Speciesism and Speciescentrism

Ethical Theory and Moral Practice 24 (2):511-527 (2021)
  Copy   BIBTEX

Abstract

The term ‘speciesism’ was once coined to name discrimination against nonhuman animals as well as the bias that such discrimination expresses. It has sparked a debate on criteria for being morally considerable and the relative significance of human and nonhuman animals’ interests. Many defenses of the preferential consideration of humans have come with a denial of the normative meaning of the term ‘speciesism’ itself. In fact, defenders of the moral relevance of species membership and their critics alike have often used ‘speciesism’ as a merely descriptive technical term for classifying positions in normative ethics. This paper argues that this terminological choice severely impoverishes our ethical vocabulary and moral conceptual scheme. It obscures the considerable common ground among theorists with differing views on the relevance of various properties for moral consideration. It is often overlooked that even most defenders of the preferential treatment of one’s fellow species members have good reason to hold on to the normative notion that ‘speciesism’ was originally meant to be. Two distinct types of concepts are involved when differential treatment along species lines is addressed in a normative and a descriptive way, respectively. The term ‘speciesism’ should be reserved for the normative concept and kept apart from the descriptive term ‘speciescentrism.’ Attempts to redefine speciesism as something that is not wrong by definition are shown to be epistemically and morally harmful for the same reasons attempts to redefine racism and sexism in this way are.

Links

PhilArchive



    Upload a copy of this work     Papers currently archived: 90,593

External links

Setup an account with your affiliations in order to access resources via your University's proxy server

Through your library

Similar books and articles

Is Speciesism Wrong by Definition?François Jaquet - 2019 - Journal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics 32 (3):447-458.
What is speciesism?Oscar Horta - 2010 - Journal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics 23 (3):243-266.
Against Strong Speciesism.Donald Graft - 1997 - Journal of Applied Philosophy 14 (2):107-118.
Against strong speciesism.Donald Graft - 1997 - Journal of Applied Philosophy 14 (2):107–118.
Special Relations, Special Obligations, and Speciesism.Eric X. Qi - 2016 - Bangladesh Journal of Bioethics 7 (3):12-22.
Why Speciesism is Wrong: A Response to Kagan.Peter Singer - 2015 - Journal of Applied Philosophy 33 (1):31-35.
Specifying Speciesism.Roger Fjellstrom - 2002 - Environmental Values 11 (1):63-74.
Hume and Our Treatment of Animals.Monica L. Gerrek - 2004 - Essays in Philosophy 5 (2):418-428.
The Psychological Speciesism of Humanism.Carrie Figdor - 2021 - Philosophical Studies 178:1545-1569.
From moral rights to constitutional rights: beyond élitist and electiv speciesism.Sônia T. Felipe - 2007 - Ethic@ - An International Journal for Moral Philosophy 6 (2):205–216.
Singer’s Notion of Speciesism: A Case for Animal Rights in Ejagham Culture.Lawrence Odey Ojong - 2019 - International Journal of Environmental Pollution and Environmental Modelling 2 (3):116-121.
The Origin of Speciesism.Hugh Lafollette & Niall Shanks - 1996 - Philosophy 71 (275):41-.
Egalitarianism and Animals.Oscar Horta - 2016 - Between the Species 19 (1):108-144.

Analytics

Added to PP
2021-03-16

Downloads
46 (#304,991)

6 months
9 (#144,939)

Historical graph of downloads
How can I increase my downloads?

Author's Profile

Frauke Albersmeier
Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf

Citations of this work

No citations found.

Add more citations

References found in this work

Ethics and the limits of philosophy.Bernard Williams - 1985 - Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.
Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy.Bernard Williams - 1986 - Cambridge, Mass.: Routledge.
Animal Liberation.Bill Puka & Peter Singer - 1977 - Philosophical Review 86 (4):557.
Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy.Bernard Williams - 1987 - Behaviorism 15 (2):179-181.

View all 47 references / Add more references