Speciesism
Types of use of the term “speciesism”
Speciesism is often described as a related concept to racism or sexism. The term speciesism has a pejorative connotation because people who are labelled as speciesists are accused of discriminating against a morally relevant group (non-human animals) without providing valid arguments and convincing reasons for their beliefs and actions. On the other hand, there are people who call themselves speciesists because they actively defend the idea that all humans are morally superior to animals, and that the former have moral status because of their superiority. In the speciesist’s view, any human interest - however trivial - almost always takes precedence over the interests of non-human animals.
What does speciesism stand for?
Speciesism, in its most general form, is the belief that unequal treatment of two living beings is justified solely on the basis of their species membership. A major consequence of speciesist beliefs is the exclusive assignment of moral rights, such as the right to bodily integrity or the right not to be killed, to the species deemed morally relevant. Similar to racism and sexism, speciesism creates a divisive binary between two groups and seeks to establish a hierarchical structure that deems one group “inferior” to the other. This hierarchy is then used to rationalise why the “superior” group is entitled to nearly limitless dominion over the “inferior” group. In the context of speciesism, humans assert their perceived superiority over all non-human life, thereby justifying the oppression and discrimination of those who do not belong to the human species.
Although most people are not familiar with the term or do not use it directly, the unquestioned and obvious exploitation of non-human animals for human purposes is a consequence of the fact that many of us humans have somehow internalised the view that non-human animals have no intrinsic value and can be exploited, subjugated, killed and used in experiments. What makes it difficult to recognise the flawed nature of speciesist attitudes is that the exploitation of non-human animals is not only based on individual prejudices against non-human animals, but that speciesism is institutionalised - speciesism has become deeply entrenched in various social systems, widely accepted and practiced without question.
Like forms of oppression that occur between humans, speciesism is based on irrational thought processes, unquestioned traditions of reasoning, and represents a failure of one’s own ethical stance. In the following I will present two of the most common ways in which speciesism is defended, and show why these positions are arbitrary and irrational. The first defence of speciesism is based on the argument that only the human species has moral status, because only the human species should be morally relevant. The second defence attempts to show that only those intellectual capacities that correspond to the human norm are relevant to having moral status. I will briefly discuss both ideas and show that speciesism - like racism and sexism - cannot provide a valid basis for legitimately conferring moral status only on human beings.
a.) Simple speciesism: Only humans enjoy moral status because they belong to the human species.
The idea behind simple speciesism is that only humans have moral status because only humans are members of the morally relevant species. This claim is flawed because the argument is circular and therefore invalid:
Circular reasoning: A circular argument is an invalid proof given when what is to be shown is already assumed in the argument (the conclusion is already used in the premise). For example, the argument “The Bible is the Word of God because the Bible tells us so” is a circular argument because what is being shown (“The Bible is the Word of God”) is already assumed or taken for granted in the argument (“The Bible tells us that it is the Word of God”).
Such circular reasoning also appears in the argument for simple speciesism, which asserts that only humans possess moral status merely because they belong to the human species.
However, this argument is logically unsound, as it fails to justify why membership in the human species alone should confer a right to life or integrity. In other words, it offers no independent reason for considering species affiliation a morally relevant criterion for granting rights. Indeed, it is entirely arbitrary to assume that belonging to the human species inherently determines whether a being is “worthy” or “unworthy” of moral consideration. What is needed, therefore, is a substantive justification explaining why species membership - specifically human species membership - should be morally significant.
This raises an important question: Why should we be permitted to exploit other living beings merely because they do not belong to a certain species? Non-human animals share with us numerous fundamental capacitiess - such as the ability to feel, to suffer, and to have interests. How, then, can it be justified to use non-human animals for our own purposes, knowing that such actions cause them harm and suffering?
Another reason a more sophisticated version of speciesism is required to justify animal exploitation is that linking moral rights exclusively to membership in the human species leads to implausible conclusions. Consider the hypothetical existence of another species that, while biologically distinct from humans, possesses comparable capacities - rationality, self-awareness, and moral deliberation. According to a simplistic form of speciesism, such beings would be denied moral rights solely because they are not human. This conclusion is clearly absurd.
b.) Advanced capacity–speciesism: Only persons with morally relevant capacities have moral status.
As has been noted, pure biological kinship cannot be the determining factor for moral status. Many speciesists have recognised this, and instead try to link moral status to the possession of certain abilities.
In Western philosophy, beings with “higher” cognitive abilities are often defined as persons. Different philosophers give different arguments as to how sophisticated these abilities must be. According to Tom Regan, for a creature to be considered a person, it must be a “subject of a life”: For someone to be a subject of a life, they must have the ability to have desires and beliefs, to remember the past and anticipate future events, to have intentions, to be sentient. Thus, according to Regan, most non-human animals, as well as humans, are persons and receive moral status.1 According to this view of personhood, some animals, such as apes or dolphins, would also be considered persons because they meet all the above conditions. However, the definition of personhood is usually narrowed to include only some members of the human species. The criteria that are often used to determine personhood are the ability to reason, to speak, and to form thoughts about feelings or desires. Since animals cannot do all these things, they are not considered persons.2 The problem now is that in philosophy, personhood is often automatically equated with moral consideration.
