ABSTRACT
We, as humans, are deeply fascinated by animals from an early age yet we also in many ways exploit animals. Eating animals is a particular “blind spot” in our ethical thinking about animals. Recent work in psychology illuminates why it is so difficult to think straight ethically about our use of animals as food. We are often mindless when we eat; rarely do we connect animal products with their animal origins. When we eat animals, we are motivated to disregard information we would otherwise find relevant to our ethical concerns. We think we have good reasons for eating animals, which overrides our empathy for their suffering. This chapter reviews the psychological literature on our biased thinking about animals we eat and concludes with some thoughts on what might be done about it.
