You know what’s really fucking annoying? When someone has a list of cognitive biases of fallacies that they love to stick on situations. “You’ve just committed an egreggious case of petitio principii, also known as begging the question for you plebs!” and the like. This is what I’m going to do in this post.
The affect heuristic is something we all engage in. It’s when we use our overall feeling about a topic (“the vibe,” for those who have seen The Castle) to inform our opinion about a very specific aspect of the topic that we might not have the remotest clue about. Examples:
- Someone’s an asshole at work (and I don’t like them) — THEREFORE they are also probably abusive to the partner and run over little old ladies!
- A famous person is great (and I like them) — THEREFORE they couldn’t possibly be guilty of that crime! See the Pistorius case.
- A famous person is good-looking (and I like them) — THEREFORE they couldn’t possibly be guilty of that crime! See the Dzhokhar Tsarnayev fanbase.
- Someone’s presence came during/after a bad smell (which makes me feel uneasy) — THEREFORE I don’t like them! Based on studies (1 2.
- Some drug is really effective (which is good) — THEREFORE it doesn’t have significant side effects! Based on studies (eg. this one cited in Thinking, Fast and Slow.
- Eating meat is wrong — THEREFORE it tastes disgusting and will give you cancer!
It’s this last one that I want to discuss. Now, while I’m very supportive of efforts to reduce and eliminate meat consumption, I’m pretty troubled by the idea of general negative affect about meat that vegetarians can and the directions this may lead to.
Taste
Many people who have an ethical problem with meat would also find it disgusting. And so do some people who just eat meat — but there’s obviously a very strong personal and cultural component to it. In any case, saying that most people are doing something that they don’t realise is disgusting is a bit like saying that most people who are perfectly happy with their lives are actually miserable and just don’t know it.
The taste affect shows up in campaigns from some animal rights activists that try to disgust people about what’s “really” in your sausage. (NOTE: This is a linkbaity infographic from a commercial website so it wasn’t designed with animal rights specifically in mind, but I did find it on the PETA blog.)
Not only is this making assumptions about what’s disgusting, I think it’s actively harmful. It’s implicitly elevating the idea of gut feelings ruling our decisions about food. If there’s one area where need to pay less attention to disgust, it’s food. For example, Western disgust over the idea of eating insects is stopping a very sustainable and efficient way to provide good nutrition from taking off more. Ditto for research into energy-efficient fake meat. There’s a danger that the sausage poster will not stop anyone from eating meat but may contribute them to being more prissy about what meat they do consume, leading to even more waste and environmental degradation.
These statements also carry with them a big danger of othering people from cultures that have different tastes. For example: “How barbaric and disgusting is it to eat XYZ! Ewwwww.” Using disgust to drive human ethics is very risky, as I’ve posted about before.
Health
A lot of anti-meat arguments are health focused, and it’s true that meat has some provably harmful health consequences if over-consumed (which seems to include most people in rich countries). But that’s not enough for some people — if meat is unethical it must also be the most harmful thing EVER, and cause you to die of cancer while you battle depression, obesity and a lower IQ. Being negatively predisposed against something can distract our critical thinking and make us more likely to promote dubious science. The best example of this turned up to 11 is PETA’s recent claims that pregnant women who eat lots of chicken are at risk of their sons developing a smaller penis. Meshits-thee-not.
Findings published by the Study for Future Families showed that eating poultry during pregnancy may lead to smaller penis size in male infants. Looking at dairy products, eggs, fish, fruit, bird meat, potatoes, tomatoes, vegetables, and red meat, researchers found the most significant link between chicken consumption and decreased penis size because of a chemical compound found in the meat. Furthermore, evidence indicates that heterosexual women’s sexual satisfaction depends in part on their partner’s penis size.
Of course that’s bullshit from a medical perspective as was pointed out lots on the intertubes. Rebecca Watson also lambasted PETA on this SGU episode in terms of using harmful tropes about masculinity, penis size and body image AND of pregnant mothers being responsible for every little thing they do. If I didn’t include links, you might be forgiven for thinking I made up some bad satire.
I think that removing the negative affect will make the conversation a bit more fact-based. Here’s a silly example of an alternate ad that would specifically not engage in the negative affect assertions:
Meat
You can find it yummy,
Like it in your tummy,
Steam, bake and deep fry it,
Still have a good diet,
Eat from some street stalls,
Savour eating balls,
But here’s why you shouldn’t—
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