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Carnism

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Carnism
The National Thanksgiving Turkey Presentation, in which the American president pardons a turkey, has been cited as an illustration of carnism.[1]
DescriptionDominant belief system that supports the killing of certain species of animals for food and other purposes
Term coined byMelanie Joy, 2001[2]
Related ideasEthics of eating meat, speciesism, veganism, vegetarianism

Carnism is the prevailing belief system that supports the killing of certain species of animals for food and other purposes.[3][4][5][6] It has been described as a dominant but invisible paradigm, a hegemony and an "unquestioned default."[1][7]: 30 [8]: 136 

Central to this belief system is a classification of only certain species as food, such as cattle and pigs in the West, which justifies treating them in ways that would be regarded as animal cruelty if applied to species not regarded as food, such as dogs. This classification is culturally relative, so that in China dogs can be slaughtered for meat, while in much of India cows are inviolate.[3]

The term carnism was coined by social psychologist Melanie Joy and popularized by her 2009 book, Why We Love Dogs, Eat Pigs, and Wear Cows.[3][9][7] Joy stated that she wrote the book to examine an apparent paradox in most people's behavior toward animals – that they exhibit compassion toward some species while eating others – and why the majority seem untroubled by the inconsistency.[10][11]

Carnism is closely related to the meat paradox, in which people who would otherwise oppose harming animals engage in behavior that requires them to be harmed.[12][13] Psychologists suggest that this is enabled by the "four Ns," the perception that meat-eating is "natural, normal, necessary, and nice."[14][15][16]

Studies of the meat paradox

Meat in a supermarket

Steve Loughnan, Brock Bastian and Nick Haslam write that, since Paul Rozin appealed to psychologists in 1996 to make meat-eating the subject of serious study, more work has been done to identify who meat-eaters are and what mental states are involved in the practice.[12]: 107 

The conflict many people face between their food choices and beliefs about animal welfare leads to cognitive dissonance.[17][18] A 2010 study randomly assigned college students to eat either beef jerky or cashews, then assigned them the task of judging the moral relevance and cognitive abilities of a variety of animals. Compared to students who were given cashews, those who ate beef jerky expressed significantly less moral concern for animals, and assigned cows a diminished ability to have mental states that entail the capacity to experience suffering.[19]

Subsequent studies in 2011 similarly found that people were more inclined to feel it was appropriate to kill an animal for food when they perceived that it had diminished mental capacities; that, conversely, they perceived animals as having diminished mental capacities when told they were used as food; and once again that eating meat caused participants to ascribe fewer mental abilities to animals. Separately, subjects who read a description of an exotic animal rated it as less sympathetic and less able to experience suffering if they were told that native people ate the animal, regardless of whether they were told that the animal was hunted or that it was scavenged.[12][17][20] These findings confirm Joy's theory that categorization as food itself diminishes moral concern for animals.[3] Carnism may involve further categories, such as "pets," "vermin," "entertainment animals" and so forth, which color subjective perceptions.[4]

A series of studies of moral reasoning around the meat paradox, reported in 2015 in Appetite, found that the "four Ns" accounted for the great majority of American and Australian meat eaters' stated justifications for consuming meat. Arguments included that humans are omnivores (natural), that vegetarian diets are lacking in nutrients (necessary), that most people eat meat (normal), and that meat tastes good (nice). People who endorsed such arguments were found to have less moral concern for animals and attribute less consciousness to them, to be more supportive of social inequality and hierarchical ideologies, and to be less proud of their consumer choices. Meat-eaters who expressed these views more strongly reported less guilt about their dietary habits.[14]

Vegan discourse

As a set of ideas that legitimate the common uses of animals, carnism can be seen as the opposing ideology to ethical veganism.[3][6] From this perspective, it plays a role in animal ethics analogous to that of patriarchy in feminist theory, as a dominant normative ideology that goes unrecognized because of its ubiquity.[3][9][8] Vegans may argue that carnism is based on the objectification of animals, in that meat is perceived as a thing rather than part of a creature, and in that meat-eaters may deny animals consciousness.[14][21]

Earlier ideas

The idea that humanity's use of animals involves learned prejudice dates back at least to Plutarch, who in the first century CE sought to shift the burden of evidence onto those who opposed vegetarianism, writing:

Can you really ask what reason Pythagoras had for abstaining from flesh? For my part I rather wonder both by what accident and in what state of soul or mind the first man did so, touched his mouth to gore and brought his lips to the flesh of a dead creature, he who set forth tables of dead, stale bodies and ventured to call food and nourishment the parts that had a little before bellowed and cried, moved and lived.[3][22]

For most of history, however, it has been tacitly assumed that human domination of animals, including their use as food, is natural and normal. Beginning in the 17th century and until very recently, Cartesian mechanism, which denied animal consciousness, was a prevailing philosophy in the West. This once-dominant argument is at odds with the predominant view of modern neuroscientists, who, notwithstanding the philosophical problem of defining consciousness, now generally hold that animals are conscious.[23][24]

In the 1970s orthodox views on the moral standing of animals were notably challenged by Richard D. Ryder and Peter Singer, who introduced the notion of speciesism, which they defined as discrimination on the basis of species for what they saw as morally irrelevant reasons. Carnism can be understood as a type of speciesism, involving a particular form of species-based discrimination.[3] Radical abolitionist Gary Francione argues that the concept of carnism is based on false premises. His position is that we treat some animals as food and others as family, not because of an invisible ideology, but because we consciously decide that animals are property and that we may value them as we please. He argues that the idea of carnism deflects attention from broader issues of speciesism, and may thereby inadvertently promote welfarist ideas.[25]

Ethics of meat-eating

Further information: Ethics of eating meat

Critics of the position that killing animals for human use is wrong do not typically address the inconsistency of human concern for different species' welfare; rather, they challenge various premises of the vegan argument. One such argument is that nonhumans are not members of the moral community, and it is therefore not morally problematic to cause them pain. Philosopher Timothy Hsiao compares harming animals to introducing malware into a computer. The definition of a moral community is not simple, but Hsiao defines membership by the ability to know one's own good and that of other members, and to be able to grasp this in the abstract. He asserts that nonhuman animals do not meet this standard.[26]

Another line of argument holds that sentience and even individual welfare are less important to morality than the greater ecological good. Following environmentalist Aldo Leopold's principle that preserving the "integrity, stability and beauty of the biotic community" is the sole criterion for morality, this position asserts that sustainable animal agriculture is environmentally healthy and therefore good. This position avoids consideration of animal welfare entirely, as morally irrelevant.[27]

