Speciesism

Template:Animal liberation movement Speciesism involves assigning different values or rights to beings on the basis of their species membership. The term was coined by British psychologist Richard D. Ryder in 1973 to denote a prejudice based on morally irrelevant physical differences.

The concept of speciesism is used mostly by advocates of animal rights, who believe that it is irrational or morally wrong to regard sentient beings as objects or property. Philosophers Tom Regan and Peter Singer have both argued against the human tendency to exhibit speciesism. Regan argues that all animals have inherent rights and that we cannot assign them a lesser value because of a perceived lack of rationality, while assigning a higher value to infants and the mentally impaired solely on the grounds of being members of a certain species. Singer's philosophical arguments against speciesism are based on the principle of equal consideration of interests.

Proponents

Gary L. Francione’s position differs significantly from that of Peter Singer, author of Animal Liberation (1975). Singer, who is a utilitarian, rejects moral rights as a general matter and regards sentience as sufficient for moral status. Singer maintains that most animals do not care about whether we kill them and use them for our purposes but care only about how we treat them when we do use and kill them. As a result, despite having laws that supposedly protect animals, Francione contends that we treat animals in ways that would be regarded as torture if humans were involved.

Richard Dawkins briefly touches on the subject in The Blind Watchmaker and The God Delusion. He compares former racist attitudes and assumptions to their present day speciesist counterparts. In the chapter "The one true tree of life" he argues that it is not just zoological classification that is saved from awkward ambiguity by the extinction of intermediate forms, but also human ethics and law. He describes discrimination against chimpanzees thus:

Such is the breathtaking speciesism of our Christian-inspired attitudes, the abortion of a single human zygote (most of them are destined to be spontaneously aborted anyway) can arouse more moral solicitude and righteous indignation than the vivisection of any number of intelligent adult chimpanzees! [...] The only reason we can be comfortable with such a double standard is that the intermediates between humans and chimps are all dead.

Dawkins more recently elaborated on his personal position towards speciesism in a live discussion with Peter Singer at The Center for Enquiry on December 7, 2007.

What I am doing is going along with the fact that I live in a society where meat eating is accepted as the norm, and it requires a level of social courage which I haven’t yet produced to break out of that. It’s a little bit like the position which many people would have held a couple of hundred years ago over slavery. Where lots of people felt morally uneasy about slavery but went along with it because the whole economy of the South depended upon slavery.

David Nibert seeks to expand the field of sociology "...in order to understand how social arrangements create oppressive conditions for both humans and other animals..." He compares speciesism to racism and sexism. Some have suggested that simply fighting speciesism is not enough because intrinsic value of nature can be extended beyond sentient beings, termed the ethic of "libertarian extension." This belief system seeks to apply the principle of individual rights to not only all non-human animals but also objects without a nervous system such as trees, plants, and rocks.

Great ape personhood

Main article: Great Ape personhood

Great Ape personhood is a concept in which the attributes of the Great Apes are deemed to merit recognition of their sentience and personhood within the law, as opposed to mere protection under animal cruelty legislation. This would cover matters such as their own best interest being taken into account in their treatment by people.

Science fiction

Speciesism is a popular theme in science fiction, referring to a prejudice against other intelligent species, equivalent to racism. For example, during the reign of the Galactic Empire in Star Wars, many alien species were oppressed by the ruling government, which consisted mainly of humans. In this context, it is sometimes referred to as xenophobia. Terry Pratchett and other humor authors sometimes use this in plots (e.g.: Trolls, dwarfs, humans).

