Why Do We Exploit Animals?

As I progress through law school and have discussions with many of my peers about the law, I find that there are very few people interested in improving the legal landscape for the benefit of animals. Sure, it is of popular sentiment to want to punish people who abuse animals and cause them unnecessary pain, but it is many of these same people who pay money to the system of brutality that continues this cycle from engineering their births to profiting off their very early deaths.

Some call this seemingly random selection of which animals to love and which to eat 'speciesism', but I call it, simply, cognitive dissonance. These inconsistent thoughts and beliefs about animals begin with the conditioning we receive as children, but after we are old enough to know better, how can anyone explain their conscious choices to make such illogical decisions about other living beings? Illogical in the sense that it does not square with the innate human sensibility of the aversion to causing pain and suffering to another living creature, which is why there are no windows in a slaughterhouse (both figuratively and literally).

Cognitive dissonance (CD) is a commonly used term to define two or more modes of thought contradicting one another, and these "clashing cognitions may include ideas, beliefs, or the knowledge that one has behaved a certain way."[1] Once CD is identified, the movement toward Cognitive consonance (CC) is a natural progression in thought for most people. CC can be described as a resolution of CD, which often includes an acceptance of illogical ideas as an irreconcilable part of life, like harming animals for human consumption and exploitation. This acceptance can be either short or long-lived but can also create room for change over time through revision of behaviour. The majority using wilful blindness to reconcile illogical concepts is a practice that begins the evolution of thought.

A question that is often asked within the animal advocacy community, is how can one feel there is no excuse for eating animal flesh, while another can make consuming animal products part of their social identity? To accept the "standard practices" of the factory farming industry, there also needs to be an understanding that "tail docking, castration, beak cutting, and confinement in extremely small spaces" are done for a socially accepted reason and for the greater good of producing food.[2] We are currently at a point in the fight for compassionate animal welfare sentiment that visibility for the cause is reaching new audiences and changing minds, policies, laws, etc. While this statement may be true, the "consumption practices of most individuals… is not opposed to the instrumental use of animals."[3] Human convenience regarding taste of food and choice of other products continues to trump the living conditions and, ultimately, the lives of the animals we classify as commodities.

As society changes and continues to garner modern social sentiment, animal welfare discussions highlight the space between growing concern for animals and outdated laws that do not reflect current trends in both popular attitudes and new scientific discoveries. The interplay between CD (the thoughts that conflict in the collective majority of society) and legal dissonance (LD) (the discord that exists between current laws and established social understandings) highlights the challenges that arise within the current laws of animal welfare, more specifically, the factory farming system and the commoditization of farmed animals. The inquiry into the shifting positions of society and the impacts these shifts have on legislation, specifically in the realm of animal welfare, is the intent of this essay. In other words, dissonance will create change through social discomfort. The presentation of dissonance can be seen in case precedent; Reece v Edmonton (Reece CA)[4] is the quintessential example of the multifaceted, and complicated, relationship that exists between CD and LD.

I. Focusing on Cognitive Dissonance from a Social & Political Perspective

Animal welfare has increasingly become part of the political landscape where some groups insist that eating meat is somehow more masculine, virtuous, patriotic, and the like. Highly charged language is used to disparage those concerned for animal welfare and the treatment of animals involved in the meat and dairy industries.[5] Playing into the so-called "culture wars" harms the message of animal rights activists as it immediately places an artificial barrier between people on opposite sides of the political spectrum. Curbing the dangers of climate change, keeping children safe from gun violence, and other seemingly common-sense initiatives, like animal welfare concerns, are easy targets for political actors to exploit, while their constituencies often fight to preserve their own suffering under the guise of freedom.

The relationship between humans and non-human animals has long been a complicated and ever-changing balance of personal ideology and morality, coupled with societal and other environmental influences. The advent of factory farming has sharpened focus on the treatment of animals that are raised and slaughtered for food, mainly due to the well-known, and widely accepted, harsh conditions that exist within the systems of the meat and dairy industries. As the global community of animal rights' activists continue to garner support of animal welfare rights, the veil covering the historically secret abuse of animals travelling through the factory farm system will continue to be lifted.

