attitudes-toanimal-research-2016.pdf. Faria, Catia. 2023. Animal Ethics in the Wild: Wild Animal Suffering and Intervention in Nature. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Fernández, Laura, Jose A. Moreno and Alejandro Suárez-Domínguez. 2022. “‘The Unbearable Green Demon’: A Critical Analysis of Press Representation around the Extermination

122  Catia Faria of Monk Parakeets in Madrid.” Journalism and Media 3 (3): 382–404. https://doi. org/10.3390/journalmedia3030027. Gregory, Neville G. 2008. Physiology and Behaviour of Animal Suffering. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons. Horta, Oscar. 2010. “The Ethics of the Ecology of Fear Against the Nonspeciesist Paradigm: A Shift in the Aims of Intervention in Nature.” Between the Species 13 (10): 10. Horta, Oscar. 2017. “Animal Suffering in Nature: The Case for Intervention.” Environmental Ethics 39 (3): 261–279. https://doi.org/10.5840/enviroethics201739320. Kricher, John. 2009. The Balance of Nature: Ecology’s Enduring Myth. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Lillehammer, Hallvard. 2017. “The Nature and Ethics of Indifference.” The Journal of ­Ethics 21 (1): 17–35. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10892-016-9215-z. Marriott, Sara and Cassaday, Helen J. 2022. “Attitudes to Animal Use of Named Species for Different Purposes: Effects of Speciesism, Individualising Morality, Likeability and Demographic Factors.” Humanities and Social Sciences Communications 9 (1): 1–11. https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-022-01159-8. Ng, Yew-Kwang. 1995. “Towards Welfare Biology: Evolutionary Economics of Animal Consciousness and Suffering.” Biology and Philosophy 10 (3): 255–285. https://doi. org/10.1007/BF00852469. Noggle, Robert. 2022. “The Ethics of Manipulation”. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy ­ (Summer 2022 Edition), edited by Edward N. Zalta. https://plato.stanford. edu/archives/sum2022/entries/ethics-manipulation/. Simberloff, Daniel. 2014. “The ‘Balance of Nature’—Evolution of a Panchreston.” PLoS Biology 12 (10): e1001963. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.1001963. Spanish Government. 2009. “Estrategia para la Conservación de la Malvasía Cabeciblanca (Oxyura leucocephala) en España” Ministerio de Medio Ambiente y Medio Rural y Marino. https://www.miteco.gob.es/es/biodiversidad/publicaciones/pbl-fauna-floraestrategias-nv-malvasia-cabeciblanca.aspx. Tomasik, Brian. 2015 [2009]. “The Importance of Wild-animal Suffering.” Relations. Beyond Anthropocentrism 3 (2): 133–152. https://doi.org/10.7358/rela-2015-002-toma. Waldhorn, Daniela R. 2019. “Toward a New Framework for Understanding Human–wild Animal Relations.” American Behavioral Scientist 63 (8): 1080–1100. http://dx.doi. org/10.1177/0002764219830465. Wilks, Matti, Caviola, Lucius, Kahane Guy and Paul Bloom. 2021. “Children Prioritize Humans Over Animals Less than Adults do.” Psychological Science 32 (1): 27–38. https://doi.org/10.1177/0956797620960398. Zoladz, P.R. 2008. “An Ethologically Relevant Animal Model of Post-traumatic Stress Disorder: Physiological, Pharmacological and Behavioral Sequelae in Rats Exposed to Predator Stress and Social Instability.” PhD diss. University of South Florida.

Case study The Catalan Hunting Federation and wild boar management Laura Fernández and Núria Almiron

The case of wild board management in Catalonia Human relations with wild boars in Catalonia (Spain) are permeated by both historical coexistence and conflict, the latter becoming more visible in recent years. In certain areas of Catalonia, particularly in the environs of Barcelona and Girona, wild boar populations can achieve high densities. Accordingly, human inhabitants in these areas tend to perceive them as a plague. However, the real figures and growth trends of wild boar populations remain disputed, since density is only speculated by means of observation and hunting. In 2022, the estimated number of wild boars in Catalonia was 200,000 (Bosch 2022)—while the human population amounted to 7.7 million. In contrast, it is uncontended that urbanised areas have expanded massively in Catalonia, meaning higher habitat pressure on all nonhuman animals. It should come as no surprise that free-roaming nonhuman animals like wild boars are moving increasingly closer to urbanised areas in the search for food and becoming more habituated to humans, with the potential risk of non-friendly wild boar–human interactions—including car accidents, the potential transmission of diseases, and damage to crop fields and pastures. This creates a negative perception of wild boars amongst citizens and has negative economic consequences for farmers and animal breeders, who make regular complaints to the authorities. In response to the above, the Catalan government launched a monitoring programme aimed at annually estimating wild boar density in Catalonia and controlling it. In practice, this has meant an alliance between the authorities and the hunting and farmer lobbies, including the government adopting the lobbies’ narrative and killing strategies. As a matter of fact, the participants in the programme comprise environmental agents, game reserves, and hunting associations (as many as 173 hunting associations in 2019). Hunts are clearly ineffective in reducing the wild boar population, as a number of organisations have claimed (FAADA 2016) and the authorities themselves acknowledge. For instance, official data attributed a reduction in density between 2017 and 2019 to meteorological conditions affecting food supplies, not hunting, while the number of wild boars killed has increased exponentially since 2013 (Rosell et al. 2019). The official database reported 85,500 hunts and almost 190,000 wild boars killed in the two decades that the programme has existed, with a record number of almost DOI: 10.4324/9781003324065-14

124  Laura Fernández and Núria Almiron 70,000 so-called captures in 2018. In spite of the little or non-impact of hunts on wild boar populations, the pretext used by the authorities is a replication of the hunting and farming lobbies’ narrative, conveniently disseminated by the media. In essence, the message is that the growth in wild boar populations is both exponential and dangerous and poses a threat to farmers’ economy, and that there is no alternative but to kill them. The role of the Catalan Hunting Federation (FCC) The Catalan government’s adoption of such an ethically problematic and inefficient strategy can only be explained as the result of influence exerted by the Catalan hunting and farming lobbies; primarily by the Catalan Hunting Federation (in Catalan, la Federació Catalana de Caça or FCC), the interest group that protects and promotes hunting in Catalonia. The FCC has generated and publicly disseminated a discourse that represents hunter associations as altruistic organisations committed to the environment, carrying out social work and holding ecological values. Hunters present themselves as professional managers of the environment and nature lovers, connoisseurs of the countryside who guarantee its balance (Sánchez 2022). Although there is no evidence to support these arguments, the narrative is backed by the Catalan government. It is well known, however, that Spain has “game farms”, where nonhuman animals are bred to supply hunting reserves so that hunters can kill them during the hunting season (El Salto 2020). Another fact that refutes the environmental claim by hunters is that the wild boar was introduced as a species in South American countries for hunting purposes. Through the FCC, Catalan hunters have systematically represented wild boars as a pest that must be exterminated. This framework is based on an anthropocentric and speciesist vision that places the interests of human animals above those of other animals. Hunters have participated in an active demonisation of this species in order to justify its killing. In Catalonia, the claim that wild boar populations can most effectively be managed and controlled by hunting is a claim spread by hunters through this organisation. The FCC has publicly campaigned, including sending letters and organising meetings with the Catalan authorities, to express its demands and vindicate its unacknowledged “environmental and social work” (Federació Catalana de Caça 2016a), while also joining forces with “game meat” companies to promote wild boar consumption. From a public relations perspective, it is important to take into consideration the shared interest between the hunting lobby and local farmers, which feed off one another to maintain their economic interests and mutual survival. Regarding economic interests, the Barcelona branch of the FCC carried out a study on the overall economic value of wild boar hunting in Barcelona province (Federació Catalana de Caça 2016b). The study accounted for all expenses per hunter, dog pack, and hunting group, and concluded that the cost per hunter to kill an individual wild boar is €1,325.43, which amounted to almost €64 million for the 2014–2015 season (Federació Catalana de Caça 2016b). These reported findings

The Catalan Hunting Federation and wild boar management  125 were key to the Catalan government approving financial aid for wild boar hunters in the areas of Barcelona and Girona considered to be overpopulated with wild boars. Order ACC/129/2021, of 15th June, was designed to encourage wild boar hunting to “decrease the density of wild boar and contribute to the prevention and fight against wild boar pathologies that can affect livestock species” (Diari Oficial de la Generalitat de Catalunya 2021). According to this Order, since 2021, hunting is remunerated with an amount ranging from €12.50 (in the case of individual hunters) to €25 (in the case of hunters belonging to hunting associations) for each wild boar killed. This economic aid is also aligned with the aim of introducing wild boar meat into the food chain after following health control protocols. It is no coincidence, then, that the FCC had already been promoting the tradition of eating wild boar meat and disseminating recipes (e.g. Puig-Pey 2017). However, the FCC is not alone in promoting mass wild boar killings in Catalonia. Another organisation that has potentially influenced the decision-making of the Catalan government is the environmental consultancy firm Minuartia, which collaborates with Catalan institutions and research projects such as the Spanish IREC (Instituto de Investigación en Recursos Cinegéticos, or Institute for Research in Hunting Resources), and has a clearly pro-hunting stance. Ethical, environmental, and citizen opposition to the hunting lobby Lobbies, authorities, and media-induced alarm regarding coexistence with wild boars, together with the Catalan government’s decision to economically support hunting, have led to opposition to the hunting lobby from a large part of the population in Catalonia. Associations for nonhuman animal and environmental defence have formed a coalition campaign in opposition to hunting, “La veritat de la cacera” (The truth about hunting—https://laveritatdelacacera.wordpress.com), while the state campaign “NAC-No A la Caza” (No to Hunting—www.plataformanac.org) has brought together groups from all over the country and has held annual demonstrations in many cities throughout Spain since 2020. These organisations have also raised awareness regarding hunting accidents that have taken many human lives—including those of hunters themselves, cyclists, hikers, campers, drivers, etc. According to the NAC, in the first seven months of the 2021/2022 hunting season in Spain, 10 hunters died and at least 35 more were seriously injured (Plataforma No A la Caza 2022). At the same time, different citizen associations and political groups in Catalan towns have adopted a firm stance against hunting in their territories and advocated for other methods, such as contraception. Also, animal sanctuaries regularly rescue wild boars and help them recover and live far from the threat of being hunted. The latter is an example of intentional communities shedding light on how interspecies relations would look in a non-speciesist world. The Portuguese life and spiritual community Tamera has also published their own collective experience and research about coexistence and peaceful interaction with wild boars online (Tamera 2022).

