A New Definition of Ethical Mentophobia

Abstract

Abstract It has become difficult to deny animal consciousness. However, we have nonepistemic reasons for denying it that are related to our interests. In particular, research has shown that we reject animal consciousness to morally preserve our meat consumption. It is therefore possible that mentophobia is expressed in ways other than the denial of the nonhuman animal mind. We revisit the concept of mentophobia to show that it includes at least one other way of belittling other animals by attacking their mental abilities or traits, namely, through denigration. We thus distinguish denial-mentophobia and denigration-mentophobia, paving the way for empirical research that may be useful in debates on the moral or political status of nonhuman animals. This distinction also has important consequences for the concept of mentophobia regarding the concept of dementalization in that it increases their nonredundancy.