![Speciesism](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3d/Speciesism.jpg)
Speciesism () is a term used in philosophy regarding the treatment of individuals of different species. The term has several different definitions within the relevant literature. A common element of most definitions is that speciesism involves treating members of one species as morally more important than members of other species in the context of their
similar interests. Some sources specifically define speciesism as
discrimination
Discrimination is the act of making unjustified distinctions between people based on the groups, classes, or other categories to which they belong or are perceived to belong. People may be discriminated on the basis of race, gender, age, relig ...
or unjustified treatment based on an individual's species membership,
[Horta, O., 2010. ''What is speciesism?''. Journal of agricultural and environmental ethics, 23(3), pp.243-266, p.247 " eciesism is the unjustified disadvantageous consideration or treatment of those
who are not classified as belonging to one or more particular species"] while other sources define it as differential treatment without regard to whether the treatment is justified or not.
Richard Ryder, who coined the term, defined it as "a prejudice or attitude of bias in favour of the interests of members of one's own species and against those of members of other species." Speciesism results in the belief that humans have the right to use
non-human animals
Personhood or personality is the status of being a person. Defining personhood is a controversial topic in philosophy and law and is closely tied with legal and political concepts of citizenship, equality, and liberty. According to law, only a l ...
, which scholars say is so pervasive in the modern society.
Studies increasingly suggest that people who support animal exploitation also tend to endorse racist, sexist, and other prejudicial views, which furthers the beliefs in human supremacy and group dominance to justify systems of inequality and oppression.
Some philosophers have argued that there is a normative relationship between speciesism and other prejudices such as
racism
Racism is the belief that groups of humans possess different behavioral traits corresponding to inherited attributes and can be divided based on the superiority of one race over another. It may also mean prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism ...
,
sexism
Sexism is prejudice or discrimination based on one's sex or gender. Sexism can affect anyone, but it primarily affects women and girls.There is a clear and broad consensus among academic scholars in multiple fields that sexism refers primari ...
,
homophobia
Homophobia encompasses a range of negative attitude (psychology), attitudes and feelings toward homosexuality or people who are identified or perceived as being lesbian, gay or bisexual. It has been defined as contempt, prejudice, aversion, h ...
and so forth.
As a term, speciesism first appeared during a protest against
animal experimentation
Animal testing, also known as animal experimentation, animal research, and ''in vivo'' testing, is the use of non-human animals in experiments that seek to control the variables that affect the behavior or biological system under study. This ...
in 1970. Philosophers and
animal rights
Animal rights is the philosophy according to which many or all sentient animals have moral worth that is independent of their utility for humans, and that their most basic interests—such as avoiding suffering—should be afforded the sa ...
advocates state that speciesism plays a role in the
animal–industrial complex,
including in the practice of
factory farming,
animal slaughter
Animal slaughter is the killing of animals, usually referring to killing domestic livestock. It is estimated that each year 80 billion land animals are slaughtered for food. Most animals are slaughtered for food; however, they may also be slau ...
,
blood sport
A blood sport or bloodsport is a category of sport or entertainment that involves bloodshed. Common examples of the former include combat sports such as cockfighting and dog fighting, and some forms of hunting and fishing. Activities char ...
s (such as
bullfighting and
rodeos
Rodeo () is a competitive equestrian sport that arose out of the working practices of cattle herding in Spain and Mexico, expanding throughout the Americas and to other nations. It was originally based on the skills required of the working va ...
), the taking of animals'
fur
Fur is a thick growth of hair that covers the skin of mammals. It consists of a combination of oily guard hair on top and thick underfur beneath. The guard hair keeps moisture from reaching the skin; the underfur acts as an insulating blanket t ...
and
skin
Skin is the layer of usually soft, flexible outer tissue covering the body of a vertebrate animal, with three main functions: protection, regulation, and sensation.
Other cuticle, animal coverings, such as the arthropod exoskeleton, have diffe ...
, and
experimentation on animals,
as well as the refusal to help
animals suffering in the wild due to natural processes and the categorization of certain animals as
invasive, then
killing
Killing, Killings, or The Killing may refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media Films
* ''Killing'' (film), a 2018 Japanese film
* ''The Killing'' (film), a 1956 film noir directed by Stanley Kubrick Television
* ''The Killing'' (Danish TV serie ...
them based on that classification. They argue speciesism is a form of discrimination that constitutes a violation of the
Golden Rule because it involves treating other beings differently to how they would want to be treated because of the species that they belong to.
Notable proponents of the concept include
Peter Singer
Peter Albert David Singer (born 6 July 1946) is an Australian moral philosopher, currently the Ira W. DeCamp Professor of Bioethics at Princeton University. He specialises in applied ethics and approaches ethical issues from a Secularit ...
,
Oscar Horta
Óscar Horta Álvarez (born 7 May 1974) is a Spanish animal activist and moral philosopher who is currently a professor in the Department of Philosophy and Anthropology at the University of Santiago de Compostela (USC) and one of the co-founders ...
,
Steven M. Wise,
Gary L. Francione
Gary Lawrence Francione (born May 1954) is an American academic in the fields of law and philosophy. He is Board of Governors Professor of Law and Katzenbach Scholar of Law and Philosophy at Rutgers University in New Jersey. He is also a visitin ...
,
Melanie Joy,
David Nibert,
Steven Best and
Ingrid Newkirk
Ingrid Elizabeth Newkirk (née Ward; born June 11, 1949) is a British-American animal activist and the president of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), the world's largest animal rights organization. She is the author of several ...
. Among academics, the ethics, morality, and concept of speciesism has been the subject of substantial philosophical debate.
History
Preceding ideas
Buffon, a French naturalist, writing in ''
Histoire Naturelle
The ''Histoire Naturelle, générale et particulière, avec la description du Cabinet du Roi'' (; en, Natural History, General and Particular, with a Description of the King's Cabinet, italic=yes) is an encyclopaedic collection of 36 large (qu ...
'', published in 1753, questioned whether it could be doubted that animals "whose organization is similar to ours, must experience similar sensations" and that "those sensations must be proportioned to the activity and perfection of their senses". Despite these assertions, he insisted that there exists a gap between humans and other animals. In the poem "
Poème sur le désastre de Lisbonne
The "Poème sur le désastre de Lisbonne" (English title: ''Poem on the Lisbon Disaster'') is a poem in French composed by Voltaire as a response to the 1755 Lisbon earthquake. It is widely regarded as an introduction to Voltaire's 1759 acclaimed ...
",
Voltaire
François-Marie Arouet (; 21 November 169430 May 1778) was a French Age of Enlightenment, Enlightenment writer, historian, and philosopher. Known by his ''Pen name, nom de plume'' M. de Voltaire (; also ; ), he was famous for his wit, and his ...
described a kinship between sentient beings, humans and other animals included, stating: "All sentient things, born by the same stern law, / Suffer like me, and like me also die."
In ''
Moral Inquiries on the Situation of Man and of Brutes
''Moral Inquiries on the Situation of Man and of Brutes'' is an 1824 book by Lewis Gompertz, an early animal rights advocate and vegan. In the book, Gompertz lays out a moral framework for the treatment of and obligations towards humans and other ...
'', published in 1824, the English writer and advocate for animal rights
Lewis Gompertz
Lewis Gompertz ( – 2 December 1861) was an English writer and inventor, and early animal rights and veganism advocate. He was a founding member, in June 1824, of the English Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals; later the RSPCA. Go ...
