The effect of categorization as food on the perceived moral standing of animals

Most people love animals and love eating meat. One way of reducing this conflict is to deny that animals suffer and have moral rights. We suggest that the act of categorizing an animal as ‘food’ may diminish their perceived capacity to suffer, which in turn dampens our moral concern. Participants were asked to read about an animal in a distant nation and we manipulated whether the animal was categorized as food, whether it was killed, and human responsibility for its death. The results demonstrate that categorization as food – but not killing or human responsibility – was sufficient to reduce the animal's perceived capacity to suffer, which in turn restricted moral concern. People may be able to love animals and love meat because animals categorized as food are seen as insensitive to pain and unworthy of moral consideration.

► This paper addresses the meat paradox: how people can love animals and love meat.
► In this study we manipulated whether people categorized an animal as meat or non-meat.
► We found that being categorized as meat led to people to reduce the animals perceived capacity to suffer.
► This reduced capacity to suffer undermined the animal's moral standing.