126  Laura Fernández and Núria Almiron Lessons from the wild boar case The case of the Catalan Hunting Federation is a good example of how lobbies condition the lives of nonhuman animals living in nature. Discourses promoted by interest groups, such as the case of the FCC and other pro-hunting organisations, reflect how social pressure is exerted to legitimise speciesism and normalise and promote a lack of compassion towards nonhuman individuals living in nature. Hunting groups have used their discourse and power to demonise wild boars, portraying them as a troublesome pest that spreads disease and must be eradicated. At the same time, the FCC depicts its hunters as helpful and altruistic local residents who selflessly maintain the “natural balance” of ecosystems. Through its permanent campaigning, the FCC has managed to get the Catalan government to grant public financial aid for the entertainment of a minority social group that takes satisfaction in killing wild boars, in spite of the large social opposition to hunting. The alliance between the interests of hunters and farmers—often comprising the same people and overlapping organisations—has favoured this diversion of public money to particular interests and overlooked the ethical problems inherent in this administrative decision. The truth is that anthropogenic causes are at the very root of wild boar populations moving closer to humans, that wild boars rarely attack humans (they are rather victims of them), that damage to crops could be fully compensated by the authorities (instead of devoting public funding to rewarding killings), and that hunting is not having any real impact on wild boar populations, while causing intense suffering to wild boar communities and risking the lives of humans. Paradoxically, in spite of the fear of disease spreading from wild boars, policy-makers—again following requests from the hunting lobby—have started to promote the need to exploit killed wild boar for human consumption. From a non-speciesist ethical perspective, in alignment with Catia Faria’s text preceding this commentary, non-lethal and non-harmful methods should be researched and designed to favour coexistence between wild boars and humans and reduce potential conflict, taking as a model those cases in which the Catalan government has already acted in a respectful way towards these nonhuman animals, like creating off-road paths for them to cross the forest safely or promoting contraception. This case study shows how public relations and lobbying can be used to maintain the status quo—as the Catalan government did with FCC campaigning—or to promote a broader questioning of speciesist anthropocentrism in view of these interspecies encounters and make a collective effort to research, apply, and sustain ethical methods and strategies aimed at guaranteeing coexistence with wild boars. References Bosch, Imma. 2022. “Destinen 10 milions a reduir la superpoblació de senglars” (10 Million Allocated to Reduce the Overpopulation of Wild Boars). ElPunt-Avui, March 5. https:// www.elpuntavui.cat/economia/article/18-economia/2108351-destinen-10-milions-areduir-la-superpoblacio-de-senglars.html.

The Catalan Hunting Federation and wild boar management  127 Diari Oficial de la Generalitat de Catalunya. 2021. “ORDRE ACC/129/2021, de 15 de juny.” Generalitat de Catalunya. https://dogc.gencat.cat/ca/document-del-dogc/?documentId= 904166. El Salto. 2020. “Las granjas dedicadas a la cría de animales para caza mayor aumentan un 40% desde 2011” (Farms Devoted to the Breeding of Animals for Big Game Have Increased by 40% Since 2011). El Salto, June 1, 2020. https://www.elsaltodiario.com/ caza/granjas-cinegeticas-animales-aumentan-40porciento-2011. FAADA. 2016. “Problemática y control de porcs senglars” (Problems and Control of Wild Boars). Barcelona: FAADA. http://faada.org/docs/INFORME-PORCS-SENGLARS.pdf Federació Catalana de Caça. 2016a. “Carta a la Sra. Montserrat Barniol, Directora General de Forest” (Letter to Ms. Montserrat Barniol, Director General of Forest). Federació Catalana de Caça, August 10, 2016. https://www.federcat.com/noticia.php?idn=1438&carta_a_la_ sra._montserrat_barniol, _directora_general_de_forest. Federació Catalana de Caça. 2016b. “El cost de la caça del porc senglar en la modalitat batuda a Catalunya és d’uns 64 milions d’euros” (The Cost of Wild Boar Hunting in the Beaten Mode in Catalonia is Around 64 Million Euros). Federació Catalana de Caça, October 7, 2016. https://www.federcat.com/noticia.php?idn=1524&el_cost_de_la_caca_del_porc_ senglar_en_la_modalitat_batuda_a_catalunya_es_d%25E2%2580%2599uns_64_ milions_d%25E2%2580%2599euros. Plataforma No A la Caza. 2022. “12 muertos y 40 heridos en 7 meses. Las cifras de la caza” (12 Dead and 40 Injured in 7 Months. The Figures of the Hunt). Https://www. plataformanac.org/12-muertos-y-40-heridos-en-7-meses-las-cifras-de-la-caza/. Puig-Pey, Marc (Fundació Alícia). 2017. La cuina del senglar a Catalunya (The cuisine of Wild Boar in Catalonia). Catalonia: Fundació Alícia and Fundació Catalunya La Pedrera. http://www.fedecazabarcelona.es/public/publicaciones/senglar_cuina.pdf. Rosell, Carme, Berta Pericas, Joana Colomer and Ferran Navàs (Minuartia). 2019. Programa de seguiment de les poblacions de senglar a Catalunya Temporada 2018–2019 (Monitoring Program for Wild Boar Populations in Catalonia Season 2018–2019). Generalitat de Catalunya. Departament d’Agricultura, Ramaderia, Pesca i Alimentació. http://agricultura.gencat.cat/web/.content/06-medi-natural/caca/enllacos-documents/ informes-tecnics/programa-seguiment-poblacions-senglar-sus-scrofa/fitxers-binaris/ seguiment_senglar_cat_2019.pdf. Sánchez, Thaïs. 2022. “La creació d’una necessitat. Anàlisi crítica del discurs de la Federació Catalana de Caça” (The Creation of a Need. Critical Analysis of the Speech of the Catalan Federation). Animal Ethics Review 2 (1): 94–103. Tamera. 2022. “Wild Boar Research”. https://www.tamera.org/wild-boar-research/.

PART IV

Rejecting speciesism

8

Lobbying and persuasion on behalf of nonhuman animals Psychological insights Daniela Romero Waldhorn

Introduction Over the last few years, several sources have pointed to growing social concern for nonhuman animals and how they are treated in our societies (ASPCA and Technomic 2018; Kjaernes et al. 2007; Lake Research Partners 2016; Packaged Facts 2017; Riffkin 2015). Furthermore, other studies report that most people in different countries believe that animal welfare is important to them or that they would favour better conditions for the most exploited animals on Earth—namely, those used for human consumption (e.g., Anderson 2018; Anthis 2017; European Commission 2016; IGD 2020 in AHDB 2021; Ladak and Anthis 2021; Riffkin 2015). Despite this apparently positive trend, such changes do not necessarily translate into coherent behaviours involving animals. For example, three studies in the United States (Anthis 2017; Ladak and Anthis 2021; Oklahoma State University 2018) have consistently shown that relatively large proportions of people would support radical policy changes like banning factory farming (e.g., 50.7% according to Ladak and Anthis 2021). However, the great majority of Americans (95.5%) also think that eating animals is a personal choice (Ladak and Anthis 2021). Notably, high percentages of respondents to these surveys state they would support a ban on slaughterhouses (44.8%), and, moreover, not an inconsiderable proportion would support banning all animal farming completely (35.6%) (Ladak and Anthis 2021). However, most Americans (more than 90%) eat meat regularly (Reinhart 2018), and it is pretty difficult to keep such a habit if animal farming and slaughterhouses are no longer allowed. These contradictions are not exclusive to nonhuman animal species used for human consumption. Consider the case of dogs and cats, for example. Although in the United States many see their companion dog or cat as a family member and are willing to spend millions of dollars on veterinary care for them (McConnell et al. 2017; NAPHIA 2022), at the same time in the United States, dogs are commonly and legally used for testing the toxicity of medical drugs (see USDA APHIS 2022). Extensive evidence shows that our attitudes towards animals are complex and contradictory (see Dhont and Hodson 2020; Herzog 2011). In general, people do not want to hurt animals, nor do they want to see them suffer, and collectively, as a society, tend to condemn cruelty towards these creatures. But, at the same DOI: 10.4324/9781003324065-16

132  Daniela Romero Waldhorn time, human societies treat animals in several morally problematic ways. We feel moved by videos of animals like the painting pig Pigcasso,1 playing around and enjoying their lives. But we also exploit individuals very much like Pigcasso on a massive scale—mostly for direct human consumption, and also in order to produce animal feed or clothes, testing cosmetics, or in biomedical research. Ranging from what we eat to how we dress, several of our behaviours deeply conflict with the moral principles that we, as a society, allegedly adhere to. These conflicted relationships with nonhuman animals pose serious challenges when it comes to effectively lobbying on their behalf and introducing meaningful policy measures for animal protection. On the one hand, the seemingly progressive positive change in people’s attitudes towards nonhumans might pave the way for pressing for ambitious policy initiatives to improve animal welfare. A good example of this is the European citizens’ legal initiative—the so-called End the Cage Age—that calls for a ban on the use of cages for all farmed animals (European Commission 2021). For their part, legislators are likely more responsive and open to considering animal welfare seriously as the issue becomes a growing concern of their own voters. Again in Europe, the Union explicitly made farmed animal welfare “an integral part of the European Union’s new Farm to Fork (F2F) strategy” and, as a result, is conducting a comprehensive evaluation of the relevant legislation, besides the already-mentioned citizens’ initiative (EFSA 2022). However, common incongruences in how humans act and treat animals, despite their declared beliefs, can easily hamper such legal efforts to protect animals. That is, despite agreeing on the idea that animal suffering should be alleviated, this position may not necessarily translate into adopting coherent regulatory measures to improve animal lives. Similarly, despite the massive scale of animal exploitation and the serious harms to which animals are subjected, these facts—even when buttressed by vast amounts of evidence—might not be enough to change a policymaker’s perception of the importance of this matter and the need to legislate to ensure better animal welfare. Notably, policy decisions are driven by a wide array of factors. Dynamic relationships between different stakeholders with dissimile power levels and similar or competing interests are crucial elements that shape the likelihood of success of policy and legislative changes. Individual cognitive processes are another factor that can also affect the course of a given policy proposal. In this chapter, I address the latter. First, I start by briefly exploring some evidence for the difficulties the human mind has in thinking clearly about animals, especially when their suffering should compel us to modify our behaviour. Studying our conflicted relationships with animals can shed some light on why evidence and solid information are commonly not enough to influence others, including legislators. This is addressed in the second section of the chapter. In turn, some cognitive heuristics can be used to persuade others more effectively. In the third section, a series of principles of influence are described, along with a few possible ideas for their implementation when lobbying policymakers.

Lobbying and persuasion on behalf of nonhuman animals  133 Loving and killing others The contradictions between people’s beliefs and behaviour regarding nonhuman animals have been chiefly studied in the realm of animal consumption—the so-called meat paradox. On the one hand, people dislike hurting animals and express concern over their welfare. On the other hand, people like meat and desire to eat it. The meat paradox is the dissonance between the cognition that people should not inflict suffering on animals and the behaviour of, nonetheless, indirectly harming animals in order to consume them (Loughnan et al. 2010). The meat paradox is not only a contradiction between our cognition and behaviour—it also reveals the existence of a moral conflict. If meat production inevitably violates basic animal interests, meat consumption constitutes a morally troublesome behaviour that conflicts with individual and socially held ethical principles. When this moral conflict is salient, it might threaten the individual’s identity and also some relevant social conventions. First, the moral implications of meat consumption challenge the individuals’ very self-perception of being a good person and their desire to not harm others. That is, they may not be after all the non-violent and moral person they believed themselves to be (Bastian and Loughnan 2017). Furthermore, since meat—particularly red meat—in Western societies is typically associated with masculinity, awareness of the meat paradox’s moral conflict also questions masculine men’s gender identity (Mesler et al. 2022; Rothgerber 2013; Rozin et al. 2012; Ruby and Heine 2011; Thomas 2016). Likewise, given the link between meat consumption and deeprooted social customs (e.g., celebrating holidays by eating meat), when this habit is challenged, social conventions might also be challenged. Thus, awareness of the meat paradox’s moral conflict might not just threaten an eating behaviour but also crucial aspects of the self, pertaining to both our individual and cultural identities (see Loughnan and Davies 2020). If our beliefs, culturally significant customs, or identity are threatened, individuals will experience psychological discomfort. Such unpleasantness motivates people to resolve the meat paradox. To do so, they broadly face two options: namely, giving up eating animals or dismissing the upsetting information about meat consumption. In most cases, individuals opt for the latter. That is, consumers commonly decide to continue eating animals, despite the paradox, and morally disengage from their meat consumption habit (Graça et al. 2016; see also Bandura 1999). Research shows that people successfully do so by employing an array of rationalisations to justify their meat-eating behaviour, ranging from arguing that consuming meat is natural, and therefore, morally justified, to proclaiming the health benefits of meat consumption2 (Piazza et al. 2015; see also Joy 2010). People are also prone to ascribing diminished mental capacities to farmed animals and, therefore, concluding that they do not feel as much as other animals do. Interestingly, research shows that we see those animals as mindless because we consider them to be edible, and such ideas persist despite not necessarily being backed up by evidence on animal consciousness (Bastian et al. 2012; Bratanova et al. 2011; Loughnan and Davies 2020).

