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      Dominion, Stewardship and Reconciliation in the Accounts of Ordinary People Eating Animals

      Religions
      MDPI AG

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          Abstract

          Despite the growing popularity of vegetarian foods and diets, the vast majority of people in North America and other parts of the affluent world still eat meat. This article explores what ordinary people think about eating animals and how they navigate the ethical questions inherent in that praxis. Drawing from interviews with 24 people living in Ottawa, Canada, the study shows how the concepts of dominion, stewardship and reconciliation manifest in the everyday lives of ordinary people as models for human relations with nonhuman others and the environment. These ideas resonate in the lives of ordinary people, both religious and nonreligious, and entwine as people try to make sense of how to live with the fact that their everyday food consumption causes suffering and harm. This study shows that in the context of everyday life, dominion, stewardship and reconciliation are not alternative views, but connected to each other, and serve different purposes. The study highlights a need for analyses that constitute practical ways to renew the broken relationships within creation and which incorporate nonreligious people into the scope of analyses that focus on the relationships between humans and nonhuman creation.

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          Most cited references25

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          Meat consumption, health, and the environment

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            Rationalizing meat consumption. The 4Ns

            Recent theorizing suggests that the 4Ns - that is, the belief that eating meat is natural, normal, necessary, and nice - are common rationalizations people use to defend their choice of eating meat. However, such theorizing has yet to be subjected to empirical testing. Six studies were conducted on the 4Ns. Studies 1a and 1b demonstrated that the 4N classification captures the vast majority (83%-91%) of justifications people naturally offer in defense of eating meat. In Study 2, individuals who endorsed the 4Ns tended also to objectify (dementalize) animals and included fewer animals in their circle of moral concern, and this was true independent of social dominance orientation. Subsequent studies (Studies 3-5) showed that individuals who endorsed the 4Ns tend not to be motivated by ethical concerns when making food choices, are less involved in animal-welfare advocacy, less driven to restrict animal products from their diet, less proud of their animal-product decisions, tend to endorse Speciesist attitudes, tend to consume meat and animal products more frequently, and are highly committed to eating meat. Furthermore, omnivores who strongly endorsed the 4Ns tended to experience less guilt about their animal-product decisions, highlighting the guilt-alleviating function of the 4Ns.
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              The historical roots of our ecologic crisis.

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                Author and article information

                Contributors
                (View ORCID Profile)
                Journal
                Religions
                Religions
                MDPI AG
                2077-1444
                December 2019
                December 13 2019
                : 10
                : 12
                : 669
                Article
                10.3390/rel10120669
                5e037361-20e4-40f7-8f66-2de972af84b5
                © 2019

                https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

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