, argued for
egalitarianism
Egalitarianism (), or equalitarianism, is a school of thought within political philosophy that builds from the concept of social equality, prioritizing it for all people. Egalitarian doctrines are generally characterized by the idea that all hu ...
and detailed how it could be applied to nonhuman animals. He asserted that the feelings and sensations experienced by humans and other animals are highly similar, stating: "Things which affect us, generally seem to affect them in the same way; and at least the following sensations and passions are common to both, viz. hunger, desire, emulation, love of liberty, playfulness, fear, shame, anger, and many other affections".
He also argued that humans and other animals share many physiological characteristics and that this implied "similitude of sensation".
Gompertz was critical of the human use of nonhuman animals, arguing that they are used "without the slightest regard to their feelings, their wants, and their desires".
English naturalist
Charles Darwin
Charles Robert Darwin ( ; 12 February 1809 – 19 April 1882) was an English naturalist, geologist, and biologist, widely known for his contributions to evolutionary biology. His proposition that all species of life have descended fr ...
, writing in his notebook in 1838, asserted that man thinks of himself as a masterpiece produced by a deity, but that he thought it "truer to consider him created from animals." In his 1871 book
''The Descent of Man'', Darwin argued that:
There is no fundamental difference between man and the higher mammals in their mental faculties ... e difference in mind between man and the higher animals, great as it is, certainly is one of degree and not of kind. We have seen that the senses and intuitions, the various emotions and faculties, such as love, memory, attention, curiosity, imitation, reason, etc., of which man boasts, may be found in an incipient, or even sometimes in a well-developed condition, in the lower animals.
German philosopher
Arthur Schopenhauer
Arthur Schopenhauer ( , ; 22 February 1788 – 21 September 1860) was a German philosopher. He is best known for his 1818 work ''The World as Will and Representation'' (expanded in 1844), which characterizes the phenomenal world as the prod ...
asserted that
anthropocentrism was a fundamental defect of
Christianity
Christianity is an Abrahamic monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth. It is the world's largest and most widespread religion with roughly 2.38 billion followers representing one-third of the global pop ...
and
Judaism
Judaism ( he, ''Yahăḏūṯ'') is an Abrahamic, monotheistic, and ethnic religion comprising the collective religious, cultural, and legal tradition and civilization of the Jewish people. It has its roots as an organized religion in the ...
, arguing that these religions have been a source of immense suffering for sentient beings because they separate man from the world of animals, leading to the treatment of animals as only things. Schopenhauer praised
Brahmanism
The historical Vedic religion (also known as Vedicism, Vedism or ancient Hinduism and subsequently Brahmanism (also spelled as Brahminism)), constituted the religious ideas and practices among some Indo-Aryan peoples of northwest Indian Subco ...
and
Buddhism
Buddhism ( , ), also known as Buddha Dharma and Dharmavinaya (), is an Indian religion or philosophical tradition based on teachings attributed to the Buddha. It originated in northern India as a -movement in the 5th century BCE, and gra ...
for their focus on kinship between humans and other animals, as well as their emphasis on the connection between them through
metempsychosis
Metempsychosis ( grc-gre, μετεμψύχωσις), in philosophy, is the Reincarnation#Conceptual definitions, transmigration of the soul, especially its reincarnation after death. The term is derived from ancient Greek philosophy, and has be ...
.
English writer and animal rights advocate
Henry S. Salt
Henry may refer to:
People
*Henry (given name)
* Henry (surname)
* Henry Lau, Canadian singer and musician who performs under the mononym Henry
Royalty
* Portuguese royalty
** King-Cardinal Henry, King of Portugal
** Henry, Count of Portugal, ...
in his 1892 book ''
Animals' Rights,'' argued that for humans to do justice to other animals, that they must look beyond the conception of a "great gulf" between them, claiming instead that we should recognize the "common bond of humanity that unites all living beings in one universal brotherhood".
Edward Payson Evans
Edward Payson Evans (December 8, 1831 – March 6, 1917) was an American scholar, linguist and early advocate for animal rights. He is best known for his 1906 book on animal trials, ''The Criminal Prosecution and Capital Punishment of Animals.'' ...
, an American scholar and animal rights advocate, in ''
Evolutional Ethics and Animal Psychology'', published in 1897, was critical of anthropocentric psychology and ethics, which he argued "treat man as a being essentially different and inseparably set apart from all other sentient creatures, to which he is bound by no ties of mental affinity or moral obligation".
Evans argued that
Darwin's theory of evolution
Darwinism is a theory of biological evolution developed by the English naturalist Charles Darwin (1809–1882) and others, stating that all species of organisms arise and develop through the natural selection of small, inherited variations tha ...
implied moral obligations towards enslaved humans and nonhuman animals, asserting that these obligations not only implied that cruelty to slaves must be mitigated and that slavery be abolished, but also that nonhuman animals need more than just kind treatment; they require rights to protect them and that would be enforced if violated.
Evans also contended that widespread recognition of the kinship between humans and even the most insignificant sentient beings would necessarily mean that it would be impossible to neglect or mistreat them.
An 1898 article published in ''The Zoophilist'', entitled "Anthropocentric Ethics", argued that the earliest civilizations, before Christianity, considered tenderness and mercy towards sentient organism to be a law. It asserted that
Zarathustra
Zoroaster,; fa, زرتشت, Zartosht, label=Modern Persian; ku, زەردەشت, Zerdeşt also known as Zarathustra,, . Also known as Zarathushtra Spitama, or Ashu Zarathushtra is regarded as the spiritual founder of Zoroastrianism. He is s ...
and the
Buddha
Siddhartha Gautama, most commonly referred to as the Buddha, was a śramaṇa, wandering ascetic and religious teacher who lived in South Asia during the 6th or 5th century BCE and founded Buddhism.
According to Buddhist tradition, he was ...
espoused this philosophy and that early Greek philosophers, similarly to Brahmins and Buddhists followed the doctrine of metempsychosis, which led eventually to the adoption of
vegetarianism. The article also contended that this unquestioned truth of psychical homogeneity between humans and animals was carried into the early Christian era, with the Greek philosopher
Celsus
Celsus (; grc-x-hellen, Κέλσος, ''Kélsos''; ) was a 2nd-century Greek philosopher and opponent of early Christianity. His literary work, ''The True Word'' (also ''Account'', ''Doctrine'' or ''Discourse''; Greek: grc-x-hellen, Λόγ ...
making its denial a serious criticism of Christianity. The article argued that early Christian writers, such as
Origen
Origen of Alexandria, ''Ōrigénēs''; Origen's Greek name ''Ōrigénēs'' () probably means "child of Horus" (from , "Horus", and , "born"). ( 185 – 253), also known as Origen Adamantius, was an Early Christianity, early Christian scholar, ...
, considered animals to be mere
automata
An automaton (; plural: automata or automatons) is a relatively self-operating machine, or control mechanism designed to automatically follow a sequence of operations, or respond to predetermined instructions.Automaton – Definition and More ...
, created for the benefit of humans and that this belief persists to the present day. It concluded that "Animal Psychology and its relation to Evolutionary Ethics is a subject which is attracting the attention of scientists and moralists alike, and can no longer be treated with indifference, much less with contempt. We must enlarge our conceptions of the intention than that the whole animal world exists merely to minister to our wants."
Writing in 1895, the American zoologist, philosopher and animal rights advocate
J. Howard Moore
John Howard Moore (December 4, 1862 – June 17, 1916) was an American zoologist, philosopher, educator, humanitarian and socialist. He is considered to be an early, yet neglected, proponent of animal rights and ethical vegetarianism, and was a ...
described
vegetarianism as the ethical conclusion of the evolutionary kinship of all creatures, calling it the "expansion of ethics to suit the biological revelations of Charles Darwin".