Cognitive dissonance and cognitive consonance

Influences on the public can only be partially blamed for the wide variations of sympathy for the plight of animals raised and slaughtered for food and other products. Outside of complete ignorance of the inner workings of the meat and dairy industry, which can potentially account for a small portion of animal product consumers, there needs to be some level of CD present within their minds when choosing to purchase these products. This level, which varies significantly, can account for the act of consciously changing behaviour to restore CC, so their actions more closely align with their true beliefs.[6] Those who choose to bury the discomfort of CD will feel the malaise in varying degrees that may eventually lead to changing behaviour, but how does this phenomenon work to help change the legal landscape in support of animal welfare?

II. Navigating the Relationship Between Cognitive & Legal Dissonance

The inevitability of greater exposure to the plight of animals used as commodities will lead to a greater shift in society. It is the speed of this change that can be affected by advocacy and by lobbying for animal-friendly legislation. These ideas are not unique to animal welfare but can also be used to discuss a whole host of culturally sensitive topics. Many systemic issues with no single solution can elicit a personal "spectrum of discomfort" of CD. Activists looking to change minds, and ultimately behaviour, should assess their audience's place on that spectrum to target carefully crafted messages. Location, socio-economic status, race, culture, and the like should be taken into consideration when delivering the message of animal welfare.

Defining legal dissonance in the context of cognitive dissonance

The exploitation of animals for food and other products should be seen as a civil rights issue, no different from racism, homophobia, transphobia, gender inequality, and other protected classes in Canada. The term speciesism has been coined to describe valuing one species over another and should have a seat at the table with these issues. LD can be used in this conversation as a term that defines the disconnect between laws that seem contradictory and regularly involve these protected classes. For example, killing a companion animal with no just cause is a Criminal Code (Code) offence, but hundreds of millions of animals are killed each year in factory farms for food.[7] The LD shows how laws can be "… sometimes infected by old and persistent enemies of reason."[8] The fair treatment of players within the confines of the legal system does not always work at the same speed as our evolving social perceptions of fairness and shifts of majority beliefs. LD is a product of the lag of CD as it spreads through activism, permeates the communities of each jurisdiction, and eventually changes the laws to become closer to the sentiment of the majority. Complicating this change process are the wide variations of timing as well as the volatility within the permanence of each change, as seen in the controversial US case, Dobbs v Jackson.[9]

III. Current Landscape of Animal Welfare Law & its Key Actors

The meat and dairy industries are influential stakeholders in local, provincial, and federal capacities due to the buying power of the largest grocers in Canada. The Retail Council of Canada (RCC) represents these large grocers, and the National Farm Animal Care Council (NFACC) is an industry body that receives, "public funds to develop… standards in Canada and considers itself the 'national lead for farm animal care and welfare in Canada'."[10] The RCC allows the NFACC to set voluntary and unenforceable standards regarding the treatment of farmed animals that "… prioritize industry profits, and don't take animal welfare seriously."[11]

The objective person standard

This conversation is indicative of the divide between those that see farmed animals as sentient beings deserving of a peaceful and fulfilling life and those that see them as commodities solely meant for human consumption and exploitation. The questions raised through the recognition of this divide ask the public to make decisions of their own when they pick up the fork at the dinner table or buy products made from the bodies of our non-human global cohabitants. Activists generally require no qualifications of the word sentience, but it is the objective person for whom we should centre the conversation, "… sentience marks an important threshold: an entity that is not at least sentient can have no interests, no sake of its own on behalf of which others might be obligated to act… a sentient animal is a someone, a being for or against whose interests we can act."[12] When attempting to influence their decisions about animals, educating the objective person begins with defining sentience. The objective person, in much of Canada, has concern for animals but has also been conditioned to believe that animals are subservient to humans. Therefore, the task at hand involves crafting a message of sentience that will appeal to those who generally care for animals but still use animal products.

