Lobbying against compassion: a review of the ethics of persuasion when nonhuman animal suffering is involved

Abstract

This paper departs from a critical animal studies perspective—that is a perspective critical with speciesist anthropocentrism—in order to problematize public relations by industries harming other animals. To this end, it reviews the ethical and theoretical frameworks raised by critical public relations in order to adopt a critical stance towards what we call here “lobbying against compassion”—the practice of public relations, mainly lobbying, to justify the exploitation of nonhuman animals by some industries. We first examine the role of compassion as a strong motivator for prosocial behaviours as discussed by philosophy and social psychology. Second, we examine compassion towards animals from the lens of public relations and communication. Third, we conduct a literature review to identify the ethical frameworks raised by previous critical public relations literature, which can also be used to justify the cultivation of compassion toward other animals. Finally, we argue that an ethics of persuasion that incorporates compassion towards the suffering of other animals—and therefore avoids endorsing animal suffering—is unavoidable for public relations theory and practice to be ethically reinforced.