He went on to argue that ethics still relied on a "pre-Darwinian delusion" that all nonhuman animals and the world were created specifically for humans.
In his 1899 book ''Better World Philosophy'', Moore contended that human ethics is in an "anthropocentric stage of evolution", having developed "from individual to tribe, and from tribe to race, and from race to sex, and from sex to species, until to-day the ethical conception of many minds includes, with greater or less vividness and sincerity, all sexes, colors, and conditions of ''men''." He argued that the next stage of ethical evolution was "zoocentricism", the ethical consideration of the "entire sentient universe".
In his 1906 book ''
The Universal Kinship'', Moore asserted that a "provincialist" attitude towards other animals leads humans to mistreat them and compared the denial of an ethical connection between humans and animals to the "denial of ethical relations by a tribe, people, or race of human beings to the rest of the human world."
He went on to criticize the anthropocentric perspective of humans, who "think of our acts toward non-human peoples ... ''entirely from the human point of view''. We never take the time to put ourselves in the places of our victims."
In his conclusion, Moore argued that the Golden Rule should be applied to all sentient beings, stating "do as you would be done by—and ''not'' to the dark man and the white woman alone, but to the sorrel horse and the gray squirrel as well; ''not'' to creatures of your own anatomy only, but to ''all'' creatures."
Etymology
![Richard D Ryder in The Superior Human (2012)](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c1/Richard_D_Ryder_in_The_Superior_Human_%282012%29.jpg)
The term ''speciesism'', and the argument that it is a prejudice, first appeared in 1970 in a privately printed pamphlet written by British psychologist
Richard D. Ryder. Ryder was a member of a group of academics in
Oxford
Oxford () is a city in England. It is the county town and only city of Oxfordshire. In 2020, its population was estimated at 151,584. It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. The city is home to the ...
, England, the nascent animal rights community, now known as the
Oxford Group
The Oxford Group was a Christian organization (first known as ''First Century Christian Fellowship'') founded by the American Lutheran minister Frank Buchman in 1921. Buchman believed that fear and selfishness were the root of all problems. Fur ...
. One of the group's activities was distributing pamphlets about areas of concern; the pamphlet titled "Speciesism" was written to protest against
animal experimentation
Animal testing, also known as animal experimentation, animal research, and ''in vivo'' testing, is the use of non-human animals in experiments that seek to control the variables that affect the behavior or biological system under study. This ...
.
The term was intended by its proponents to create a rhetorical and categorical link to racism and sexism.
Ryder stated in the pamphlet that "
nce Darwin, scientists have agreed that there is no 'magical' essential difference between humans and other animals, biologically-speaking. Why then do we make an almost total distinction morally? If all organisms are on one physical continuum, then we should also be on the same moral continuum." He wrote that, at that time in the United Kingdom, 5,000,000 animals were being used each year in experiments, and that attempting to gain benefits for our own species through the mistreatment of others was "just 'speciesism' and as such it is a selfish emotional argument rather than a reasoned one". Ryder used the term again in an essay, "Experiments on Animals", in ''
Animals, Men and Morals
''Animals, Men and Morals: An Inquiry into the Maltreatment of Non-humans'' (1971) is a collection of essays on animal rights, edited by Oxford philosophers Stanley and Roslind Godlovitch, both from Canada, and John Harris from the UK. The editors ...
'' (1971), a collection of essays on animal rights edited by philosophy graduate students Stanley and Roslind Godlovitch and John Harris, who were also members of the Oxford Group. Ryder wrote:
In as much as both "race" and "species" are vague terms used in the classification of living creatures according, largely, to physical appearance, an analogy can be made between them. Discrimination on grounds of race, although most universally condoned two centuries ago, is now widely condemned. Similarly, it may come to pass that enlightened minds may one day abhor "speciesism" as much as they now detest "racism." The illogicality in both forms of prejudice is of an identical sort. If it is accepted as morally wrong to deliberately inflict suffering upon innocent human creatures, then it is only logical to also regard it as wrong to inflict suffering on innocent individuals of other species. ... The time has come to act upon this logic.
Spread of the idea
![ANTI SPECISMO graffiti in Turin](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/02/ANTI_SPECISMO_graffiti_in_Turin.jpg)
The term was popularized by the Australian philosopher Peter Singer in his book ''
Animal Liberation'' (1975). Singer had known Ryder from his own time as a graduate philosophy student at Oxford. He credited Ryder with having coined the term and used it in the title of his book's fifth chapter: "Man's Dominion ... ''a short history of speciesism''", defining it as "a prejudice or attitude of bias in favour of the interests of members of one's own species and against those of members of other species":
Racists violate the principle of equality by giving greater weight to the interests of members of their own race when there is a clash between their interests and the interests of those of another race. Sexists violate the principle of equality by favouring the interests of their own sex. Similarly, speciesists allow the interests of their own species to override the greater interests of members of other species. The pattern is identical in each case.
Singer stated from a
preference-utilitarian perspective, writing that speciesism violates the principle of
equal consideration of interests
The principle of equal consideration of interests is a moral principle that states that one should both include all affected interests when calculating the rightness of an action and weigh those interests equally. The term "equal consideration of ...
, the idea based on
Jeremy Bentham's principle: "each to count for one, and none for more than one." Singer stated that, although there may be differences between humans and nonhumans, they share the capacity to suffer, and we must give equal consideration to that suffering. Any position that allows similar cases to be treated in a dissimilar fashion fails to qualify as an acceptable moral theory. The term caught on; Singer wrote that it was an awkward word but that he could not think of a better one. It became an entry in the ''
Oxford English Dictionary
The ''Oxford English Dictionary'' (''OED'') is the first and foundational historical dictionary of the English language, published by Oxford University Press (OUP). It traces the historical development of the English language, providing a com ...
'' in 1985, defined as "discrimination against or exploitation of animal species by human beings, based on an assumption of mankind's superiority."
[Wise (2004), p. 26] In 1994 the ''
Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy
''The Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy'' (1994; second edition 2008; third edition 2016) is a dictionary of philosophy by the philosopher Simon Blackburn, published by Oxford University Press.
References
* Blackburn, Simon (0052008), 2nd rev. ...
'' offered a wider definition: "By analogy with racism and sexism, the improper stance of refusing respect to the lives, dignity, or needs of animals of other than the human species."
Anti-speciesism movement
The French-language journal ''
Cahiers antispécistes'' ("Antispeciesist notebooks") was founded in 1991, by
David Olivier,
Yves Bonnardel and Françoise Blanchon, who were the first French activists to speak out against speciesism. The aim of the journal was to disseminate anti-speciesist ideas in France and to encourage debate on the topic of
animal ethics
Animal ethics is a branch of ethics which examines human-animal relationships, the moral consideration of animals and how nonhuman animals ought to be treated. The subject matter includes animal rights, animal welfare, animal law, speciesism, an ...
, specifically on the difference between animal liberation and
ecology
Ecology () is the study of the relationships between living organisms, including humans, and their physical environment. Ecology considers organisms at the individual, population, community, ecosystem, and biosphere level. Ecology overlaps wi ...
. Estela Díaz and Oscar Horta assert that in Spanish-speaking countries, unlike English-speaking countries, anti-speciesism has become the dominant approach for animal advocacy. In Italy, two distinct trends have been identified in the contemporary anti-speciesist movement, the first focusing on radical counter-hegemonic positions and the second on mainstream neoliberal ones.
