Natalie Cargill argues that political and legal activism can be an effective strategy for advancing animal advocacy and promoting antispeciesism. While individual dietary change is intuitively appealing, it has shown limited success and risks sidetracking the discussion. Political interventions like ballot initiatives can reach many people with relatively few resources and allow them to express support for animal rights through low-cost actions like voting. Examples of effective political campaigns include initiatives to require vegan options in public cafeterias and recognize fundamental rights for primates. Political work establishes advocacy groups as serious players, spreads their messages and complements other strategies. Sentience Politics is pursuing various ballot initiatives and legal cases to reduce speciesism through non-violent political processes.

1. Natalie Cargill
Project Manager UK, Sentience Politics
Political and legal activism
for all sentient beings

2. Outline
1. Politics: Intuitive but ineffective?
2. The case for politics
3. Politics for all sentient beings — political and
legal action in the animal advocacy movement
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3. I. Politics: Intuitive but ineffective?

4. Natalie Cargill | Sentience Politics
The standard inference of activists:
● The world is shaped largely by the effects
of humans interacting with each other, i.e.
by society
● Therefore, improving the world necessitates
changing society
● Society is governed by politics and the law
● Therefore, changing society necessitates
changing politics and the law
Is this a sound argument?
Politics — the intuitive path for activists
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5. Objections against the intuitive inference for
doing politics
● Beware of narrowing down the space of possible ways of activism too
early! How effective is political activism compared to the following?
• Non-political social movement focussing on individual behaviour change
(e.g., veganism)
• Research and technology
• Business
● Political interventions are rarely successful
● Risk of backfiring, e.g. communism
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6. II. The case for politics

7. Example: the expected value of voting
● Steven Levitt in Freakonomics:
Voting is irrational because the
chance of your vote affecting the
final outcome is negligibly small
● William MacAskill in Doing Good
Better: Expected value shows
voting to be highly effective: If the
value of the better party winning is
$314B to the people, and your vote
has a 1/60M chance of tipping the
election, your vote’s expected
value is like a $5,200 donation to
the people.
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8. Example: EAF’s “1% initiative” in Zürich, CH
● Ballot initiative demanding that
the city of Zürich spend 1% of its
budget (1% = $90 million per
year) funding highly effective
poverty charities
● Only 3,000 signatures to collect,
overall cost around $100,000
● Base rate for initiatives being
accepted: 11%
● Expected to be 300 times as cost-
effective as directly donating to
GiveWell charities
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9. Example: EAS’s “1% initiative” in Zürich, CH
● Substantial indirect benefits (even
if the vote is lost!):
• All 400,000 citizens of Zürich
will receive arguments backing
the initiative by mail
• Media attention
• Networking with politicians and
other societal influencers
• Vehicle for EA movement
building
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10. Natalie Cargill | Sentience Politics
Risk of backfiring?
● There are clear “safe bets”, e.g. closing down factory farms.
Addressing the objections
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Low chance of success?
● Not negligibly small base rate for some interventions, e.g. 11% of Swiss
ballot initiatives are accepted
● Very high payoff in case of success, e.g. affecting hundreds of millions
of $ or more of government funding
Effectiveness compared with other strategies?
● Intrinsically hard to quantify, but: good expected value even of voting
● As we’ll see, a lot of qualitative arguments favour politics

11. Qualitative arguments for political strategies
● Social science/history: Moral progress was often driven by an avant-garde
changing the law, majority then adjusted their behaviour
● Great platform for societal meme-spreading and movement building
● Politics vs. individual behaviour change: Sufficient to convince 51% of
decision-makers rather than 100% of the whole population
● Psychology: Capitalise on “moral cheering” phenomenon, i.e. people’s
drive to signal their moral values through small, non-costly actions
● Political “yes” is much less demanding than inconvenient individual
behaviour change (e.g., casting a vote for animal rights on one occasion
vs. daily dietary change)
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12. III. Politics for all sentient beings —
Political and legal action in the animal
advocacy movement

