Hussar and Harris (2010)

1. Hussar and Harris (2010) • Independent vegetarians: Vegetarian children growing up in a meat-eating family. • Family vegetarians: Vegetarian children growing up in a vegetarian family. • Meat-eating children: Typical children growing up in a meat-eating family.

2. Hussar and Harris (2010) • Children were asked to think of a type of meat that they do not eat and to explain why they do not eat it.

3. Percentage giving different explanations

4. Are independent vegetarians zealots about not eating meat? • All three groups were asked to judge the badness of: • Moral transgressions (e.g., hitting another child) • Conventional transgressions (e.g., eating salad with the fingers) • Private decisions (e.g., reading alone during recess). • Eating meat.

5. Mean ‘badness’ judgment by group and type of act

6. Are independent vegetarians zealots? • No - even though they justify their own decision in moral terms - avoiding harm to animals - they do not condemn other people who eat meat.

7. Interim Conclusions • Independent vegetarians think that eating meat is bad – they give morally respectable reasons for their own abstinence. • Yet they are surprisingly non-condemnatory of people who do eat meat.

8. The role of commitment • Children were invited to think about: • Someone who’d made a moral commitment not to eat meat. • Someone who’d made a personal commitment not to eat meat. • Someone who’d made no commitment. • Themselves.

9. The role of commitment • In each case, children were asked to say whether it would be wrong for such a person to eat meat.

10. Mean ‘badness’ judgment by group and type of commitment

11. Are independent vegetarians zealots? • Independent vegetarians are autonomous - they decide not to eat meat on moral grounds - and go against the practices of their family. • Having made that commitment, they judge that it would be wrong for them to eat meat. • But they are tolerant of those who have made no such commitment.

12. How do independent vegetarians arrive at their decision? • They appear to trust other people’s testimony, especially the testimony of other children concerning the suffering of animals raised for slaughter. • They keep this information in mind - despite all the positive messages they receive about eating meat.

13. Eating Meat = Animal Suffering • “I really don’t believe in killing animals for their meat and I think so many animals have been treated so, like, poorly when they are kind of caged for meat.” • “I love animals. I don’t think it’s right that people kill animals just to eat meat and then like throw away like half of it . . . like people just throw away stuff and that’s like an animal that was killed. Like I don’t like the way they treat animals like in the slaughter houses.”

14. Eating Meat = Animal Suffering • “I don’t believe in killing animals.  Well, I know what happens to the animals when they get like [turned] into meat . . . I think it’s really horrible.” • “There are a lot of companies that make hot dogs that are very cruel to the animals that they’re made from so that’s why I choose not to eat them . . . I still don’t believe that animals should be killed.  Since I like animals, it would kind of be hypocritical by liking them but not really doing anything.”

15. Overview • Independent vegetarians choose not to eat meat for moral reasons and they say it is bad if they do eat meat. • Yet they are not zealots - they do not condemn other people for eating meat. • Most of us know about animal suffering but we eat meat regardless. • Why do independent vegetarians act differently?

16. Next Questions • Ordinarily, children are guided by a consensus • Yet independent vegetarians ignore a consensus. • Why are they different from typical children?

17. FIN