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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.
Description	Belief system that supports the killing of certain species of animals for meat
Term coined by	Melanie Joy, 2001
Related ideas	Ethics of eating meat, speciesism, veganism, vegetarianism

Carnism is a belief system that supports the killing of certain species of animals for meat. It has been described as an invisible paradigm, a hegemony and an "unquestioned default". Carnists accept that certain animal species classified as food, such as cows and pigs in the West, are treated in ways that would be regarded as animal cruelty if applied to certain non-food species, such as dogs. This classification is culturally relative, so that, for example, in China, dogs can be slaughtered for dog meat, while in much of India, cows are inviolate. Some authors define carnism slightly more broadly, as the ideology that supports the consumption, or use, of animal products in general.

The term carnism was coined by vegan social psychologist Melanie Joy and popularized by her 2009 book Why We Love Dogs, Eat Pigs, and Wear Cows. Joy stated that she wrote the book to examine a perceived paradox in most people's behavior toward animals: that they exhibit compassion toward some species while eating others. In psychology, this phenomenon is known as the meat paradox, in which people who oppose harming animals in general engage in behavior that requires food animals to be harmed. Psychologists suggest that negative feelings evinced by this conflict are counteracted by the "Four Ns," the perception that meat-eating is "natural, necessary, normal, and nice." Other strategies for reducing moral tension include avoiding consideration of the issue and ascribing reduced sentience to food animals.

Earlier ideas

For most of history, human use of animals as food has been considered natural and normal. However, 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.

Beginning in the 17th century, Cartesian mechanism, which denied animal consciousness and compared animals to "autonomous robots which merely react to external stimulation", was a prevailing philosophy in the West. This position is not held by most modern neuroscientists, who, despite the difficulty of defining consciousness, now generally hold that animals are conscious.

Speciesism

In the 1970s conventional 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.

Radical abolitionist Gary Francione has challenged the concept of carnism as based on false premises. His position is that some humans treat some animals as food and others as family, not because of an invisible ideology, but because they consciously decide that animals are property and that they may value them as they please. He argues that the idea of carnism deflects attention from broader issues of speciesism, and may thereby inadvertently promote welfarist ideas.

Attributes of carnism

In recent decades, psychologists have conducted experiments to identify what mental states are involved in the practice of eating meat.

The conflict many people face between their food choices and beliefs about animal welfare leads to cognitive dissonance. This can produce negative emotions if not mitigated. Meat-eaters resolve this dissonance in a number of ways.

Cognitive avoidance

One hypothesized strategy adopted by carnists for moderating their moral discomfort is avoiding consideration of the provenance of animal products altogether. This avoidance is sometimes supported by the news media. For example, a study of press coverage of the American National Thanksgiving Turkey Presentation found that most coverage made light of the link between living animals and meat, while celebrating the commercial poultry industry.

Denial of mind or capacity for suffering

Carnists may also moderate their moral discomfort by minimizing their perception of the ability of food animals to experience pain and suffering, as well as their perceptions of animal consciousness and sentience. This is a psychologically effective strategy, because beings who are perceived as less able to suffer are considered to be of less moral concern, and therefore more acceptable as food.

A 2010 study randomly assigned college students to eat either beef jerky or cashews and then judge the moral relevance and cognitive abilities of a variety of animals. Compared with students who were given cashews, those who ate beef jerky expressed less moral concern for animals and assigned cows a diminished ability to have mental states that entail the capacity to experience suffering.

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, again, that eating meat caused participants to ascribe fewer mental abilities to animals. A separate study found that 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. These findings support Joy's theory that categorization as food can itself diminish moral concern for animals.

Carnism may involve further categories, such as "pets," "vermin," and "entertainment animals", which also influence subjective perceptions of animal sentience and intelligence.

The "Four Ns"

A series of studies of moral reasoning around the meat paradox found that the "Four Ns" accounted for the majority of American and Australian meat-eaters stated justifications for consuming meat. These arguments hold 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 or authoritarian 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, suggesting that they are an effective strategy for resolving the cognitive dissonance.