134  Daniela Romero Waldhorn In sum, when running into upsetting information about our actions and animal suffering, individuals likely come up with an array of factually false claims about animals, animal farming, or the characteristics of animal products in order to reconcile their conflicting views. Given that several forms of animal exploitation pose a moral conflict that might threaten how we behave or see ourselves, individuals are more predisposed to engage in such cognitive acrobatics rather than changing their minds or behaviours. Humans are not that rational, after all Importantly, these psychological mechanisms are not exclusive to how we think and treat animals. The meat paradox, for example, is an instance of a widespread phenomenon in human psychology known as cognitive dissonance. It refers to the mental conflict arising from a misalignment between an individual’s beliefs, attitudes, or behaviours3 (Harmon-Jones and Mills 2019; see Festinger et al. 1956; Festinger 1957). The central proposition of the cognitive dissonance theory is that situations evoking incongruence produce psychological discomfort, motivating individuals to change their cognition or behaviour. Nonetheless, this change is not necessarily rational. When the belief threatened by the dissonance is too firmly held, the individual will probably not attempt to change it, but they might rather come up with new ideas that justify their initial belief or might reduce the importance of new information that challenges their views. Research shows that people react similarly to justifying their meat-eating behaviour—by, for example, appealing to straw man fallacies when debating the suffering caused by animal commodities production. It is worth noting that those who eat more meat tend to endorse more ad-hoc justifications than other people, showing that the individual’s existing behaviour influences the sort and number of rationalisations employed (Piazza et al. 2015; Rothgerber 2013). These non-rational responses to conflicting new information are not exclusive to the meat paradox, nor to cognitive dissonance phenomena. In general, individuals tend to react and reason about new knowledge and data in ways that seek to justify their previous beliefs and emotional biases. Notably, this occurs even when subjects are purposefully attempting to be objective. A classical study may better serve to illustrate this point. In a 1979 experiment, researchers recruited two groups of individuals who were, respectively, for and against capital punishment. Both groups were exposed to two purported scientific articles about the death penalty. The first paper concluded that capital punishment was effective against crime, while the second showed the opposite. Next, subjects of the two groups were asked to evaluate each scientific piece. In both cases, subjects criticised the study whose conclusions disagreed with their own more harshly while describing the paper closer to their position as more “convincing” and “probative” (2098). That is, the same body of scientific evidence was interpreted and evaluated differently, depending on the previous beliefs of the individual. Moreover, subjects’ differential assessments were based

Lobbying and persuasion on behalf of nonhuman animals  135 on seemingly objective criteria—e.g., methodological considerations, like sample sizes—although from a scientific standpoint, both papers were comparable. Thus, subjects interpreted evidence and reasoned in a biased way so as to confirm and maintain their initial position on the matter (Lord et al. 1979). This phenomenon is known as motivated reasoning. In motivated reasoning, individuals gather, assess, and produce arguments in a directionally biased manner to reach a favoured conclusion. According to Ziva Kunda (1990), “motivation may affect reasoning through reliance on a biased set of cognitive processes: strategies for accessing, constructing, and evaluating beliefs” (480). In other words, motivation influences the cognitive processes that will be used when thinking about an issue, causing the individual to reject conflicting information and hunt for arguments that validate their preexisting beliefs (see Epley and Gilovich 2016, Kunda 1990). Hence, the lesson is that individuals are not often objective and rational agents, even when they believe their conclusions are accurate and strictly logical. This conclusion has been consistently demonstrated by much abundant research on the psychology of judgement and decision-making (see, e.g., Damasio 1994; Haidt 2001; Kahan et al. 2011; Kahneman 2011; Kahneman and Tversky 2000; Kuklinski and Quirk 2000; Power et al 2019). There are no reasons to believe that policymakers are an exception. Indeed, as Lord et al. (1979) put it, we “can not expect rationality, enlightenment, and consensus about policy to emerge from their attempts to furnish ‘objective’ data about burning social issues” (2108). Rather than subjecting information to a thorough analysis—which is cognitively taxing and time-consuming—individuals tend to use judgemental heuristics. These are rules-of-thumb that can be applied to guide decision-making more quickly, based on a more limited subset of the available information, but not ensuring that the result will be the most rational option. Therefore, while well-reasoned arguments and robust evidence are necessary to make well-founded policy decisions, they are likely not enough to influence others, including legislators. In what follows, a few of these critical cognitive shortcuts are addressed and applied to persuading others, like policymakers. However, note that individual cognitive processes are not the only factor determining policymakers’ decisions. On the contrary, policy is commonly developed within a matrix of relationships with other stakeholders, in a dynamic game where each of them is trying to meet their own interests—including those of industries that directly benefit from animal use. Furthermore, policy-related decisions are typically the result of collective processes, which, in turn, can be susceptible to other biases and incentives (see Esser 1998; McCaughey and Bruning 2010; Tetlock et al. 1992; Vis 2019). Note that these latter factors are not addressed here, but I rather focus on strategies to induce individual compliance. Six principles of persuasion Robert Cialdini is widely considered the seminal expert in the psychology of persuasion. This social psychologist is best known for his book Influence: The

136  Daniela Romero Waldhorn Psychology of Persuasion, which reviews a wide array of critical theories and empirical research on the psychology of influencing others. Such findings are summarised into six principles of persuasion posed by the author. In what follows, Cialdini’s (2007) six principles4 are presented, along with their potential applicability for lobbying when animal suffering is involved. These principles shall be interpreted as guiding recommendations for increasing the persuasiveness of messages about how animals are treated and requests to address animal suffering. These rules might be well applied to policymakers, while they can also be implemented when influencing other audiences. However, it should be noted that while these principles contribute to increasing the chances of getting others to comply with a specific proposal, they do not necessarily affect how animals are morally considered. The latter is a different and particularly complex matter that is beyond the scope of this chapter, addressed by the ethicists authoring the chapters in the second part of this volume. Principle 1: Reciprocation

According to Cialdini (2007, 17), there is a common trait in different human cultures—namely, reciprocation and the sense of obligation that goes with it. For several reasons, there is a shared and firmly held norm that we should try to repay, in kind, what another person has provided for us across different human cultures. So, for example, if someone does us a favour, we feel compelled to do them one in return. Similarly, if someone gives us a birthday gift, we will probably feel the social obligation to do the same when it is their birthday. Those interested in influencing others can use this social need for reciprocity. To accomplish this, the part attempting to persuade others should create a social obligation towards them. Therefore, they should first act by providing the recipient with an unrequested unexpected favour or gift. A classical experiment can help illustrate how this behaviour can elicit positive responses from others. In a study, subjects were invited to participate in an aesthetics exercise with a partner. The partner was actually an assistant to the researcher. During the experiment, the assistant would leave the room for a short break and return with two sodas—one for themselves and another one for the subject. In the control condition, the assistant simply returned after the break with no soft drinks. Once the experiment was over, the assistant would ask the subject if they would be interested in buying lottery tickets from them. Notably, the individuals who had been given the soda—although they did not request it—felt a sense of obligation to repay the assistant and purchased twice as many tickets as the subjects who had not received a drink from the assistant (Regan 1971). A more subtle way to employ the technique is known as reciprocal concessions. In this technique, the exploiter of the rule would start with a demand they would intimately acknowledge as extreme, not expecting the other party to agree with it. However, they would use it as a point they would retreat from in a seeming concession to the opposing side. As the other party would not accept the large initial request, they would reduce it, trying to appear as if they were doing the other party

Lobbying and persuasion on behalf of nonhuman animals  137 a favour. The other side would then have the impression that there was a concession, feeling more compelled to accept the more moderate requests (Cialdini 2007). Some might think that the greater the initial demand, the more effective this technique would operate. However, research has demonstrated this is not the case. On the contrary: [I]f the first set of demands is so extreme as to be seen as unreasonable, the tactic backfires. In such cases, the party who has made the extreme first request is not seen to be bargaining in good faith. Any subsequent retreat from that wholly unrealistic initial position is not viewed as a genuine concession and this is not reciprocated. (Cialdini 2007, 40) This point might be of particular interest to animal advocates, who might be tempted to demand radical political changes that can not only be unsuccessful but may also harm their credibility and reputation as reasonable political stakeholders. Principle 2: Commitment and consistency

As Festinger’s research on cognitive dissonance illustrates (see Festinger et al. 1956; Festinger 1957), people need to be consistent—incongruencies between cognitions and/or behaviours are psychologically uncomfortable. Humans’ strong drive to appear and act in a way that supports their previous decisions and behaviours is cognitively efficient. It allows individuals to behave without having to think over again about how to deal with complex situations and avoids the psychological stress of possibly troubling realisations (Cialdini 2007). Furthermore, consistency is socially valued and adaptative. As Cialdini (2007, 60) puts it, “a high degree of consistency is normally associated with personal and intellectual strength” and also with stability and reliability. Thus, both individual and social factors incentivise humans to behave in ways that are consistent with their prior statements and actions. As a result, when people have made a commitment, they will feel particularly compelled to act in a way that justifies such commitment, no matter if, later on, it turns out not to be the most rational way to act. Therefore, to use this psychological mechanism as an influence tool, it is crucial to generate a commitment from the other party, preferably starting with a commitment to a small request. Once the other side complies with the minor request, a related larger request is made. Due to the need for consistency, if the person already accepted the minor request, they are more likely to comply with the more demanding one. This use of humans’ need for consistency is well-known by business organisations. It is commonly applied as the foot-in-the-door technique and is reflected in the saying that if you “give them an inch, they’ll take a mile” (Freedman and Fraser 1966, 195). Jonathan Freedman and Scott Fraser (1966) were the first to provide a rigorous test of this technique. In an experiment, the researchers contacted two groups of

138  Daniela Romero Waldhorn homeowners, asking them to place a big sign that read “drive carefully” in their yard. Members of one of the two groups were previously requested to place a much smaller sign in one of their house windows reading “be a safe driver”—almost everyone had accepted that request. When this group was asked to place the “drive carefully” sign, two-thirds of them accepted (76%). In contrast, fewer than 20% of the second group agreed to put the large sign on their lawn. Patricia Pliner and colleagues (1974) replicated the technique in a different experiment. In this case, a group of people was asked to wear a Canadian Cancer Society pin. The researchers found that those who accepted this initial request were significantly more likely to donate to the charity (74%) than those who were not asked to wear the pin in the first place (46%). This technique works as long as the commitments affect people’s self-image (Cialdini 2007, 74; Freedman and Fraser 1966; Pliner et al. 1974). Signing a letter or publicly endorsing a legislative petition to ban the use of cages in animal farming is, for example, a sort of ask that alters one’s self-perception—supporters would see themselves as the kind of person who cares about farmed animal welfare. And once justifications to support the initial commitment are made, individuals are commonly willing to commit themselves further (Cialdini 2007). Those lobbying to protect nonhuman animals should also consider that commitments that are made public have additional power in influencing someone’s—e.g., a policymaker’s—behaviour. Additionally, it should be noted that people are more compelled to accept a commitment if they believe they have chosen to perform it rather than if they see themselves as merely conforming to external pressure (Cialdini 2007, 81–97). Principle 3: Social proof

Humans are particularly likely to be influenced by social consensus information (see e.g., Cialdini 2007; Cialdini et al. 1999; Festinger 1954; MacCoun 2012). Therefore, people are prone to model their behaviour according to how others act. This psychological phenomenon is known as social proof, the consensus principle or informational social influence, and is noticeable in ambiguous or uncertain social circumstances. Particularly, when an individual finds themselves in a situation in which they are unsure about the best way to behave, they will tend to assume that others surrounding them have further information and know how to best act. As a result, the individual will watch others for clues and imitate them, leading to conforming to others’ behaviours (Cialdini 2007; Cialdini et al. 1999; Cialdini and Goldstein 2004). Thanks to social proof, people’s actions might be more efficiently influenced by appealing to how others behave (descriptive norms) rather than appealing to arguments on what is considered socially acceptable or to be disapproved (injunctive norms) (Cialdini et al. 2006; Goldstein et al. 2008). This might be of particular interest to animal advocates, who commonly rely exclusively on injunctive and moral norms, forgetting that humans often do not behave how they should, even when they predicate to endorse those norms.

