Speciesism

This essay explores the moral reasoning underpinning the common view that it is worse to kill a human compared with killing an animal. After examining the serious deficiencies of traditional approaches, the author develops an alternative utilitarian-based framework that proportions the seriousness of killing to levels of sentience. He demonstrates how this new approach avoids the problems faced by the application of standard utilitarian formulae in weighing the seriousness of killing many low-sentience animals vis-á-vis killing a single human. The author (...) concludes with a discussion of how this new approach overcomes the difficulties faced by Peter Singer’s dualist form of utilitarianism. (shrink)

Many approaches have been taken regarding this topic, some of them are anthropological or scientific that pursue the understanding of why we eat meat, but from the philosophical lens this question is solved in the field of applied ethics, which is the area that debate about the moral status of animals (nonhuman animals) and where different theorizations that tried to explain the relationship between animals and humans and the examination of the morality of meat consumption take place. Some of these (...) approaches could be find within the concepts of animal rights, vegetarianism, animal cruelty and so on. (shrink)

Some animal ethicists argue that eating roadkill is permissible because salvaging and consuming already dead animals doesn’t cause harm to anyone. Moreover, some argue that eating roadkill is actually obligatory, insofar as a diet that includes some roadkill is less harmful than a diet that consists of protein (animal or plant) obtained only from grocery stores and restaurants. Against this view, Abbate argues that eating roadkill is wrong for at least two reasons: (1) better consequences would be produced if roadkill (...) were either left in surrounding habitats for scavenger animals or given to other would-be meat eaters (such as meat-eating friends, family, and/or neighbors), and (2) those who salvage and consume roadkill both benefit from and are involved in wrongdoing, insofar as the animals who are killed by motor vehicles are killed as a result of injustice. (shrink)

This chapter introduces topical issues in the ethical debate on speciesism. It does so against a background of the history of the debate and with an emphasis on concerns that arise at the intersection of speciesism and science. The term speciesism was coined in the 1970s by Richard Rider and popularized by Peter Singer, who defined speciesism as “a prejudice or attitude of bias in favor of the interests of members of one’s own species and against those of members of (...) other species.” Critiques of speciesism are undergirded by the principle that comparable interests should be given equal consideration, regardless of species-membership. To what extent the interests of humans and non-humans are comparable, however, has been a matter of contention and is partly beholden to empirical findings. Diverging opinions on this matter have given rise to a variety of more and less species-egalitarian views, often paired with rivalling accounts of “moral status”. A minority of ethicists have explicitly defended speciesism or some version thereof, including Bernard Williams and, more recently, Shelly Kagan. Apart from the back-and-forths between critics and defenders, the speciesism debate has transformed over the last decade, in three respects. First, discourse on animal ethics has witnessed a “political turn”, moving away from analyses of moral status and towards discussions of human-animal relations in interspecies societies. Secondly, apart from anthropocentric speciesism, i.e., privileging humans over non-humans, there has been an increasing interest in non-anthropocentric speciesism, i.e., privileging some non-human species over others. Thirdly, speciesism has been endorsed as a prominent topic in the new, activist-leaning research field of Critical Animal Studies, and has recently garnered substantial attention from psychologists. As these disciplinary changes and conceptual refinements suggest, half a century after its coinage, speciesism continues to be an important scholarly and ethical concept whose history is still in the making. (shrink)

Animal ethicists often distinguish between direct and indirect defenses of speciesism, where the former appeal to species membership and the latter invoke other features that are simply associated with it. The main extant charge against indirect defenses rests on the empirical claim that any feature other than membership in our species is either absent in some humans or present in some nonhumans. This paper challenges indirect defenses with a new argument, which presupposes no such empirical claim. Instead, the argument from (...) discordance resorts to the following principle: a certain feature can only justify discriminating on the basis of that feature. (shrink)

Speciesism, broadly understood as the view that species membership is a morally relevant property, has been a central topic of debate within animal ethics for around 50 years. However, in all this time, animal ethicists have paid relatively scant attention to the nature of species membership itself. This seems potentially regrettable, since species membership's precise nature is presumably highly pertinent to the question of its exact moral relevance. Here, I advocate for a ‘species-focused’ approach to assessing speciesism, arguing that, in (...) debating the merits of speciesism, animal ethicists should (i) centre the nature of species membership, and (ii) consult philosophers of biology. Adherence to this second prescription appears necessary since a lot of what philosophers of biology believe regarding the nature of species membership appears contrary to what many animal ethicists have seemingly assumed. (shrink)

