Meat eaters think animals lack capacity to suffer

[JP]

http://www.kent.ac.uk/news/stories/meat ... study/2010

A new study from the University of Kent has provided direct evidence that people who wish to escape the ‘meat paradox’ i.e. simultaneously disliking hurting animals and enjoying eating meat, may do so by denying that the animal they ate had the capacity to suffer.

By engaging in denial, those participating in the study also reported a reduced range of animals to which they felt obligated to show moral concern. These ranged from dogs and chimps to snails and fish.

The study, the results of which are published in the August issue of Appetite, was conducted by Dr Steve Loughnan, Research Associate at the University’s School of Psychology, and colleagues in Australia.

Prior to their study, it was generally assumed that the only solutions to the meat paradox are for people to simply stop eating meat, a decision taken by many vegetarians, or the ongoing failure to recognise that animals are killed to produce meat (although few people live in true ignorance, some meat-eaters may live in a state of tacit denial, failing to equate beef with cow, pork with pig, or even chicken with chicken).

Dr Loughnan explained: ‘Some people do choose to stop eating meat when they learn that animals suffer for its production. An overwhelming majority do not. Our research shows that one way people are able to keep eating meat is by dampening their moral consideration of animals when sitting at the dinner table.’

Dr Loughnan also explained that, broadly speaking, their study has shown that when there is a conflict between their preferred way of thinking and their preferred way of acting, it is their thoughts and moral standards that people abandon first – rather than changing their behaviour. ‘Rather than change their beliefs about the animals’ moral rights, people could change their behaviour,’ he said. ‘However, we suspect that most people are unwilling to deny themselves the enjoyment of eating meat, and denying animals moral rights lets them keep eating with a clear conscience’.

‘The role of meat consumption in the denial of moral status and mind to meat animals’ (Stephen Loughnan, University of Kent; Nick Haslam, University of Melbourne; Brock Bastian, University of Queensland) is published in the August issue of Appetite.

Dr Loughnan is a member of the University’s Leverhulme Trust-funded Centre for Research on Social Climate.

[XkillerX]

Well doohhh

[Hiking Fox]

I studied forestry and agriculture for a year when I was 18 and we were told by lecturers that chickens flock together for protection, therefore battery farming and broiler farming is ethical because densely-crowded chickens feel secure and happy.

Denial is very strong if people tell you things you want to hear. This is what agriculture students want to hear.

Apparently when small animals like mice scream, it is a reflex response. I was assured of this by a recent graduate who was looking for a job with a company who do animal experiments. He absolutely insisted it was impossible for mice to feel pain. His source? It was what his lecturer said. He wanted to hear it, so he didn't look into it any further.

This is why promoting vegan food as tasty, affordable and desirable is so important. If people don't want to hear the negatives about non-vegan food, they will switch off and it becomes very difficult to smash through the brainwashing they've willingly entered into.

[Gelert]

Apparently when small animals like mice scream, it is a reflex response. I was assured of this by a recent graduate who was looking for a job with a company who do animal experiments. He absolutely insisted it was impossible for mice to feel pain. His source? It was what his lecturer said. He wanted to hear it, so he didn't look into it any further.

You might want to ask this person whether his prospective employers conduct something like the formalin assay or the hotplate tests on mice to evaluate painkillers.

When I was 12, a teacher brought in a dead rabbit to dissect in class. She said that she had found it on the side of the road having been hit by a car, with a little card signed by the rabbit donating itself to science. I suppose everybody must have seen through the latter lie and humoured it, but nobody questioned the obvious contradiction of the apparent gunshot wound.

[Johnboy74]

I think people are aware that animals suffer, they just don't really care enough to change their habits, because it means they can have what they desire. A plate of dead flesh, a nice new fur coat, the latest brand of perfume.

In the context of meat, the slaughtering process for cows, pigs, sheep has become as humane as slaughtering can be, this doesn't include the mistreatment of animals in the farming industry, like battery farming which people are aware of the suffering and is shown by the increase in free range buying. The process of stunning and bleeding is done in such a way that suffering is reduced to minimal levels. As seen on the Kill it, Cook it, eat it, series on BBC3, the consensus of the viewing audience was the apparent lack of suffering the animals go through. Empathy for the animal's life being taken for our desires didn't enter the equation, their needs being met with minimal suffering. When you consider, vivisection and animal testing, the public consensus is of shock at the suffering animals go through. People are fully aware of the agony they go through. Which is less palatable than the slaughtering process of the meat industry.

What I'm trying to say is, the truth is people lack empathy for animals not awareness for their lack of capacity to suffer.

[CoeyCoey]

I think people are aware that animals suffer, they just don't really care enough to change their habits, because it means they can have what they desire. A plate of dead flesh, a nice new fur coat, the latest brand of perfume.

I agree. And this same statement can be said about human suffering. People still shop at Wal-Mart, buy sweat-shop made products, buy unregulated Chinese made products because they are cheaper, reproduce, etc. They know people have suffered, but they don't want to be inconvenienced.

[KC Masterpiece]

I think people are aware that animals suffer, they just don't really care enough to change their habits, because it means they can have what they desire.

I also agree, but I think it's less a conscious disavowal ("I don't care that they suffer, now give me my meat"--though, of course, it surely is this from time to time) than we might think.

The very concept of ideology implies a kind of basic, constitutive naïveté: the misrecognition of its own presuppositions, of its own effective conditions, a distance, a divergence between so-called social reality and our distorted representation, our false consciousness of it.

In this instance, the "ideology" would be the industries and related practices of the social institution of consuming animal flesh.

I think the prevailing tendency though is a little of this and a little of the attitude/behavior linked to by JP.

[Fallen_Horse]

I agree. And this same statement can be said about human suffering. People still shop at Wal-Mart, buy sweat-shop made products, buy unregulated Chinese made products because they are cheaper, reproduce, etc. They know people have suffered, but they don't want to be inconvenienced.

Yeah that's true, but the issue there becomes that you simply can't purchase products made in 1st world countries, or if you can, they are terribly expensive. For example, find me a computer with all the parts made in a 1st world nation. It sucks....

[SpugFab]

For example, find me a computer with all the parts made in a 1st world nation.

Easy