PETA and Fallacies

PETA, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, has over three million members and supporters worldwide.  They focus on four main areas: factory farms, the clothing trade, laboratories, and the entertainment industry.  PETA works through public education, cruelty investigations, legislation, celebrity involvement, and protest campaigns to reach out to the world.  Although their mission is well defined and they have many sources on their website to learn about what they do and why you should follow them, their information is filled from top to bottom with fallacies.  As hard as it was to narrow down what fallacies I should use on their website, I have chosen four articles with five different fallacies that skim the surface of the illogical information PETA is feeding people.

Assumption Fallacy: Part-to-Whole

Article Location: http://www.peta.org/issues/animals-used-for-food/more-reasons-to-go-vegan.aspx

“There is more than enough food in the world to feed the entire human population. So why are more than a billion people still going hungry? Our meat-based diet is largely to blame. We funnel huge amounts of grain, soybeans, and corn through all the animals we use for food instead of feeding starving humans. If we stopped intensively breeding farmed animals and grew crops to feed humans instead, we could easily feed everyone on the planet with healthy and affordable vegetarian foods. “

The part-to-whole fallacy is under the assumption category.  When someone says that what is true of part of something must also be true of the whole together, they are using the part-to-whole fallacy.  In the highlighted section above, PETA is assuming, not to mention over simplifying, the process of ending world hunger.  PETA is basically stating that we can end world hunger by stopping the breeding of farmed animals (pigs, cows, sheep, etc.) and instead use the food we would feed the animals to feed starving humans instead. 

I believe the highlighted section is a prime example of a part-to-whole fallacy because using the grain, corn, and soybeans for human consumption instead of animal consumption is only part of the solution to end world hunger.  What about transportation arrangements and cost?  Can low nutrient foods such as grain, corn, and soybeans actually be enough to sustain humans?  Who will pay for the food to be grown, processed, and delivered?  There are too many questions that go unanswered in this article for them to properly and confidently state their claim.

Assumption Fallacy: Either-Or

Article Location: http://www.peta.org/issues/animals-used-for-clothing/default2.aspx

“You can help stop this. Saving animals is as simple as choosing stylish cruelty-free clothing, which is available in every price range and at all kinds of retail outlets, from discount shoe stores to high-end boutiques. With so many fashionable, comfortable options available today, there is no excuse for wearing any animal skins.”

The either-or fallacy is when someone asserts that we must choose between two things, when in fact we have more than two alternatives.  In this PETA article about using animals for clothing sources, they basically state that you either you wear animal skins (wool, leather, etc.) and support the animal industry, or you do not wear animal skins and do not support the animal industry.  There is no in between.  Aren’t there other alternatives though?  Can a person wear wool if it comes from an organic, cruelty-free organization?  Can leather be worn if the animal was killed using cruelty-free practices?  I believe a person can wear animal byproducts without supporting the abusive farmed-animal industry.  Organic and cruelty-free practices need support as well, and PETA does not mention that as an option. 

Avoiding the Question Fallacy: Red Herring

Article Location: http://www.peta.org/issues/animals-used-for-food/more-reasons-to-go-vegan.aspx

“The money-hungry farmed-animal industry exploits poor people, immigrants, and children. They work for paltry wages and are often unfairly penalized when they try to form unions. The work is filthy and extremely dangerous, injuries are rampant, and dying on the job is a very real possibility. Factory farms and slaughterhouses set up shop in the poorest regions of the U.S., where they can use poor and uneducated people to do their dirty work for low wages. The farmed-animal industry often lures immigrants far away from their homes with false promises of good jobs, knowing that these undocumented workers will likely not report unsafe conditions for fear of being deported. The farmed-animal industry has also been condemned for exploiting children. Kids in their early teens have even died while working in animal-processing plants, and Multinational Monitor called Tyson Foods one of the world's "Ten Worst Corporations" because it hires people in the U.S. who are too young to work legally.”

            There is a whole mess of fallacies within this article excerpt.  I will focus on the red herrings, however.  A red herring distracts us from the main argument by introducing an irrelevant point.  What PETA is doing in this article is pulling the readers away from the original argument of going vegan by introducing state and federal employment laws.  They even personally attacked Tyson Foods, a company they have had “beef” with for a number of years.  PETA does not state where they got their premises from or cite their claims for their major generalizations either.  I believe this article should have been titled, “Federal Employment Issues within the Farmed-Animal Industry” instead of “Reasons to go Vegan.”

Statistical Fallacy: Hasty Generalization

Article Location:  http://www.peta.org/issues/Companion-Animals/Cruel-Practices.aspx

“Birds don't belong in cages, either. Bored, lonely, denied the opportunity to fly or stretch their wings, and deprived of companionship, many birds become neurotic—pulling out their own feathers, bobbing their heads incessantly, and repeatedly pecking at the bars of their cages.”

            Hasty generalizations are defined as generalizing about a class based upon a small or poor sample.  The most common type of logical fallacy is the hasty generalization.  In PETA’s case, they do not give any sample size to come up with this claim.  As an exotic bird owner myself, I have done quite a bit of research on the mental effects of caged birds.  It is true; if an intelligent bird is not properly stimulated it will eventually (in most cases) lead to self-mutilation and other harmful behaviors.  On the flip side, however, there are millions of birds in captivity that demonstrate no signs of distress because of proper stimulation. 

PETA is hastily generalizing not about the birds in cages, but about the people who are responsible for them.  Not only do I find this personally offensive, but it is misleading in the way that they give no information on their representative sample.  Did they come to this conclusion by interviewing a bird rescue?  What about the millions of people who own healthy birds that are not all in one location like a bird rescue?  Again, there are too many unknowns that PETA does not provide to consider this a value point.

Logical Fallacy: One-Sidedness

Article Location: http://www.peta.org/issues/animals-used-for-food/eating-for-health.aspx

“Well-planned vegan diets provide us with all the nutrients that we need, minus all the saturated fat, cholesterol, and contaminants found in animal flesh, eggs, and dairy foods. Scientists have also found that vegetarians have stronger immune systems than their meat-eating friends; this means that they are less susceptible to everyday illnesses such as the flu. Vegetarians and vegans live, on average, six to 10 years longer than meat-eaters.”

            One-sidedness is the process of ignoring counter-evidence and slanting the argument to one side.  This article cited above is about how becoming a vegan or vegetarian has benefits to our health.  The article excerpt I have chosen is a one-sided fallacy because PETA fails to say the negative effects of becoming vegan or vegetarian anywhere in the article, but more specifically in this section.  If readers are looking at PETA to show them why they should become vegan or vegetarian, how are they supposed to know the problems of the diet if PETA does not talk about them equally?  Also, who are these “scientists” that claim what they do and how did they come to their conclusion?  Overall, the effectiveness of this article plummeted when I finished reading it and did not learn any negative effects to the vegan/vegetarian diet.

Although PETA is categorized as an extremist group, it is no excuse for ignorance.  It leaves me to wonder how many of their supporters would question their involvement if they analyzed the material they were being fed.  I was on the fence about PETA prior to analyzing their information.  Even though I appreciate their purpose and what they stand for, the way they go about it needs some improvement before I could consider them to be a legitimate organization.