In this paper I describe two distinctions about what “eating animals” entails which are often confused in conversations or arguments aimed against meat-based diets and try to show how both distinctions, on their own lights, ultimately support a concern for all fellow creatures, regardless of species or other biological categories. The distinctions in question are: the distinction between moral and nonmoral actions, presumptions about which serve to define whether or not particular topics (like meat consumption) deserve moral consideration whatsoever, and (...) the distinction between moral and immoral actions, about which suppositions bear on both reflexive and considered moral judgments to inform agents in making meaningful normative decisions. (shrink)

Il est assez rare qu’un concept philosophique s’échappe de l’arène académique. C’est pourtant le cas du concept de spécisme, qui a fait une entrée remarquée dans la sphère publique au cours de la dernière décennie. Il est désormais au cœur du débat de société sur nos devoirs envers les animaux non humains. Hélas, ce concept et les enjeux qu’il soulève sont souvent mal compris. Nombreux sont les auteurs qui contestent sa légitimité alors qu’ils le maitrisent mal. D’autres l’utilisent plus volontiers (...) sans toutefois mieux le comprendre. Les confusions qui entourent cette notion l’empêche de contribuer à la discussion autant qu’elle le pourrait. Le présent ouvrage entend remédier à cet état de faits en donnant de la notion de spécisme une présentation à la fois assez précise pour rendre justice aux discussions philosophiques dont elle fait l’objet et suffisamment claire pour être accessible à quiconque s’intéresse au statut moral des animaux. Il se divise en deux parties. La première aborde des questions ontologiques : Qu’est-ce exactement que le spécisme ? À quelles conditions existe-t-il ? Ces conditions sont-elles remplies dans les faits ? Quant à la seconde, elle porte sur des questions éthiques : Le spécisme peut-il être justifié ? Faut-il au contraire le condamner au même titre que le racisme et le sexisme ? (shrink)

Many take Kantian ethics to founder when it comes to our duties to animals. In this paper, I advocate a novel approach to this problem. The paper is divided into three sections. In the first, I canvass various passages from Kant in order to set up the problem. In the second, I introduce a novel approach to this problem. In the third, I defend my approach from various objections. By way of preview: I advocate rejecting the premise that nonhuman animals (...) are nonrational. (shrink)

A complete theory of the permissibility of sex must not only determine the permissibility of sex between typical adult humans. In addition, it must also adequately take into consideration sex acts involving non-human animals, children, and humans with intellectual disabilities. However, when trying to develop a non-discriminatory account that includes these beings, two worrying problems of animal sex arise. To surpass them, I argue for a reformulation of the standard theory. To produce a truly inclusive account our theory should be (...) focused on assent, dissent, the significance of sex, and the similarity of the beings engaging in the sex act. (shrink)

The theories of cultural anthropologist Ernest Becker arise from an existential and psychological analysis of the death terror/anxiety deep in the unconscious of every human. Becker details how this anxiety governs the ideologies and behaviors of our species—something now confirmed by thousands of experiments performed by psychologists engaged in contemporary terror management theory (TMT). Humans manage their anxiety through what Becker terms “hero systems”—concepts, beliefs, and myths we create to give us a sense of significance and meaning during, and even (...) beyond our mortal lives. Today, many dominant economic, technological, and religious hero systems seek to confirm our significance by denying that we are—like all other species—animals who must exist in a decaying, mortal body. Becker shows how this attempt to deny our “creatureliness” (basic biological nature) causes humans to stand against the natural world we are embedded in, leading to an assault on the planet and nonhuman animals. As a result, Becker believed pacifism was the only hero system capable of keeping humankind from destroying itself and the earth. Pacifism is the precursor to the more encompassing ethical concept of “reverence for life,” advocated by Dr. Albert Schweitzer. By respecting the will-to-live in all sentient beings, reverence for life transcends concern for humans alone and extends moral and physical safeguards to life as such. Confronting the fact that humans are increasingly alienated from their commodified world and their own being, reverence for life stands as a vital solution to many of our modern problems. And following contemporary TMT research, reverencing life can also expand one’s self-esteem, which research shows lowers death anxiety, reduces aggression, and offers authentic meaning to life itself. (shrink)