More recently, animal rights groups such as the
Farm Animal Rights Movement
Farm Animal Rights Movement (FARM) is an international nonprofit organization working to promote a vegan lifestyle and animal rights through public education and grass roots outreach. and
People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals
People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA; , stylized as PeTA) is an American animal rights nonprofit organization based in Norfolk, Virginia, and led by Ingrid Newkirk, its international president. PETA reports that PETA entities hav ...
have attempted to popularize the concept by promoting a World Day Against Speciesism on June 5.
The
World Day for the End of Speciesism
The World Day for the End of Speciesism (WoDES) is an international event aimed at denouncing speciesism, which is discrimination against non-human animals on the basis of their species. WoDES has been held annually at the end of August since ...
(WoDES) is a similar annual observance held at the end of August. The WoDES has been held annually since 2015.
Social psychology and relationship with other prejudices
Some psychologists have argued there is a normative relationship between speciesism and other prejudices such as racism, sexism, homophobia and so forth.
Studies suggest speciesism involves similar psychological processes and motivations as those underlying other prejudices.
In the 2019 book ''Why We Love and Exploit Animals'', Kristof Dhont, Gordon Hodson, Ana C. Leite, and Alina Salmen reveal the psychological connections between speciesism and other prejudices such as racism and sexism.
Marjetka Golež Kaučič connects racism and speciesism saying that discriminations based on race and species are strongly interrelated, with human rights providing the legal ground for the development of the animal rights.
Kaučič further argues that racism and speciesism are further connected to issues of freedom, both collective and individual.
According to a study, people who score higher on speciesism also score higher on racism, sexism, and homophobia.
Scholars say people supporting animal exploitation also tend to endorse racist and sexist views,
furthering the beliefs in human supremacy and group dominance in order to justify systems of inequality and oppression.
It is suggested that the connection rests in the ideology of social dominance.
Psychologists have also considered examining speciesism as a specific psychological construct or attitude (as opposed to speciesism as a philosophy), which was achieved using a specifically designed
Likert scale. Studies have found that speciesism is a stable construct that differs amongst personalities and correlates with other variables.
For example, speciesism has been found to have a weak positive correlation with homophobia and
right-wing authoritarianism
In psychology, the right-wing authoritarian (RWA) is a personality type that describes somebody who is highly submissive to their authority figures, acts aggressively in the name of said authorities, and is conformist in thought and behavior. Th ...
, as well as slightly stronger correlations with political conservatism, racism and
system justification
System justification theory (SJT) is a theory within social psychology that system-justifying beliefs serve a psychologically palliative function. It proposes that people have several underlying needs, which vary from individual to individual, that ...
. Moderate positive correlations were found with
social dominance orientation
Social dominance orientation (SDO) is a personality trait measuring an individual's support for social hierarchy and the extent to which they desire their in-group be superior to out-groups. SDO is conceptualized under social dominance theory ...
and sexism. Social dominance orientation was theorised to be underpinning most of the correlations; controlling for social dominance orientation reduces all correlations substantially and renders many statistically insignificant.
Speciesism likewise predicts levels of
prosociality toward animals and behavioural food choices.
Those who state that speciesism is unfair to individuals of nonhuman species have often invoked mammals and chickens in the context of research or farming.
There is not yet a clear definition or line agreed upon by a significant segment of the movement as to which species are to be treated equally with humans or in some ways additionally protected: mammals, birds, reptiles, arthropods, insects, bacteria, etc. This question is all the more complex since a study by Miralles et al. (2019) has brought to light the evolutionary component of human empathic and compassionate reactions and the influence of anthropomorphic mechanisms in our affective relationship with the living world as a whole: the more an organism is evolutionarily distant from us, the less we recognize ourselves in it and the less we are moved by its fate.
Some researchers have suggested that since speciesism could be considered, in terms of social psychology, a
prejudice
Prejudice can be an affective feeling towards a person based on their perceived group membership. The word is often used to refer to a preconceived (usually unfavourable) evaluation or classification of another person based on that person's per ...
(defined as "any attitude, emotion, or behaviour toward members of a group, which directly or indirectly implies some negativity or antipathy toward that group"), then laypeople may be aware of a connection between it and other forms of "traditional" prejudice. Research suggests laypeople do indeed tend to infer similar personality traits and beliefs from a speciesist that they would from a racist, sexist or homophobe. However, it is not clear if there is a link between speciesism and non-traditional forms of prejudice such as
negative attitudes towards the overweight or towards Christians.
Psychological studies have furthermore argued that people tend to "morally value individuals of certain species less than others even when beliefs about intelligence and sentience are accounted for."
One study identified that there are age-related differences in moral views of animal worth, with children holding less speciesist beliefs than adults; the authors argue that such findings indicate that the development of speciesist beliefs is socially constructed over an individual's lifetime.
Relationship with the animal–industrial complex
Piers Beirne considers speciesism as the ideological anchor of the intersecting networks of the
animal–industrial complex, such as
factory farms
Intensive animal farming or industrial livestock production, also known by its opponents as factory farming and macro-farms, is a type of intensive agriculture, specifically an approach to animal husbandry designed to maximize production, while ...
,
vivisection
Vivisection () is surgery conducted for experimental purposes on a living organism, typically animals with a central nervous system, to view living internal structure. The word is, more broadly, used as a pejorative catch-all term for Animal testi ...
,
hunting
Hunting is the human activity, human practice of seeking, pursuing, capturing, or killing wildlife or feral animals. The most common reasons for humans to hunt are to harvest food (i.e. meat) and useful animal products (fur/hide (skin), hide, ...
and
fishing
Fishing is the activity of trying to catch fish. Fish are often caught as wildlife from the natural environment, but may also be caught from stocked bodies of water such as ponds, canals, park wetlands and reservoirs. Fishing techniques inclu ...
,
zoos
A zoo (short for zoological garden; also called an animal park or menagerie) is a facility in which animals are kept within enclosures for public exhibition and often bred for conservation purposes.
The term ''zoological garden'' refers to zool ...
and
aquaria,
wildlife trade
Wildlife trade refers to the of products that are derived from non-domesticated animals or plants usually extracted from their natural environment or raised under controlled conditions. It can involve the trade of living or dead individuals, ti ...
, and so forth.
Amy Fitzgerald and Nik Taylor argue that the animal-industrial complex is both a consequence and cause of speciesism, which according to them is a form of
discrimination
Discrimination is the act of making unjustified distinctions between people based on the groups, classes, or other categories to which they belong or are perceived to belong. People may be discriminated on the basis of race, gender, age, relig ...
similar to
racism
Racism is the belief that groups of humans possess different behavioral traits corresponding to inherited attributes and can be divided based on the superiority of one race over another. It may also mean prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism ...
or
sexism
Sexism is prejudice or discrimination based on one's sex or gender. Sexism can affect anyone, but it primarily affects women and girls.There is a clear and broad consensus among academic scholars in multiple fields that sexism refers primari ...
.
They also argue that the obfuscation of meat's animal origins is a critical part of the animal–industrial complex under
capitalist
Capitalism is an economic system based on the private ownership of the means of production and their operation for profit. Central characteristics of capitalism include capital accumulation, competitive markets, price system, priva ...
and
neoliberal regimes.
Speciesism results in the belief that humans have the right to use
non-human animals
Personhood or personality is the status of being a person. Defining personhood is a controversial topic in philosophy and law and is closely tied with legal and political concepts of citizenship, equality, and liberty. According to law, only a l ...
, which is so pervasive in the modern society.