In 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. From this perspective, it plays a role in animal ethics analogous to that of patriarchy in feminist theory, as a postulated dominant normative ideology that goes unrecognized because of its ubiquity. 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.

References

1. ^ 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. ^ 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. ^ Gutjahr, J. (2013). "The reintegration of animals and slaughter into discourses of meat eating". In H. Röcklinsberg and P. Sandin (ed.). The Ethics Of Consumption: The Citizen, The Market And The Law. 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 (August 2014). "Efforts to overcome vegetarian-induced dissonance among meat eaters". Appetite. 79: 32–41. doi:10.1016/j.appet.2014.04.003.
6. ^ 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. ^ Joy, Melanie (2011) . Why We Love Dogs, Eat Pigs, and Wear Cows. Conari Press. ISBN 1573245054.
8. Carrie Packwood Freeman (15 May 2014). Deborah A. Macey; Kathleen M. Ryan; Noah J. Springer (eds.). How Television Shapes Our Worldview: Media Representations of Social Trends and Change. Lexington Books. p. 194. ISBN 978-0-7391-8705-0.
9. ^ 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).
10. ^ 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.
11. "My Conversation With Melanie Joy on "Why We Love Dogs, Eat Pigs, and Wear Cows"". PlanetGreen. 9 October 2010.
12. Iacobbo, Karen; Iacobbo, Michael (2006). Vegetarians and Vegans in America Today, Praeger, pp. 162–164.
13. ^ 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
14. 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)
15. ^ Piazza, Jared; et al. (August 2015). "Rationalizing meat consumption. The 4Ns". Appetite. 91: 114–128. {{cite journal}}: Explicit use of et al. in: |author= (help)
16. ^ Goodyer, Paula (1 June 2015). "Meat eaters justify diet using 'Four Ns': natural, necessary, normal, nice". Sydney Morning Herald.
17. ^ Singal, Jesse (25 June 2015). "How people rationalize eating meat". CNN.
18. Plutarch, translated by W. Heinemann (1957). De esu carnium (On Eating Meat), Loeb Classical Library Ed., Vol. XII. Harvard University Press. p. 541.
19. "The Cambridge Declaration on Consciousness" (PDF). Consciousness in Human and Non-human Animals, Francis Crick Memorial Conference. 7 July 2012.
20. Bekoff, Marc (10 August 2012). "Scientists Finally Conclude Nonhuman Animals Are Conscious Beings".
21. Francione, Gary L. (2 October 2012). "'Carnism'? There Is Nothing 'Invisible' About The Ideology Of Animal Exploitation"], abolitionistapproach.com.
22. Schwabe, Calvin W. (1979). Unmentionable cuisine. University of Virginia Press. p. 168. ISBN 978-0-8139-1162-5. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
23. ^ Bastian, Brock; et al. (February 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)
24. Webster, A.J.F. (Aug 1994). "Meat and right: the ethical dilemma" (PDF). Proceedings of the Nutrition Society, 54. pp. 263–270. doi:10.1079/PNS19940031. Retrieved 5 Jul 2015. {{cite conference}}: Unknown parameter |booktitle= ignored (|book-title= suggested) (help)
25. Waytz, Adam; Gray, Kurt; Epley, Nicholas; Wegner, Daniel M. (2010). "Causes and consequences of mind perception" (PDF). Trends in Cognitive Sciences. 14 (8): 383–388. doi:10.1016/j.tics.2010.05.006. Retrieved 13 July 2015.
26. Loughnan, S.; et al. (August 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)
27. Bratanova, B.; et al. (August 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)
28. Greenebaum, J. (November 2012). "Managing Impressions: "Face-Saving" Strategies of Vegetarians and Vegans". Humanity & Society. 36 (4): 309–325. doi:10.1177/0160597612458898.

Further reading

• Herzog, Hal (2010). Some We Love, Some We Hate, Some We Eat, Harper Collins.
• Joy, Melanie. Beyond carnism, carnism.org; "Beyond carnism and toward rational, authentic food choices", TED talk, 2015.

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