The present comment concerns a recent AI & Ethics article which purports to report evidence of speciesist bias in various popular computer vision (CV) and natural language processing (NLP) machine learning models described in the literature. I examine the authors' analysis and show it, ironically, to be prejudicial, often being founded on poorly conceived assumptions and suffering from fallacious and insufficiently rigorous reasoning, its superficial appeal in large part relying on the sequacity of the article's target readership.

Jauernig defends the view that all living beings are of equal moral worth and are owed compassion, on account of which we are also obligated to adopt a vegan diet. Fischer denies that we have an obligation to become vegans, and argues for the position that humans morally matter more than all other living creatures.

Our societies are marked by anthropocentrism: most people treat animals in ways in which they would by no means treat fellow humans. One might nonetheless expect this prejudice to be much less prevalent in animal shelters since these places are created for the very sake of non-humans and generally managed by people who truly care about animal welfare. This chapter questions this expectation. It discusses three practices that are widespread in animal shelters and yet could be suspected of anthropocentrism: killing (...) animals for lack of resources, partnering with the livestock industry, and feeding animals meat. Drawing on the distinction between ideal and non-ideal theory, the chapter argues that management euthanasia and cooperation with animal agriculture are acceptable in non-ideal theory even though they would be condemned by ideal theory. Then it argues that meat-based pet food should be rejected even in the non-ideal circumstances faced by animal shelters. (shrink)

Common sense has it that animals matter considerably less than humans; the welfare and suffering of a cow, a chicken or a fish are important but not as much as the welfare and suffering of a human being. Most animal ethicists reject this “speciesist” view as mere prejudice. In their opinion, there is no difference between humans and other animals that could justify such unequal consideration. In the opposite camp, advocates of speciesism have long tried to identify a difference that (...) would fit the bill, but they have consistently seemed to fail. In light of this, some naturally began to appeal to Moorean arguments: the case against speciesism must be flawed somehow, these philosophers maintain, because speciesism is supported by a strong and widespread intuition. This chapter draws on recent findings in social psychology to criticize this defence of speciesism. It argues that the strong and widespread intuition that humans count more than animals is epistemically defective because it is causally shaped by a pair of irrelevant influences: cognitive dissonance and tribalism. Accordingly, it is no suitable basis for a Moorean argument. (shrink)

Freeganism is the practice of eating food that is free. It is commonly associated with recovering food that grocery stores and restaurants have thrown away, but vegetables grown in one’s garden and other free foods, such as leftovers from a work event, would also qualify. It is worth asking whether there is a form of freeganism that can be justified in new omnivorist terms. Could it be consistent with animal protection to eat meat, just so long as we don’t pay (...) for it? -/- I argue that from an animal protection point of view, freegan meat consumption faces two difficulties. The first is that when it involves the consumption of animal flesh conventionally regarded as edible (chicken, pork, beef, etc.) but not other types of flesh commonly considered inedible (mice, dogs, etc.), the practice is likely to be rooted in speciesism. This runs contrary to new omnivorism’s own principles, which are anti-speciesist. In addition, when the meat in question is the product of animal agriculture, consuming it will amount to a form of complicity in the industry’s wrong-doing, as the rationale for the animal’s slaughter will be retroactively endorsed. Either of these two considerations taken by itself will suffice to generate a presumption against freegan meat consumption. -/- My analysis, however, does not address every conceivable defense of freegan meat consumption. In particular, neither consideration generates a reason to avoid all animal by-products, such as eggs from backyard chickens that are well cared for. But given that the by-products in question will not be industrially produced, such consumption is likely to be permissible only in exceptional instances, rather than a practice available to society at large. (shrink)

