Bearing witness,animal rights and the slaughterhouse vigil

Abstract

Animal activists sometimes engage in vigils and acts of witnessing as forms of political protest. For example, the Animal Save Movement, a global activist network, regards witnessing the suffering of non-human animals as a moral duty of veganism. The act of witnessing is intended to non-violently communicate both attitudes and principles. These forms of activism are unlike other forms of protest, relying for much of their force upon passive, non-confrontational actions. This article explores the ethical character of vigils and witnessing in order to evaluate their role in animal rights activism. It argues that the love-based ethic behind the Animal Save Movement's form of witnessing is overly demanding, overly expansive and overly deferential towards wrongdoers. In its place, this article offers a narrower account of witnessing, detached from controversial spiritual elements. Vigils and conscious acts of witnessing, it is claimed, are political acts aimed at fulfilling duties to seek justice for non-human animals.

Introduction

Towards the end of the 19th century, Leo Tolstoy visited a slaughterhouse in Tula, not far from his home in Russia. He did so in order to see with his own eyes what was ethically at stake in eating animals. What Tolstoy witnessed ensured his commitment to vegetarianism, and in 1892 he provided a preface to Howard Williams’ influential history of vegetarianism The Ethics of Diet. The preface, titled ‘The First Step’, details his visit to the Tula slaughterhouse. The scenes he describes, of a supposedly improved system of slaughter aimed at reducing suffering, are visceral and upsetting:

Through the door opposite the one at which I was standing, a big, red, well-fed ox was led in. Two men were dragging it, and hardly had it entered when I saw a butcher raise a knife above its neck and stab it. The ox, as if all four legs had suddenly given way, fell heavily upon its belly, immediately turned over on one side, and began to work its legs and all its hind-quarters. Another butcher at once threw himself upon the ox from the side opposite to the twitching legs, caught its horns and twisted its head down to the ground, while another butcher cut its throat with a knife. From beneath the head there flowed a stream of blackish-red blood, which a besmeared boy caught in a tin basin. All the time this was going on the ox kept incessantly twitching its head as if trying to get up, and waved its four legs in the air. The basin was quickly filling, but the ox still lived, and, its stomach heaving heavily, both hind and fore legs worked so violently that the butchers held aloof. When one basin was full, the boy carried it away on his head to the albumen factory, while another boy placed a fresh basin, which also soon began to fill up. But still the ox heaved its body and worked its hind legs.

When the blood ceased to flow the butcher raised the animal's head and began to skin it. The ox continued to writhe. The head, stripped of its skin, showed red with white veins, and kept the position given it by the butcher; on both sides hung the skin. Still the animal did not cease to writhe. Then another butcher caught hold of one of the legs, broke it, and cut it off. In the remaining legs and the stomach the convulsions still continued. The other legs were cut off and thrown aside, together with those of other oxen belonging to the same owner. Then the carcass was dragged to the hoist and hung up, and the convulsions were over.

Thus I looked on from the door at the second, third, fourth ox. It was the same with each: the same cutting off of the head with bitten tongue, and the same convulsed members. The only difference was that the butcher did not always strike at once so as to cause the animal's fall. Sometimes he missed his aim, whereupon the ox leaped up, bellowed, and, covered with blood, tried to escape. But then his head was pulled under a bar, struck a second time, and he fell (Tolstoy, 1900: 54–55)

It is from Tolstoy, and particularly his commitment to personally witnessing the suffering of slaughter, that the Animal Save Movement draws inspiration (Purdy and Krajnc, 2018: 46). Founded in 2010 by Anita Krajnc, the Animal Save Movement has sought to make the practice of bearing witness into an organised strategy for animal liberation. Animal Save now boasts over 1000 chapters worldwide and coordinates regular vigils for non-human animals. In the region of the UK where I live, activists, organised under the auspices of Animal Save, have held regular vigils outside slaughterhouses for several years. As animals are brought into the slaughterhouse, activists speak comforting words and bear witness as they are taken through the gates.

Many forms of animal rights activism are seen as threatening, shocking, confrontational, even militant. Some, however, escape these charges by drawing explicitly upon a heritage of non-violence and peace-directed activism. The animal rights vigil – the defining feature of the Animal Save Movement – is one such practice. Typically, vigils involve standing together as a group, often in silence, to protest and memorialise. Vigils hold a strong association with non-violent, solidaristic and feminist protest movements. Slaughterhouse vigils, especially those of Animal Save, are characterised by an emphasis on gathering to ‘bear witness’ to animal suffering. My aim in this article is to explore the nature and purpose of bearing witness and its connection with the vigil in animal-rights activism. By the end, I shall have identified the ethical significance of witnessing and distinguished it from other forms of protest.

Although my analysis also tells us something about witnessing and vigils as more general forms of protest, the focus is on their place in animal rights activism, particularly as they are practised under the auspices of Animal Save. I concentrate upon Animal Save both because it has helped make the slaughterhouse vigil widespread and because it is the subject of most discussion regarding witnessing within the literature. Unfortunately, working from Animal Save's conception of witnessing to develop something applicable across the movement is not straightforward. This is because Animal Save promotes a great variety of activist practices, all of which are claimed as bearing witness. Additionally, the concept of witnessing is one that is used in multiple social contexts, often taking on different associations and forms in each context. Some of these arise from faith-based commitments, with both the idea of bearing witness and the practice of holding vigil carrying historical associations with Christianity.

A key goal is to offer an account of bearing witness that is disentangled from controversial conceptions of the good life and metaphysical claims. In this way, I aim to defend an account of witnessing that escapes charges of being overly demanding, overly expansive and overly deferential towards wrongdoers. Whilst some may worry that slaughterhouse vigils are an ineffective and self-indulgent form of protest, I show how both vigils and witnessing can promote the cause of justice for non-human animals. Even if these acts do little for non-human animals facing imminent death, they can, particularly if accompanied by testimony, challenge dominant norms and promote compassion.