IV. Cognitive & Legal Dissonance in Action

The objectivity of the presence of CD is an element of the discussion that must be considered during the conversation of the interplay between CD and LD. Animal activists may call loving what is categorised as a companion animal while eating and accepting brutality against what is categorised as a farmed animal as evidence of CD. This concept only reinforces the argument made by animal activists, as there should be no distinction between the artificial silos used to categorise animals to justify which to love and which to kill. One only needs to look as far as advertisements created by the meat and dairy industries to see the attempt to block the discomfort of CD by conditioning targeted audiences. There are campaigns countering advocacy by focusing on younger families to avoid giving in to "milk shaming" and pushing the "mood-boosting powers" of eating pork through a popular campaign on the social media platform TikTok.[13]

The Canada Revenue Agency

More evidence of LD can be found within the policy guidelines of government agencies, such as the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA). The CRA determines tax exempt status for groups that provide approved charitable activities and allows the education of the agricultural industry, and the process for which farmed animals are raised, slaughtered, and sold for meat to be part of the activities of a charitable organisation, but does not allow the same designation for groups that educate for the advocacy of farmed animals as victims of the meat and dairy industries.

The documented explanation for the CRA decision centres around the legality of eating meat and accessing other animal products. Smoking is also legal, and anti-smoking campaigns are part of charitable groups educating the public of the dangers of smoking. The Association for Action on Smoking and Health (A.A.S.H.)[14] is a CRA designated charitable organisation that advocates quitting smoking. Smoking is legal in Canada, yet this organisation's purpose is to educate the public on the benefits of quitting smoking. From the policies and guidance page of the CRA website:

8. Is it charitable to promote the welfare of animals by preventing farm animals such as cows or pigs from being slaughtered and marketed for human consumption?

No. Canada's animal welfare laws allow for animals to be used for generally accepted agricultural practices, which includes processing them as food. Preventing farm animals from being processed for food is therefore not, as a rule, charitable. However, depending on the particular facts of the case, it may be a charitable purpose to research and inform members of the agricultural industry of humane or environmentally sustainable methods or procedures for livestock farming, or the processing of animals for food.[15]

The World Health Organization[16] links red meat and processed meat consumption as carcinogenic to humans. A.A.S.H. Canada educates on the harms of smoking, that include preventing cancer by avoiding the legalactivity of smoking tobacco products. The distinction between these two legal activities in Canada that allow one organisation to be considered charitable, with all the benefits provided of that designation, and another organisation being denied the charitable status designation, can only be explained as LD born of CD.

Legal dissonance on display through ideological contradictions of policy

The registered charity Focus on The Family Canada is catalogued under the sector of religion, but it moves outside of religious doctrine with the information that it provides on its website, as well as some of the programs it has developed for those seeking the organisation's services.[17]

There are multiple articles found on the charity's website that provide guidance on avoiding legal activities it deems as morally wrong, and espousing the inability to carry out these activities if one should choose to follow the religious ideology fostered by the organisation. These activities include guidance on refraining from accessing pornography and advice with messages to provide children that come out as homosexual, "I can't support your decision, but I will be there for you and want to learn more about how you reached your decision."[18] This guidance is enhanced by ideologies that identify homosexuality as sexual sin. There is also evidence of reinforcing the message that gender identity is based solely on biological gender, "God has a plan for boys and girls. God has a good plan in creating your children to be boys or girls. When God created them, He was very careful to make them as boys and girls. He knew just who they were supposed to be and has a plan for them."[19]

This registered charitable organisation also reinforces the need for parents to represent both biological genders to define a true family, "God created men and women to need each other. Read Genesis 2:18. God knew that Adam would be lonely by himself, so He created Eve. God made both genders to complement each other and so we could have families. Men and women are both needed to start a family."[20]

The rationale provided for denying charitable status to organisations intending to educate the message of farmed animal sentience, intelligence, and the avoidance of supporting the meat and dairy industry, is not consistent with the designation of charitable status to many other organisations currently enjoying these benefits.

V. Conclusion

While many focus on the "why" humans feel superiority over other living beings that share our planet, and despite the many explanations of unrivalled human creativity, the possession of "souls", intricate tool use, etc., the answer that remains (which everyone tries to disguise with many irrational attempts at rationalization) is the simple fact that we can.

We can exploit animals for commercial and financial gains, so we do.

We can exploit animals to poke and prod for "research" purposes regardless of the level of brutality involved, so we do.

We can disassociate the being from the product in both society and in law to continue these benefits despite what may gnaw at the proverbial conscience of humanity, so we do.