How can we make moral progress on factory farming? Part of the answer lies in human moral psychology. Meat consumption remains high, despite increased awareness of its negative impact on animal welfare. Weakness of will is part of the explanation: acceptance of the ethical arguments doesn’t always motivate changes in dietary habits. However, we draw on scientific evidence to argue that many consumers aren’t fully convinced that they morally ought to reduce their meat consumption. We then identify two key psychological (...) mechanisms—motivated reasoning and social proof—that lead people to resist the ethical reasons. Finally, we show how to harness these psychological mechanisms to encourage reductions in meat consumption. A central lesson for moral progress generally is that durable social change requires socially-embedded reasoning. (shrink)

Ambitious value learning proposals to solve the AI alignment problem and avoid catastrophic outcomes from a possible future misaligned artificial superintelligence (such as Coherent Extrapolated Volition [CEV]) have focused on ensuring that an artificial superintelligence (ASI) would try to do what humans would want it to do. However, present and future sentient non-humans, such as non-human animals and possible future digital minds could also be affected by the ASI’s behaviour in morally relevant ways. This paper puts forward Sentientist Coherent Extrapolated (...) Volition, an alternative to CEV, that directly takes into account the interests of all sentient beings. This ambitious value learning proposal would significantly reduce the likelihood of risks of astronomical suffering from the ASI’s behaviour, and thus we have very strong pro-tanto moral reasons in favour of implementing it instead of CEV. This fact is crucial in conducting an adequate cost-benefit analysis between different ambitious value learning proposals. (shrink)

A Kantian approach can establish that non-human natural entities are morally considerable and that humans have duties to them. This is surprising, because most environmental ethicists have either rejected or overlooked Kant when it comes to this issue. Inspired by an argument of Christine Korsgaard, I claim that both humans and non-humans have a natural good, which is whatever allows an entity to function well according to the kind of entity it is. I argue that humans are required to confer (...) normative value on the natural good of all entities that have a natural good. This is so because, as a matter of fact, humans confer normative value on their own natural good simply because it is a natural good, which commits humans to the position that any natural good deserves to have normative value conferred on it. Since non-human natural entities have a natural good, their natural good deserves to have normative value conferred on it as well, and this is sufficient to make non-human natural entities morally considerable such that humans have duties to them. (shrink)

Those who claim to be committed to the moral equality of animals don’t always act as if they think all animals are equal. For instance, many animal liberationists spend hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars each year on food, toys, and medical care for their companion animals. Surely, more animals would be helped if the money spent on companion animals were donated to farmed animal protection organizations. Moreover, many animal liberationists feed their companion animals the flesh of farmed animals, and (...) some let their cats roam outdoors, foreseeing that they will kill wildlife. Maybe these companion-animal loving animal liberationists are moral hypocrites. Or maybe their behavior is justified. I defend the latter claim. By developing an ethic that emphasizes the moral significance of life-meaning and recognizes the important role that companion animals play in giving meaning to human lives, I argue that there are stringent side-constraints that apply to companion animals, but not to other animals. Consequently, it isn’t hypocritical to prioritize companion animals over other animals. We can have (and value) our carnivorous companions and be animal liberationists too. (shrink)

Should the law recognize an elephant’s right to be released from solitary confinement? The New York State Court of Appeals—the highest court in the State of New York—will consider this question on May 18. At issue is an Asian elephant named Happy. But happy she is not. Every human being has a right to bodily liberty because they have strong interests that this right protects. Since Happy has the same strong interests, the Court should recognize Happy’s right to be freed (...) from solitary confinement. (shrink)

According to a diverse and widely popular family of moral theories, there is a class of individuals – typically humans or persons – who have the very same, full moral status. Individuals not falling into that class count for less, or not at all, morally speaking. In this article, I identify two problems for such theories, the mapping problem and the problem of misgrounded value, and argue that they are serious enough to be decisive. I will then propose an alternative (...) account of full and equal moral status that avoids those problems. In grounding full moral status in phenomenal consciousness, it preserves the idea that you and I are equal, but at the same time radically expands the community of moral equals. I conclude by discussing some practical implications of my proposal. (shrink)