In what follows, I identify key ethical features of bearing witness during the slaughterhouse vigil. I begin by exploring witnessing in other contexts, distinguishing between the roles played by witnessing and testimony in judicial and humanitarian settings. From the latter form of witnessing, I identify three normative purposes to animal rights witnessing: revealing and drawing attention to wrongdoing; preventing wrongdoing; and making a claim about the moral and political status of non-human animals. Each of these purposes is examined in depth, with the first two considered in the context of what has been called ‘the politics of sight’. One outcome of these discussions is to open-up some conceptual distance between witnessing and holding vigil, with the former holding a much stronger connection with presence and place. Although the slaughterhouse vigil typically involves acts of bearing witness and is often its main purpose, the wider practice of holding vigil need not. And, whilst both forms of activism make claims about the ethical status of non-human animals, this element is much more prominent in the public grieving and memorialisation that characterise vigils. Nevertheless, through witnessing, activists also make a claim that the object of their gaze matters morally. Having identified these features and responded to an important critique of the politics of sight, I move on to examine links between Animal Save's praxis and the tradition of Christian witness. I demonstrate that it is only by relying upon controversial faith-based commitments that Animal Save can adopt its expansive and demanding definition of witnessing and claim it as a duty. Although I reject this conception, I argue that the character-based elements found within it are a useful way of way of thinking about what makes for a good witness.

The practice and purpose of witnessing

When one thinks of witnessing, it is often in judicial contexts. Judicial witnessing takes the testimony of witnesses, who have been present as victims or observers of wrongdoing, as a form of evidence. The purpose of such evidence is to establish facts and demonstrate their reliability. Witnessing in judicial contexts is focused upon ‘establishing facts and promoting justice’ (Givoni, 2011: 56). This way of thinking about witnessing is backward looking; it describes a witness reporting upon things that have happened so as to establish criminality, degrees of blameworthiness and to justify punishment. Witnessing has also long been associated with humanitarianism, sometimes to ensure or make possible judicial witnessing. In the humanitarian tradition, witnessing has been understood in terms of ‘documenting and reporting on crises’ (Givoni, 2011: 56). Humanitarian witnessing serves as a precursor to testimony so includes actions such as recording, documenting and conscious remembering. Although this approach has much in common with judicial testimony, humanitarian testimony tends to be directed at revealing rather than punishing. For example, the Refugees Welcome movement sees itself as having a duty to bear witness. Its moral code declares that in cases of extreme suffering ‘people of conscience have a responsibility to bear witness’ (Phipps, 2019: 13–14). Alison Phipps describes how activists with skills in documenting and revealing suffering, and with characteristics that grant them credibility, are made use of as witnesses (Phipps, 2019: 12). The fact that witnesses are present in a crisis means that their testimony reflects what they saw and experienced. Proximity and unmediated experience thus make their testimony more reliable and trustworthy, and therefore better able to truthfully serve the cause of justice. By being present, witnesses ensure that wrongdoing cannot easily go unseen and unremarked, inviting censure for crimes, mobilising campaigning, and provoking public interest. In this way, witness testimony serves to make others more attentive to the plight of victims.

The fact that witnesses attend situations of conflict and wrongdoing can also serve as a form of threat. Through witnessing, activists let it be known that transgressions will not go unreported, that responsibility for them will be more difficult to avoid and the possibility of punishment is open. In doing so, activists raise the cost of violations and reduce the risk to potential victims. In these ways, humanitarian witnessing is more directed at the present and future than judicial witnessing. For example, the engaged form of witnessing practised by Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) is aimed more at halting or preventing wrongs than testifying upon the past. This form of witnessing involves being present as an advocate for those suffering gross violations of their rights (Redfield, 2006: 9). Like Refugees Welcome, MSF sees itself as having a duty to act as a witness where it is present to aid those suffering (Redfield, 2006: 10). That duty requires passing moral comment upon wrongdoing, not with a judicial process in mind, but purely to speak on behalf of victims against their transgressors (Redfield, 2006: 9). By acting in this way, the humanitarian witness makes an implicit claim that those suffering are owed justice. Thus, their witness draws those marginalised and unseen within the scope of moral concern, highlighting that they have been denied standing. To speak out against wrongdoing is necessarily to claim that the object of that wrongdoing is someone who can be wronged, someone who matters.

Drawing the threads above together we can see that witnessing, as a humanitarian act, has three of the core purposes identified in the introduction. First, by being present and testifying, witnesses intend to reveal and draw attention to suffering and wrongdoing. Second, activists seek to prevent wrongdoing by hindering attempts at concealment and thus opening up the possibility of accountability. Third, through acts of grieving, memorialisation, and individualisation, activists attempt to make claims about the moral status of marginalised groups. These three functions cast light on animal rights vigils and the idea of bearing witness to the suffering and death of non-human animals as a form of activism. Each is discussed, in order, below.