Sociologist
David Nibert states,
Some scholars have argued that all kinds of animal production are rooted in speciesism, reducing animals to mere economic resources.
Built on the production and slaughter of animals, the animal–industrial complex is perceived as the materialization of the institution of speciesism, with speciesism becoming "a mode of production".
In his 2011 book ''Critical Theory and Animal Liberation'', J. Sanbonmatsu argues that speciesism is not ignorance or the absence of a moral code towards animals, but is a mode of production and material system imbricated with
capitalism
Capitalism is an economic system based on the private ownership of the means of production and their operation for Profit (economics), profit. Central characteristics of capitalism include capital accumulation, competitive markets, pric ...
.
Arguments in favor
Philosophical
![Prof](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/bc/Prof._Dr._Carl_Cohen_%28cropped%29.jpg)
A common theme in defending speciesism is the argument that humans have the right to exploit other species to defend their own. Philosopher
Carl Cohen stated in 1986: "Speciesism is not merely plausible; it is essential for right conduct, because those who will not make the morally relevant distinctions among species are almost certain, in consequence, to misapprehend their true obligations." Cohen writes that racism and sexism are wrong because there are no relevant differences between the sexes or races. Between people and animals, he states, there are significant differences; his view is that animals do not qualify for
Kant
Immanuel Kant (, , ; 22 April 1724 – 12 February 1804) was a German philosopher and one of the central Enlightenment thinkers. Born in Königsberg, Kant's comprehensive and systematic works in epistemology, metaphysics, ethics, and aest ...
ian personhood, and as such have no rights.
Nel Noddings
Nel Noddings (; January 19, 1929 – August 25, 2022) was an American feminist, educator, and philosopher best known for her work in philosophy of education, educational theory, and ethics of care.
Biography
Noddings received a bachelor's deg ...
, the American feminist, has criticized Singer's concept of speciesism for being simplistic, and for failing to take into account the context of species preference, as concepts of racism and sexism have taken into account the context of discrimination against humans.
Peter Staudenmaier has stated that comparisons between speciesism and racism or sexism are trivializing:
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.
A similar argument was made by
Bernard Williams
Sir Bernard Arthur Owen Williams, FBA (21 September 1929 – 10 June 2003) was an English moral philosopher. His publications include ''Problems of the Self'' (1973), ''Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy'' (1985), ''Shame and Necessity'' ...
, who observed that a difference between speciesism versus racism and sexism is that racists and sexists deny any input from those of a different race or sex when it comes to questioning how they should be treated. Conversely, when it comes to how animals should be treated by humans, Williams observed that it is only possible for humans to discuss that question. Williams observed that being a human being is often used as an argument against discrimination on the grounds of race or sex, whereas racism and sexism are seldom deployed to counter discrimination.
Williams also stated in favour of speciesism (which he termed 'humanism'), arguing that "Why are fancy properties which are grouped under the label of personhood "morally relevant" to issues of destroying a certain kind of animal, while the property of being a human being is not?" Williams states that to respond by arguing that it is because these are properties considered valuable by human beings does not undermine speciesism as humans also consider human beings to be valuable, thus justifying speciesism. Williams then states that the only way to resolve this would be by arguing that these properties are "simply better" but in that case, one would need to justify why these properties are better if not because of human attachment to them.
Christopher Grau supported Williams, arguing that if one used properties like rationality,
sentience and moral agency as criteria for moral status as an alternative to species-based moral status, then it would need to be shown why these particular properties are to be used instead of others; there must be something that gives them special status. Grau states that to claim these are simply better properties would require the existence of an impartial observer, an "enchanted picture of the universe", to state them to be so. Thus Grau states that such properties have no greater justification as criteria for moral status than being a member of a species does. Grau also states that even if such an impartial perspective existed, it still would not necessarily be against speciesism, since it is entirely possible that there could be reasons given by an impartial observer for humans to care about humanity. Grau then further observes that if an impartial observer existed and valued only minimalizing suffering, it would likely be overcome with horror at the suffering of all individuals and would rather have humanity annihilate the planet than allow it to continue. Grau thus concludes that those endorsing the idea of deriving values from an impartial observer do not seem to have seriously considered the conclusions of such an idea.
Objectivist philosopher
Leonard Peikoff
Leonard Sylvan Peikoff (; born October 15, 1933) is a Canadian-American philosopher. He is an Objectivist and was a close associate of Ayn Rand, who designated him heir to her estate. He is a former professor of philosophy and host of a natio ...
stated: "By its nature and throughout the animal kingdom, life survives by feeding on life. To demand that man defer to the 'rights' of ''other'' species is to deprive man himself of the right to life. This is 'other-ism,' i.e. altruism, gone mad."
Douglas Maclean agreed that Singer raised important questions and challenges, particularly with his argument from marginal cases. However, Maclean questioned if different species can be fitted with human morality, observing that animals were generally held exempt from morality; Maclean notes that most people would try to stop a man kidnapping and killing a woman but would regard a hawk capturing and killing a marmot with awe and criticise anyone who tried to intervene. Maclean thus suggests that morality only makes sense under human relations, with the further one gets from it the less it can be applied.
The British philosopher
Roger Scruton
Sir Roger Vernon Scruton (; 27 February 194412 January 2020) was an English philosopher and writer who specialised in aesthetics and political philosophy, particularly in the furtherance of traditionalist conservative views.
Editor from 1982 ...
regards the emergence of the animal rights and anti-speciesism movement as "the strangest cultural shift within the liberal worldview", because the idea of rights and responsibilities is, he states, distinctive to the human condition, and it makes no sense to spread them beyond our own species. Scruton argues that if animals have rights, then they also have duties, which animals would routinely violate, such as by breaking laws or killing other animals. He accuses anti-speciesism advocates of "pre-scientific"
anthropomorphism
Anthropomorphism is the attribution of human traits, emotions, or intentions to non-human entities. It is considered to be an innate tendency of human psychology.
Personification is the related attribution of human form and characteristics t ...
, attributing traits to animals that are, he says,
Beatrix Potter
Helen Beatrix Potter (, 28 July 186622 December 1943) was an English writer, illustrator, natural scientist, and conservationist. She is best known for her children's books featuring animals, such as ''The Tale of Peter Rabbit'', which was he ...
-like, where "only man is vile." It is, he states, a fantasy, a world of escape.
Thomas Wells states that Singer's call for ending animal suffering would justify simply exterminating every animal on the planet in order to prevent the numerous ways in which they suffer, as they could no longer feel any pain. Wells also stated that by focusing on the suffering humans inflict on animals and ignoring suffering animals inflict upon themselves or that inflicted by nature, Singer is creating a hierarchy where some suffering is more important than others, despite claiming to be committed to equality of suffering. Wells also states that the capacity to suffer, Singer's criteria for moral status, is one of degree rather than absolute categories; Wells observes that Singer denies moral status to plants on the grounds they cannot subjectively feel anything (even though they react to stimuli), yet Wells alleges there is no indication that nonhuman animals feel pain and suffering the way humans do.
Robert Nozick notes that if species membership is irrelevant, then this would mean that endangered animals have no special claim.
Religious
The Rev. John Tuohey, founder of the Providence Center for Health Care Ethics, writes that the logic behind the anti-speciesism critique is flawed, and that, although the animal rights movement in the United States has been influential in slowing animal experimentation, and in some cases halting particular studies, no one has offered a compelling argument for species equality.
Some proponents of speciesism believe that animals exist so that humans may make use of them. They state that this special status conveys
special rights
Special rights is a term originally used by conservatives and libertarians to refer to laws granting rights to one or more groups that are not extended to other groups. Ideas of special rights are controversial, as they clash with the principle o ...