Daniel Bell and Wang Pei’s recent monograph, Just Hierarchy, seeks to defend hierarchical relationships against more egalitarian alternatives. This paper addresses their argument, offered in one chapter of the book, in favour of a hierarchical relationship between human and nonhuman animals. This relationship, Bell and Pei argue, should conform to what they call “subordination without cruelty:” it is permissible to subordinate and exploit animals for human ends, provided that we do not treat them cruelly. We focus on three aspects of (...) their view: their argument for a hierarchical view; their understanding of cruelty; and their account of the heightened duties they claim we owe to nonhuman animals who are intelligent, domesticated, and/or “cute.” We argue that the reasons that Bell and Pei offer fail to support their conclusions, and that, even if one accepts a hierarchical view, the conclusions that Bell and Pei draw about the permissibility of practices such as killing animals for food do not follow. We conclude by emphasizing philosophers’ responsibility to thoroughly test their arguments and to engage with existing debates, especially when the practices they seek to justify involve harms of great magnitude. (shrink)

In How to Count Animals, more or less, Shelly Kagan sketches and argues for a hierarchical account of moral status. Although the book is fairly lengthy at 304 pages of text, Kagan is correct in calling it a sketch, since what this book provides us with is a foray into one aspect that a comprehensive ethical theory must include, in his view, if it is to be plausible. Even so, the work that he does, if one accepts hierarchy, opens up (...) many different avenues to be further pursued in animal ethics. (shrink)

Using the interactionist approach of comparative philosophy, I evaluate the intersecting points made in Animal Liberation by Peter Singer and The Sexual Politics of Meat: A Feminist-Vegetarian Critical Theory by Carol Adams. The purpose of this paper is to examine how a combination of the utilitarian and feminist perspectives helps us adopt a new philosophy accounting for all systems of oppression involved in eating animals. I conclude that by removing unnecessary harm to animals and unlearning phrases with an absent reference (...) to oppressed groups, society can progress toward an anti-oppressive system of liberation. (shrink)

The prevalent view in animal ethics is that speciesism is wrong: we should weigh the interests of humans and non-humans equally. Shelly Kagan has recently questioned this claim, defending speciesism against Peter Singer’s seminal argument based on the principle of equal consideration of interests. This critique is most charitably construed as a dilemma. The principle of equal consideration can be interpreted in either of two ways. While it faces counterexamples on the first reading, it makes Singer’s argument question-begging on the (...) second. In response, Singer has grasped the first horn of this dilemma and tried to accommodate Kagan’s apparent counterexamples. In my opinion, this attempt is unpersuasive: the principle of equal consideration is inconsistent with common-sense intuitions on Kagan’s cases. Worse, Singer’s argument begs the question anyway. It therefore faces two serious objections. This is not to say that there is nothing wrong with speciesism, however. In the second half of the paper, I propose another, better argument against speciesism, which I argue is immune to both objections. According to this other argument, speciesism is wrong because it involves discriminating on the basis of a merely biological property. (shrink)

Animal ethicists have been debating the morality of speciesism for over forty years. Despite rather persuasive arguments against this form of discrimination, many philosophers continue to assign humans a higher moral status than nonhuman animals. The primary source of evidence for this position is our intuition that humans’ interests matter more than the similar interests of other animals. And it must be acknowledged that this intuition is both powerful and widespread. But should we trust it for all that? The present (...) paper defends a negative answer to that question, based on a debunking argument. The intuitive belief that humans matter more than other animals is unjustified because it results from an epistemically defective process. It is largely shaped by tribalism, our tendency to favor ingroup members as opposed to outgroup members. And this influence is distortive for two reasons. First, tribalism evolved for reasons unrelated to moral truths; hence, it would at best produce true moral beliefs accidentally. Second, tribalism generates a vast quantity of false moral beliefs, starting with racist beliefs. Once this intuition is discarded, little evidence remains that speciesism is morally acceptable. (shrink)

Robert Nozick famously raised the possibility that there is a sense in which both deontology and utilitarianism are true: deontology applies to humans while utilitarianism applies to animals. In recent years, there has been increasing interest in such a hybrid views of ethics. Discussions of this Nozickian Hybrid View, and similar approaches to animal ethics, often assume that such an approach reflects the commonsense view, and best captures common moral intuitions. However, recent psychological work challenges this empirical assumption. We review (...) evidence suggesting that the folk is deontological all the way down—it is just that the moral side constraints that protect animals from harm are much weaker than those that protect humans. In fact, it appears that people even attribute some deontological protections, albeit extremely weak ones, to inanimate objects. We call this view Multi-level Weighted Deontology. While such empirical findings cannot show that the Nozickian Hybrid View is false, or that it is unjustified, they do remove its core intuitive support. That support belongs to Multi-level Weighted Deontology, a view that is also in line with the view that Nozick himself seemed to favour. To complicate things, however, we also review evidence that our intuitions about the moral status of humans are, at least in significant part, shaped by factors relating to mere species membership that seem morally irrelevant. We end by considering the potential debunking upshot of such findings about the sources of common moral intuitions about the moral status of animals. (shrink)

