Albert Bandura’s ideas about the methods people use to avoid feeling guilty about harming others have led to valuable insights about many forms of mass violence, from wartime atrocities to terrorism and genocide. Happy Meat, Humane Animal Research, and Other Myths applies these insights to another form of mass violence: the many ways people harm animals. Each of the first eight chapters discusses how people use a particular method of moral disengagement to feel better about harming animals. The last two chapters highlight the myths that have been developed in this regard, including the Myth of Happy Meat and the Myth of Humane Animal Research. These myths perpetuate the attitudes and actions of modern sexists and racists, further legitimizing their actions. Happy Meat, Humane Animal Research, and Other Myths discusses how different forms of prejudice are interconnected and why we will not be able to eradicate other forms of such violence without eradicating prejudice against animals, too.
The Appendix consists of The Omnivore’s Moral Dilemmas, an essay that discusses the ethical conflicts faced by omnivores who think of themselves as environmentalists, feminists, humanitarians, humane pescatarians, or humane vegetarians and why they cannot be true to their values without adopting a plant-based diet.
“Society is gradually coming to terms with the harsh realities of animal agriculture, as long-hidden truths about the industry’s practices and the dark places where animals have been hidden for decades are being exposed. In response to mounting scrutiny, the industry claims that it can improve its operations and produce ‘happy’ meat and ‘humane’ animal products with adjustments to its production practices. However, as Peter Marsh’s book, Happy Meat, Humane Animal Research, and Other Myths reveals, there is a fundamental ethical dilemma to confining and killing animals for human consumption that cannot be solved with minor changes to an inherently cruel system. Regardless of the labels on the packaging or rationalizations on the product websites, the truth remains: there is no humane way to justify the exploitation of animals for food.”—Hope Bohanec, author of The Ultimate Betrayal: Is There Happy Meat? and editor of The Humane Hoax: Essays Exposing the Myth of Happy Meat, Humane Dairy and Ethical Eggs
“In Happy Meat, Humane Animal Research, and Other Myths, Marsh challenges us to confront the cognitive dissonance at the core of our treatment of animals. Essential reading for anyone who has ever wondered why kind people participate in cruel practices.”—Jess Bugg, author, You Had to Be There: Thoughts of Ecological Grief in the Anthropocene
“What does it mean to be humane? We accept the definition as being characterized by kindness, mercy, or compassion as well as pertaining to a human. People might have intentions of being humane, but the reality is many humans commit great atrocities against each other and to animals and nature. Whether it’s in research or raising animals for food, when there’s suffering involved, can the activity truly be called humane? In Happy Meat, Humane Animal Research, and Other Myths, Peter Marsh gives us the proof that what we often call humane is not what we have defined it to mean. It’s a paradox. Marsh connects the dots between the cruel way people treat other people and how animals are made to experience pain and suffering at our human hands. Marsh offers hope with suggestions on how we can overcome our prejudices and become kind, compassionate, humane human beings.”—Caryn Hartglass, Co-Founder and President, Responsible Eating And Living
“You will love to read Peter Marsh’s Happy Meat, Humane Animal Research, and Other Myths. The book will supply you with state-of-the-art facts, figures, and arguments that will empower you to defeat the nonsense thrown at you by animal exploiters and their apologists. So read it and be prepared, for every one of us is an advocate for our animal cousins. Every one of us needs to be armed and equipped to known down the exploiters and stand over them for our animal cousins. Marsh’s book has an unintended benefit: It shows the lengths to which exploiters must go to lie and deny about their work. For me, this is a good thing, because it shows that there is a universal human affinity for our animal cousins. We have good instincts, but our dominant human supremacist worldview beats them down with lies, denials, and all sorts of desensitization so that people can ‘enjoy’ the benefits of animal slavery without having to have unpleasant thoughts and feelings.”—Jim Mason, author, An Unnatural Order: The Roots of our Destruction of Nature