Denial of Sentience
Last updated
Last updated
Studies find that when someone anticipates participating in an activity of violating the rights of someone who is sentient, their brains automatically deny that individual's sentience. And, reciprocally, denying their sentience enables their abuse. In summary: Motivated reasoning -> denial of sentience -> abuse
Motivated reasoning is a phenomenon where, when a subject has a conflict of interest, they will allow their biases to lead them to conclusions that justify their interests. An example in the vegan context: - Humans are motivated to believe that they aren't doing anything wrong - The animal agriculture industry's standard practices are egregiously unethical, and by paying them needlessly non-vegans are participating in these unethical practices and being unethical ourselves - Therefore non-vegans are motivated to believe that the animal agriculture industry actually isn't unethical - Non-vegans are more likely to accept information that suggests that the animal agriculture industry isn't unethical, and more likely to reject information that suggests otherwise
"They actually brought people into the lab and they asked them to complete a number of different tasks. One of them was rating the mental attributes of farmed animal. They told them that it was a study about taste. They told half the participants they were sampling apple and the other half meat. While they were waiting the asked them to complete a few more tasks and basically what they find is that people who were anticipating eating meat were more likely to deny mind to animals than those who are anticipating eating apple." "expectations regarding the immediate consumption of meat increase mind denial" "meat eaters are motivated to deny minds to food animals when they are reminded of the link between meat and animal suffering" "animals considered appropriate for human consumption are ascribed diminished mental capacities"
"In a recent survey, over half of the inspectors for the UK’s largest animal welfare organization identify the main reason for animal cruelty as people’s failure to appreciate the suffering they cause"