Cass Sunstein on why people self-silence about animal welfare

Cass Sunstein on why people self-silence about animal welfare

From How I Learned to Love Shrimp by James Özden

July 29, 2025 · 40 min

About this episode

Cass Sunstein discusses the reasons behind self-silencing on animal welfare issues.

Cass Sunstein has one of the most impressive track records out there. He’s the author of the social change books Nudge and How Change Happens, a Harvard Law professor and former US government official in the Obama administration. He has been writing about animal rights law since as early as 1999 and has written several seminal papers on the topic. He has a forthcoming book, with the working title Animals Matter, discussing how we can normalise and popularise caring about animals in mainstream...

People in this episode

Host: James Özden

Guest: Cass Sunstein

Topics covered

  • animal welfare
  • social change
  • law
  • philosophy
  • cultural norms

Keywords

  • animal rights
  • self-silencing
  • social change
  • law
  • caring about animals

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Harvard Law, Obama administration

Books & works: Nudge, How Change Happens, Animals Matter

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