Revealing and drawing attention to suffering

A key theme in the existing literature on animal rights vigils and witnessing is that of increasing the visibility of suffering and raising awareness. Thus, Alex Lockwood describes the importance of communicating with passers-by at vigils (Lockwood, 2018) and Karen Gillespie writes that ‘Bearing witness is one mechanism through which to bring their suffering into view’ (Gillespie, 2016: 578). It is common in the animal rights literature to see arguments that wrongdoing is made easier because animal suffering is rendered invisible. Both farming and slaughter are carried out away from large population centres and behind closed doors. ¹ Whilst this siting may not be done with the intention to conceal, the effect is the same as if it were. Paul McCartney's famous quote that ‘if slaughterhouses had glass walls, we’d all be vegetarian’ is frequently referred to. Discussing this quote, Siobhan O'Sullivan describes how a lack of awareness of conditions in factory farms results in farmed animals receiving lesser protections against cruelty and harm (O'Sullivan, 2011: 127). When members of the public see the reality of conditions for animals in farms and laboratories they often find it extremely distressing (O'Sullivan, 2011: 70). As a result, farmers and scientists work hard to keep the truth of what happens from the public eye, presenting highly sanitised pictures instead (O'Sullivan, 2011: 77–81). Keeping what is done to non-human animals secret is a means of control, it makes those who carry out harms less vulnerable to the exercise of power by others. By intentionally concealing harms, agents can escape criticism, judgement, shame, and guilt. As Sissela Bok writes: ‘Because it bypasses inspection and eludes interference, secrecy is central to the planning of every form of injury to human beings’ (Bok, 1989: 26). The same is often true in the case of harms to non-humans. Not only does secrecy allow callousness and brutality to remain hidden, it prevents citizens from making good political judgements by concealing facts relevant to deliberation (Bok, 1989: 25; O'Sullivan, 2011: 70, Rutledge-Prior, 2022: 19–20). By being present as witnesses at sites of injustice, animal rights activists resist attempts at concealment and perform a political act in the service of democratic principles. Recording and recounting their experiences is a democratic act as well as for non-humans themselves.

Preventing harms

Connected with this is the idea that being present can prevent both immediate and future harms. Immediate harms may be prevented because, by being present as witnesses, activists have an opportunity to appeal directly to wrongdoers and so persuade them to stop. In the longer term, harms may be prevented because an awareness of the nature and extent of animal death and suffering will so shock and discomfort fellow citizens that they will be motivated to act on behalf of non-humans. By stimulating compassion, others may be moved to change their personal behaviour, such as by becoming vegan, and act politically to improve conditions for non-humans. As a strategy aimed at preventing present harms by appeal to the conscience of slaughterhouse workers, vigils are plainly ineffective. Although Kranjc describes an example of Chinese activists negotiating the freedom of over 1400 dogs (Purdy and Krajnc, 2018: 54), this case more accurately describes a case of conscientious obstruction than a form of witnessing. Activists intercepted trucks and prevented them travelling to slaughter, and brought in local government officials to confiscate mistreated animals (“Chinese Activists Rescue 400 Dogs Bound for Meat Trade Slaughter in 50-Hour Standoff,” 2015). The number of animals directly saved at activist vigils is negligible, ² leading Gillespie to reflect with sadness that ‘more often, witnessing does little for the embodied animals who are the subject of the witness's gaze’ (Gillespie, 2016: 578). More promising is the testimony provided by witnessing, along with video and still photographic footage as a wider appeal to the public. Animal Save, for example, make photographing and videoing non-human animals as they are transported to slaughter to raise awareness a core part of their praxis (Krajnc, 2017: 481). Similarly, testimony provided by undercover investigations and accompanying illegal forms of rescue, which often provoke outrage and draw attention to illegal breaches of welfare laws. Indeed, Krajnc's arrest and trial in 2015 for illegally giving water to pigs being transported to slaughter arguably garnered more attention than vigils alone could have. Indeed, Krajnc herself credits the trial with bringing worldwide attention to the movement (Krajnc, 2017: 479).

The politics of sight

The role ascribed to witnessing in preventing harm and bringing about social change is part of what has been labelled ‘the politics of sight’. Despite the visual metaphor, this form of activism can refer to any action aimed at achieving political change by revealing and drawing attention to wrongdoing and by resisting attempts at secrecy. Because so much of animal agriculture is kept from the majority's view, the politics of sight has historically been an important part of animal activism. Indeed, the term was coined by Timothy Pachirat to describe it.

In Every Twelve Seconds, Pachirat describes how industrial agriculture and slaughter practices distance and conceal violence. Pachirat's analysis is concerned with revealing power relations at work in concerted attempts to either conceal or make visible. In large part the book does this via an autoethnographic account of work in a slaughterhouse. Pachirat's analysis examines what mechanisms of concealment and distancing within slaughterhouses mean for workers; those who carry out the ‘dirty, dangerous, demeaning work’ (Pachirat, 2013: 240) and for the animals slaughtered. Where concealment serves as a means of control and domination, his hope is that transparency can bring positive transformation (Pachirat, 2013: 243). But Pachirat strikes a cautious tone because sight's transformative power often rests upon its capacity to shock. If repeated revelations attenuate that capacity, or if the shocking becomes a spectacle, then the politics of sight may eventually become self-defeating (Pachirat, 2013: 253–254).

Although they reject the empirical basis for those specific worries, Jasmine English and Bernardo Zacka's share the same broad concern. English and Zacka identify three core premises underpinning the thesis that visibility has transformative potential. First, that exposing repugnant practices will shock those unfamiliar with them. Second, that seeing those practices will motivate rejection of them. Third, that in a world where there are repugnant practices, visibility is better than concealment (English and Zacka, 2022: 1025). Each of these premises is challenged by English and Zacka.

Drawing upon evidence from social psychology, English and Zacka argue that cognitive dissonance, emotional regulation, and motivated cognition can all function to undermine the politics of sight's aims. For example, although shocking images are a powerful way to draw attention, they do so by provoking negative emotions. Viewers respond to these negative emotions in any number of ways, and not always positively. One response is to simply seek to escape, to turn away. Another is to find ways to justify or explain away the source of shock. These processes have received considerable attention in the literature on the psychology of meat eating. Most people believe that it is wrong to cause non-human animals to suffer whilst also consuming and using animal products. When forced to confront the realities of animal agriculture, people often overcome the resultant cognitive dissonance or feelings of shame by downplaying the sentience of animals they desire to eat; distrusting evidence that suffering is endemic; compartmentalising; or rationalising the consumption of meat as necessary and natural. To do so, they will consciously ignore evidence and exert considerable effort to remain wilfully ignorant (Kunst and Hohle, 2016; Loughnan et al., 2010, 2014; May and Kumar, 2022; Onwezen and van der Weele, 2016; Piazza and Loughnan, 2016; van der Weele, 2013).

