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)

The issue of how we ought to treat the nonhuman animals in our lives is one that has been growing in importance over the past forty years. A common charge is that discriminatory behavior based only on differences of species membership is just as wrong morally as are acts of racism or sexism. Is such a charge sustainable? It is argued that such reasoning confuses real differences with false ones, may have negative ethical consequences, and could tempt us to abandon (...) our responsibilities to the natural world. Finally, some benefits to human animal treatment that more humane nonhuman animal treatment may bring are considered. (shrink)

This paper is about the moral status of those human beings with profound intellectual disabilities (PIDs). We hold the common sense view that they have equal status to ‘normal’ human beings, and a higher status than any non-human animal. We start with an admission, however: we don’t know how to give a fully satisfying theoretical account of the grounds of moral status that explains this view. And in fact, not only do we not know how to give such an account, (...) but the most satisfying account of moral status that we know (which we call ‘the standard account’) entails that our view is false. It entails that those with PIDs have a lower status than ordinary human beings and an equal status to non-human animals. Now, in this paper, we do absolutely nothing to try to show where the standard account goes wrong, and we do absolutely nothing to resolve the difficulties we see in developing an alternative account that supports our view. Indeed, we do not give any argument against the standard account or in favour of our own view. Instead, we raise the following question: in order to be justified in continuing to hold our view, are we obliged to give such an account? Our answer will be that we are not. (shrink)

Peter Singer’s arguments against the morality of the typical American diet focus on the pain of animals, and lead to the conclusion that we must become committed vegans. His approach ignores the impact that different psychological capacities can legitimately have on our moral appraisal of the interests of beings. Although we ought to eat less meat because of the externalized environmental costs that factory farming inflicts upon future people, an ideal diet may contain some environmentally sustainably raised meat. Finally, the (...) perception of ethical puritanism in committed vegans may be an obstacle to achieving the real reductions in animal suffering that they advocate. (shrink)