The first chapter introduces core ideas—sexism, speciesism, and male privilege—through an examination of the labor and crimes of pig farmer and serial killer Robert Pickton, then formally introduces sexism, speciesism, male privilege, the #MeToo Movement, #ARMeToo Movement, and word activism. With regard to the latter, “anymal” and “interfacing oppressions” are introduced as novel referents. At its closing, the introduction provides an overview of upcoming chapters.

Many philosophers accept both of the following claims: (1) consciousness matters morally, and (2) species membership doesn’t matter morally. In other words, many reject speciesism but accept what we might call 'sentientism'. But do the reasons against speciesism yield analogous reasons against sentientism, just as the reasons against racism and sexism are thought to yield analogous reasons against speciesism? This paper argues that speciesism is disanalogous to sentientism (as well as racism and sexism). I make a case for the following (...) asymmetry: (a) some non-humans clearly have interests, but (b) no non-conscious entities clearly have interests. This asymmetry, I argue, renders sentientism resistant to the standard argument against speciesism. (shrink)

We submit this brief in support of the Nonhuman Rights Project’s efforts to secure habeas corpus relief for the elephant named Happy. The Supreme Court, Bronx County, declined to grant habeas corpus relief and order Happy’s transfer to an elephant sanctuary, relying, in part, on previous decisions that denied habeas relief for the NhRP’s chimpanzee clients, Kiko and Tommy. Those decisions use incompatible conceptions of ‘person’ which, when properly understood, are either philosophically inadequate or, in fact, compatible with Happy’s personhood.

In this essay, I argue that contractualism, even when it is actually used to construe our moral duties towards non-human animals, does not do so naturally. We can infer from our experiences with companion animals that we owe moral duties to them because of special relationships we are in with them. We can further abstract that we owe general moral duties to non-human animals because they are the kinds of beings that we can have relationships with, and because of the (...) capacities that make possible this relational capacity. This type of approach better explains our duties to non-human animals and other non-rational beings than does the trustee account that Scanlon leaves room for in his contractualism. (shrink)

Humanists argue for assigning the highest moral status to all humans over any non-humans directly or indirectly on the basis of uniquely superior human cognitive abilities. They may also claim that humanism is the strongest position from which to combat racism, sexism, and other forms of within-species discrimination. I argue that changing conceptual foundations in comparative research and discoveries of advanced cognition in many non-human species reveal humanism’s psychological speciesism and its similarity with common justifications of within-species discrimination.

Lorraine Daston's "Against Nature" seeks to explain why, in spite of compelling objections to the contrary, human beings continue to invest nature with moral authority. More specifically, she claims that our propensity to moralize nature is traceable in part to human nature. Though I criticize Daston for not paying adequate attention to John Stuart Mill's narrow sense of 'nature', I also highly recommend her book.

I argue that most wild animals live bad lives, and that we should intervene in nature to improve their wellbeing.

Shelly Kagan has recently defended the view that it is morally worse for a human being to suffer some harm than it is for a lower animal (such as a dog or a cow) to suffer a harm that is equally severe (ceteris paribus). In this paper, I argue that this view receives rather less support from our intuitions than one might at first suppose. According to Kagan, moreover, an individual’s moral status depends partly upon her ‘modal capacities.’ In this (...) paper, I argue that the most natural strategy for justifying Kagan’s theory faces some important challenges. More generally, I argue that philosophers who wish to defend the view that human beings have a higher moral status than that of the lower animals face a dilemma. Either their theory of moral status will imply (unacceptably) that some severely cognitively impaired human beings have a significantly lower moral status than that of typical human beings, or these philosophers will be forced to ground moral status in a set of properties so far removed from a subject’s actual capacities that it will become difficult to see why these kinds of properties should have such moral importance. (shrink)

By promoting total liberation, this volume challenges the reader to think about new approaches to justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion. The contributors examine and disrupt many of the exclusionary assumptions and behaviors by those working toward justice and liberation, encouraging the reader to reflect on their own thoughts and actions.

