Is someone who has been conditioned to believe that harming and exploiting certain animals (typically contingent on the specific culture one grew up in) isn't morally irresponsible. "Carnist" isn't intended to be a derogatory or pejorative term. "Carnist" stems from the term "carnism", a concept developed by Melanie
Joy,
PhD.
Carnism, similarly to veganism, describes the underlying ideology in which a person views their own
relationship to animals (other than the human variety). Where veganism eschews arbitrary differences like
intelligence and species in regards to moral consideration for sentient individuals, carnism relies on these and other arbitrary differences in order to rationalize the harming of certain other-than-human animals.
Carnist is most often used to refer to a person'
s eating habits but since veganism isn't about
diet per se, carnism also isn't about diet per se and pertains to any form of exploitation upon other-than-human animals.
"Before I understood that there's no biological requirement for
animal products in the human body, I was a carnist raised in the
U.S. who ate animals like chickens, pigs, and aquatic animals because that's how I was raised. But of course, during that time in my life I frowned upon people who would eat even a single
dog or a cat"
