Many of today’s attitudes toward animals have deep philosophical roots. Understanding how those ideas became embedded in culture, law, and social institutions helps explain why changing how we treat animals remains so difficult. By Ondine Sherman [Author’s Note: Humans are animals too. In this article, animals is used as shorthand for nonhuman animals.] At age seven, sitting at the dinner table with my family, I prodded my fork into a thick, squishy brown shape on my plate. M