Lobbying and persuasion on behalf of nonhuman animals  139 Experiments attempting to encourage hotel guests to reuse their towels have demonstrated the power of the consensus principle and descriptive norms at work (Goldstein et al. 2008; Reese et al. 2014; Schultz et al. 2008). Evidence has revealed that informing guests that most hotel visitors reuse their towels when requested is significantly more effective in promoting the desired behaviour than solely referring to the environmental benefits of towel reuse. If animal advocates would like to apply this rule, they may more effectively influence policymakers by showing that a request at stake is widely socially supported—if that is the case. Because of the same principle, they should be careful when deciding how to communicate an undesired behaviour they may be attempting to change. For instance, a message that emphasises how common a practice harmful to animals is may contribute to normalising the very actions activists are trying to stop (see Cialdini et al. 2006). Furthermore, studies about the promotion of hotel towel reuse have demonstrated that guests seemed to be mainly influenced by the descriptive-norm message when it referred to the reusing behaviour of other travellers staying in the same room (Goldstein et al. 2008). As will be explained below, when others are perceived as similar to the individual (e.g., a previous guest in the same room), the subject is more inclined to use others’ actions as a guide to their own behaviour—that is, social proof effects are fostered by similarity (Cialdini 2007, 140–156; Goldstein et al. 2008). It should be noted that the fact that others reuse hotel towels is not a solid reason to conclude that such behaviour is socially or morally desirable. While imitating the behaviour of others might be convenient in some circumstances, social proof— as a kind of conformity—can also lead to poor individual or group choices and behaviour (see, e.g., Asch 1956; Sherif 1935; Turner and Pratkanis 1998). Principle 4: Liking

As part of fundamental human motivation to affiliate with others, individuals use approval and liking cues to create and sustain meaningful social relationships. One of the implications of the above is that the more a subject likes and approves of others, the more likely they are to take action to cultivate close relationships with them. As a result, individuals are more predisposed to responding affirmatively to requests for help from those they know and like (Cialdini 2007; Cialdini and Goldstein 2004). Given this heuristic association between liking those with whom we have an existing relationship and the tendency to help them, people might respond similarly to requests from total strangers they like, despite no meaningful relationship. According to Cialdini (2007), several factors reliably cause a person to be considered “more likeable” by others and accept their requests as if they were friends or acquaintances. These are briefly described in what follows. First, similarity. Greater perceived similarity in different areas, even if they are superficial—like shared names, dressing styles, or backgrounds—tend to make individuals more liked by others. In addition, receiving a compliment from someone has also proven to produce interpersonal liking and willing compliance.

140  Daniela Romero Waldhorn By the same token, physical attractiveness is another well-known factor that induces liking and favours individuals in various situations, ranging from job interviews to receiving help when in need (Cialdini 2007; Cialdini and Goldstein 2004). Individuals may also be more predisposed to like someone or a statement if that person or claim is associated with positive elements, like eating (i.e., conditioning and association). So, for example, taking legislators or policymakers to enjoy a meal at a comfortable and fancy restaurant and presenting them one’s arguments while eating (not before or after) is a well-known tactic used by lobbyists—the so-called “luncheon technique” (see Razran 1940). Another factor that produces interpersonal liking and increases the chances of influencing others is contact and cooperation. Interacting regularly with someone makes them familiar, and people are more predisposed to comply with a request from someone they are familiar with. However, for contact to have such an effect, it should take place in positive conditions, particularly in cooperative circumstances. The “Good-Cop/Bad-Cop” negotiation tactic may be a good example of this (Cialdini 2007). In this technique, two teams employ opposing approaches to obtain something from an individual—originally, a confession. While the “bad cop” assails the target subject and adopts an aggressive and hostile approach towards them, the “good cop” acts rather sympathetically and, in contrast with the “bad cop”, appears to be rational and understanding. Given that the “good cop” plays the role of protecting the target individual from the “bad cop’s” accusatory conduct and threats, the subject tends to like them. As a result, the individual is prone to cooperate with the “good cop” and accede to their requests (Brodt and Tuchinsky 2000). This negotiation tactic was originally developed to obtain confessions in police interrogations. However, it is widely used in other contexts, including by animal organisations attempting to influence policy decisions. For example, while a team might confront policymakers by organising protests and making hostile public declarations, the other team might try to discuss and assuage the legislators’ concerns about the proposal at issue, show a willingness to make concessions and emphasise the benefits of accepting their request. In light of the “bad cop” team hostility, policymakers may prefer the “good cop” approach. They will be more willing to accept the requests from the latter to stop the “bad cop’s” confrontational public campaign. For this technique to work, the two teams should act in coordination. By employing different approaches, both teams may obtain different information, which should be shared to adjust each team’s negotiation strategy and subsequent requests to policymakers (Brodt and Tuchinsky 2000). Principle 5: Authority

Commonly, obeying authority figures is advantageous. Ever since childhood, individuals have typically learned that authority figures (e.g., parents and teachers) know better than they do, and obeying them consistently proves to be beneficial— whether because the authority’s instructions or advice were correct or to avoid punishment. Later in life, positions of authority are similarly associated with having

Lobbying and persuasion on behalf of nonhuman animals  141 access to knowledge and power. Therefore, authority figures’ opinions, advice, and directives continue to provide valuable and quick shortcuts for deciding how to appropriately behave in a given situation without having to think much about it (Cialdini 2007). Since obedience to authority is primarily rewarding, individuals tend to acritically follow authority figures’ instructions or advice, even when complying with such dictates is irrational and objectionable (Cialdini 2007). Indeed, Stanley Milgram’s (1974) groundbreaking research demonstrated that individuals obey authoritative instructions even when they oppose the orders they are supposed to follow. Moreover, Milgram (1974) also showed that the mere appearance of authority is enough to elicit compliance. In this line of reasoning, Cialdini (2007) highlights that outward signs of power and authority increase the chances of influencing others, even in the absence of evidence of legitimate authority. Titles (for example, that of ‘professor’) and appropriate clothing are common authority symbols that can trigger compliance from others. For instance, a well-tailored suit in Western societies evokes business authority and status. As a result, men dressed in a business suit are more likely to elicit obedience from strangers, even in circumstances where such a supposed status is irrelevant. Similarly, trappings like jewellery are also socially associated with high status and might contribute to influencing others. Animal advocates may consider these status cues when lobbying policymakers. Additionally, they should consider that individuals are more likely to be influenced by authority figures that are or, at least, seem to have no interests at stake with the compliance of a request. By collaborating with experts who are or should be impartial authorities in a field (e.g., academics), animal advocates’ arguments will probably gain further trustworthiness and, thus, influence in the eyes of legislators. Principle 6: Scarcity

According to the scarcity principle, opportunities are perceived as more valuable when their availability is limited. Such an effect is greatly driven by the role of potential loss in human decision-making. In other words, people seem to be more influenced to act in a certain way by the fear of losing rather than by the possibility of gaining (Cialdini 2007, 238, 239). As a result, the perspective of losing access to an asset, service, or information will increase its perceived attractiveness and desirability. Perceived scarcity acts as a persuasive mechanism due to two main factors. First, it relies on the assumption that if something is difficult to possess, it is probably better and more valuable than other items that are more accessible. Second, perceived scarcity also acts as an influencing approach due to its association with a well-known phenomenon of human psychology called reactance (Cialdini 2007, 244–256). Psychological reactance is “an unpleasant motivational arousal that emerges when people experience a threat to or loss of their free behaviors” (Steindl et al. 2015, 205). It results from circumstances in which people are unable to freely

142  Daniela Romero Waldhorn choose or, at least, they perceive their freedom might be threatened—for example, by being pressured to accept a given idea. Individuals will likely respond with reactance, disliking the request, and also feeling hostile or angry. Moreover, reactance will act as a motivation to restore one’s threatened freedom. Behaviourally, individuals might attempt to exhibit the very same restricted behaviour, causing a boomerang effect. Cognitively, individuals may derogate the imposed option, the source of threat, or value even more the restricted behaviour (Brehm and Brehm 2013; Dillard and Shen 2005; Miron and Brehm 2006; Steindl et al. 2015). For example, a teenager might drink more excessively when this behaviour is strictly prohibited than they would do in an environment with less restrictive norms about alcohol consumption. Research has demonstrated that certain requests, like encouraging people to eat less meat, might cause reactance (Chang 2021; Spelt et al. 2019; Vaan 2018). Animal advocates should be careful in causing such an effect. Since reactance is more likely to take place around high involvement issues (Ghazali et al. 2018), asking to limit other practices involving animals related to individual or social identities may also cause reactance more easily. By assuring that freedom of choice is preserved and the threat to such freedom is only subtle and indirect, advocates will probably limit the chances of causing reactance and a boomerang effect (Brehm and Brehm 2013; Vaan 2018; See also Chang 2021). Reactance plays a crucial role in boosting the effect of perceived scarcity. “When our freedom to have something is limited, the item becomes less available, and we experience an increased desire for it” (Cialdini 2007, 251). Such motivation also translates into assigning the item more positive qualities than before. This happens not only with commodities but also applies to information. Information censorship typically causes the effect of the public wanting the information more than before and finding it more compelling. Similarly, the perception of information being scarce makes pieces of exclusive information to be valued as more persuasive (Cialdini 2007; see also Brock and Brannon 1992). Salespersons commonly apply the perception of scarcity to boost sales. Some common examples include creating the impression of a shortage of a product and deadlines (e.g., last chance to get a benefit or “limited time only” claims) (Cialdini 2007). Animal advocates may consider some of these techniques to, for example, encourage people to sign a petition—framed as “an urgent, unique opportunity” to help animals. However, they should not do so when such statements are false and can lead the public to feel manipulated. Conclusion Animal exploitation poses a serious moral conflict that challenges our identity and socially held ethical values. However, through the process of dissonance reduction, the morally problematic ways we treat animals can apparently disappear. Similarly, social habits and customs normalise several of these troublesome practices, exempting them from serious questioning and making them highly resistant to change.

