John Sanbonmatsu joins Claudia on the show to discuss ‘deception,’ a concept in the title of his recently published book “The Omnivore’s Deception.” We explore how deception operates in understandings of meat and human relations with animals, including how industries actively deceive the public but also how individuals engage in practices of bad faith and self-deception.  

Date Recorded: 25 February 2026

John Sanbonmatsu is Professor of Philosophy at Worcester Polytechnic Institute in Massachusetts, where he teaches courses in ethics, politics, and existentialism, philosophy of technology, and other topics. He is the author of The Omnivore's Deception: What We Get Wrong about Meat, Animals, and Ourselves (NYU Press) and of The Postmodern Prince: Critical Theory, Left Strategy, and the Making of a New Political Subject (Monthly Review Press). He is also editor of the book Critical Theory and Animal Liberation (Bloomsbury). His opinion essays have appeared in Christian Science Monitor, CounterPunch, Huffington Post, and St. Louis Post-Dispatch, among other places. Learn more about him on his website. 

 

Featured: 

• The Omnivore’s Deception by John Sanbonmatsu
• The Postmodern Prince by John Sanbonmatsu
• Animal Liberation by Peter Singer
• The Omnivores Dilemma by Michael Pollan
• The Vegetarian Myth by Lierre Keith 
• The Women’s Room by Marilyn French 
• The Heart is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers
• Moby Dick by Herman Melville
• Bad Faith by Jean-Paul Sartre 
• The Animals versus man the king of the jinn by Ikhwān al-Ṣafāʼ
• The Jungle by Upton Sinclair
• The Lives of Animals by J.M. Coetzee
• Anti-Semite and Jew by Jean-Paul Satre
• Population Balance
• Half-Earth Socialism by Troy Vettese and Drew Pendergrass

The Animal Turn is part of the  iROAR, an Animals Podcasting Network and can also be found on A.P.P.L.E, LinkedIn,Blue Sky, and Instagram

 Thank you to Animals in Philosophy, Politics, Law and Ethics (A.P.P.L.E) for sponsoring this podcast; Gordon Clarke (Instagram: @_con_sol_) for the bed music, Jeremy John for the logo, Rebecca Shen, Christiaan Menz, Herre de Bondt, and Carlo Salzani for their content creation and support. This episode was edited and produced by the host Claudia Towne Hirtenfelder. 

A.P.P.L.E
Animals in Politics, Law, and Ethics researches how we live in interspecies societies and polities.

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The Animal Turn is hosted and produced by Claudia Hirtenfelder and is part of the  iROAR Network. Learn more on our website. 

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