English and Zacka argue that similar cognitive processes are at play in the slaughterhouse workers described by Pachirat. In order to avoid facing-up to their part in serious wrongdoing, workers engage in cruel and degrading acts towards non-humans, which serve to signal that those beings are of little worth. In other words, to avoid the negative emotions associated with complicity in wrongdoing, agents reduce their appraisal of the worth of non-human animals. Thus, revealing repugnant practices might prompt brutalisation, in turn ‘helping to legitimate participation in these very practices’ (English and Zacka, 2022: 1026).

What are we to make of English and Zacka's conclusion? One response is to point out, as they acknowledge, that these processes are not necessary features of the politics of sight. Rather, the way individuals respond to shocking revelations depends upon a range of factors, such as the character of agents confronted with the truth, how those revealing the truth are regarded by the agent, and whether shocks are accompanied by ethical argument (see Loughnan et al., 2010). Thus activists who engage in the politics of sight should not assume that merely revealing the truth will result in successful campaigns. Instead, activists should ensure that their testimony is accompanied by argument, explanation, and attempts to persuade.

English and Zacka make a further claim, however, one that might render actions carried out under the auspices of the politics of sight altogether impermissible. In their analysis of Pachirat, they describe how convenient fictions, together with the division of labour in the slaughterhouse, shield workers from the truth of industrialised killing. Because they are shielded, these workers are able to avoid brutalisation and the negative mental states associated with involvement in repugnant practices. Furthermore, refusal to take part in these practices would carry unreasonably high burdens because workers typically cannot afford to quit their jobs. If slaughterhouses are to persist then it is thus unfair to burden workers by revealing the truth to them. Indeed, they go as far as to suggest that slaughterhouse workers have a right to ignorance: ‘Are slaughterhouse workers not entitled, in other words, to the architecture of plausible deniability and the exculpatory myth of the knocker ³ that makes it possible’ (English and Zacka, 2022: 1034). It looks as if two very similar and intertwined claims are being made here: one about whether workers are capable of avoiding wrongdoing, and another about whether activism can succeed. Both are dubious.

The first claim begins with the premise that awareness of their complicity in morally repugnant acts does moral injury to the agent. ⁴ Thus, if their complicity were revealed then workers would be harmed. But, agents ought not be harmed if they could not have acted otherwise. So, whilst the industrialised killing of non-human animals is morally repugnant, the fact that workers cannot do otherwise means that they ought not suffer for it. Workers, they write, ‘belong to socioeconomically disadvantaged groups for whom quitting may not be an option’(English and Zacka, 2022: 1034). The problem for English and Zacka is that it isn’t true that workers cannot do otherwise. Rather, doing otherwise would present them with high burdens.

Perhaps we might instead interpret their argument as saying it is wrong to force workers to bear high burdens. Since both quitting their jobs and facing-up to their complicity would carry a high burden, it would be wrong to undermine the fictions that enable continued participation in slaughterhouse activities. But this argument has two problems. The first is that it is paternalistic to collude in keeping workers ignorant of morally relevant features of their actions. A culture of secrecy is one in which conditions for voluntary action are worsened. Indeed, that is often the point of secrecy. By concealing the nature and extent of harms, workers who are causally responsible for those harms are effectively used in the service of a bad end, which they might otherwise have chosen not to support. As a result, their autonomy is undermined and another's will is substituted for their own. The second is that the claim relies upon an unstated and unargued for premise: that non-human animals are not owed rights. If non-human animals have rights against being killed or made to suffer, then harming them for money is simply impermissible no matter how onerous it is to find alternative sources of income. Since activists engaged in the politics of sight are acting on the basis that non-humans are rights-bearers, English and Zacka's argument looks question-begging.

However, as mentioned, English and Zacka have a second strand to their argument. If morally repugnant practices are to persist, so they argue, better that they persist in ways that avoid moral injury to the complicit. Here, the focus of the argument is very much directed at protecting vulnerable workers who carry out socially acceptable wrongs that benefit wider society. It is primarily the workers who ought to be shielded from the truth, rather than the public. So long as the public resist change, ‘there might still be a case for maintaining the slaughterhouse as it is for those who work in it, at least until the reactions of the general public prompt a change in the practices’ (English and Zacka, 2022: 1034).

In reply, we might ask whether it is possible to bring that change without making use of the politics of sight. The evidence is that most people, across cultures, are concerned that animals not suffer during slaughter (Sinclair et al., 2023). The truth is, however, that they do suffer, and that industrial agriculture cannot function without almost inconceivable levels of cruelty. It would seem difficult, therefore, to imagine how to bring about change without people having to confront the contradictions between their beliefs about suffering and their continued consumption of meat. Nor does it seem possible to do this for the wider public whilst shielding slaughterhouse workers from it. Shielding the directly complicit seems to require also shielding the indirectly complicit. If non-human animals have rights, then revealing the truth might be forbidden only if there are more effective and less burdensome ways of prompting social change. It is difficult to see what those alternatives are and how they are compatible with a culture of secrecy.

In the meantime, we might wonder why millions of non-human animals should be sacrificed for the sake of avoiding moral injury to their killers. In effect, this amounts to a claim that if rights are to be violated, it is better that perpetrators do not suffer for it until enough of those indirectly complicit agree that violations should cease. Such a principle might be justifiable on narrow consequentialist grounds, but is otherwise rather unappealing because it absolves those who directly commit wrongs so long as they are supported by a majority.