, such as the
right to life, and also unique responsibilities, such as
stewardship of the
environment
Environment most often refers to:
__NOTOC__
* Natural environment, all living and non-living things occurring naturally
* Biophysical environment, the physical and biological factors along with their chemical interactions that affect an organism or ...
. This belief in
human exceptionalism
Anthropocentrism (; ) is the belief that human beings are the central or most important entity in the universe. The term can be used interchangeably with humanocentrism, and some refer to the concept as human supremacy or human exceptionalism. F ...
is often rooted in the
Abrahamic religion
The Abrahamic religions are a group of religions centered around worship of the God of Abraham. Abraham, a Hebrew patriarch, is extensively mentioned throughout Abrahamic religious scriptures such as the Bible and the Quran.
Jewish tradition ...
s, such as the
Book of Genesis
The Book of Genesis (from Greek ; Hebrew: בְּרֵאשִׁית ''Bəreʾšīt'', "In hebeginning") is the first book of the Hebrew Bible and the Christian Old Testament. Its Hebrew name is the same as its first word, ( "In the beginning") ...
1:26: "Then God said, 'Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.'" Some Christian theologists assert that dominion refers to stewardship, not ownership. Jesus Christ taught that a person is worth more than many sparrows. But the
Imago Dei
The image of God (; ) is a concept and theological doctrine in Christianity, as well as in Judaism. This concept is a foundational aspect of Christian and Jewish understandings of human nature. It stems from the primary text in Genesis 1:27, whi ...
may be
personhood
Personhood or personality is the status of being a person. Defining personhood is a controversial topic in philosophy and law and is closely tied with legal and political concepts of citizenship, equality, and liberty. According to law, only a l ...
itself, although we humans have only achieved efficiencies in educating and otherwise acculturating humans. Proverbs 12:10 says that "Whoever is righteous has regard for the life of his beast, but the mercy of the wicked is cruel."
Arguments against
Moral community, argument from marginal cases
Paola Cavalieri writes that the current
humanist
Humanism is a philosophical stance that emphasizes the individual and social potential and agency of human beings. It considers human beings the starting point for serious moral and philosophical inquiry.
The meaning of the term "human ...
paradigm is that only human beings are members of the moral community and that all are worthy of equal protection. Species membership, she writes, is ''ipso facto'' moral membership. The paradigm has an inclusive side (all human beings deserve equal protection) and an exclusive one (only human beings have that status).
She writes that it is not only philosophers who have difficulty with this concept.
Richard Rorty
Richard McKay Rorty (October 4, 1931 – June 8, 2007) was an American philosopher. Educated at the University of Chicago and Yale University, he had strong interests and training in both the history of philosophy and in contemporary analytic ...
(1931–2007) stated that most human beings – those outside what he called our "Eurocentric human rights culture" – are unable to understand why membership of a species would in itself be sufficient for inclusion in the moral community: "Most people live in a world in which it would be just too risky – indeed, it would often be insanely dangerous – to let one's sense of moral community stretch beyond one's family, clan or tribe." Rorty wrote:
Such people are ''morally'' offended by the suggestion that they should treat someone who is not kin as if he were a brother, or a nigger as if he were white, or a queer as if he were normal, or an infidel as if she were a believer. They are offended by the suggestion that they treat people whom they do not think of as human as if they were human. When utilitarians tell them that all pleasures and pains felt by members of our biological species are equally relevant to moral deliberation, or when Kantians tell them that the ability to engage in such deliberation is sufficient for membership in the moral community, they are incredulous. They rejoin that these philosophers seem oblivious to blatantly obvious moral distinctions, distinctions that any decent person will draw.
Much of humanity is similarly offended by the suggestion that the moral community be extended to nonhumans. Nonhumans do possess some moral status in many societies, but it generally extends only to protection against what Cavalieri calls "wanton cruelty".
Anti-speciesists state that the extension of moral membership to all humanity, regardless of individual properties such as intelligence, while denying it to nonhumans, also regardless of individual properties, is internally inconsistent. According to the
argument from marginal cases, if infants, the senile, the comatose, and the cognitively disabled (marginal-case human beings) have a certain moral status, then nonhuman animals must be awarded that status too since there is no morally relevant ability that the marginal-case humans have that nonhumans lack.
American legal scholar Steven M. Wise states that speciesism is a bias as arbitrary as any other. He cites the philosopher
R.G. Frey (1941–2012), a leading animal rights critic, who wrote in 1983 that, if forced to choose between abandoning experiments on animals and allowing experiments on "marginal-case" humans, he would choose the latter, "not because I begin a monster and end up choosing the monstrous, but because I cannot think of anything at all compelling that cedes all human life of any quality greater value than animal life of any quality."
"Discontinuous mind"
Richard Dawkins, the evolutionary biologist, wrote against speciesism in ''
The Blind Watchmaker
''The Blind Watchmaker: Why the Evidence of Evolution Reveals a Universe without Design'' is a 1986 book by Richard Dawkins, in which the author presents an explanation of, and argument for, the theory of evolution by means of natural selecti ...
'' (1986), ''
The Great Ape Project'' (1993), and ''
The God Delusion'' (2006), elucidating the connection with
evolutionary theory
Evolution is change in the heritable characteristics of biological populations over successive generations. These characteristics are the expressions of genes, which are passed on from parent to offspring during reproduction. Variation ...
. He compares former racist attitudes and assumptions to their present-day speciesist counterparts. In the chapter "The one true tree of life" in ''The Blind Watchmaker'', he states that it is not only zoological
taxonomy
Taxonomy is the practice and science of categorization or classification.
A taxonomy (or taxonomical classification) is a scheme of classification, especially a hierarchical classification, in which things are organized into groups or types. ...
that is saved from awkward ambiguity by the extinction of intermediate forms but also human ethics and law. Dawkins states that what he calls the "discontinuous mind" is ubiquitous, dividing the world into units that reflect nothing but our use of language, and animals into discontinuous species:
The director of a zoo is entitled to "put down" a chimpanzee that is surplus to requirements, while any suggestion that he might "put down" a redundant keeper or ticket-seller would be greeted with howls of incredulous outrage. The chimpanzee is the property of the zoo. Humans are nowadays not supposed to be anybody's property, yet the rationale for discriminating against chimpanzees is seldom spelled out, and I doubt if there is a defensible rationale at all. Such is the breathtaking speciesism of our Christian-inspired attitudes, the abortion of a single human zygote
A zygote (, ) is a eukaryotic cell formed by a fertilization event between two gametes. The zygote's genome is a combination of the DNA in each gamete, and contains all of the genetic information of a new individual organism.
In multicellula ...
(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 elaborated in a discussion with Singer at
The Center for Inquiry in 2007 when asked whether he continues to eat meat: "It's a little bit like the position which many people would have held a couple of hundred years ago over
slavery
Slavery and enslavement are both the state and the condition of being a slave—someone forbidden to quit one's service for an enslaver, and who is treated by the enslaver as property. Slavery typically involves slaves being made to perf ...
. Where lots of people felt morally uneasy about slavery but went along with it because the whole
economy of the South depended upon slavery."
Centrality of consciousness
"Libertarian extension" is the idea that the intrinsic value of nature can be extended beyond sentient beings. This seeks to apply the principle of individual rights not only to all animals but also to objects without a nervous system such as trees, plants, and rocks. Ryder rejects this argument, writing that "value cannot exist in the absence of consciousness or potential consciousness. Thus, rocks and rivers and houses have no interests and no rights of their own. This does not mean, of course, that they are not of value to us, and to many other
eings who experience pain including those who need them as habitats and who would suffer without them."
