Specism: What is and examples

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

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

Specism 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 the hand of “hate” or “wanting to harm” but also includes non -giving importance or Ignore the damage or benefit that we can produce to animals as a consequence of our behavior towards them.

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

If we go back several years in history, thinkers like Pythagoras, Plutarch or Porfirio The relationship between human beings and the rest of the animals began to be questioned, criticizing animal abuse and even questioning the fact of killing animals to feed.

Following a timeline, towards the Middle Ages this issue was not too relevant, it was not until The 18th and 19th century that numerous philosophical publications began to appear talking about the moral concern of treatment towards animals. It is in 1892 when Henry Salt’s work is published entitled “Animal Rights: considered in relation to social progress”, where he criticizes the killing, experimentation, hunting and fur, both domestic and wild, arguing that animals should have rights.

We pass to 1970the first time the term “specism” is used (although without defining it) is in a pamphlet written by Richard Ryder, where the Difference of applied morals 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 that in addition to questioning the rights of animals, it is announced what happens in industrial farms, experiments in animal laboratories, biomedicine vivisections and cosmetic industry. Opening the argument against specism.

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

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

• Welfare: They are in favor of the use of non -human animals as a resource but through humanitarian treatment.
• Abolitionists: They are totally against animal exploitation.

In both cases, some of the arguments that arise are:

• Sensitivity: Animals have the ability to feel pleasure, pain and fun. They also managed to communicate, have different degrees of intelligence, morally relevant interests and 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. The specism is impartial, puts the life of the human above that of non -humans, irrationally discriminates without considering the desire to live. Specism does not meet the principle of basic interest and therefore is not valid.
• Marginal cases: Dispists argue that only humans can present a fair moral treatment for having a series of unique characteristics. The antispecists argue that, if the human “marginal cases” are included in moral respect, such as children, seniles, comatose and with different abilities, then non -human should also have that respect, since they are found in the same status. The argument of the antispecists is that what the species raise has no logical consistency and, therefore, it is not valid.

We still have a question to solve:Who supports specism And how do you argue? Throughout history, different authors have emerged trying to defend some or another face of specism, some of them were:

• William Paton: He argued in favor of animal experiments.
• Raymond Frey: He wrote in favor of the use of animals as food.
• Michael Leahy and Luc Ferry: They argued that humans have cognitive abilities that animals do not.
• Jan Narveson and Lewis Petrinovitch: They justified the specism for 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 used by specism are:

• Human beings feel more empathy for individuals of the same species than others and, therefore, deserve to be morally different.
• Species Superiority: The human being has greater cognitive capacity than non -human, “we are smarter, we have awareness and language skills.”
• Religious argument: Many religions argue that animals, as well as natural resources, exist for humans, who also have the duty to take care of them. In many cases specism is justified in this way.

We already talk about what specism is, arguments for and against, now let’s see in particular some examples of daily life where specism is present:

• Animal entertainment: Like bullfighting, the circus, the zoos most focused on the public, animal fights, hunting and sports fishing, horse or greyhound races, among many other things.
• Outfit: The use of animal skins such as clothing.
• Feeding: According to FAO, approximately 345 million animals die per day to support human food.
• Animal experimentation: either 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 specism.

Now that you know better what is the specism and examples of this, we recommend you read these other articles on what are the rights of animals and how to know if a product is tested in animals.

If you want to read more articles similar to Specism: What is and exampleswe recommend that you enter our category of society and culture.