Lobbying and persuasion on behalf of nonhuman animals  143 In this chapter, some of the individual cognitive processes that make it hard to think straight about animals were reviewed. While these mental heuristics speed up our thinking and decision-making, in some cases, they also lead to inconsistent and non-rational judgements. However, these shortcuts can also be applied to influence others. As explained, Cialdini’s six principles of persuasion can help reduce policymakers’ psychological reactance and contribute to shaping more persuasive messages, mainly to get them to comply with a specific policy request. However, this approach may not be enough to challenge more profound beliefs about nonhuman animals’ moral standing. Summary • Our attitudes towards animals are complex and contradictory. An example is the meat paradox—people disliking hurting animals but eat them. • Humans are more incentivised to protect their individual and social identity rather than to act in rationally righteous ways. Thus, when confronted with the meat paradox or other unease information that ultimately questions their identity, they are more prone to justify their behaviours rather than change their minds. • As a result, well-reasoned arguments and evidence may not be enough to influence others, including policymakers. • Cognitive heuristics can help in persuading others more effectively. Cialdini (2007) proposes six principles that can be applied when lobbying on behalf of animals: • Reciprocation: People tend to feel an obligation to return favours, even when a favour is unrequested. • Commitment and consistency: When individuals make a commitment, they feel compelled to act consistently with it. This commitment effect persists when the initial reasons for the commitment are removed. • Social proof: Particularly in ambiguous social situations, individuals tend to watch others for clues and imitate their behaviour. • Liking: People are more easily persuaded by other people that they like. Several factors cause someone to be perceived as “more likable.” • Authority: Individuals tend to follow authority figures’ instructions or advice, even if their dictates are objectionable. • Scarcity: Perceived scarcity of an asset, service, or information will increase its perceived attractiveness and desirability. Notes 1 For more information, see their website: www.pigcasso.org. 2 According to Piazza et al. (2015), the most common rationalisation is the idea that eating meat is necessary, that is, that humans need it to stay healthy. Other justifications are that eating meat is natural (e.g., “humans are carnivores” or “humans were meant to dominate animals”), nice (e.g., “meat is too good to give up”) and normal (e.g., “everyone eats meat”), which together make up what is known as the “4 N’s” of meat consumption.

144  Daniela Romero Waldhorn

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9

Speciesism and persuasion A conclusion Oscar Horta, Núria Almiron and Dayrón Terán

Introduction As we have seen in this volume, efforts to promote the number of ways in which nonhuman animals are used as resources by human activities, severely harming them in the process, are numerous. Despite this, an increasing societal concern for animals is progressively starting to challenge the use of animals. This is a result of both the cumulative scientific evidence of nonhuman animals’ capacity for sentience and the growing moral consideration given to nonhuman animals in our societies. Different indicators provide proof of this, including an increase in the number of people who choose to use products that are not the result of animal exploitation and those who join or support animal organisations as well as of efforts directed at helping animals in need of help. One such indicator can be found in academia. It consists in the fact that animal ethics—the branch of ethics that reflects on the moral consideration of animals and how they ought to be treated—has developed as a fast-expanding scholarly field worldwide and is currently addressing all forms of relationships between human and nonhuman animals, including animal rights, animal welfare, animal law, animal cognition, animal suffering, and animal sentience, among others, together with speciesism and human exceptionalism. The strength of animal ethics has gone beyond work on moral and political philosophy and permeated other fields of the social sciences, humanities and natural sciences, bringing about new areas of research and reflection from a varied number of perspectives—including animal studies, human–animal studies and critical animal studies, for instance. Such studies have often been carried out from a critical perspective, with the aim of examining in what ways our different relations with nonhuman animals are conditioned by speciesist biases, or the implications of these (Albersmeier 2021; Bernstein 2015; Dunayer 2004; Giroux 2020; Horta and Albersmeier 2020; Ryder 2010 [1970]; Singer 2015 [1975]; Sapontzis 1987). Research in the aforementioned fields has argued that it is not morally acceptable to put nonhuman animals through situations that can cause them mental or physical harm (Andrew 2020; Cavalieri 2001; Clark 1984 [1977]; Dhont and Hodson 2020; Francione 2000; Regan 2004 [1983]). Also, work on animal suffering for natural reasons has recently started to be developed in the natural sciences, and there are good reasons to think it will continue to grow DOI: 10.4324/9781003324065-17

150  Oscar Horta et al. (Animal Ethics 2020a; Faria 2023; Faria and Horta 2019; Hecht 2021; Johannsen 2020; Soryl et al. 2021). This progress in academia has come together with significant changes in the ways society views nonhuman animals now. The number of people involved in or supporting animal advocacy organisations or initiatives aimed at defending them in different ways has increased dramatically in recent years. Action for animals is much more visible in the media, and political parties are increasingly taking the issue into account as one of public concern. In some countries, political action has led to bans on certain ways in which animals are exploited (one of the best examples of this is Colombia, where both hunting and sport fishing have been banned on the basis of arguments appealing to the interests of animals themselves, and where at the time of completing this book there are several vegan congress members) (CNN Español 2019; El Universo 2022). In addition to the above, the number of vegans has also boomed in recent decades (Wunsch 2021), and not only in certain countries or regions, but internationally. Even the very word vegan, which was virtually unknown not long ago, is now well known in many countries. It is safe to say that in many places, most people now know someone who is a vegan. Most vegans are not involved in animal advocacy, of course. But their presence is a symptom of efforts by animal advocates to spread concern about animal exploitation. Finally, concern for animal suffering in nature due to non-anthropogenic reasons has also increased in recent years, with different organisations working on this, and different initiatives being pursued to help them (Animal Ethics 2020a, 2020b; New York University 2022; Wild Animal Initiative 2022). All of the above reflects the fact that many people nowadays have an attitude of concern towards animals. All other things being equal, they would prefer animals not to be harmed and for them to be able to lead happy lives. There is, therefore, a divergence between this attitude and widespread support for the use of animals, leaving a kind of cognitive dissonance (Festinger 1957) not only at the individual level, but in society as a whole. Supporting animal exploitation activities requires accepting at the same time that, even if they are worthy of moral consideration, nonhuman animals, nevertheless, deserve less consideration than humans. This explains why large amounts of resources have been invested to counter the efforts made to promote the moral consideration for nonhuman animals. The aim of this significant investment has been to counterbalance the aforementioned cognitive dissonance and the compassionate attitudes that struggle within it. It has been done through communication strategies designed and implemented by advertising and public relations professionals on the payroll of stakeholders interested in increasing public support for animal exploitation. In fact, we believe it is not inaccurate to state that, at present, a large proportion of the persuasive efforts funded by such stakeholders are invested in manufacturing public consent for animal exploitation. The investment mentioned above has been made by individual actors and industries involved in activities that are harmful for nonhuman animals, as they have

Speciesism and persuasion: a conclusion  151 an interest in continuing to engage in such activities, whether for profit or other aims. In this book, the term animal-industrial complex (AIC) has been used to designate these stakeholders, that is, the individuals and industries engaged in institutionalised activities that harm animals. This term, as defined in the first chapter, describes the main corporate stakeholders involved in animal suffering, which are the most intensive users of public relations and strategic communication promoting support for animal exploitation. That being said, it is also worth mentioning that the term may not be completely accurate to identify all stakeholders using public relations to promote businesses that harm other animals, since not all of the groups involved in the use of animals do so in industrial ways. Many forms of animal exploitation follow traditional ways without using industrial methods, and those who engage in them also defend them using the same form of public communication as those involved in the industrial use of animals. But make no mistake, these traditional forms of exploiting animals are by no means innocuous; rather, they are very harmful to the animals they use and are also challenged by arguments in defence of the moral consideration of animals. Furthermore, not all of those interested in and actively supporting animal exploitation are in the business of selling animal products and services either. Consider hunters’ associations, for instance. Although most do not directly benefit from hunting-related businesses, they are among the most influential and vociferous lobby groups striving to keep the use of animals as resources unchallenged, in spite of the animal suffering involved in hunting. Note also that in the case of animals living outside human direct control, it is not only businesses that are among those who support public relations favouring the killing of animals, but also environmentalists, who are not an industry but part of a social movement. Finally, the different stakeholders comprising the AIC do not always share the same interests or collaborate together in their promotional efforts (different animal industries can compete for customers), while some industries may also find allies outside their business boundaries (such as the example mentioned of environmentalists supporting environmental management measures that kill animals, for instance). At any rate, something that all these diverse groups interested in the use of animals do have in common is that, if successful, the public relations campaigns they conduct can allow activities harming animals to continue with the public’s acquiescence. This means that many more animals will be killed and caused suffering. That is, the world in which we live will contain much greater amounts of animal death and suffering in the future. Given the above panorama, the authors in this volume have discussed and challenged the public relations efforts of the main industries constituting what has been identified as the AIC that exploit, and therefore cause suffering to, nonhuman animals. In this final chapter, we discuss how such efforts can be challenged from a general viewpoint. We will first explain why they can be adequately described not just as persuasion efforts, but as instances of manipulation. We will then go on to argue that the main reason why they are morally objectionable is the fact that they promote harm suffered by nonhuman animals.

152  Oscar Horta et al. Not just persuasion but manipulation Anyone owning a certain business, engaged in a certain activity or promoting a certain policy would like to present what they do in the best light. On the face of it, it would seem legitimate for everyone to defend their own interests. It is therefore understandable that in their communication efforts, the individual actors and organisations involved in the use of animals as resources, or in other ways of harming them, make an effort to put their activities in the best, rather than the worst, possible light. Furthermore, moving others to agree with you, or support and not oppose you, through persuasion can be fine. There may be nothing morally problematic with persuasion per se, at least in the ways in which it is typically understood. For instance, in the Britannica Dictionary persuading is defined as the “act of causing people to do or believe something”, and in Merriam-Webster as moving “by argument, entreaty, or expostulation to a belief, position, or course of action”. Doing such things is not immoral, and can actually be highly desirable, when you persuade someone to abandon wrong beliefs or to accept better reasoned moral views. In other cases, it need not be harmful even when the act or persuasion does not lead its target (the receivers of the communication) to make better decisions. Of course, this will not be the case if persuation does wrong to others, which can occur in different ways. Therefore, there are many other circumstances in which persuasion can be morally problematic. One of them is by misleading the public or leading them to make worse decisions. Ethical persuasion needs to be honest and not purposefully hide relevant facts, which crucially influences the success of the persuasion (Marlin 2013). In addition, persuasion communication theorists have identified other ethically questionable frames that have been revealed as being used by the animal exploitation industries in this volume (Geise and Coleman 2016): negative emotional framing (promoting fear, as in animal experimentation lobbying); individual responsibility framing (according to which individuals are responsible for their own decisions, e.g. buying meat, while the roles of society, government, interests groups, the media, etc. are overlooked); and stereotype priming (framing arguments in a way that resonate with pre-existing public ideas about something, such as human superiority, for instance). Typically, no manipulation is considered to have taken place when both poles in the communication flow (emitter and receiver) have benefitted from a particular message, even if there is a persuasive attempt from the emitter (Grunig and Todd 1984). For manipulation to occur, we would argue that the following conditions need to apply to a successful strategic communication endorsed by the emitter: i The emitter will benefit (at least on expectation) from such a strategic communication; ii Receivers, on the other hand, will not benefit from it; iii Receivers will wrongly believe that they will also benefit from it; and  iv The emitter is aware when implementing the communication strategy, that conditions (i–iii) will be met.