In the end, arguments against the politics of sight fail both on empirical and normative grounds. Nevertheless, they highlight some important considerations: first, that as a campaign strategy, shocking testimony should be accompanied by arguments and attempts to persuade; and second, that the politics of sight often function not merely to reveal truth but also to make wilful ignorance about the truth more difficult. Let us turn now to the next feature of animal rights witnessing and vigils: their role making claims about the moral status of non-human animals.

Asserting the moral status of non-humans

Besides the functions of making suffering visible and the intention to prevent harmful practices, vigils and witnessing also act as claims about the moral standing of non-human animals. These claims are present in the connection between vigils and expressions of grief, and in the importance of making eye contact with non-human animals in Animal Save witnessing. These two dimensions are discussed in order below.

Vigils as sites of grieving

In humanitarian practice, vigils have long served as a form of political grieving and memorialisation. For example, vigils to mourn the passing of migrants killed during dangerous border crossings make a statement about the importance of individual lives. As a form of memorialisation, they reinforce the idea that the lives lost were ones that mattered and counter the tendency towards active forgetting that often follows painful events. Vigils challenge structures and norms that marginalise certain groups and fail to respect the moral status of each person lost or treated unjustly. In the same way, bearing witness to the suffering of the marginalised and vulnerable acts as a means of pushing back against their exclusion from moral and political consideration and signifies that their lives ought to count. The vigil and the practice of witnessing thus act as forms of passive resistance. In the context of animal rights vigils, Gillespie writes that witnessing ‘has the potential to reveal and document hierarchies of power and inequality‘ (Gillespie, 2016: 578). Both Gillespie and Lockwood describe how witnessing the suffering of non-human animals provoked feelings of grief (Gillespie, 2016: 574; Lockwood, 2018: 118), and Gillespie draws upon Judith Butler‘s work to highlight the political dimensions of grief:

Grieving the ungrieved signals to others that the subject in question ought to be grieved; it disrupts the dominant narratives that circulate to reinforce the notion that some lives and deaths simply matter less than others (Gillespie, 2016: 580)

The reason activists feel grief is because they recognise non-human animals are ethical subjects, worthy of concern and respect, and that the world is diminished by their deaths. To grieve for non-humans, writes Gillespie, ‘is to make an intentional statement about the violence of species hierarchies’ (Gillespie, 2016: 580). For these sorts of reasons, she concludes that grief, as a response to injustice, ought to be an integral part of animal rights witnessing (Gillespie, 2016: 579).

One worry here might be that if grieving is a ‘crucial dimension of witnessing’ (Gillespie, 2016: 585), and witnessing is, as Animal Save argue, a duty, then it follows that there is a duty to grieve. But a duty to signal to others the moral status of non-human animals via grieving would reduce expressions of emotion to political performances. Whilst it is natural to mourn the loss of a being whose life matters, that grief ought to come unbidden out of the recognition of loss; it cannot be demanded. The same response can be made to a claim that grief is integral to witnessing even if there is no duty to witness. Nevertheless, it may be that activists should not seek to hide or repress their grief. Expressions of grief over non-human animals, even those who are strangers to those grieving, serve to demonstrate to others that grief is a fitting response and that one ought to feel powerful negative emotions when confronted by harms to non-humans. At the same time, such displays demonstrate to others who seem unable to feel compassion that it is possible to do so. Thus, an agent cannot take their own lack of sympathy towards an animal as conclusive evidence that the animal does not matter morally. Emotions such as anger, grief, sorrow, horror, and disgust are appropriate responses to serious injustice and so expressing them in response to harms to non-humans challenges and disrupts dominant social norms. Nevertheless, because grief is an emotional response it cannot be demanded. We cannot choose to grieve or not to grieve, only to express or repress grief that comes to us unbidden. Hence, an ethic of witnessing, such as Gillespie's, that makes a feeling of grief a central component, risks being overly restrictive and demanding.

Witnessing as an ethical encounter

In the same way that grieving marks out that non-human animals are owed moral concern for their own sakes – because they are beings whose loss it is appropriate to grieve – so too can the act of witnessing. An important element of the animal rights vigil involves making eye-contact with individual animals being taken to slaughter. In ‘When Eyes Touch’, James Laing describes the importance of eye contact to humans. The eyes and face, he writes, ‘have a special place in our communicative repertoire’. Eye contact forms a key part of interpersonal relationships, our emotional life, and in the formation of our ethical intuitions (Laing, 2017: 2). When we make eye-contact we demonstrate respect and confirm equal standing, and we are driven to turn away by shame and guilt (Laing, 2017: 2–3). Eye contact can form the basis of an ethical relationship, turning away can serve to deny or sever one. When we make contact, Laing argues, we form a connection and engage in ‘communicative interaction’. Eye contact creates an openness, leading to emotional entanglement. Looking into another's eyes without responding requires an act of will and can itself serve to communicate (Laing, 2017: 13–14). In line with this way of thinking, Kranjc describes how looking at animals in trucks enables witnesses ‘to appreciate the subjective character, and individuality of farmed animals’ (Krajnc, 2017: 480). Similarly, Naisargi Dave writes that ‘witnessing constitutes an intimate event in tethering human to nonhuman, expanding ordinary understandings of the self and its possible social relations’ (Dave, 2014: 452), and both Lockwood and Gillespie write movingly of their attempts to look into the eyes of pigs being transported to slaughter.

