Adherence to Species Barrier Entrenches Speciesism

Adherence to Species Barrier Entrenches Speciesism

Peter Staudenmeir, human rights advocate and philosopher, “THE AMBIGUITIES OF ANIMAL RIGHTS”, March 2003, http://www.communalism.org/Archive/5/aar.html

Relying on a dubious analogy to institutionalized forms of social domination and hierarchy, animal rights advocates argue that drawing an ethically significant distinction between human beings and non-human animals is a form of ‘speciesism’, a mere prejudice that illegitimately privileges members of one’s own species over members of other species. According to this theory, animals that display a certain level of relative physiological and psychological complexity – usually vertebrates, that is, fish, amphibians, reptiles, birds and mammals – have the same basic moral status as humans. A central nervous system is, at bottom, what confers moral considerability; in some versions of the theory, only creatures with the capacity to experience pain have any moral status whatsoever. These animals are often designated as ‘sentient’.

Speciesism Immoral – Akin to Racism and Sexism

Steven M. Wise, Animal rights attorney and professor Vermont Law School, 2002, Drawing the Line: science and the case for animal rights, p. 24

Peter Singer, Professor of Bioethics, Princeton, 2004, Animal Rights: Current debates and new directions, eds. Sunstein & Nussbaum, p. 79-80

Once we understand that in respect of any valuable characteristic we can think of, there is no gap between humans and animals, but rather an overlap in the possession of that characteristic by individuals of different species, it is easy to see the belief that all humans are somehow infinitely more valuable than any animal is a prejudice. It is in some respects akin to the prejudice that racists have in favor of their own race, and sexists have in favor of their own gender (although there are also differences, as with any complex social phenomena). Speciesism is logically parallel to racism and sexism, in the sense that speciesists, racists, and sexists all say: The boundary of my own group is also the boundary of my concern. Never mind what you are like, if you are a member of my group, you are superior to all those who are not members of my group. The speciesist favors a large group than the racist, and so has a larger circle of concern, but all of these prejudices use an arbitrary and morally irrelevant fact—membership in a race, gender, or species—as if it were morally crucial.
SPECIESISM LICENSES THE HATRED OF NONHUMAN ANIMALS

Kim Stallwood, PETA, 1996, Animal Rights: the changing debate, ed. Robert Garner, p. 195

The basis for this domination is the social construction of speciesism, which is based on the assumed superiority of Homo sapiens and which segregates nonhuman from human animals. This segregation, in turn, licenses a hatred of animals. Animal activist Jim Mason, writing in An Unnatural Order (1993), calls that hatred misothery and explains that it gives humans license to exempt the labor of nonhuman animals from moral consideration. Consequently, in every human society, whether communist, capitalist, or developing world, the labor of nonhuman animals is used without any moral consideration to provide services and to produce commodities for human consumption.
SPECIESISM IS FOUNDED ON IGNORANCE AND PREJUDICE
 Kyle Ash, lobbying strategist at the European Environmental Bureau, Copyright (c) 2005 Animal Law (INTERNATIONAL ANIMAL RIGHTS: SPECIESISM AND EXCLUSIONARY HUMAN DIGNITY,) 2005 p. 197-8

The time has long gone by when one should apologize for running counter to human conceptions that are founded upon human ignorance, inherited prejudice, or crass stupidity. If the purpose were to write a work upon geography, it would not be necessary to begin with an extended demonstration of the spherecity of the earth, although a few centuries ago a man could, with entire legality, have been burned at the stake for asserting such a proposition. n15Though it is unlikely anti-speciesists will be burned at the stake, international law has not yet reached a time when rejection of bigotry expands to non-human animal rights

Speciesism Immoral – Akin to Racism and Sexism

Peter Staudenmeir, human rights advocate and philosopher, “THE AMBIGUITIES OF ANIMAL RIGHTS”, March 2003, http://www.communalism.org/Archive/5/aar.html

Thus on the animal rights view, to draw a line between human beings and other sentient creatures is arbitrary and unwarranted, in the same way that classical racism and sexism unjustly deemed women and people of color to be undeserving of moral equality. The next logical step in expanding the circle of ethical concern is to overcome speciesism and grant equal consideration to the interests of all sentient beings, human and non-human.
ARGUMENT THAT SPECIESISM IS IMMORAL BACKED WITH SOLID REASONING

Peter Singer, Professor of Philosophy Monash University, 1995, Animal Liberation, p. 243

The core of this book is the claim that to discriminate against beings solely on account of their species is a form of prejudice, immoral and indefensible in the same way that discrimination on the basis of race is immoral and indefensible. I have not been content to put forward this claim as a bare assertion, or as a statement of my own personal view, which others may or may not choose to accept. I have argued for it, appealing to reason rather than to emotion or sentiment. I have chosen this path, not because I am unaware of the importance of kind feelings and sentiments of respect toward other creatures, but because reason is more universal and more compelling in its appeal. Greatly as I admire those who have eliminated speciesism from their lives purely because their sympathetic concern for others reaches out to all sentient creatures, I do not think than an appeal to sympathy and good-heartedness alone will convince most people of the wrongness of speciesism. Even where other human beings are concerned, people are surprisingly adept at limiting their sympathies to those of their own nation or race. Almost everyone, however, is at least nominally prepared to listen to reason. Admittedly, there are some who flirt with an excessive subjectivism in morality, saying that any morality is as good as any other; but when these same people are pressed to say if they think the morality of Hitler, or of the slave traders, is as good as the morality of Albert Schweitzer or Martin Luther King, they find that, after all, they believe some moralities are better than others.

So throughout this book I have relied on rational argument. Unless you can refute the central argument of this book, you should now recognize that speciesism is wrong, and this means that, if you take morality seriously, you should try to eliminate speciesist practices from your own life, and oppose them elsewhere. Otherwise no basis remains from which you can, without hypocrisy, criticize racism or sexism.