Change of Focus for Effective Advocacy

(a follow-up to The Stranger) 

It is not uncommon to wish someone else would behave or think or feel differently from the way they do (or we think they do). Nor is it uncommon to make efforts to change them accordingly, whether by logical persuasion or emotional persuasion or hidden means or legal or physical compulsion. But as a subjectivist, I have come to understand that a first, and sometimes even the only, step is to change oneself. I do not want to go so far as a Stoic, who would have us ignore that someone is twisting our arm and simply focus on not letting it affect us, or a Buddhist, who would advise that the whole problem is believing oneself even exists. My suggestion is simply that the kind of reaction that someone else’s behavior or whatever (and even here, strictly speaking it is our own perception or interpretation thereof) arouses within us might be the first target to focus on when deciding how to respond. 

There are at least two ways this makes sense. One is that as much “time out” as circumstances allow gives us the opportunity to confirm or revise our perception or interpretation. The other is that the time out gives us the opportunity to think about what kind of response would be most helpful in achieving what we then desire, which, if we have confirmed our initial impression, would be to try to change the other person or at least be able to deal with them effectively (for example, by seeking common ground). So even if the goal were to remain the same – to change the other person in some way – focusing on oneself may be advised and even essential, at least if longer term results are considered (and shorter term ones are not so urgent as to preclude this “luxury”). 

There is a trap, I acknowledge, in expending so much time and effort on reforming oneself that one eventually forgets the original goal. We all know of self indulgent folk who talk about helping others as their pretext for devoting their lives to perfecting (indulging?) themselves. There is surely a kernel of truth to the idea that one needs to be in shape to be of use to others. And is not the long schooling of human beings exactly that sort of thing? Learning how to read and write etc. may require the young person’s full attention for a period of time. But if this went on indefinitely at full throttle, where would be the practical payoff (unless the person turned out to be a promising writer or artist etc. whose self-improving work was social gift enough)? 

I am interested, therefore, in the normal run of cases, where self-interested and other-regarding concerns are in balance. My suggestion is that reforming others is likely to be more effective if conceived as a two-step, or at least double, process of first, or simultaneously, examining oneself along the way. The kind of situation I mainly have in mind is assuming that someone else is doing something wrong or bad.[1] This kind of judgment tends to rouse us to emotional condemnation, contempt, and the like. My empirical hunch is that such arousal is detrimental to the kinds of long-term outcomes most of us would desire on reflection.[2] In simple language: I think judgmentalism creates unnecessary problems over and above the ones we were originally attempting to solve. 

A simple example: Suppose you want everyone to become vegan in order to reduce the suffering and slaughter of nonhuman animals. If you then adopt a censorious attitude toward omnivores, you might only cause them to double down in their resistance, since no one likes to think themself wrong or bad. 

Of course if you were not attempting to change someone’s attitude or beliefs, as perhaps a brick wall not worth beating your head against, and instead were trying to rouse allies to apply coercion in some form, such as legislation against eating animals, then you might suppose a moralist approach might be more effective. But even in that kind of case, my hunch is that it would backfire in the long term. Think of Prohibition in the U.S. 

The element I mean to add with this essay is that the various tactics typically recommended for manipulating others in a nonjudgmental way just won’t work if you remain judgmental in attitude.[3] It amounts to a kind of acting, in the sense of playacting, which I imagine most people would see through. It is also inherently condescending, although, as an amoralist, I have no intrinsic objection to that; but once again I would question it on efficacy grounds as likely counterproductive to the ends I favor. 

This problem raises advocacy to a new level of difficulty, and one which I think is routinely overlooked. Thus, it is not enough to advocate for what you want; nor is it enough to disguise the judgmental attitude toward those whose behavior you want to change that may be motivating your advocacy. One must also manage, and ideally eliminate, the judgmental attitude itself. Otherwise, I predict, it will “out” and thereby frustrate the advocacy effort. 

But if a moral judgment underlies one’s advocacy, wouldn’t the advocacy be frustrated even more if one removed the judgment? I have spent the last two decades refuting that, mainly by arguing that the real springs of action are nonmoral desires. And that does not mean just selfish desires, since desires can be for anything. For example, I for one would favor cultivating, and encouraging others to cultivate (and most effectively by modeling it myself), compassion. I conceive compassion as a nonmoral emotion or desire because it does not involve morally judging any action or person. Anger, on the other hand, is, I would argue, a moral emotion, since it involves judging that someone has done something wrong. 

What I have most recently been trying to accomplish in my advocacy of amoralism itself is to raise awareness of the moralism we carry around within us. Until one confronts and learns how to deal with this, even a convinced amoralist (such as myself) will find their efforts to convince or persuade or move others to some action or change (whether to become vegan, or amoralist, or whatever) much hampered. Or so my experience has taught me. 

Happily I can also report that my efforts at self reform do indeed seem to be having very real effects in empowering me to bring about reforms I seek in others’ behaviors and attitudes. 

But, again, what I am trying to emphasize is that this matter cannot be resolved at the theoretical level. Self reform is a practical matter. Therefore my reader, if sympathetic to my “message,” will need to do more than agree with what I have written, and must actually take steps to perceive and root out their own moralism. This could be a long process, and perhaps never to be completed. Nevertheless there can be progress in self-reform and then, or along with, other-reform. 

Exactly what practical steps am I talking about? This is the subject of Part 3 of my book Ethical Health (Routledge 2025): “The Management of Morality.” In a word, you might need psychotherapy.

[1] Paradigmatically this refers to moral wrongness or badness, but ultimately I have in mind any attribution of error or inadequacy to another or others, including of aesthetic taste, prudence, rationality, belief, you name it.

[2] I also happen to think it is based on the error of believing that objective values, moral or otherwise, exist at all. But I will confine my argument to the empirical consequences of holding that belief and to our considered attitude toward those consequences (i.e., I think we would prefer the consequences of not believing in objective values if we thought about it).

[3] Three books to whose approaches I mean to be speaking are Nick Cooney’s Change of Heart (Lantern Books 2011), Casey T. Taft’s Motivational Methods for Vegan Advocacy (Vegan Publishers 2016), and Mary Lawrence’s Eat Vegan with Me (Vegan Publishers 2017).

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