Making Progress Work for Animals
What can progress studies offer animal advocacy and welfare?
Ever since broadening my views on how to help animals, I've been learning about more movements and ideas that may provide new insights for animal welfare. I believe progress studies is one such movement.
Background on Progress Studies
Progress studies is an intellectual movement that emerged from a recognition that human prosperity has increased dramatically over the past few centuries, yet we lack a systematic understanding of how and why this occurred. This idea was proposed by Tyler Cowen and Patrick Collison in their article "We need a science of progress"1. This movement asks: What factors accelerated human progress? And how can we deliberately foster more of it?
The movement describes progress as sustained improvements in human welfare and agency. Generally speaking, economic prosperity and technological advancement have enabled us to solve more challenging and ambitious problems, which have in turn helped us to live more fulfilling lives. At its core, this movement considers the pursuit of progress to be a deeply humanistic endeavor, recognizing that human flourishing matters and that material progress is a means to achieve it.
Jason Crawford, founder of the non-profit the Roots of Progress Institute, frames it as "techno-humanism"- the view that progress in science, technology, and industry are good because they ultimately promote human well-being and flourishing.
Some key insights2 I took away from progress studies are:
1. Appreciation of progress - Recognizing genuine improvements that have been made and celebrating them (see graphs below).
2. Progress is not inevitable - It requires deliberate action, proper institutions, and cultural support.
3. Progress is problem-solving- It's about identifying challenges and systematically addressing them.
4. Progress creates feedback loops - Each advancement enables more advancements.
And most importantly,
5. Progress requires optimism - Not blind optimism, but as Jason puts it - "active solutionism" that recognizes the problems but believes in human ingenuity to solve them.
The Progress Studies Framework for Animal Welfare
While lot of these are great ideas, I don't completely agree with the progress studies movement on everything, notably its exclusive focus on human well-being. However, I believe some of its insights can be applied to improving farm animal advocacy, welfare, and rights. Humans have a collective demonstrated ability to problem solve ourselves out of crises, even if self-inflicted, and I believe we can do the same for farm animals.
Solutions like diet changes that make progress for farm animals but result in a reduction of choices for people may seem like a step backward from a progress studies perspective (until alternatives are available). However, in the long run, this may yet be considered social progress, similar to how we view moral victories in history.
Here are some ways we can apply the progress studies mindset to animal welfare:
1. Celebrating progress for animals - We need to continue to share wins and celebrate meaningful improvements that have the potential to help animals, this helps maintain motivation and demonstrate that positive change is possible (see graphs below).
2. Progress for animals isn't inevitable - It requires deliberate action through advocacy, entrepreneurship, donations, innovation and effective institutions.
3. Problem solving for animals - This means trying different approaches and pursuing what works. Being philosophically correct is cool but more importantly let’s make sure that our ideas actually translate to impact.
4. Creating virtuous cycles - Better alternatives to animal-products create a flywheel effect of increased competition & innovation, reduced costs, increased adoption and more investment in the industry. Social initiatives like Veganuary and Meatless Mondays help shift cultural norms, making plant-based diets more accessible. Each step forward in animal welfare builds momentum for bolder reforms, expanding both protections and rights for animals.
5. Problem-solving over pessimism - A progress focused mindset can help paint a more actionable and optimistic picture of the work needed to improve conditions for farmed animals, instead of fostering pessimism towards the current crisis or developing a misanthropic view of the world.
PS: An example of technological progress that go beyond advocacy for personal abstinence or creating better alternatives is in-ovo sexing. This technology can prevent up to 7 billion3 macerations of baby chicks, every year. Here’s an excellent article about this (and more) from Asimov Press.
I also recommend checking out the Robert’s substack for ideas on progress studies and animal welfare.
The Atlantic article: We Need a New Science of Progress - Humanity needs to get better at knowing how to get better.
A lot of these insights are inspired by Jason Crawford’s book about progress studies on Substack. While I don’t agree with it completely, I still think it’s a worthwhile read. Here’s the appendix.
This is so important. The horrible problem, IMHO, is the more people you help out of poverty, the more animals suffer on factory farms. Keeping other animals in the conversation is vital.
While I do love cosmicism, I'm curious if you think there are any other concerns in the Progress movement besides the sharply human-centric views? What would you propose as an alternative?