In fact, as this conscience gets closer to the surface of public view, the defensiveness of the various industries using animals as commodities increases. The old adage that "things will get worse before they get better" is applicable here, just as it was in other social movements that questioned tradition. Politics has increasingly become a part of the façade of the movement in so far as it is used to distinguish the "woke" from the "masculine".

The welfare of animals is somehow attached to the argument of the waning masculinity of men in modern society that can be identified through a person's ideological beliefs; a real man eats meat. Now, we have an irrational connection from the discussion of gender identity to the discussion of animal welfare. It is not a new concept to equate being a man with the toxic masculinity of violence, dominance, and high cholesterol, but it should be of concern to the animal welfare movement when deciding how to approach the real issues that keep people from adopting a plant-based lifestyle.

The war will never be won with logic and rational thinking, which is where so many of us go astray. We can show facts and figures that point to abusive practices, carcinogens, heart disease, climate change, starvation, and the like, but the real ammo that is needed should first attempt to resolve the brain-washing that is used to perpetuate using animals for human gratification.

I have seen advertisements of vegan bodybuilders and celebrities, commonly linked to popular culture, who are promoting a vegan way of life, and this is the approach that should lead the cause to expose the silliness of the argument. Meeting people where they are is important to changing public sentiment but, more importantly, it can unravel the learned behaviour that connects the issues of immediate concern to the low-hanging fruit of political exploitation.

We need more high profile champions for farmed animals to get this ball to roll a bit faster.

[1] Psychology Today, "Cognitive Dissonance" online: <https://www.psychologytoday.com/ca/basics/cognitive-dissonance>.

[2] Peter Sankroff, Vaughan Black & Katie Sykes, eds, Canadian Perspectives on Animals and the Law (Toronto, ON: Irwin Law, 2015) at 35 [Sankroff, Canadian Perspectives].

[3] Ibid at 273.

[4] Reece v Edmonton (City), 2011 ABCA 238.

[5] Jan Dutkiewicz & Gabriel Rosenberg, "Why Right-Wingers Are So Afraid of Men Eating Vegetables" (17 April 2023), online: <https://newrepublic.com/article/171781/meat-culture-war-crickets>.

[6] Psychology Today, "The Theory of Cognitive Dissonance" online: <https://www.psychologytoday.com/ca/basics/cognitive-dissonance>.

[7] Criminal Code, RSC, 1985, c C-46, s 445(1)(a) [Code].

[8] Morris B Hoffman (2011) "Ten Legal Dissonances", Mercer Law Review: Vol 62: No 3, Article 11.

[9] Dobbs v Jackson Women's Health Organization, 597 US (2022).

[10] Eduarda (Duda) Nedeff, "The Role of Corporations in Improving Animal Welfare" (18 December 2023), online: <https://animaljustice.ca/blog/corporations-animal-welfare>.

[11] Ibid.

[12] Sankroff, Canadian Perspectives supra 14–15.

[13] Marcia Brown & Hailey Fuchs, "Seeing viral pork TikTok's? It's a government-backed group pushing meat on Gen Z" (27 January 2024), online: < https://www.politico.com/news/2024/01/27/the-federal-governments-role-in-those-tiktok-ads-for-milk-and-pork-00138178>.

[14] Action on Smoking and Health, "About ASH" online: <https://ash.org/about/>.

[15] Government of Canada, "Promotion of animal welfare and charitable registration" (19 August 2011) at para 8, online, <https://www.canada.ca/en/revenue-agency/services/charities-giving/charities/policies-guidance/promotion-animal-welfare-charitable-registration.html>.

[16] World Health Organization, "Cancer: Carcinogenicity of the consumption of red meat and processed meat", (26 October 2015) online <https://www.who.int/news-room/questions-and-answers/item/cancer-carcinogenicity-of-the-consumption-of-red-meat-and-processed-meat>.

[17] Focus on the Family Canada, "Resources" (2004) online <https://www.focusonthefamily.ca/resources>.

[18] Focus on the Family Canada, "When your child tells you they're gay" (2010) online: <https://www.focusonthefamily.ca/content/when-your-child-tells-you-theyre-gay>.

[19] Daniel L. Weiss, "Reinforce your child's sexual identity" (2015) online: <https://www.focusonthefamily.ca/content/reinforce-your-childs-sexual-identity>.

[20] Weiss, "Reinforce" supra.