A moral blind spot

The intentional, unnecessary deaths we inflict on sentient individuals of other species worldwide—mainly for food choices—is greater in five days than the deaths we’ve inflicted on humans in all wars and all genocides in recorded human history. Even if every non-vegan cut their current animal product consumption by 90%, it would take us only about 41 days to kill as many nonhumans as we’ve killed humans in recorded history.

Our treatment of individual sentient nonhumans as renewable resources—as property, things, commodities—is a moral blind spot. The reason for this moral blind spot—the reason we contribute, individually and collectively, to this extreme and senseless violence—is that we have been heavily indoctrinated into speciesism throughout our lives. Additionally, by nature, we often “rationalize” this indoctrination and ignore unpleasant facts for various reasons.
~ Dan Cudahy (February 20, 2011)