Spinoza’s attitude toward nonhuman animals is uncharacteristically cruel. This essay elaborates upon this ostensible idiosyncrasy in reference to Hasana Sharp’s commendable desire to revitalize a basis for animal ethics from within the bounds of his system. Despite our favoring an ethics beginning from animal affect, this essay argues that an animal ethic adequate to the demands of our historical moment cannot be developed from within the confines of strict adherence to Spinoza’s system—and this is not yet to speak of a (...) more robust animal ethics which would advocate actual care and compassion for the animals themselves. We argue that on the assumption of Spinoza’s ontological biocentrism, in the presence of Spinozist determinism and the absence of an axiological biocentrism, an anthropocentric axiology necessarily follows. Any Spinozist animal ethic must fall back, therefore, upon appeals to the maximization of human pleasure and power; hence Spinoza’s ruthless injunction to “use (the animals) at our pleasure.” These are the very ontological and ethical assumptions which have incited human self-exaltation in the modern period, in pursuit of power and pleasure even despite the destructive long-term consequences for all the living. We suggest that an adequate animal ethic would require either an abandonment of Spinoza’s ontological biocentrism or the adoption of an axiological biocentrism. (shrink)

En este artículo se explica en qué consisten las éticas centradas en el sufrimiento, presenta algunas de las principales razones a su favor y expone cuáles son sus implicaciones con respecto a la consideración moral de los animales. Se argumenta que conforme a estas éticas los usos como recursos de los animales lesivos para estos deberán ser rechazados. A continuación, se examinan las posiciones que aceptan el uso de los animales siempre que este tenga lugar reduciendo los daños infligidos a (...) estos. Se presentarán una serie de razones por las que tales posiciones resultan cuestionables y por las que van a entrar en conflicto con las implicaciones de las éticas centradas en el sufrimiento. (shrink)

Lucia Schwarz urges a reconsideration of the implications of species egalitarianism, which is an essential element of the position in environmental ethics that Paul Taylor calls “respect for nature.” Species egalitarianism’s claim that every living thing has equal inherent worth appears to lead to counterintuitive conclusions, such as that killing a human being is no worse than killing a dandelion. Species egalitarians have generally responded by explaining that species egalitarianism is compatible with recognizing moral differences between killing different types of (...) living things, and that some killing is morally permissible. Schwarz raises doubts about whether this deflationary defensive strategy is philosophically justified, and suggests that taking seriously the supposedly repugnant implications of species egalitarianism may have a salutary effect on the overall debate. (shrink)

Invertebrate animals are usually seen as a kind of “aliens” which do not deserve any moral consideration. However, there is a growing amount of evidenceindicating that many of them do have the capacity to experience pain. The samecriteria that are usually applied in order to infer that vertebrates are sentient beings (behavioral response, learning capacity, memory, a certain specific neurophysiological structure…) lead to the idea that many invertebrates aresentient as well. Therefore, under the skeptical premise that we have no directevidence (...) of the experience of pain in vertebrates, we are forced to hold that itexists in both vertebrates and invertebrates. (shrink)

Is the tendency to morally prioritize humans over animals weaker in children than adults? In two pre-registered studies (N = 622), 5- to 9-year-old children and adults were presented with moral dilemmas pitting varying numbers of humans against varying numbers of either dogs or pigs and were asked who should be saved. In both studies, children had a weaker tendency to prioritize humans over animals than adults. They often chose to save multiple dogs over one human, and many valued the (...) life of a dog as much as the life of a human. While they valued pigs less, the majority still prioritized ten pigs over one human. By contrast, almost all adults chose to save one human over even one hundred dogs or pigs. Our findings suggest that the common view that humans are far more morally important than animals appears late in development and is likely socially acquired. (shrink)