Speciesism and persuasion: a conclusion  153 There are reasons to conclude that these conditions apply in the case of communication efforts supporting the use of nonhuman animals. This is especially true given three courses of action that, in our view, characterise such efforts: silencing exposure of the situation surrounding animals; spreading the idea that those harming animals are actually concerned about them; and casting doubt on the claims made by animal advocates. Silencing exposure regarding the situation surrounding animals

Public relations promoting the use of animals is often presented as aimed at making the public more knowledgeable about topics involved in the use of nonhuman animals. If this were so, it need not qualify as manipulation, even if it were accompanied by arguments supporting the legitimacy of the use of animals. For this narrative to be correct, what should we expect from its communication strategy? An open, honest, and truly informative presentation of the industry should include not only an account of the benefits that the use of animals might provide but also of the costs it has for the animals themselves. That is, it should also include a sufficiently detailed and documented presentation of the ways they are used and of the harms these practices cause them. However, although it is apparent that those conducting public relations favouring practices harmful for animals provide very detailed explanations of the former, and that arguing in favour of the benefits to humans of using animals seems to be their main goal, they never address the latter, that is, the harms inflicted on the exploited animals. This is not due to ignorance, which would be extremely odd: public relations practitioners working for the animal exploitation industries identified as the AIC should have a deep knowledge of the activities that the industries they represent are engaged in, or they would not be able to do their work adequately. They must therefore be aware of the ways and the extent to which these practices are harmful to animals. The fact that such harms are never addressed in the communications promoting activities that harm animals means that their communicators are choosing not to communicate them. In fact, it would seem that the public is only familiar with the harms suffered by animals in these industries as a result of the activities conducted by animal advocates. The latter are the sole interest group working to increase the public’s awareness of animal suffering. And not only that: they do so without any collaboration from the industry itself. Quite the contrary: their efforts are actually met with strong opposition from the AIC. As a matter of fact, the industries that comprise the AIC have in some cases pushed for legal action aimed at impeding such information ever reaching the public (the clearest example of this being ag-gag laws, i.e., anti-whistle-blower laws). That is, it is not that the industries are not providing this information because they prefer to focus their messaging on something else, but rather that they take significant action to conceal it. The AIC industries are therefore set on minimising the public’s knowledge of the situation of nonhuman animals. Likewise, when animals are harmed in actions aimed at attaining a certain environmentalist goal, this is typically done in hidden rather than open ways.

154  Oscar Horta et al. Spreading the idea that those harming animals actually have concern for them

A large part of public relations in defence of the use of animals consists in assuring the public that those exploiting or using nonhuman animals as a resource have concern for the interests of such animals. This especially occurs when they claim they are committed to animal welfare. What such claims mean is not that they take into account all the interests of animals, but that they try in some way to reduce the harms that the animals suffer as a result of their use that are not intrinsic to that use. That is, those harms that can be eliminated without eliminating the use itself. For instance, killing animals is a harm that is intrinsic to their use for the production of food and leather from their bodies, although causing them suffering is not (despite the fact that, in practice, it is virtually impossible to kill animals without causing them suffering), while causing suffering to animals is intrinsic to their use in circuses, while killing them is not. This is a clever strategy adopted by those supporting animal exploitation: if a given animal industry really wanted to reduce the harms animals suffer that are intrinsic to their use, it would challenge its own existence. Accordingly, any improvement in the situation of animals can only be made by the industry in ways that reduce other possible harms. Whether a certain harm is intrinsic or not to a certain human use of that animal has nothing to do with how significant the harm is. The distinction is therefore irrelevant from the point of view of animal welfare. Both dying and significant suffering are very severe harms. Alleviating one of them while not the other is not going to mean that the animals’ welfare is taken care of. Not to mention the fact that such alleviations are typically very minor; that is, they do not eliminate non-intrinsic harms, but only reduce them in rather minor ways (Francione 2000; Haynes 2008; Horta 2022; Wrenn 2015). For their part, environmental management activities that are harmful to animals, as well as a lack of concern for the animals involved, are often presented as if they were actually beneficial for them by giving the impression that concern for species conservation is a concern for individual animals (see, for instance, WWF 2000). This is clearly incorrect for the reasons outlined by the authors of this volume. Casting doubt on the claims of animal advocates

If those involved in animal exploitation were really concerned about promoting the welfare of animals, they would be working in close collaboration with animal advocates. However, as we have indicated above, this does not happen. Rather, minimising the success of animal advocacy is one of the key goals of public relations in support of animal exploitation. To this end, another important strategy consists in leading the public to reject the claims made by animal advocates. Casting doubt has been one of the most important communication strategies of countermovements since the mid-20th century, used abundantly by the tobacco industry first, and later by the oil and food industries, the latter to delay climate action, for instance (Oreskes and Conway 2010). There is a reason why the animal industry does this. While those supporting the use of animals advocate what is convenient for the industry, the same is not true of

Speciesism and persuasion: a conclusion  155 those advocating for animals. The aim of the latter is to make the situation better not for themselves but for nonhuman animals. Their motivation is driven by a concern regarding what happens to vulnerable sentient beings and not by an interest in profit or pleasure that can harm others. All other things being equal, this makes their claims much more credible. Public relations seeking to ensure that the public continues to see the use of animals as perfectly acceptable must therefore challenge the credibility of animal advocates. For instance, this strategy has been adopted by environmentalists supporting disregard for animals, researchers using animal testin and animal farmers, who have often accused people who defend animals of being scientifically uninformed and not aware of the principles of the science of ecology, experimental science or animal husbandry. This is wrong: animal advocates are well informed in all of these areas, in fact, but want to apply these insights not for the industry’s goals, but to change the situation of animals as individuals. In light of the three features mentioned above, we can conclude that public relations practitioners defending activities that harm animals are not being honest about their true motives, and that such public relations practices are not implemented in honest ways either. Their goal is not to help the public to make more informed decisions concerning the use of animals. Rather the opposite: they aim for the public to only take certain considerations into account (those aligned with the interests of the animal industries and the groups interested in using animals as resources) in their decision-making, and not to take any other reasons relevant for such decisions into account. This is in accordance with the actual end goal of public relations in support of animal exploitation, which is to make it possible for certain stakeholders to benefit from activities that involve animals, either by motivating consumers to use animal products or services or by stopping actions aimed at impeding or banning practices harmful to animals. A strong case can thus be made that the communications tactics used to defend harming animals are not just instances of persuasion, but ones of actual manipulation. Furthermore, it can be argued that the account of manipulation we have presented above actually bears a close resemblance to propaganda. According to a widely accepted account such as Marlin’s, propaganda consists of “practices that mislead people, that get them to do things they would not do were they adequately informed” (2013, 3), and affects “belief of action or inculcate attitudes in a large audience in ways that circumvent or suppress an individual’s adequately informed, rational, reflective judgement” (ibid., 12). There is only one caveat here: propaganda is considered to be an organised attempt at manipulation. Although there are features of propaganda that public relations in support of animal exploitation fulfil, we are not in a situation to actually state that this is what is happening in the case of all public relations supporting animal exploitation, as in order to do that we should be able to demonstrate that such manipulation is the result of an organised communication effort by the whole industry and the groups interested in it. Thus, even though they may lead us to think this could well be the case, the evidence and arguments presented in this book may not be enough to categorically affirm this, given the lack of stronger and more direct proof to substantiate it.

156  Oscar Horta et al. On the need for public relations to reject speciesism What we have seen in this volume indicates that public relations efforts to support activities that harm animals are also morally objectionable in another, much more significant, way. This is because persuasion need not be an instance of manipulation to be wrong. It can still be morally unacceptable if it harms not the receivers of the message, but other individuals. This can happen if the following conditions apply to a certain strategic communication:  i The emitter will (at least on expectation) benefit from such a strategic communication; ii Receivers will also (at least on expectation) benefit from such a strategic communication; iii Other individuals will be harmed by it in ways that outweigh the benefits that can be expected for the emitter and receivers of the communication; and iv The emitter is aware when implementing the communication strategy that condition (iii) will be met. The reasons presented in this volume indicate that conditions (iii) and (iv) do in fact occur in the case of public relations efforts promoting animal exploitation. This means that even if condition (ii) were met, persuading the public that harming animals is morally fine would be wrong. And this does not change even if condition (ii) is not met. We must note here that in exchange for harming nonhuman animals by using them, humans obtain benefits whose magnitude is usually considerably smaller than the harm involved. Moreover, as mentioned above, even if these were greater, they would not be considered justified if they were to be inflicted upon human beings rather than members of other species. Needless to say, contemporary societies would never accept the use of human beings in the ways nonhuman animals are used for entertainment, experimentation, food, and other purposes, or human populations being managed as we manage nonhuman animals in nature for the pursuit of our own goals. Therefore, how we treat other animals can be considered a practical expression of anthropocentrism, that is, the worse consideration or treatment of those who are not human beings. Anthropocentrism may be defended in different ways. In some cases, it is simply assumed that human interests are more important than those any nonhuman animal may have (Diamond 1991; Posner 2004) by mere definition, or for reasons beyond any possible empirical assessment, such as religious claims (Harrison 1989; Reichmann 2000). But these kinds of positions cannot be considered sound. They either assume in their premises the same conclusion they want to reach, or are simply stating such a desired conclusion without providing any kind of argument to back it up. In fact, it can be argued that mere membership of a certain species (such as our own) is not relevant to determine who should be considered and who should not, and the same is true of any kind of criterion not open to verification (Animal Ethics 2020a; Horta 2022).

Speciesism and persuasion: a conclusion  157 Despite the above, those who defend anthropocentrism might argue that it is not mere species membership, but other characteristics, expressed by all human beings, that confer consideration. It could be argued, for instance, that complex cognitive capacities make human beings morally distinctive (Carruthers 1992; Leahy 1991). Or that humans have some kind of special relationship with one another that they do not have with other animals (Narveson 1987; Petrinovich 1999). However, at least two objections exist in this regard. Firstly, it can be argued that these are irrelevant criteria, like species membership, since individuals with a lower level of intelligence or with less significant relationships could equally be harmed or benefitted. And secondly, even if this were relevant, it just so happens that there are human beings who do not meet such criteria. To start with, not all humans possess complex cognitive capacities. In fact, some human beings with cognitive functional diversity may have cognitive capacities that do not meet the criteria that defenders of anthropocentrism appeal to in order to exclude nonhuman animals from the realm of moral consideration. Therefore, if individuals must meet a certain level of intelligence in order to be considered, then many human beings would be excluded by those who defend anthropocentric positions of this kind. However, these positions cannot exclude these human beings without abandoning anthropocentrism itself. Something similar occurs in the case of relationships: not all humans possess the special relationships that defenders of anthropocentrism appeal to (Horta 2014; Pluhar 1995). It is simply not the case that all humans are united in a universal feeling of sympathy or solidarity. And the same is true of any demarcation criterion used to distinguish between humans and nonhumans with regard to moral consideration. There will always be human beings who do not meet the chosen criterion unless it is merely species membership. There are, in fact, deeper reasons to explain why the defence of anthropocentrism fails. The case can be made that when we are deciding something, our choice should be based on criteria relevant to the kind of decision we are making. If what we are deciding is whom to consider morally, what we should take into account are only those aspects relevant to that kind of decision. In this respect, it seems reasonable to think that what is important here is whether someone can be benefitted or harmed by our actions. Thus, we need to figure out what makes it possible for someone to be affected positively or negatively. The ability to have positive and negative experiences seems to be a sufficient condition for this. Thus, in claiming that only humans deserve consideration, anthropocentrism would be appealing to an irrelevant factor, since individuals who do not belong to the human species can also feel pain and pleasure, and can therefore be benefitted or harmed (Bernstein 1998; Horta 2018). Given the above, it has been argued that anthropocentrism is in fact a form of discrimination. This is because we discriminate against certain individuals when we consider or treat them worse than others in ways that are not justified. On the basis of the reasons presented here, then, we can conclude that this is indeed what happens in the case of our anthropocentric attitudes towards nonhuman animals.

