What is speciesism?
It is early 1970 and Richard Ryder, a former animal researcher, is lying in his bath reflecting on his previous work experimenting on animals. As he lies there he ponders on the 1960s movements aimed at combating racism and sexism, whilst at the same time, he can’t stop thinking about why ethics and politics is only aimed at addressing the prejudices that humans face.
As he lays there he thinks of his previous work and how non-human animals are also capable of experiencing suffering, fear, pain and distress. And that’s when it dawns on him. Richard quickly writes a leaflet and begins circulating it around all the Oxford University colleges. Little does he know at that time, but that leaflet contains a word that will cause a ripple that becomes a catalyst for creating a modern-day movement.
The word was ‘speciesism’.
This leaflet caught the eye of a young Australian philosopher by the name of Peter Singer, who at that time was a graduate student at Oxford. So inspired by this new term, Peter Singer went on to popularise it five years later when he published his book Animal Liberation in 1975. In his book, Singer elaborated on the idea of speciesism by describing 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, as well viewing the moral worth of animals as being different simply because of their species.”
In other words, a prejudice that says it’s ok to favour a human’s desire to eat a bacon sandwich, over a pig’s desire to not be killed in a gas chamber or to treat a dog like a family member but a pig like a disposable object.
Now favouring one’s own species in a situation where you had to choose between saving a member of your own species or a different one, for example choosing to save a human child over a dog from a fire, could be morally justified because of specific identifiable qualities the human has. However, this doesn’t justify the existence of speciesism. In the same way, faced with an unavoidable decision between allowing a young child or a 95-year-old human to live, favouring the child in this circumstance does not justify ageism, or allow the elderly to suffer or die needlessly.
But the issue with a speciesist mentality is that it creates arbitrary distinctions between different species of animals. However, it also creates a mindset of discrimination that in turn can facilitate exploitation. It carries the idea of human superiority to the extreme of believing that trivial and needless human desires are morally permissible, such as skinning animals for a fur or leather jacket, forcing pigs into gas chambers for a bacon sandwich, or separating newborn calves from their mothers so that we can drink their mother’s milk.
“Speciesism has allowed us to create a world where trillions of animals are killed every single year, with tens of billions of them living an abject and horrific life.”
Speciesism has allowed us to create a world where trillions of animals are killed every single year, with tens of billions of them living an abject and horrific life, with their bodies mutilated; their reproductive systems abused and their babies stolen; their individuality and desire to avoid suffering ignored; and their lives ultimately taken from them by force.
It is important to note that anti-speciesists recognise that humans and non-humans are vastly different in many ways, including our physical form, intelligence and sociability, among others. However, it is not the differences that are relevant when deciding whether non-humans matter morally, but instead the similarities. Fundamentally, sentience, meaning the capacity to feel and experience subjectively.
If it is sentience that makes non-human animals worthy of moral consideration, then in the same way it is sentience that makes human animals worthy of moral consideration.
However, many people strongly believe that there must be a discernible difference that justifies the exploitation of non-human animals. So one way to work that out is to do something called ‘name the trait’.
The idea is to name a trait either present or lacking in animals, which, if present or lacking in a human, would justify doing to that human what we do to animals. So, what is the trait?
Animal Liberation by Peter Singer, the book that popularised the term ‘speciesism’.
Those who argue in favour of speciesism will often say that because animals are less intelligent, lack the cognitive capabilities of humans and are unable to display the same level of agency, responsibility or engage in social contracts, this is why it is acceptable to exploit them. In this case, the ‘trait’ we have named is intelligence. However, this line of thinking could also be used to justify harming human infants and those who are cognitively impaired, because they also lack these abilities. However, not only do we still think such people deserve moral consideration, we often give them special consideration because of their lower cognition and agency, whilst simultaneously justifying giving animals less consideration because of the same reasons.
Furthermore, if we truly believed that these traits justified what we do to animals, then dogs and cats wouldn’t be given preferential treatment, and we wouldn’t have laws and moral injunctions protecting the animals that we love in our homes from the very same actions that are viewed as legally and morally permissible when applied to the pig.
Meaning that the only discernible differentiation we use to harm animals is their species, the body they were born into. This is why people will often justify harming animals by saying, ‘it’s just a chicken”, or “who cares, they’re only pigs”, whilst at the same time we wouldn’t say to the family mourning their dog’s death, “it’s just a dog”.
The position of anti-speciesists is that it is not morally justifiable to discriminate against an animal simply because of their body, in the same way that it is not morally justified to discriminate against a human simply because of the body they were born into. After all, nobody chose the body they were born into, so how can it be right to cause suffering to someone else simply because we were lucky enough not to be born into their body?
Furthermore, believing that humans deserve moral consideration simply because we are human, as is often claimed, overlooks the real reason why causing suffering to a human is wrong. For example, If I was to ask, why is it wrong to punch a human? The reason wouldn’t be, because they are human. The reason is that punching someone causes them harm.
If I ask, why is it wrong to punch a dog? The reason isn’t, because they are a dog. It’s because punching a dog causes them harm. Therein lies the foundation of anti-speciesism, if an action is wrong to do to a human because it causes them pain, then it must by default be wrong to do it to a non-human as they too suffer as a consequence of that action.
Furthermore, believing that humans deserve moral consideration simply because we are human, as is often claimed, overlooks the real reason why killing a human is wrong. The reason it is wrong is that it causes suffering and pain, and even in the absence of suffering taking life needlessly robs the individual of their life and ability to experience.
The same is true of non-human animals. It is wrong because it causes them suffering and pain and even in the absence of suffering, killing them is still robbing them of their life and ability to have subjective experiences.
And even if we were to believe that morally there is a distinction between a human and a non-human, that distinction is surely not so significant that it justifies the unnecessary torture and slaughter of hundreds of billions of animals every single year. After all, even if we deem someone to be worthless, that does not mean that they have no worth at all. And any amount of moral worth should prohibit the act of slaughter, especially as the mere objective reality that animals can suffer and have subjective experiences immediately withdraws any notion of acceptability when it comes to exploiting them.
Ultimately, speciesism is so ingrained and normalised within society that we don’t even consider it a problem. Many humans view non-human animals with such little regard that the very concept of animals deserving moral consideration is seen as offensive, as they believe that recognising that other animals also deserve basic rights is somehow demeaning to our own species.
But in the words of Oscar-winning actor and animal rights activist, Joaquin Phoenix, “it takes nothing away from a human to be kind to an animal.”
And let’s be honest, no longer needlessly torturing and killing trillions of sentient beings is not even an act of kindness, it’s simply a matter of basic justice and moral integrity.