References

  1. ^ a b Packwood-Freeman, Carrie; Perez, Oana Leventi (2012). "Pardon Your Turkey and Eat Him Too," in Joshua Frye, Michael S. Bruner (eds.), The Rhetoric of Food: Discourse, Materiality, and Power, Routledge, p. 103ff.
  2. ^ Joy, Melanie (2001). "From Carnivore to Carnist: Liberating the Language of Meat", Satya, 18(2), September, pp. 126–127.
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h Gibert, Martin; Desaulniers, Élise (2014). "Carnism". Encyclopedia of Food and Agricultural Ethics. Springer Netherlands. pp. 292–298. ISBN 978-94-007-0929-4. {{cite book}}: External link in |chapterurl= (help); Unknown parameter |chapterurl= ignored (|chapter-url= suggested) (help)CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  4. ^ a b Gutjahr, J. (2013). "The reintegration of animals and slaughter into discourses of meat eating". The ethics of consumption. Wageningen Academic Publishers. pp. 379–385. ISBN 978-90-8686-784-4. {{cite book}}: External link in |chapterurl= (help); Unknown parameter |chapterurl= ignored (|chapter-url= suggested) (help)
  5. ^ Rothgerber, Hank (2014). "Efforts to overcome vegetarian-induced dissonance among meat eaters". Appetite. 79: 32–41. doi:10.1016/j.appet.2014.04.003. {{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)
  6. ^ a b Braunsberger, Karin; Flamm, Richard O. (2015). "Consumer Identities: Carnism Versus Veganism". The Sustainable Global Marketplace. Springer International Publishing. p. 345. ISBN 978-3-319-10873-5. {{cite book}}: External link in |chapterurl= (help); Unknown parameter |chapterurl= ignored (|chapter-url= suggested) (help)CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  7. ^ a b Joy, Melanie (2011) [2009]. Why We Love Dogs, Eat Pigs, and Wear Cows. Conari Press. ISBN 1573245054.
  8. ^ a b DeMello, Margo (2012). Animals and Society: An Introduction to Human-animal Studies. Columbia University Press. ISBN 978-0-231-15294-5. Cite error: The named reference "DeMello2012" was defined multiple times with different content (see the help page).
  9. ^ a b Kool, V. K.; Agrawal, Rita (2009). "The Psychology of Nonkilling," in Joám Evans Pim (ed.), Toward a Nonkilling Paradigm, Center for Global Nonkilling, pp. 349–370. ISBN 978-0-9822983-1-2.
  10. ^ "My Conversation With Melanie Joy on "Why We Love Dogs, Eat Pigs, and Wear Cows"". PlanetGreen. 9 October 2010.
  11. ^ Iacobbo, Karen; Iacobbo, Michael (2006). Vegetarians and Vegans in America Today, Praeger, pp. 162–164.
  12. ^ a b c Loughnan, Steve; Bastian, Brock; Haslam, Nick (2014). "The Psychology of Eating Animals", Current Directions in Psychological Science, 23(2), April, pp. 104–108. doi:10.1177/0963721414525781
  13. ^ Benz-Schwarzburg, J., Nawroth, C. (2015). "Know your pork – or better don't: debating animal minds in the context of the meat paradox". Know Your Food: Food Ethics and Innovation. Wageningen Academic Publishers. pp. 233–240. ISBN 978-90-8686-813-1. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |editors= ignored (|editor= suggested) (help)CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  14. ^ a b c Piazza, Jared; et al. (2015). "Rationalizing meat consumption. The 4Ns". Appetite. 91: 114–128. {{cite journal}}: Explicit use of et al. in: |author= (help); Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)
  15. ^ Goodyer, Paula (1 June 2015). "Meat eaters justify diet using 'Four Ns': natural, necessary, normal, nice". Sydney Morning Herald.
  16. ^ Singal, Jesse (25 June 2015). "How people rationalize eating meat". CNN.
  17. ^ a b Bastian, Brock; et al. (2012). "Don't Mind Meat? The Denial of Mind to Animals Used for Human Consumption". Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin. 38 (2): 247–256. doi:10.1177/0146167211424291. {{cite journal}}: Explicit use of et al. in: |author= (help); Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)
  18. ^ Rothberger, H. (2014). "Efforts to overcome vegetarian-induced dissonance among meat eaters". Appetite. 79: 32–41. doi:10.1016/j.appet.2014.04.003. {{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)
  19. ^ Loughnan, S.; et al. (2010). "The role of meat consumption in the denial of moral status and mind to meat animals". Appetite. 55 (1): 156–159. doi:10.1016/j.appet.2010.05.043. {{cite journal}}: Explicit use of et al. in: |author= (help); Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)
  20. ^ Bratanova, B.; et al. (2011). "The effect of categorization as food on the perceived moral standing of animals". Appetite. 57 (1): 193–196. doi:10.1016/j.appet.2011.04.020. PMID 21569805. {{cite journal}}: Explicit use of et al. in: |author= (help); Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)
  21. ^ Greenebaum, J. (2012). "Managing Impressions: "Face-Saving" Strategies of Vegetarians and Vegans". Humanity & Society. 36 (4): 309–325. doi:10.1177/0160597612458898. {{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)
  22. ^ Plutarch, translated by W. Heinemann (1957). De esu carnium (On Eating Meat), Loeb Classical Library Ed., Vol. XII. Harvard University Press. p. 541.
  23. ^ "The Cambridge Declaration on Consciousness" (PDF). Consciousness in Human and Non-human Animals, Francis Crick Memorial Conference. 7 July 2012.
  24. ^ Bekoff, Marc (10 August 2012). "Scientists Finally Conclude Nonhuman Animals Are Conscious Beings".
  25. ^ Francione, Gary L. (2 October 2012). "'Carnism'? There Is Nothing 'Invisible' About The Ideology Of Animal Exploitation"], abolitionistapproach.com.
  26. ^ Hsiao, Timothy (2015). "In Defense of Eating Meat". Journal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics. 28: 277–291. doi:10.1007/s10806-015-9534-2.
  27. ^ Bost, Jay (3 May 2012). "The Ethicist Contest Winner: Give Thanks for Meat". The New York Times (editorial).

Further reading

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