Speciesism: what it is and examples

The term speciesism was first defined in 1975 by Peter Singer as:

A prejudice or partial attitude favorable to the interests of members of our own species and against those of others.

Speciesism would be a form of discrimination by humans towards non-human animalsbased on the feeling of superioritydomination, violence and cruelty towards them. It is important to clarify that here discrimination does not come from “hating” or “wanting to harm” but rather includes not giving importance or ignore the harm or benefit we can cause to animals as a consequence of our behavior towards them.

Speciesism is so deeply rooted in society that human beings exploit non-human animals daily without taking it as an act of discrimination, whether through their consumption, for clothing, work, in pharmaceutical and cosmetic industries, among many other practices. Even among non-human animals there is differential treatment by humans: domestic animals, such as dogs and cats, are often treated with greater respect than domestic food animals, such as pigs, cows and chickens, and wild or wild animals.

If we go back several years in history, thinkers like Pythagoras, Plutarch or Porphyry They were already beginning to question the relationship between human beings and the rest of the animals, criticizing animal abuse and even questioning the fact of killing animals for food.

Following a timeline, towards the Middle Ages this issue was not given much relevance, it was not then until the 18th and 19th centuries that numerous philosophical publications began to appear talking about moral concern about the treatment of animals. It is in 1892 when Henry Salt’s work entitled “Animal Rights: Considered in Relation to Social Progress” is published, where he criticizes slaughter, experimentation, hunting and fur processing, both domestic and wild, arguing that animals should have rights.

We move on to 1970the first time that the term “speciesism” is used (although without defining it) is in a pamphlet written by Richard Ryder, where he raises the difference in morality applied between humans and animals as a form of discrimination. And five years later, 1975 Peter Singer defines the term as we saw in the previous section.

It is at this point where, in addition to questioning animal rights, what happens in industrial farms, experiments in laboratories with animals, vivisections in biomedicine and the cosmetics industry is revealed. Opening the argument against speciesism.

To close the historical line, in 1978 The International League of Animal Rights proclaims the Universal Declaration of Animal Rightsthis declaration serves as the basis for the preparation of legislative texts in each country.

The term anti-speciesist has been used to refer to those people who are against the morally different treatment of animals and non-human species. In turn, there are two large groups within anti-speciesists:

• The welfarists: They are in favor of the use of non-human animals as a resource but through humane treatment.
• The abolitionists: They are totally against animal exploitation.

In both cases, some of the arguments raised are:

• Sensitivity: Animals have the capacity to feel pleasure, pain and fun. Furthermore, they managed to communicate, they have varying degrees of intelligence, morally relevant interests and they do not have to be less important than ours.
• Equal consideration of interests: It turns out that the basic interest of every living being is to preserve life. Speciesism is impartial, it puts human life above that of non-humans, it discriminates irrationally without taking into consideration the desire to live. Speciesism does not comply with the principle of basic interest and is therefore invalid.
• Marginal cases: Speciesists argue that only humans can present fair moral treatment because they have a series of unique characteristics. Anti-speciesists maintain that, if human “marginal cases” are included in moral respect, such as children, senile, comatose and differently abled, then non-humans should also have that respect, since they are in the same status. The argument of anti-speciesists is that what speciesists propose has no logical consistency and, therefore, has no validity.

We still have one question to answer:who supports speciesism and how do you argue it? Throughout history, different authors have emerged trying to defend one or another face of speciesism, some of them were:

• William Paton: argued in favor of animal experiments.
• Raymond Frey: He wrote in favor of the use of animals for food.
• Michael Leahy and Luc Ferry: They argued that humans have cognitive abilities that animals do not.
• Jan Narveson and Lewis Petrinovitch: They justified speciesism by having more power than them.
• Peter Harrison and James Reichmann: They were based on the fact that God created them for use and exploitation by humans.

Some of the arguments that speciesism uses are:

• Human beings feel more empathy for individuals of the same species than others and, therefore, deserve to be treated morally differently.
• Species superiority: Human beings have greater cognitive capacity than non-humans, “we are more intelligent, we have consciousness and language skills.”
• Religious argument: Many religions hold that animals, as well as natural resources, exist for the use of humans, who also have a duty to care for them. In many cases speciesism is justified in this way.

We already talked about what speciesism is, arguments for and against, now let’s look specifically at some examples from daily life where speciesism is present:

• Animal Entertainment: such as bullfighting, the circus, zoos more focused on the public, animal fights, sport hunting and fishing, horse or greyhound racing, among many other things.
• Outfit: the use of animal skins as clothing.
• Feeding: According to the FAO, approximately 345 million animals die every day to sustain human nutrition.
• Animal testing: whether in medicine, cosmetics, military research or teaching. Even the fact that the most used species are mice, rabbits, guinea pigs, rats and monkeys is also another form of speciesism.

Now that you know better what speciesism is and examples of it, we recommend you read these other articles on What are animal rights and How to know if a product is tested on animals.

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