158  Oscar Horta et al. For more than 50 years now, the name that has been awarded to the discrimination of those who do not belong to a certain species is speciesism. That is, speciesism is the unjustified worse consideration or treatment of those individuals who belong to a certain species in comparison with those who belong to other species (Albersmeier 2021; Horta and Albersmeier 2020). If the arguments presented above are correct, then we can conclude that anthropocentrism is a form of speciesism. It is also important to bear in mind that speciesism is not just an attitude; as a concept, it also covers all behavioural and structural situations where those who do not belong to a certain species (such as ours) are unfairly treated worse. It is therefore also a certain socioeconomic structure (based not only on private activities and business, but also involving public authorities, education, and the media) that supports and justifies such an arbitrary discriminatory treatment. Accordingly, we can conclude not only that anthropocentric attitudes are speciesist, but that the current use of animals as resources and the lack of consideration for them in other fields, such as when the suffering of animals living outside human direct control is disregarded as unimportant, are instances of speciesism in practice. This implies that, when successfully increasing the number of animals who suffer and/or die, efforts to try to justify animal exploitation are also instances of anthropocentric speciesism. Therefore, even though we can simply claim that public relations efforts defending animal exploitation are wrong because they manipulate the public, focusing on that as the primary problem of such efforts would be incorrect. Doing so would mean wronging the main victims of such persuasion efforts, who are the animals themselves. This is because it would ignore and trivialise the main reason why these activities are morally unacceptable: not that they are instances of manipulation, but the fact that they unjustifiably hurt nonhuman animals. The harm caused to animals is much more significant in magnitude, if usually also significantly less visible, than the one we suffer by taking wrong decisions as consumers and citizens. This is so especially given the very large number of them involved in animal exploitation (FAO 2022; Fishcount 2019 [2016]; Invertebrate Welfare 2022; Rowe 2020). Therefore, just as it is speciesist not to recognise the weight of the interests of animals harmed by humans when conducting public relations that promote such harms, it would also be speciesist to think that such work is problematic because it wrongs the people it addresses, rather than the animals themselves. Moreover, harming nonhumans by persuading the public that animal exploitation is morally acceptable is wrong not just because of its more immediate effects. It can have negative effects for animals beyond the legitimisation of practices that are harmful to animals. By casting doubt on animal sentience and the moral considerability of nonhuman animals, it disseminates an ethics of disregard for them that is more general and spreads to other possible fields where nonhuman animals may be harmed. Thus, the very negative effects this has spread through time into the future. This is especially problematic for two reasons. The first is that such persuading efforts can have a very pervasive influence. When misinformed people are exposed to corrected facts, they rarely change their minds; in fact, they become more strongly set in their beliefs (Nyhan and Reifler 2010). Although this discovery stems from news information, it also informs persuasive

Speciesism and persuasion: a conclusion  159 communication (it is often agreed that the main aim of journalism is also persuasion). The upshot of this is that communication tactics furthered in defence of the use of animals can have particularly disruptive impacts by not just disseminating but also consolidating serious misconceptions in society. As this volume has shown, this wrongs the public, not just because it confuses them and leads them to have biased views, but because it leads them to make decisions they would not otherwise make. The second reason, which is related to the permanence of the effects mentioned above, is that the vast majority of the animals that we can affect with our actions now are those who will exist in the future. And the reason for this is very simple: the future will last for a much longer time than the present; or, rather, the mid- and long-term future will last much longer than the short-term future (Baumann 2020; Reese Anthis and Paez 2021). If the idea that there is nothing wrong with animal exploitation becomes dogmatically resistant, then the situation suffered by animals harmed by human attitudes could persist for long periods of time. Moreover, eventually, this may serve as a justification for the development and implementation of new exploitation techniques, where much larger numbers of animals may be harmed. Thus, if successful, present efforts to disregard the moral consideration of animals may lead to a future containing very large amounts of suffering, not only because of the sum of successive generations of animals used in the same way as today but also because of the demographic leaps involved in new forms of exploitation. It may also mean an increased disregard for the suffering endured by animals in nature, already significantly neglected today. If society becomes impervious to critical judgements about the various harms that take place in farms and slaughterhouses, laboratories, circuses, or zoos, then it is more than likely that most people will not express any concern about harms experienced by other animals derived from natural catastrophes, diseases, parasitism, or other factors. Finally, there may be future ways in which nonhuman animals can be harmed, which we cannot predict today (just as people living over a century ago did not predict factory farming, and people living some decades ago did not predict insect farming). Again, disregard for other animals may encourage such developments (Vinding, 2020, cap. 11; Baumann 2022). Therefore, we can safely conclude that the wrongdoings resulting from public relations promoting the use of nonhuman animals can hardly be overstated, and may even end up being much worse than indicated in this book. All of the above being said, there is also a final but very important caveat that needs to be included here. The considerations presented in this volume, and in particular in this conclusion, may lead us to think that responsibility for the harms animals suffer and will suffer basically falls on the stakeholders promoting the use of animals as resources. This would not quite be accurate, however. The industries selling animal products or services can ultimately only do so as long as at least a part of the public buys those products and services. Subsidies and policies supporting these industries alone would be insufficient to maintain them if they did not enjoy public support. Certainly, as we have stated here, those industries are responsible for wrongly influencing the public in order to sell as many of their products and services as possible. But it is also true that the general public is the main agent responsible for buying such products and using such services, over

160  Oscar Horta et al. other products and services that do not require the harming of animals. It would be wrong to conclude that it is all just the fault of the AIC, other non-industrial activities harming nonhuman animals and those people directly involved in harming the animals. Customers buying animal products and services, and policymakers supporting these industries are also responsible. The same would not happen in the case of animals suffering in nature, where we have a much smaller direct influence on what happens to them. Although it is also possible to negatively or positively influence policies by applying political pressure and spreading concern for them in other ways. Therefore, and to conclude, it is our collective responsibility to oppose the harms inflicted upon nonhuman animals. Summary • Nonhuman animals are used as resources by human activities in numerous ways, severely harming them in the process, and efforts to promote these activities or the consumption or use of their products and services are, likewise, substantial. • We argue that public relations in support of animal exploitation can be adequately described not just as persuasion efforts, but as instances of manipulation. • For manipulation to occur, we argue that the following conditions for a successful strategic communication endorsed by the emitter would need to apply: (i) the emitter will (at least on expectation) benefit from such a strategic communication; (ii) the receivers, on the other hand, will not benefit from it; (iii) the receivers will wrongly believe they also benefit from it; and (iv) the emitter is aware when implementing the communication strategy that conditions (i–iii) are met. • There are reasons to conclude that these conditions for manipulation apply in the case of communication efforts in support of nonhuman animal use. This is especially true given three courses of action that, in our view, characterise such efforts: silencing exposure of the situation surrounding animals; spreading the idea that those harming animals are actually concerned about them; and casting doubt on the claims made by animal advocates. • Public relations efforts involved in promoting activities, products, or services that do wrong to sentient beings need to be challenged for two main reasons. The first is that they deceive their audience, as they conceal the harm caused to nonhuman animals. With regard to this, persuasion can be considered manipulation in some cases. However, even if they do not deceive the audience, such persuasive efforts still need to be challenged because of the harm inflicted on nonhuman animals. • Public relations needs to reject speciesism. The main reason why they are morally objectionable is the fact that they promote the harms suffered by nonhuman animals. References Albersmeier, Frauke. 2021. “Speciesism and Speciescentrism.” Ethical Theory and Moral Practice 24: 511–527. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10677-021-10168-6.

Speciesism and persuasion: a conclusion  161 Andrew, James Preston. 2020. “The Insignifcance of Taste: Why Gustatory Pleasure is Never a Morally Sufficient Reason to Cause Harm.” Southwest Philosophy Review 36: 153–160. https://doi.org/10.5840/swphilreview202036117. Animal Ethics. 2020a. Introduction to Wild Animal Suffering: A Guide to the Issues. Oakland, CA: Animal Ethics. https://www.animal-ethics.org/introduction-wild-animal-suffering. Animal Ethics. 2020b. Surveying Attitudes Toward Helping Wild Animals Among Scientists and Students. Oakland, CA: Animal Ethics. https://www.animal-ethics.org/surveyhelpingwild-animals-scientists-students. Baumann, Tobias. 2020. “Longtermism and Animal Advocacy.” Center for Reducing Suffering. http://centerforreducingsuffering.org/longtermism-and-animal-advocacy. Baumann, Tobias. 2022. Avoiding the Worse: How to Prevent a Moral Catastrophe. London: Center for Reducing Suffering. Bernstein, Mark H. 1998. On Moral Considerability: An Essay on Who Morally Matters. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Bernstein, Mark H. 2015. The Moral Equality of Humans and Animals. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Carruthers, Peter. 1992. The Animals Issue: Moral Theory in Practice. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Cavalieri, Paola. 2001. The Animal Question: Why Nonhuman Animals Deserve Human Rights. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Clark, Stephen R.L. 1984 [1977]. The Moral Status of Animals. New York: Oxford University Press. CNN Español. 2019. “Colombia Prohibe la Caza Deportiva de Animales por Considerarla Maltrato.” https://cnnespanol.cnn.com/2019/02/07/colombia-prohibe-la-caza-deportivade-animales-por-considerarla-maltrato. Dhont, Kristof and Gordon Hodson. 2020. Why We Love and Exploit Animals: Bridging Insights from Academia and Advocacy. New York: Routledge. Diamond, Cora. 1991. “The Importance of Being Human.” In: Human Beings, edited by David Cockburn, 35–62. Cambridge: Royal Institute of Philosophy. Dunayer, Joan. 2004. Speciesism. Derwood: Ryce. El Universo. 2022. Corte Constitucional de Colombia declaró inconstitucional a la pesca deportiva. El Universo, May 2, 2022, https://www.eluniverso.com/noticias/internacional/ corte-constitucional-de-colombia-declaro-inconstitucional-a-la-pesca-deportiva-nota. FAO. 2022. “Livestock Primary.” FAOSTAT. Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations https://data.apps.fao.org/catalog/dataset/livestock-primary-national-globalannual. Faria, Catia. 2023. Animal Ethics in the Wild: Wild Animal Suffering and Intervention in Nature. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Faria, Catia and Oscar Horta. 2019. “Welfare Biology.” In: Routledge Handbook of Animal Ethics, edited by Bob Fischer, 455–466. New York: Routledge. Festinger, Leon (1957). “An Introduction to the Theory of Dissonance”. In: A Theory of Cognitive Dissonance, edited by Leon Festinger, 1–30. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Fishcount. 2019 [2016]. “Fishcount Estimates of Numbers of Individuals Killed in (FAO) Reported Fishery Production.” Fishcount.org.uk, http://fishcount.org.uk/ studydatascreens/2016/fishcount_estimates_list.php. Francione, G.L. 2000. Introduction to Animal Rights: Your Child or the Dog? Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press. Geise, Stephanie and Renita Coleman. 2016. “Ethical Challenges of Framing in Persuasive Communication, in Words and Pictures.” In: Persuasion Ethics Today, edited by Margaret Duffy and Esther Thorson, 185–207. New York: Routledge.

