New Podcast Release: Zoe Weil
In the latest episode of Lives Well Lived, the podcast I co-host with Kasia de Lazari-Radek, we speak with Zoe Weil, educator and author of The Solutionary Way.
Zoe has spent decades working at the intersection of education, ethics, and systems change. She argues that solving problems is not enough. We must become “solutionaries”: people who address unjust, unsustainable, and inhumane systems in ways that do the most good and the least harm for people, animals, and the environment.
In our conversation, we discuss what distinguishes a solutionary from a problem solver, why education may be the root system underlying other societal systems, how facts and emotion interact in moral change, and what it means to live a well-lived life.
Below is an edited and condensed version of our discussion, organised thematically for clarity.
What Is a “Solutionary”?
KASIA DE LAZARI RADEK: You are the author of The Solutionary Way. “Solutionary” is a word you did not coin, but have embraced. What does it mean?
ZOE WEIL: A solutionary is not just a problem solver. A solutionary has an ethical foundation to problem solving. It is somebody who identifies unjust, unsustainable, inhumane systems and transforms them in ways that do the most good and the least harm for everybody — people, animals, and the environment.
Somebody can solve the problem of blowing up a mountaintop for coal removal. They are a problem solver, but not a solutionary. A solutionary looks at root and systemic problems and addresses them at the causal level.
Becoming a Solutionary
PETER SINGER: How did you become a solutionary?
ZOE WEIL: I identify as a solutionary, but I feel a little trepidation even in using the word for myself because it’s so aspirational. It requires rejecting binary thinking, which is difficult in our culture. For me, being a solutionary has always meant trying to make a difference strategically and in ways that do the most good and the least harm.
I believe that education is the root system underlying all other societal systems. But very few people are really trying to change the systems that perpetuate suffering and harm. Even when people learn about atrocities in which they play a part, most don’t want to change their behaviours. So I’m more focused on systems.
I did not grow up in an activist family. I was expected to become a doctor, lawyer, or business person. I studied pre-med, then English, then briefly law, then divinity school. I stumbled into humane education while looking for a summer job. I taught middle school students about animal issues after reading Animal Liberation. The course was unexpectedly popular.
One week I taught about product testing on animals. A student went home, hand-wrote leaflets, and came back the next day to hand them out on the street. He just turned into an activist overnight. Years later, when I introduced him at an event, he interrupted me and said, “That course changed my life.” It changed my life too. That was when I realised there was a field called humane education where I could work on these issues.
A humane educator teaches about interconnected issues of human rights, environmental sustainability, and animal protection. A solutionary addresses root and systemic causes.
Facts, Emotion, and Change
KASIA DE LAZARI RADEK: People say you don’t change minds with facts alone, but by making people feel differently. What is your experience?
ZOE WEIL: They can go together. You can show undercover footage that contains both facts and emotional content. I used to show high school students videos of animal experimentation, and I always told them they could close their eyes.
The emotional content without facts is manipulation, and the facts without any emotional content ignore what those facts are about. The first time I saw undercover footage, I was devastated. I had read about these issues, but seeing them was galvanising. It was both rational and emotional.
Most people who are willing to learn and change already love animals. I have not found that people respond based on justice alone, but on their hearts. But what about you, Peter? I know that you say that you didn’t come to this issue because you love animals.
PETER SINGER: That’s true, I don’t consider myself an animal lover. But when I see suffering, I can relate to it. I know what pain feels like. That creates an emotional response. For me, it’s not about loving animals; it’s about responding to suffering.
Action as an Antidote to Despair
KASIA DE LAZARI RADEK: You write that becoming a solutionary enriches one’s life. How?
ZOE WEIL: Most people discover that doing good feels good. The solutionary process requires collaboration and rejects binary thinking. It invites deep curiosity. As soon as you make a difference, it feeds your sense of meaning and agency.
Joan Baez said that action is the antidote to despair. For many people who care deeply about the world’s problems, the only way through despair is to act.
PETER SINGER: There is an alternative: ignore the problems and have fun.
ZOE WEIL: Yes. That is why most people are not activists or solutionaries. But it is getting harder to close one’s eyes. The impacts of global problems rebound on all of us. If one cares and does not look away, this is the path forward.
Identity and the Well-Lived Life
KASIA DE LAZARI RADEK: What motivates you more - hope or despair?
ZOE WEIL: Living a well-lived life motivates me more than either. A few years ago, I discovered through a DNA test that my beloved father was not my biological father and that I had dozens of half siblings. My mother had died five days earlier. It was like a freight train hit me.
A half sibling told me three things about myself: that I was good at backgammon, ping pong, and puzzles. They were trivial but true. It made me think about identity. When I align my actions with my values, that becomes my identity.
PETER SINGER: You also say that when you look in the mirror, you can respect the person you’re looking at.
ZOE WEIL: Hope is an emotion. It comes and goes. I have been less hopeful recently. But we cannot sink into despair. Hope is a verb with its sleeves rolled up. If I roll up my sleeves and work, hope may return. If it doesn’t, there is still work to be done. Meaning is a powerful motivator.
Choosing Causes
PETER SINGER: Are there better and worse causes?
ZOE WEIL: I have my priorities, education and food systems feel fundamental, but I don’t tell others what they should care about. I invite people to ask: what problems concern me? What am I good at? What do I love to do? Where those answers intersect, that is a powerful place to act.
There is also a four-phase process: identify a problem, investigate it, innovate solutions, and implement them.
PETER SINGER: What about small causes, affecting few people or animals, versus large ones, affecting many?
ZOE WEIL: I focus on systems. But I don’t feel it is my place to tell someone what issue to work on. What fascinates me is how many people work to reduce euthanasia in shelters while continuing to eat animals. I have been vegan for years. Today, there is no sacrifice in it at all.
Living Fully
PETER SINGER: What, finally, constitutes a well-lived life for you?
ZOE WEIL: Two things. First, ethical alignment. How well am I embodying kindness, compassion, integrity, courage, generosity, perseverance in a most good, least harm way, given the global impacts of my choices?
Second, how fully do I live? I wake up and think, “One day closer to death.” It sounds morbid, but it reminds me to ask what I am going to do today that makes today worth living.
I work hard, but I also go outside in the rain to watch amphibian migrations. I stand under meteor showers. I am the first one who gets up to dance. I don’t believe in an afterlife. This is it. How fully can you live it?
KASIA DE LAZARI RADEK: I love that.
PETER SINGER: Thank you. That adds to what you said about living meaningfully.
ZOE WEIL: I can only do any of this because I am privileged. I am safe. I have enough to eat. That makes living a well-lived life that does the most good and the least harm even more of a responsibility.