Animal holocaust

Main article: Animal rights and the Holocaust

David Sztybel holds that the treatment of animals can be compared to the Holocaust in a valid and meaningful way. In his paper Can the Treatment of Animals Be Compared to the Holocaust? using a thirty-nine-point comparison Sztybel asserts that the comparison is not offensive and that it does not overlook important differences, or ignore supposed affinities between animal liberationists and Nazis. The comparison of animal treatment and the Holocaust came into the public eye with People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals' "Holocaust on your Plate" exhibit. Sztybel equates the racism of the Nazis with the speciesism inherent in eating meat, or using animal by products particularly those produced on factory farms. However, even among the supports of the concept of speciesism as a critical tool, such comparisons are not always supported. Y. Michael Barilan writes that speciesism is not the same thing as "Nazi racism" because Nazi racism extolled the abuser and condemned the weaker and the abused. He describes speciesism as the recognition of rights on the basis of group membership rather than solely on the basis of moral considerations.

Criticism

Philosophical

(Rev.) John Tuohey writes that the logic behind charges of speciesism fails to hold up, and that, although it has been popularly appealing, it is philosophically flawed. Even though the animal rights movement in the United States has been influential in slowing and in some cases stopping biomedical research involving animals, no one has offered a clear and compelling argument for the equality of species. Nel Noddings has criticized Peter Singer's concept of speciesism for being too simplistic, and failing to take into account the context of species preference as concepts of racism and sexism have taken in to account the context of discrimination against humans. Some people who work for racial or sexual equality have said that comparisons between speciesism and racism or sexism are insulting, for example Peter Staudenmaier writes:

The central analogy to the civil rights movement and the women’s movement is trivializing and ahistorical. Both of those social movements were initiated and driven by members of the dispossessed and excluded groups themselves, not by benevolent men or white people acting on their behalf. Both movements were built precisely around the idea of reclaiming and reasserting a shared humanity in the face of a society that had deprived it and denied it. No civil rights activist or feminist ever argued, “We’re sentient beings too!” They argued, “We’re fully human too!” Animal liberation doctrine, far from extending this humanist impulse, directly undermines it. -Peter Staudenmaier

Although Camilla Kronqvis sympathizes with Singer’s aims, she does not accept his arguments. She writes "To say that our morality rests on attending to somebody’s pleasure and pain, also seems to be a pretty crude description of what it is to be a moral being." And concludes "I also find it highly unlikely that a polar bear would care for my interests of leading a long, healthy life if it decided to have me for lunch, and I wonder if I would have time to present it with Singer’s arguments when it started to carry out this intention."

Some more radical opponents of the idea of speciesism believe that non-human animals exist so that humans may make use of them, be it for food, entertainment or other uses. This special status conveys special rights, such as the right to life, and also unique responsibilities, such as stewardship of the environment.

Objectivist

Objectivists argue that giving more rights to animals means taking rights away from thinking beings who are, unlike animals, capable of creating value.

Religious

Some believers in human exceptionalism base the concept in the so-called "Abrahamic religions", such as the verse in Genesis 1:26 "And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth." Likewise, the Buddhism, despite its reputation for respect for animals, explicitly accords humans a higher status in the progression of reincarnation. Animals may be reincarnated as humans, but only humans can reach enlightenment. Felipe Fernández-Armesto writes that early hunter-gatherer societies such as the Makah and many animist religions have lacked a concept of humanity and have placed non human animals and plants on an equal footing with humans. [1]

Scientific

Others take a secular approach, such as pointing to evidence of unusual rapid evolution of the human brain and the emergence of "exceptional" aptitudes. As one commentator put it, "Over the course of human history, we have been successful in cultivating our faculties, shaping our development, and impacting upon the wider world in a deliberate fashion, quite distinct from evolutionary processes. Constance K. Perry asserts that the use of 'non-autonomous' animals instead of humans in risky research can be based on solid moral ground and is not necessarily speciesism.

See also

• Anthropocentrism
• Deep ecology
• Humanism

Further reading

• Dunayer, Joan. 2004. Speciesism. Ryce Publishing: Illinois. ISBN 0-9706475-6-5
  • Reviews of Specisism on Amazon
• Rights for animals
• Anti-speciesism
• Les Cahiers Antispécistes (in French)
• The Struggle for Animal Equality