13. Animal suffering as an ethical priority
“The question is not, Can they reason? nor, Can they talk? but, Can they
suffer?” – Jeremy Bentham (1789)
Effective Altruism has to consider all beings capable of experiencing
suffering, no matter their species membership (antispeciesism)
The vast majority of such beings currently are non-human animals:
• About 70 billion land animals confined and killed every year
• Trillions of fishes and other marine animals killed every year (symptomatic:
common plural “fish”, no-one knows the exact number of killed beings,
they are usually measured in tons)
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14. The food norm as status quo
● Traditional focus on individual
consumption in the movement:
Commitment progresses along the
route reducetarian -> vegetarian ->
vegan
● Activism often aims to increase
the number of veg*ans
● Popular interventions (even for
some ACE top / standout
charities): leafleting, online ads
● ACE: €10 invested in leafleting
saves >250 animals
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15. Downsides of individual dietary change (1)
● History: Focus on individual behaviour change has poor track record.
• E.g., the 19th century “free produce movement” advocating a boycott of
goods produced by (human) slaves failed. Rather, the abolition of slavery
was achieved through political means
• Psychology: The food context creates biases, e.g. people considering typical
farmed animals to be less sentient than other animals
• Dietary change is particularly demanding: habits that are relevant >3 times
per day need to be changed, suboptimal supporting infrastructure, sometimes
social costs, …
• Discussion is being sidetracked by dietary fads, e.g. paleo diet
• Risk being perceived as a dietary rather than an ethical movement
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16. Downsides of individual dietary change (2)
Symptomatic: Psychologist Jonathan Haidt about his reaction to reading
ethical arguments against eating animals:
“Since that day, I have been morally opposed to all forms of factory
farming. Morally opposed but not behaviorally opposed.”
Haidt is typical:
• In Western countries, only ~1% of the population is vegan (probably 3-4%
vegetarian), and 4 out of 5 veg*ans eventually relapse to eating animals
• But in polls, a majority (up to 94%!) oppose cruelty to animals, animal
abuse, and factory farming => Need for other ways to express this
opposition!
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17. Example:
Ballot initiatives by Sentience Politics (1)
● Basel, Zürich, Lucerne, Berlin:
Demanding vegan options in
public canteens
● Collect only thousands of
signatures, but get 100,000+
people to vote
● Lucerne: got signatures in 48h
● Substantial indirect benefits, e.g.
being featured in documentary
● Reputation as serious political
player in CH
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18. Example:
Ballot initiatives by Sentience Politics (2)
● Cantonal initiative in Basel-City:
Fundamental rights for primates
● Only few animals directly affected,
BUT:
● Avoid biases of food context,
capitalise on widespread opposition
to animal testing
● Debate can be focused on
speciesism and animal rights
● Would be an antispeciesist legal
milestone
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19. Example: The Nonhuman Rights Project
● Judicial analogue to the legislative Basel campaign: Getting courts to
acknowledge certain nonhuman animals as legal persons
● Common law (e.g., UK, 49 US states): judges have a lot of leeway,
possible to obtain legal personhood and thus fundamental rights for
nonhuman animals in individual court cases that would then set a
precedent
● Historical precedent for the importance of legal milestones: 1772 common
law case James Somerset vs. Charles Steuart (=> legal abolition of slavery
in the UK)
● Interaction with movement building: Can we have our own judges in place
in 10-20 years?
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20. Example: Cultured meat campaign by Sentience
Politics
● Open letter to German government,
backed by reputable academics
● Demand: state funding for cultured
meat research
● Appeal to scientists, politicians, and
other influencers
● Debate can be focused on
speciesism and animal rights
● Would be an antispeciesist legal
milestone
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21. Takeaways: Upsides of politics
● Reach many people with little required resources
● Can be targeted both to masses (e.g., ballot initiatives) and to societal
influencers (e.g., open letter)
● Avoid biases of food context and allow people to express their moral
views through non-demanding actions
● Avoid being sidetracked by food discussions and focus the discussion on
the animals, antispeciesism and animal rights
● Reputation benefit for the movement: establish a scientific/political think
tank, appeal to rational societal decision-makers
● Complement/multiply the impact of individual dietary change or
tech/business strategies!
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22. Synthesis: Politics for all sentient beings
● Effectiveness of individual change (e.g., veganism) vs. tech fixes (e.g.,
cultured meat) vs. political action?
• Great empirical uncertainty, quantification difficult; BUT:
• We therefore need robust strategies such as movement building, and
political action is a great vehicle for that
• Even if individual change or tech fixes are the way to go, political action
can be a highly effective way to direct more resources to those areas
• Therefore, all strategies that have a shot at being most effective should be
explored to gather more data.
• In particular, SOMEONE should do politics. At the same time, political
action is neglected in the animal advocacy and EA movements
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23. How YOU can help Sentience Politics put
antispeciesism into political practice
● Get involved in Berlin ballot initiative, signature collection starting NEXT
WEEK! (-> stefan.torges@sentience-politics.org)
● Planned ballot initiative to put a ban on factory farming into the Swiss
constitution: We’re hiring campaign managers!
● International movement building and political action: India,
China/Hongkong, US, UK, Latin America, Australia, maybe more?
• 1st step: Country directors will work on political strategy guides, your
input is appreciated! (-> max.daniel@sentience-politics.org)
• UK: Lawyers needed!
• US: Campaigners needed!
• Donations: 10-35k/year is an additional full-time job in above countries
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24. natalie.cargill@sentience-politics.org
Thank you.