One cautionary note we might strike, and this speaks to the worry about there being a self-indulgent element to slaughterhouse vigils, is that eye contact may add to an animal's distress. For some species eye contact may be perceived as a threat (Beausoleil et al., 2006). If this is so then, rather than establishing an ethical bridge, activists who attempt eye contact with animals in the slaughterhouse truck may in fact be demonstrating insufficient care. A responsible activist ought to be aware of, and attentive to, the needs of non-humans. Where other animals experience eye-contact negatively, activists’ gaze should be directed at taking-in the other as an individual rather than establishing a psychological connection. ⁵

Witnessing is also claimed as a means of individualising non-human animals through memorialisation. Gillespie, writes that ‘the act of witnessing animals’ predicaments, and then sharing their stories, is a political act that resists the erasure of individual animal lives, suffering, and deaths’ (Gillespie, 2016: 576). Whilst she is right to argue that sharing the stories of individual animals helps communicate that they are the kind of beings who matter as individuals (Gillespie, 2016: 577), the scale of killing and the difficulties in remembering and individuating across species based on a fleeting encounter make this a fruitless endeavour. As she concedes, ‘in the act of witnessing hundreds or thousands of animals, it was difficult not to abstract from the singular, embodied animals. Even as I intentionally tried to meet the gaze of all the cows passing through the auction ring – and to remember them – it was difficult to recall their faces or their unique conditions of embodiment after I left the auction yard ‘ (Gillespie, 2016: 579).

Christian witness

The discussion above has shown that witnessing has multiple dimensions and purposes. So far, it has been possible to explain how each of these dimensions and purposes is connected and to evaluate their appropriateness and effectiveness. The conception of witnessing that Animal Save makes use of, however, includes many more activities than those so far described. In large part, this can be attributed to the degree to which Animal Save draws its primary inspiration from Tolstoy and those in the same tradition (Purdy and Krajnc, 2018: 45–46). The Christian-inspired conception of witnessing conceives of it as a wide-ranging expression of values. In this section, I describe the range of activities Animal Save consider within the ambit of bearing witness and explore their normative and metaphysical underpinnings.

For example, in his auto-ethnographic account of participating in an Animal Save vigil in Canada, Lockwood describes activists passing water and food to pigs through slats in the side of trucks, offering apologies, and taking photographs (Lockwood, 2018: 110–111). Besides these acts, activists engage in awareness-raising activities such as leafleting, displaying placards and banners, and speaking with passers-by and workers involved in animal transport. All of these acts, along with simply being present, open rescue, ⁶ halting slaughterhouse trucks for a short time in order to show kindness and compassion, documentation, and offering aid, are conceived of as part of the act of witnessing (Purdy and Krajnc, 2018: Chapter 2). Kranjc is explicit that in its fullest form bearing witness ‘involves truly freeing the animals’ (Purdy and Krajnc, 2018: 48), and she offers historical accounts of witnessing that include solidaristic acts, self-sacrifice, and passive resistance. It is this very broad conception of bearing witness that allows Animal Save to claim that it is a moral duty (Core Values, n.d.). In this assertion of a duty, Animal Save follows the humanitarian tradition of Refugees Welcome and MSF. ⁷ For some of these practices, Kranjc makes use of the Gandhian principle of satyagraha. Satyagraha is a concept encompassing either or both of truth and love, and which may be translated as ‘truth-force’ or ‘love-force’. Satygraha is the power of love or truth to compel or persuade (Milligan, 2013a: 230), and involves acting not just in the right way, but with the right (loving) attitudes and motivations. Satyagraha-driven protests go beyond mere civility, they require good-will towards those we oppose politically (Milligan, 2013a: 231). The commitment to love and/or truth demands willingness to engage in self-sacrifice (Milligan, 2013a: 233–235).

Gandhian principles of non-violent resistance themselves drew upon Tolstoy's philosophy (Milligan, 2013b: 72) and in turn shaped those of Martin Luther King, whose ideals Animal Save also make use of. Kranjc describes this form of activism in terms of ‘activists presenting their bodies as personal witness’. King's pacifist disobedience presented suffering for one's cause, including a refusal to forcefully defend oneself from violence, as a means of educating and transforming oppressors. By acting peacefully and with love, no matter the cost, the agent demonstrates the force of their convictions. The ideals of both Gandhi and King included important spiritual dimensions. Similarly, Tolstoy's pacificism, from which both drew, was grounded in his Christian faith. It is by turning to a Christian conception of witnessing that we can better understand how Animal Save can coherently describe all the actions listed above as bearing witness.

Within the Christian tradition, witnessing is about communicating an agent's belief in Christ. This goal is achieved by focusing on what Jesus has done for the world and, in particular, his impact on the lives of those agents. The agent's personal experience of the supposed truth of their faith serves as a form of testimony. In other words, the agent themselves becomes living, embodied testimony, whose character and strength of convictions are evidence of their God and proclaims its power. The idea of becoming, rather than merely providing, testimony draws upon biblical passages commanding the faithful to act as the Holy Spirit's witness by proclaiming their experiences to the world (Acts 1:8, Isaiah 43:10–12). If this is what it means to bear witness, then all acts that serve to demonstrate the activist's values and principles can count as a form of witness, in this case to the truth of those values and principles. Thus, Tolstoy writes: ‘A Christian who knows the truth must bear witness of the truth to those who know it not’, before going on to claim that ‘testimony can be made manifest only by example’ (Tolstoy, 1885, Chapter 2). Therefore, to bear witness at the slaughterhouse is, for Animal Save, to embody a claim that non-human animals are owed rights.