Advocates of the advanced form of speciesism now turn to the second conception of personhood. The speciesist points to a species-specific capacity in humans (e.g. the ability to reason, to speak, or to think logically) and concludes that it is precisely this capacity that constitutes moral relevance. For example, unlike animals, humans are capable of using language, reflecting on desires, and solving complicated mathematical problems. Speciesists can now argue that animals do not receive moral status because they do not possess these specific qualities, and since these qualities are needed to be included in the sphere of morally significant beings, animals do not receive moral rights.
The most common objection to this approach is called the argument from species overlaps. Opponents of capacity speciesism argue that higher cognitive abilities are not decisive for moral status because many people do not possess them. The severely mentally disabled, the demented, the comatose, babies and infants do not have the morally relevant capacities to fall into the category of morally significant beings. Yet we think that human non-persons have a right to life and bodily integrity, even if they cannot speak or form thoughts about other thoughts or desires. If capacity speciesism is true, we cannot explain why it should be considered wrong to breed, eat, or perform painful experiments on the mentally disabled for the benefit of human persons. As soon as we argue that they have rights simply because they belong to the human species, we fall back into the simple speciesism discussed above, which, as we have shown, is circular, irrational and indefensible without further argument.
Another problem with the more sophisticated approach is that it does not explain why rationality and reflectivity should determine who gets basic rights and who does not. Just because some people can solve complex mathematical problems and evaluate their desires does not justify why it is okay for non-human animals to suffer for us. It seems that the ability to feel pain is a more plausible criterion for explaining why we should treat each other with respect. Non-human animals are beings capable of suffering, just like us. They suffer when they are farmed, exploited, enslaved and killed. Moreover, killing - no matter what the non-human animal’s life was like before - always represents a non-consensual denial of future experiences and the extinction of an entire existence that was important to that particular creature. Why does the capacity for reason give humans the right to exploit and execute differently intelligent and sentient beings? Why shouldn’t we instead focus on the commonalities between humans and animals when formulating moral principles? If we know that our actions cause subjective harm to a living being, isn’t that reason enough to refrain from performing those actions, even if the being harmed doesn’t have exactly the same cognitive abilities as most humans?
As with the concept of simple speciesism, the sophisticated approach cannot withstand certain thought experiments. Imagine a species with the same characteristics as humans, but with the ability to telepath and solve complex abstract problems in a matter of seconds without any assistance (just like high-performance computers). This species is therefore much more intelligent than the human race. The members of this species could now decide, as humans do with animals today, that telepathy and the ability to have extraordinarily high cognitive abilities (which humans do not possess) are the criteria for determining whether a being is morally significant. Such beings would have the right to enslave, breed and eat us because they are far smarter and more articulate than we are. This result is, of course, quite counterintuitive, since it seems more plausible to tie the right to life to the criterion of sentience, or the capacity to have intentional states, than to forms of intelligence - because no matter how short-sighted humans may seem in the eyes of alien species, humans would suffer if they were killed to serve as food or used in painful experiments. Even if one species appears to be more intelligent than another, it does not automatically follow that one species can use the other as a means to its ends.
Speciesism in modern day society
As mentioned at the beginning of this article, speciesism is a common concept in almost all parts of the world. Because we assume that animals do not have moral rights, we also believe that it is not wrong to kill them or to use them for our own purposes. Even in cultures where speciesism is commonplace, where the consumption of flesh, dairy and eggs is the norm, certain non-human species are considered superior to others. We seem to value certain non-human species, such as dogs and cats, more highly than non-human animals killed for their body parts. In reality, however, we do not grant rights to so-called “pets” either, as they too are regarded as mere possessions of humans, and their value is in most cases defined in purely instrumental terms. Dogs and cats also suffer from speciesist norms, their value is measured in terms of their usefulness to humans, and we are free to discard them as soon as they cause us difficulties or are no longer of interest to us. An anti-speciesist stance therefore not only challenges and condemns speciesist prejudices against non-human animals whose bodies are exploited for consumption, experimentation or clothing, but also sheds light on human-animal relationships and our speciesist treatment of non-human animals in general. Anti-speciesism is a social justice movement that demands basic moral rights for non-human animals as well as humans, and supports an ongoing debate about the speciesist treatment of non-human animals in everyday life and the power structures that initiate, facilitate and promote it (e.g. the influence of capitalism and white supremacy on speciesist values) and that also disadvantage other humans.