The Morality of Speciesism

Speciesism is a “prejudice involving a preference for one’s own kind based on a shared characteristic that in itself has no moral relevance” (Jamieson 107). Humans take this concept of speciesism to justify our treatment of animals as food, pets, and spectacles for entertainment, stating that they are not part of the moral community. 

That being said, many people feel uncomfortable with humans intentionally inflicting harm on animals, which thereby suggests that humans have a gut instinct that animals deserve at least some moral consideration, although it may not be equal to that of humans. 

Many philosophers have presented various criteria to be considered part of the moral community, in support of homo sapien-centric speciesism which holds that “all and only Homo sapiens are members of the moral community” (Jamieson 109). 

However, most, if not all, of these proposed qualifications are either too demanding, excluding some populations of the human species, or too broad, including others species. Linguistic competence or self-consciousness excludes newborns, the comatose, or those suffering from dementia. Meanwhile, “sentience: the competence for pleasure and pain” includes the above human populations, but also encompasses animals (Jamieson 104). This poses a dilemma because there is no concrete distinction that makes all and only humans suitable for moral consideration. This may suggest that humans and animals are of equal moral value and should, therefore, be treated the same. 

However, I believe that some species are more valuable than others. Hence, I do not think it is morally wrong to treat humans and animals differently. 

David Schmidtz makes an important distinction between respect and equality. He states that we should treat all living beings with equal respect, but not necessarily with equal moral consideration. To this end, Schmidtz would critique some aspects of Paul Taylor’s 4 tenets of biocentrism, thereby also refuting species egalitarianism. For instance, he would refute 3) all organisms pursue their own good in their own way. Although we should respect that a plant does good by growing and reproducing, we should not equate it with a chimpanzee doing the same.david schmidtz are all species equal.

Furthermore, Schmidtz supports his argument that not all species are equal by proposing a means of calculating one’s value. In his example, Schmidtz presents a (good of being able to grow), b (the good of sentience), and c (the good of being rational). Although we cannot assume c is inherently more valuable than a or b, according to Taylor’s 3rd tenant of biocentrism, we can suppose that the “value of a + c is higher than the value of a by itself” (Schmidtz 116). 

There are some caveats, however. This calculation method would conclude that a baby who has not yet developed c is less morally considerable than a chimpanzee who has reached the highest capacity of a, b, and c for their species. To refute this, I would suggest that these calculations should be considered in terms of future potential and not immediate results. In this case, we would consider that the baby has the potential to achieve c to a greater degree than the chimpanzees, therefore placing more moral value on the baby than the chimpanzee. 

Schmidtz claims that “failure to respect what makes living things different is not a way of respecting them,” thereby rejecting species egalitarianism (Schmidtz 115). He also states that disrespecting nature “becomes a kind of self-effacement because the values we thereby fail to take seriously are our values, not the tree’s” (Schmidtz 118). Therefore, our respect for nature becomes motivated by selfish interests. 

There are various similarities between speciesism and racism: it is essentially the exclusion of one population based on a physical characteristic that has no moral relevance. The key difference is that racism is within the human species and that speciesism is between humans and animals. Additionally, racism is a social construct, meanwhile, speciesism is based on biological differences. Finally, while different species have varying potentials of a, b, and c, all humans despite their skin color have the same potential to reach the full capacity of a, b, and c.