Although this conception of witnessing is important for understanding the practice in animal rights contexts, and is also present in humanitarian witnessing, ⁸ it is not especially helpful for the purpose of describing or evaluating witnessing or vigils. This is because its expansive nature makes it impossible to distinguish between bearing witness and other forms of activism. A good concept not only enables us to explain all examples of the thing it describes, but also to tell it apart from things it is not. If all forms of peaceful activism can be described as witnessing, then the concept is simply not useful. Nevertheless, the discussion above is useful for identifying important dimensions of witnessing. The focus of the Christian tradition of witnessing is upon being a good person and the kinds of attitudes and dispositions required for that. In this context, figures like Tolstoy, Gandhi and Martin Luther King serve as moral exemplars. Without developing a virtue-centred account, there is something useful in this way of thinking about witnessing that can inform a narrower and more secular account. In particular, faith-based elements help draw attention to the fact that witnessing can be burdensome. Because of this, certain character traits can be helpful in drawing people to act as witnesses, and in enabling them to take on that burden. Second, the character of agents can be helpful when it comes to gathering testimony and convincing others to be moved by it. It is to the role played by character and attitudes in witnessing that I therefore now turn.

The good witness

The phrase ‘bearing witness’ suggests that witnessing is burdensome. The pain of grief is one such burden. Because witnessing involves opening oneself to distressing experiences, bearing witness as a conscious, deliberate act requires the right attitudes and a certain kind of person. Without good character witnessing cannot occur. This is firstly because the practice comes at a cost to the witness, and secondly because it requires both the capacity to recognise injustice and a willingness to challenge it. Thus, we see claims that witnesses to suffering ought to be compassionate, courageous, committed to the truth, loving, and willing to engage in acts of self-sacrifice. Tolstoy‘s account of the slaughterhouse is illustrative. Tolstoy's reflections are directed at provoking a sympathetic or compassionate response to suffering. Sympathising with a being in pain is uncomfortable and the sight of suffering is distressing as a result. Even so, Tolstoy thinks that when confronted with it we should move closer to the suffering being and do what we can to provide aid (Krajnc, 2017: 481). Tolstoy's claim is not merely that we have a duty to aid those in need, but also that those confronted by suffering should resist the urge to turn away. The commandment not to turn from suffering requires us to act courageously by doing what is right even when it is painful to do so. Implicit in the argument is an acknowledgement that acting upon a feeling of sympathy carries a burden, namely of prolonging one's own uncomfortable sympathetic response. As Dave notes, for someone to witness in this sense ‘means to see in a manner that is present, to root themselves when they might rather run or turn away’ (Dave, 2014: 440). Also implicit in the argument is the requirement that the witness have a pre-existing sense of sympathy for non-human animals. Without that sense of sympathy, and the element of fellow-feeling that forms part of it, there is no distress at the sight of suffering and thus no urge to turn away. Paradoxically, the agent’s desire to turn away also forms the core of the imperative to provide aid; it is that which pricks at the conscience and so motivates action. Thus, Krajnc writes that we must help others in dire need, humans and non-humans, not only for their sakes, but also for the sake of our conscience (Krajnc, 2017: 494, 498). She adds: ‘We must never avoid or turn away from the truth‘ (Krajnc, 2017: 497). Similarly, MSF sees itself as embodying principles that demand a willingness, at least at an organisational level, to speak out on moral issues. This willingness reflects a commitment to honesty, integrity, and truth-telling. Here, the moral imperative to act as a witness relates to the character of the agent and the virtues of the organisation. To consciously engage in witnessing, the agent must be sensitive to wrongdoing, attentive to those wronged, and be committed to the truth-telling that underpins testimony.

We can see from the above that a humanitarian witness is a certain kind of person, a person of good character. The ideal humanitarian witness serves as an exemplar for others to emulate. Hence, we can understand Tolstoy's contention in ‘The First Step’ that vegetarianism ‘is a sign of the aspiration of mankind towards perfection’ as part of a claim about the virtuous witness. A character-focused reading helps explain how bearing witness can be presented not merely as an act, but also more broadly ‘as a choice between indifference and apathy and speaking out and engaging social issues’ (Braddock, 2021: 48).

There is a danger, however, in relying too heavily upon Tolstoy for an account of the attitudes that make someone a good witness. Some of the character-based elements insisted upon by Animal Save ought not be considered part of what it means to be a good witness. In particular, we should reject the insistence on acting from love. Tolstoy‘s ethic of love and self-sacrifice is grounded in an attempt to emulate the teachings of Christ and faith in the coming of a New Jerusalem (Milligan, 2013b: 77). It is this ethic of loving protest, together with the spiritual elements of satyagraha, that underpins Animal Save's conception of bearing witness. By putting Tolstoy's ethic at the heart of their praxis, Animal Save's form of witnessing becomes implausible, overly demanding, and inappropriate. These problems are considered in order below.

In his discussion of Tolstoy's ethic, Tony Milligan questions whether it is possible to love strangers in any meaningful way. Love, he suggests, is something that develops during a relationship (Milligan, 2013b: 79). If a deep or genuine love is required then it cannot be felt towards strangers. One response to this might be to say that because animal rights vigils are often repeated acts, sometimes occurring several times per week, activists are able to build relationships with those involved in slaughter. However, it is implausible to think that the frequency and kinds of interactions between protestors and farm, security, slaughter, and transport workers are sufficient to build loving relationships. In any case, testimony from activists shows that often truck drivers and slaughterhouse guards or workers take steps to avoid engaging. Workers turn away or wind-up windows to avoid conversation and trucks are stopped for only a few minutes at a time. Alternatively, Milligan considers whether we might understand love in a more minimal sense, such as taking love to mean compassion, or understanding it as an abstract love for humanity rather than particular individuals. Such a conception of love is more akin to respect for the moral status of others than the affective notion of love implied by Animal Save. If this minimal sense of love is what is meant, then it is insufficient to justify the sorts of constraints and requirements of Tolstoy's ethic. More plausibly, Tolstoy might be understood as arguing not that a feeling of love is required, but rather that it is something an agent ought to aspire to. If this is so, then agents would be required not to feel love, but rather to act only in ways compatible with loving.