Comparisons to the Holocaust
David Sztybel states in his paper, "Can the Treatment of Animals Be Compared to the Holocaust?" (2006), that the
racism
Racism is the belief that groups of humans possess different behavioral traits corresponding to inherited attributes and can be divided based on the superiority of one race over another. It may also mean prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism ...
of the
Nazis
Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in Na ...
is comparable to the speciesism inherent in eating meat or using animal by-products, particularly those produced on factory farms.
Y. Michael Barilan, an Israeli physician, states that speciesism is not the same thing as Nazi racism, because the latter 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.
Law and policy
Law
The first major statute addressing animal protection in the United States, titled "An Act for the More Effectual Prevention of Cruelty to Animals", was enacted in 1867. It provided the right to incriminate and enforce protection with regards to animal cruelty. The act, which has since been revised to suit modern cases state by state, originally addressed such things as animal neglect, abandonment, torture, fighting, transport, impound standards and licensing standards. Although an animal rights movement had already started as early as the late 1800s, some of the laws that would shape the way animals would be treated as industry grew, were enacted around the same time that Richard Ryder was bringing the notion of Speciesism to the conversation.
Legislation was being proposed and passed in the U.S. that would reshape animal welfare in industry and science. Bills such as
Humane Slaughter Act
The Humane Slaughter Act, or the Humane Methods of Livestock Slaughter Act (P.L. 85-765; 7 U.S.C. 1901 et seq.), is a United States federal law designed to decrease suffering of livestock during slaughter. It was approved on August 27, 1958. T ...
, which was created to alleviate some of the suffering felt by livestock during slaughter, was passed in 1958. Later the
Animal Welfare Act of 1966
The Animal Welfare Act (Laboratory Animal Welfare Act of 1966, ) was signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson on August 24, 1966. It is the main federal law in the United States that regulates the treatment of animals in research and exhibi ...
, passed by the
89th United States Congress and signed into law by President
Lyndon B. Johnson
Lyndon Baines Johnson (; August 27, 1908January 22, 1973), often referred to by his initials LBJ, was an American politician who served as the 36th president of the United States from 1963 to 1969. He had previously served as the 37th vice ...
, was designed to put much stricter regulations and supervisions on the handling of animals used in laboratory experimentation and exhibition but has since been amended and expanded. These groundbreaking laws foreshadowed and influenced the shifting attitudes toward nonhuman animals in their rights to humane treatment which Richard D. Ryder and Peter Singer would later popularize in the 1970s and 1980s.
Great ape personhood
Great ape personhood is the idea that the attributes of nonhuman
great ape
The Hominidae (), whose members are known as the great apes or hominids (), are a taxonomic family of primates that includes eight extant species in four genera: '' Pongo'' (the Bornean, Sumatran and Tapanuli orangutan); ''Gorilla'' (the ...
s are such that their sentience and personhood should be recognized by the law, rather than simply protecting them as a group under
animal cruelty
Cruelty to animals, also called animal abuse, animal neglect or animal cruelty, is the infliction by omission (neglect) or by commission by humans of suffering or harm upon non-human animals. More narrowly, it can be the causing of harm or su ...
legislation. Awarding personhood to nonhuman primates would require that their individual interests be taken into account.
Films and television series with themes around speciesism
*''
Planet of the Apes
''Planet of the Apes'' is an American science fiction media franchise consisting of films, books, television series, comics, and other media about a world in which humans and intelligent apes clash for control. The franchise is based on Frenc ...
'' (1968–present)
*''
The Animals Film
''The Animals Film'' is a 1981 feature documentary film about the use of animals by human beings, directed by Victor Schonfeld and Myriam Alaux, and narrated by actress Julie Christie.
Synopsis
''The Animals Film'' presents a survey of the uses ...
'' (1981)
*''
Enemy Mine'' (1985)
*''
A Cow at My Table
''A Cow at My Table'' is a 1998 documentary film examining Western attitudes towards farm animals and meat.
It covers the conflict between animal rights advocates and the meat industry, and their respective attempts to influence consumers. It was ...
'' (1998)
*''
Meet Your Meat'' (2002)
*''
Earthlings'' (2005)
*''
Behind the Mask'' (2006)
*''
District 9
''District 9'' is a 2009 science fiction mockumentary film directed by Neill Blomkamp in his feature film debut, written by Blomkamp and Terri Tatchell, and produced by Peter Jackson and Carolynne Cunningham. It is a co-production of New Zea ...
'' (2009)
*''
Peaceable Kingdom: The Journey Home'' (2009)
*''
The Cove'' (2009)
*''The Superior Human?'' (2012)
"The Superior Human?"
official website
*'' Speciesism: The Movie'' (2013)
*'' BoJack Horseman'' (2014)
*''Unity
Unity may refer to:
Buildings
* Unity Building, Oregon, Illinois, US; a historic building
* Unity Building (Chicago), Illinois, US; a skyscraper
* Unity Buildings, Liverpool, UK; two buildings in England
* Unity Chapel, Wyoming, Wisconsin, US; a h ...
'' (2015)
*''Zootopia
''Zootopia'' (titled ''Zootropolis'' in various regions) is a 2016 American computer-animated buddy cop action comedy film produced by Walt Disney Animation Studios and released by Walt Disney Pictures. The 55th Disney animated feature film, ...
'' (2016)
*'' Carnage'' (2017)
*'' Eating Animals'' (2018)
*''Dominion
The term ''Dominion'' is used to refer to one of several self-governing nations of the British Empire.
"Dominion status" was first accorded to Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Newfoundland, South Africa, and the Irish Free State at the 192 ...
'' (2018)
*''Beastars
''Beastars'' (stylized in all caps) is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Paru Itagaki. It was serialized in Akita Shoten's ''Weekly Shōnen Champion'' from September 2016 to October 2020, with its chapters collected in 22 '' ...
'' (2019)
*''The Rising of the Shield Hero
is a Japanese dark fantasy ''isekai'' light novel series written by Aneko Yusagi. Originally published as a web novel in the user-generated novel site Shōsetsuka ni Narō, the series has since been published by Media Factory with an ...
'' (2019)
*''Buck Breaking
Tariq Nasheed, also known as Tariq Elite, King Flex, and K-Flex, is an American film producer, and Internet personality. He is best known for his ''Hidden Colors'' film series, as well as his commentary on social media.
Career
Nasheed began his ...
'' (2021)
See also
*Animal trial
In legal history, an animal trial was the criminal trial of a non-human animal. Such trials are recorded as having taken place in Europe from the thirteenth century until the eighteenth. In modern times, it is considered in most criminal justic ...
*Antinaturalism (politics) Antinaturalism, or anti-naturalism, is a movement arguing against naturalist and essentialist ideology; it is associated with antispeciesism, anti-racism, and feminism. Its philosophy is closely linked to the French animal rights movement and is al ...
* Biocentrism
*Carnism
Carnism is a concept used in discussions of humanity's relation to other animals, defined as a prevailing ideology in which people support the use and consumption of animal products, especially meat. Carnism is presented as a dominant belief s ...
*Critical animal studies
Critical animal studies (CAS) is an interdisciplinary field in the humanities and social sciences and a theory-to-activism global community. It emerged in 2001 with the founding of the Centre for Animal Liberation Affairs by Anthony J. Nocella an ...