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Index

Note: Page numbers followed by “n” denote endnotes. Abbate, Cheryl 38 abuse 3, 12, 25, 42, 53, 76–77 Adams, Carol J. 37, 42 advertising 26–28, 43, 67–68, 82, 89, 150 aesthetics exercise 136 ag-gag 53 Akhtar, Aysha 14n3 Alliance of Marine Mammal Parks and Aquariums 91 Almiron, Núria 28, 53, 90–91 animal advocacy 69, 101, 109, 115, 150, 154 animal advocates 137–139, 141–142, 150, 153–155 Animal and Ecological Terrorism Act (AETA) 108 animal-based food industry 22, 28, 35, 53–55, 58–61 animal defence 8–9, 11, 40 Animal Defenders International (ADI) 107 animal entertainment 28, 43, 72–73, 78–79, 88–89, 156 Animal Equality: Language and Liberation (Dunayer) 25 animal ethics 5–6, 12–13, 36, 38, 56, 98, 149–150 animal experimentation 22, 26–27, 43, 94–95, 109, 152 animal experimentation industry (AEI) 94–97, 100–101 animal husbandry 155 animal-industrial complex (AIC) 3–5, 7–14, 26, 28–29, 39–41, 46, 151, 153, 160 animal liberation 36 animal research 97–100; culture of care 96; to humans and animals 95–96; to

the values of responsible research and transparency 96 animal rights 40, 99, 106–109 animals in nature 149, 156, 159 animal suffering 14, 35, 99–100, 116–118, 132, 136, 149–151, 153 animal welfare 27, 40, 46, 82, 90, 96, 99–101, 131–132, 138, 154 Animal Welfare Statement 109 anthropocentrism 24–25, 116, 156–158 anthropogenic harms 112, 114–115, 126 aquariums 72–73, 79, 82, 91 aquatic animals 54–55 argument from species overlap 56 Arnould-Bloomfield, Elisabeth 41 attitudinal hegemony 40 authority principle 140–141 Baker, Sherry 20 Barcelona 80–81, 113, 123–125 Batson, Daniel C. 38 Beef Checkoff 67 Best, Steven 6, 25 biological control 113 biopower 97 Blackfish 74, 89–92 bonobos 76, 80 Brancheau, Dawn 89 Brunner, Brigitta R. 22 BUAV 107 bullfighting 22, 43, 72, 77, 79 California Coastal Commission 2015 91 cancer 53, 59, 66–68, 70n1, 74 Caouette, Justin 42 capitalism 42, 94, 101

166  Index captivity 29, 72, 80, 88–91; physical harms of 72–74; psychological harms of 74–76 captures 78, 80, 114, 124 care 37–42, 44, 96–101, 117 carnism 26 Carreras, María R. 26 Catalan Hunting Federation (FCC) 124–126 Catalonia 123–125 chemical control 113 chimpanzees 74–75, 80 Cialdini, Robert B. 135–137, 139, 141, 143, 144n4; Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion 135–136 circuses 72–73, 77–79, 154 Clancy, Elizabeth A. 23 cognitive dissonance theory 134, 137, 144n3, 150 cognitive diversity 61 cognitive heuristics 132, 143 cognitive process 132, 135, 143 Coleman, Renita 21–22 Collserola Natural Park 113 commitment and consistency principle 137–138 compassion 19–21, 27, 29, 34–35, 97–100, 117–118; blocking 41–42; empathy and 36–38; fake 40–41; harm/non42–43; persuasion 38–39, 44–45; for prosocial behaviours 35–38 COMPASS research project 11, 13, 14n4 Connolly, Lucy 23 conservation 79–80 control 112–113 Coughlin, James R. 67 Cowperthwaite, Gabriela 89 Crenshaw, Kimberle 25 critical animal studies 3, 5–6, 13, 149 critical discourse analysis (CDA) 26 critical public relations (CPR): and animal standpoint 23–29; defined 19; ethical frameworks 20–23; language, discourse, and rhetoric 25–26 Cronin, Keri 27 Cullen, John G. 23 culture of care 96–97, 99–101 Cunningham, Anne 10 cutification 27 Dalai Lama, His Holiness 35 democratic deliberation 59, 61

depression 72, 76 dissonance 133–134, 137, 142, 144n3 dolphins 73, 77–78, 80–82, 88 Donovan, Josephine 37 Duffy, Margaret 10, 20 Dunayer, Joan 8, 25, 28; Animal Equality: Language and Liberation 25 Dworkin, Ronald 76 ecology of fear 113 Edwards, Lee 45 Eisenhower, Dwight 7 elephants 73–74, 77–78, 80–81 End the Cage Age 132 environmental management 111–120, 154 ethics of care and compassion 97–101 Europe 95, 102n2, 132 European Union (EU) 67–70, 109 experimental animals 97–98; see also animal experimentation exploitation 21, 23–29, 35, 37, 39–40, 43, 45, 78, 99, 109, 149–156, 158–159 FCC see Catalan Hunting Federation (FCC) Fernández, Laura 44, 53 Festinger, Leon 137, 144n3 food industry 22, 28, 53–55, 58–61 Fraser, Scott 137–138 Freedman, Jonathan 137–138 freedom of choice 59–60, 142 Freeman, Carrie P. 20–21 Freeman, R. Edward 22–23 Geise, Stephanie 21–22 Gilligan, Carol 103n12 Glenn, Cathy 26 Global Animal Welfare Strategy 99 Global North meat industry 66–69 Golding, Peter 28 Goodall, Jane 44 Good-Cop/Bad-Cop negotiation tactic 140 Green Scare 108 Grossman, Joanna 40, 45 Gruen, Lori 37–38 Grunig, James E. 10 harming animals 133, 149, 151–156, 160 Hass, Brian 108 Heath, Bob: The Routledge Handbook of Critical Public Relations 24 human exceptionalism 97, 149 Huntingdon International Holdings plc. 106 Huntingdon Life Sciences (HLS) 106–109

Index  167 hunting lobby 124–126 Hunt, Todd T. 10 iconography of oppression 27 individual responsibility frame 22 industrial complex 7 influence 19, 22–23, 26, 39–40, 60, 68–69, 91, 111, 115, 117–119, 135, 137–139 Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion (Cialdini) 135–136 intelligent animals 75–77 inter alia 59 interest groups 10–11, 45, 124, 126, 153 International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) 66–69 international meat industry 68–69 Inter-professional Agri-Food Organization for White Pork (INTERPORC) 69 invasive species 112–113 Joy, Melanie 26 killing animals 154 Klimecki, Olga M. 36 knockout animals 98 Kramer, Lisa A. 27 Kunda, Ziva 135 LaMothe, Ryan 40 land animals 54, 62n5 Lee, Seow Ting 20 L’Etang, Jacquie 19, 24 Liaison Centre for the European Associations of Meat Manufacturing Industries (CLITRAVI) 67 liking principle 139–140 Linné, Tobias 27 lobbying 9–12, 21–23, 28, 35, 39–41, 45, 53, 58–61, 99, 132, 136, 138, 141 Lord, Charles G. 135 Luke, Brian 43 luncheon technique 140 Mahayana Buddhism 35 Maier, Craigh T. 22 manipulation 13, 19, 27, 53, 59, 62, 90, 95, 111, 151–156, 158 Marlin, Randal 41, 155 Martinson, David L. 20 meat 54; and cancer 67; consumption 53, 67–69, 133; paradox 133–134

meat industry: Global North 66–69; public relations 68–69; WHO vs. 69 Meat Safety 67 Meatsplaining (Hannan) 26 Merskin, Debra 23 mild pain 102n6 Milgram, Stanley 141 Mills, C. Wright 8 moderate pain 102n6 Moloney, Kevin 4, 10–11, 23 Mosco, Vincent 28 Motion, Judy 23 motivated reasoning 135 Murdock, Graham 28 National Association of Meat Industries of Spain (NAMI) 69 National Cattlemen’s Beef Association (NCBA) 66–67 natural balance 118–119 naturogenic harms 112, 114–115, 118 Nibert, David 25, 39 non-autochthonous species 112–113 nonhuman animals 159–160; animal experimentation 94–95; empathy towards 41; moral considerability of 55–57; persuasion in 38–39 non-recovery pain 102n6 North American Meat Institute (NAMI) 67 Noske, Barbara 7–8 Nussbaum, Martha 34, 36–37, 42, 44 Nutrition Research Co. Ltd. 106 One Health strategy 99 orcas 26, 28–29, 73–74, 76, 81–82, 88–91 Palmer, Clare 98, 103n10 pedagogical compassion 44 People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) 82, 107–108 performing animals 73, 77–78 Perloff, Richard M. 20 persuasion 20, 111; ethics of 8–11; principles of 135–142 persuasive strategies 111, 115–120 Pettit, Philip 59–60 physical control 113 Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM) 70n1 Piazza, Jared 143n2 Pigcasso 132 Place, Katie R. 45

168  Index plague 123 Pliner, Patricia 138 Pohlmann, Attila 43 political economy of communication (PEC) 28–29 political equality 60 Potter, Will 108 press agentry/publicity model 10 Price, Carolyn 42 processed meat 66, 68 propaganda 20, 23, 40–41, 44–45, 81–82, 91, 109, 155 psychological reactance 141–143 psychology of persuasion 135–136 public information model 10 public interest relations (PIR) 22 public relations 3–14, 19–20, 151, 153–160; food industry 60; international meat industry 68–69; see also critical public relations (CPR); SeaWorld public sphere 7, 12, 53, 59 Puleo, Alicia H. 36, 43–44 reactance 141–143 reciprocation principle 136–137 red meat 22, 53, 59, 66, 68, 133 Reed, David L. 23 Regan, Tom 56 resabiados 77 Rorty, Richard 22 The Routledge Handbook of Critical Public Relations (Heath and Xifra) 24 sanctuaries 78, 80, 83–84n2, 125 San Diego Zoo 74 scarcity principle 141–142 SeaWorld 29, 75, 79, 81–82, 88–91 Segovia, Codina 43 sentience 1, 5, 25, 37, 43, 57, 97, 98, 117, 149, 158 sentient animals 53, 57–58 Serious Organised Crime and Police Act (SOCPA) 108 severe pain 102n6 severity 95–96, 102n6, 158 Shamu 88 Singer, Peter 55–56 Singer, Tania 36 situation surrounding animals 153 Smallwood, Amber M. K. social proof principle 138–139

Sorenson, John 40 Spanish Ministry for Ecological Transition and the Demographic Challenge 113 species 56 speciesism 5–6, 10, 24–26, 39, 41–42, 56, 116, 119, 126, 149, 158 stereotype priming 22 Stibbe, Arran 26 Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty (SHAC) Campaign 106–109 strategic communication 10–11, 19, 27, 35, 112, 151–152, 156 subhuman beingness 42 TARES framework 20–21 Thorson, Esther 10 three R’s 99, 102n5 tradition 79; Eastern 36, 37 transgenic animals 98 transparency 67, 79, 89, 96–97, 99 truth-telling 20 Twine, Richard 7–8 two-way asymmetric model 11 two-way systematic model 11 unity principle 144n4 unnatural position 72, 77, 119 U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration 89–90 Vardeman-Winter, Jennifer 45 Velasco Sesma, Angelica 44 visual communication 26–27 weak propaganda 11, 23 Weaver, C. Kay 22–23 white pork 70n2 wild animal well-being 115, 118–119 wild boar management 113, 123–126 Willet, Cynthia 34 World Health Organization (WHO) 66–69; vs. the meat industry 69 Xifra, Jordi: The Routledge Handbook of Critical Public Relations 24 Yeomans, Liz 22 zoos 72–74, 76, 79; Barcelona 80–81, 113, 123–125; education 81; propaganda 81–82; research 80–81; zoo-goers 81