However we understand the requirement to love one's opponents, whether in a rich, affective manner or merely to act in ways compatible with loving, the requirement is too demanding. For a witness to look upon cruelty, suffering, and killing and feel only love towards the perpetrators, or to limit their responses only to those that can be interpreted as loving, is simply not possible for many, if not most, people. As Milligan argues, if love is required for certain forms of protest, then it would place them ‘out of reach of ordinary agents and would require something altogether more saintly or heroic‘ (Milligan, 2013b: 79).

More seriously, loving those who cause or contribute to serious wrongdoing may be inappropriate. It may be inappropriate first because it denies the agency of one's opponents and so fails to respect them as autonomous moral agents. As Milligan argues, it is paternalistic to overlook wrongdoing as if our opponents ‘are errant children instead of political agents who happen to defend injustice‘. Secondly, it is implausible to think that everyone deserves to be loved (Milligan, 2013b: 80). If loving is undeserved then it is hard to see how it can be a duty. Often, the injunction to love one's enemies appears to lead to a level of civility that crosses into deference. Slaughterhouse vigils are frequently conducted after politely securing permission from managers or owners, and activists commonly engage in friendly conversation with those carrying out or enabling cruelty and killing. As a response to serious wrongdoing, deference, friendliness, love, or joviality are wildly out of place. More natural and fitting responses are those mentioned earlier: anger, grief, sorrow, horror, and disgust. If one believes that non-human animals are owed justice, then even weaker principles, such as a commitment to civility, may be inappropriate when their rights are systematically and seriously violated (c.f. Delmas, 2018: 62–68).

Whether it is possible or desirable for animal rights witnessing to be conducted in a loving way, it is only by adopting the overly expansive Christian conception of witnessing that it can be plausibly claimed as a necessary condition. Emotions like love may include constitutive beliefs about whether the object of love is worthy of it. If this is so, then the requirement to love also requires a belief that those who commit injustice deserve to be loved by those who oppose them. Such a belief is heavily reliant upon faith and related beliefs about forgiveness and love for sinners. In the end, it is difficult to defend the requirement to feel or act with love without falling back upon controversial metaphysical and faith-based claims. As a result, the Animal Save ideal of witnessing is left out of reach of most agents and incompatible with many conceptions of the good.

Perhaps, despite what I have argued above, there is a strategic case to be made for showing love. Behaving in a loving manner might ultimately be more successful at persuading people to the animal rights cause than more confrontational forms of activism. If this is so, then this will need to be supported by an evidential base. Unfortunately, there is not yet evidence to support such a claim. Without considering the expression of particular emotions in protests, scholars disagree even about whether non-violent and non-disruptive protests are more effective than confrontational and violent protests (Delmas, 2018: 58–59; Gupta, 2017: 179–182). If this is true, however, such aims could also be achieved by less demanding expression of respectful rather than loving attitudes. In any case, a strategic justification for expressions of love is much less apparent within the movement than more demanding Christian-inspired justifications.

Conclusions

Having worked through the various conceptual elements of vigils and witnessing, let us now take stock and conclude by summarising what it means to witness; and what makes for a good witness; and how we should understand vigils and witnessing as political acts.

To witness is to be present at a site of wrongdoing. The purpose of witnessing, carried out as an intentional ethical act, is to prevent present or future wrongdoing and to hold wrongdoers to account. The potential of witnessing to achieve the latter is limited, but it may at least prevent customary norms and existing welfare laws being violated, such as through undercover investigations. To achieve these aims, witnessing needs to be accompanied by testimony. That testimony is more likely to be reliable and compelling if witnesses possess certain character traits, such as attentiveness, honesty and integrity. These traits make them more reliable and trustworthy witnesses, whose testimony is therefore more believable. Bearing witness to suffering is difficult and uncomfortable, so agents are more likely to be willing to act as witnesses if they are compassionate and courageous. Vigils, meanwhile, serve as sites of collective political mourning, whose function is to signal the moral standing of those mourned and the wrongness of their exclusion from ethical concern. Whilst vigils often involve witnessing, such as when carried out at sites where suffering is being inflicted, there is no requirement that vigils be conducted in such a place. Thus, bearing witnessing and attending a vigil, even though both can constitute claims about the moral status of non-human animals, are distinct kinds of acts. In the animal rights literature on witnessing, there has been a tendency to conflate the act of witnessing with motivations for and arising out of it, and with actions, like vigils, prompted by those motivations. But, despite being connected, acts such as witnessing and testifying are not the same and ought to be separated. Witnessing, as an ethical act, does not require testimony, such as in cases where being present to witness is intended to prevent harm and thus the need to testify. Similarly, the bare act of being present to witness can be intended to signal nothing more than the moral status of non-humans. Even though witnessing injustice ought to motivate agents to act, the kinds of actions required can remain unspecified. Duties arising out of witnessing are imperfect. Although vigils and conscious witnessing can fulfil duties of justice towards non-humans, they are not the only way to fulfil them. This means that the claim made by Animal Save that we have a duty to engage in these practices is mistaken (Core Values, n.d.); such a demand only makes sense if an overly broad conception of witnessing is adopted.

Whilst the Christian-inspired love-based account of witnessing espoused by Animal Save is useful for drawing attention to normative and conceptual dimensions of witnessing, it should nevertheless be rejected. It should be rejected because it is overly expansive, too demanding, and because its reliance upon love is both implausible and undesirable. At best, this account of witnessing should be regarded as a supererogatory aspiration. Although the focus on character and motivation is helpful, the character traits listed above can be disentangled from any spiritual claims, making the political practice of witnessing available to a broader community of activists. Even much narrower, secular understandings of vigils and bearing witness, supplemented by a secular vision of the good witness, present powerful political challenges to existing norms concerning the treatment of non-human animals.