An adequate theory of rights ought to forbid the harming of animals (human or nonhuman) to promote trivial interests of humans, as is often done in the animal-user industries. But what should the rights view say about situations in which harming some animals is necessary to prevent intolerable injustices to other animals? I develop an account of respectful treatment on which, under certain conditions, it’s justified to intentionally harm some individuals to prevent serious harm to others. This can be compatible (...) with recognizing the inherent value of the ones who are harmed. My theory has important implications for contemporary moral issues in nonhuman animal ethics, such as the development of cultured meat and animal research. (shrink)

In a recent article, Corey Wrenn argues that in order to adequately address injustices done to animals, we ought to think systemically. Her argument stems from a critique of the individualist approach I employ to resolve a moral dilemma faced by animal sanctuaries, who sometimes must harm some animals to help others. But must systemic critiques of injustice be at odds with individualist approaches? In this paper, I respond to Wrenn by showing how individualist approaches that take seriously the notion (...) of group responsibility can be deployed to solve complicated dilemmas that are products of injustice. Contra Wrenn, I argue that to adequately address injustice, acting individually, often within groups, is significantly more important than thinking systemically. (shrink)

Human beings are getting fatter and sicker. As we question what we eat and why we eat it, this book argues that living well involves consuming a raw vegan diet. With eating healthfully and eating ethically being simpler said than done, this book argues that the best solution to health, environmental, and ethical problems concerning animals is raw veganism―the human diet. The human diet is what humans are naturally designed to eat, and that is, a raw vegan diet of fruit, (...) tender leafy greens, and occasionally nuts and seeds. While veganism raises challenging questions over the ethics of consuming animal products, while also considering the environmental impact of the agriculture industry, raw veganism goes a step further and argues that consuming cooked food is also detrimental to our health and the environment. Cooking foods allows us to eat food that is not otherwise fit for human consumption and in an age that promotes eating foods in ‘moderation’ and having ‘balanced’ diets, this raises the question of why we are eating foods that should only be consumed in moderation at all, as moderation clearly implies they aren’t good for us. In addition, from an environmental perspective, the use of stoves, ovens and microwaves for cooking contributes significantly to energy consumption and cooking in general generates excessive waste of food and resources. Thus, this book maintains that living well and living a noble life, that is, good physical and moral health, requires consuming a raw vegan diet. Exploring the scientific and philosophical aspects of raw veganism, this novel book is essential reading for all interested in promoting ethical, healthful, and sustainable diets. (shrink)

We take kelp as material entities immersed in a multitude of relations with other creatures (for whom kelp serves as both nourishment and shelter) and inorganic elements of the milieu it resides in, on the one hand, and as a figuration: a material-semiotic “map of contestable worlds” that encompasses entangled threads of “knowledge, practice and power” (Haraway 1997, 11) in its local and global sense, on the other. While drawing on our field notes from the congress and feminist posthumanities and (...) environmental humanities literatures (e.g. Alaimo 2016; Åsberg & Braidotti 2018; Sandilands & Erickson 2010; Iovino & Opperman 2014) – with a special focus on the so-called blue humanities/oceanic humanities (e.g. DeLoughrey 2019) – that unpack human/nonhuman relations in the context of the current environmental crisis and the accompanying “slow violence” (Nixon 2011), we mobilise a reflection on and make a proposal for “thinking with kelp” as a multi-faceted methodology of transversal and transdisciplinary knowledge production and practices: situated (Haraway 1988), enfleshed, transcorporeal (Alaimo 2010), collaborative, and committed to an ethics of multispecies response-ability (Haraway 2008). (shrink)

In his last book, Le complexe des trois singes. Essai sur l’animalité humaine (2017), the French philosopher Étienne Bimbenet accuses “sensocentric” (« pathocentristes ») animal ethics of committing a performative contradiction: according to Bimbenet, these theories of animal rights — among which he focuses on the case of Zoopolis (2011) by Sue Donaldson and Will Kymlicka — would undermine themselves by means of declaring reason a “non-essential” feature of human beings, while at the same time those theories themselves can only (...) be understood as a highly rational human endeavour. As we will try to point out, the alleged performative contradiction does not actually take place. First of all, Donaldson and Kymlicka only describe reason as “non essential” when it comes to describing moral patients, not moral agents, and particularly not moral theoreticians. In the second place, Zoopolis presents itself explicitly as an effort in “articulating moral reasons” — not as a renouncement of reason as such. (shrink)