* Deep ecology
*Ecocentrism
Ecocentrism (; from Greek: οἶκος ''oikos'', "house" and κέντρον ''kentron'', "center") is a term used by environmental philosophers and ecologists to denote a nature-centered, as opposed to human-centered (i.e. anthropocentric), sys ...
* Earth jurisprudence
*Genetic fallacy
The genetic fallacy (also known as the fallacy of origins or fallacy of virtue) is a fallacy of irrelevance in which arguments or information are dismissed or validated based solely on their source of origin rather than their content. In other wor ...
*Vegan studies
Vegan studies or vegan theory is the study of veganism, within the humanities and social sciences, as an identity and ideology, and the exploration of its depiction in literature, the arts, popular culture, and the media. In a narrower use of th ...
*Veganism
Veganism is the practice of abstaining from the use of animal product—particularly in diet (nutrition), diet—and an associated philosophy that rejects the commodity status of animals. An individual who follows the diet or philosophy is kn ...
*''Wild Law
''Wild Law: A Manifesto for Earth Justice'' is a book by Cormac Cullinan that proposes recognizing natural communities and ecosystems as legal persons with legal rights. The book explains the concept of wild law, that is, human laws that are ...
''
References
Sources
*
*Caviola, L.; Everett, J. A. & Faber, N. S. (2018)
"The moral standing of animals: Towards a psychology of speciesism"
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, dx.doi.org/10.1037/pspp0000182.
*
*Cohen, Carl and Regan, Tom (2001). ''The Animal Rights Debate'', Rowman & Littlefield Publishers.
*Dawkins, Richard (1996) 986
Year 986 ( CMLXXXVI) was a common year starting on Friday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar.
Events
By place
Byzantine Empire
* August 17 – Battle of the Gates of Trajan: Emperor Basil II leads a Byz ...
''The Blind Watchmaker'', W. W. Norton & Company, Inc.
*Dhont, K.; Hodson, G. & Leite, A. (2016)
"Common Ideological Roots of Speciesism and Generalized Ethnic Prejudice: The Social Dominance Human–Animal Relations Model (SD‐HARM"
European Journal of Personality, doi.org/10.1002/per.2069.
* Diamond, Cora (2004). "Eating Meat and Eating People," in Cass Sunstein and Martha Nussbaum
Martha Craven Nussbaum (; born May 6, 1947) is an American philosopher and the current Ernst Freund Distinguished Service Professor of Law and Ethics at the University of Chicago, where she is jointly appointed in the law school and the philosoph ...
(eds.), ''Animal Rights: Current Debates and New Directions'', Oxford University Press.
*
* Fernández-Armesto, Felipe (2003). ''Ideas that changed the world'', Dorling Kindersley.
* Frey, R. G. (1983). ''Rights, Killing and Suffering'', Blackwell.
*
*
*Green, Michael S.(2015) "Animal Rights Movement." Ideas and Movements that shaped America: From the Bill of Right to Occupy Wall Street, pp. 44–47.
*
*Karcher, Karin (2009) 998
Year 998 ( CMXCVIII) was a common year starting on Saturday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar.
Events
By place
Europe
* Spring – Otto III retakes Rome and restores power in the papal city. Crescenti ...
"Great Ape Project," in Marc Bekoff
Marc Bekoff (born September 6, 1945 in Brooklyn, NY) is an American biologist, ethologist, behavioural ecologist and writer. He was a professor of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of Colorado Boulder for 32 years. He cofounded ...
(ed.), ''Encyclopedia of Animal Rights and Animal Welfare'', Greenwood.
*Lafollette, Hugh and Shanks, Niall (1996)
"The Origin of Speciesism"
''Philosophy'', 71(275), January, pp. 41–61
courtesy link
.
*Noddings, Nel (1991)
"Comment on Donovan's 'Animal Rights and Feminist Theory'"
''Signs'', 16(2), Winter, pp. 418–422.
* Ryder, Richard D. (1971). "Experiments on Animals," in Stanley and Roslind Godlovitch and John Harris (eds.), ''Animals, Men and Morals'', Victor Gollanz, pp. 41–82.
* Rorty, Richard (1998) 993
Year 993 ( CMXCIII) was a common year starting on Sunday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar.
Events
By place
Europe
* Spring – The 12-year-old King Otto III gives the Sword of Saints Cosmas and Damian ...
"Human rights, rationality and sentimentality," in ''Truth and Progress'', Cambridge University Press.
* Scully, Matthew (2003). ''Dominion: The Power of Man, the Suffering of Animals, and the Call to Mercy'', St. Martin's Griffin.
*
*Staudenmaier, Peter (2003)
"Ambiguities of Animal Rights"
''Communalism: International Journal for a Rational Society'', March, 5.
* Sztybel, David (2006). "Can the Treatment of Animals Be Compared to the Holocaust?", ''Ethics & the Environment'', 11(1), Spring, pp. 97–132.
*Tuohey, John (1992)
"Fifteen years after ''Animal Liberation'': Has the animal rights movement achieved philosophical legitimacy?"
''Journal of Medical Humanities'', 13(2), June, pp. 79–89.
*Vardy, P. and Grosch, P. (1999). ''The Puzzle of Ethics'', Harper Collins.
* Wise, Steven M. (2004). "Animal Rights, One Step at a Time," in Cass Sunstein and Martha Nussbaum
Martha Craven Nussbaum (; born May 6, 1947) is an American philosopher and the current Ernst Freund Distinguished Service Professor of Law and Ethics at the University of Chicago, where she is jointly appointed in the law school and the philosoph ...
eds.), ''Animal Rights: Current Debates and New Directions'', Oxford University Press.
*Zamir, Tzachi (2009)
''Ethics and the Beast: A Speciesist Argument for Animal Liberation''
Princeton University Press.
Further reading
*
*
*
*
*Dawkins, Richard (2007)
"Richard Dawkins – Science and the New Atheism"
7 December.
*
*Geoghegan, Tom (2007)
"Should apes have human rights?"
BBC News Magazine, 29 March.
*
*
*
*Peck, Morgen E. (April 14, 2012
"Carnivores Make Low Estimates of Animal Minds: Meat eaters selectively deny mental abilities in the animals they consume"
''Scientific American Mind
''Scientific American Mind'' was a bimonthly American popular science magazine concentrating on psychology, neuroscience, and related fields. By analyzing and revealing new thinking in the cognitive sciences, the magazine tries to focus on the ...
''.
*Perry, Constance K. (2001). "A Compassionate Autonomy Alternative to Speciesism," ''Theoretical Medicine and Bioethics'', 22(3), June 2001.
*Ryder, Richard D. (2009) 998
Year 998 ( CMXCVIII) was a common year starting on Saturday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar.
Events
By place
Europe
* Spring – Otto III retakes Rome and restores power in the papal city. Crescenti ...
"Speciesism," in Marc Bekoff
Marc Bekoff (born September 6, 1945 in Brooklyn, NY) is an American biologist, ethologist, behavioural ecologist and writer. He was a professor of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of Colorado Boulder for 32 years. He cofounded ...
(ed.), ''Encyclopedia of Animal Rights and Animal Welfare''. Greenwood.
*
* Waldau, Paul (2001). ''The Specter of Speciesism: Buddhist and Christian Views of Animals'', Oxford University Press.
External links
*
*Animal Ethics (2014)
"Speciesism"
*Animal Ethics (2015)
"Speciesism FAQ"
*AntiSpe
*BBC (2006)
"The ethics of speciesism"
Discussion between Peter Singer and Richard Dawkins
*Effective Altruism Foundation (2017)
"The Case against Speciesism"
{{Authority control
Animal ethics
Animal rights
Ethical theories