Discrimination against non-human creatures solely on the basis of their species membership
This article is about the general concept. For the film, see Speciesism: The Movie.
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Speciesism (/ˈspiːʃiːˌzɪzəm,-siːˌzɪz-/) is a term used in philosophy regarding the treatment of individuals of different species. The term has several different definitions within the relevant literature.[1] Some sources specifically define speciesism as discrimination or unjustified treatment based on an individual's species membership,[2][3][4] while other sources define it as differential treatment without regard to whether the treatment is justified or not.[5][6] Richard D. Ryder, who coined the term, defined it as "a prejudice or attitude of bias in favour of the interests of members of one's own species and against those of members of other species".[7] Speciesism results in the belief that humans have the right to use non-human animals, which scholars say is pervasive in the modern society.[8][9][10] Studies from 2015 and 2019 suggest that people who support animal exploitation also tend to endorse racist, sexist, and other prejudicial views, which furthers the beliefs in human supremacy and group dominance to justify systems of inequality and oppression.[11]
As a term, speciesism first appeared during a protest against animal experimentation in 1970. Philosophers and animal rights advocates state that speciesism plays a role in the animal–industrial complex,[12][13] including in the practice of factory farming, animal slaughter, blood sports (such as bullfighting and rodeos), the taking of animals' fur and skin, and experimentation on animals,[14][15][16] as well as the refusal to help animals suffering in the wild due to natural processes,[17][18] and the categorization of certain animals as invasive, then killing them based on that classification.[19]
Notable proponents of the concept include Peter Singer, Oscar Horta, Steven M. Wise, Gary L. Francione, Melanie Joy, David Nibert, Steven Best, and Ingrid Newkirk. Among academics, the ethics, morality, and concept of speciesism has been the subject of substantial philosophical debate.[25] Carl Cohen, Nel Noddings, Bernard Williams, Peter Staudenmaier, Christopher Grau, Douglas Maclean, Roger Scruton, Thomas Wells, and Robert Nozick have criticized the term or elements of it.
^Hopster, Jeroen (1 December 2019). "The Speciesism Debate: Intuition, Method, and Empirical Advances". Animals. 9 (12): 1054. doi:10.3390/ani9121054. ISSN 2076-2615. PMC 6940905. PMID 31805715. There are various definitions of speciesism in circulation in the academic literature and beyond.
^Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary (11 ed.). Springfield, Massachusetts: Merriam-Webster, Incorporated. 2004. p. 1198. ISBN 0-87779-825-7.
^Horta, Oscar (1 June 2010). "What Is Speciesism?". Journal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics. 23 (3): 243–266. doi:10.1007/s10806-009-9205-2. ISSN 1573-322X. [S]peciesism is the unjustified disadvantageous consideration or treatment of those who are not classified as belonging to one or more particular species.
^Dinker, Karin Gunnarsson; Pedersen, Helena (2016). "Critical Animal Pedagogies: Re-learning Our Relations with Animal Others". In Helen E. Lees; Nel Noddings (eds.). The Palgrave International Handbook of Alternative Education (1 ed.). London: Palgrave Macmillan. pp. 415–430. doi:10.1057/978-1-137-41291-1_27. ISBN 978-1-137-41290-4. Speciesism is the name given to the presumption of human superiority over other animals and their subjection to oppression based on this belief.
^ abJaquet, François (1 June 2019). "Is Speciesism Wrong by Definition?". Journal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics. 32 (3): 447–458. doi:10.1007/s10806-019-09784-1. ISSN 1573-322X. S2CID 195236790. All in all, it does not follow from the fact that speciesism is by definition a form of discrimination that it is by definition unjustified.
^Hopster, Jeroen (1 December 2019). "The Speciesism Debate: Intuition, Method, and Empirical Advances". Animals. 9 (12): 1054. doi:10.3390/ani9121054. ISSN 2076-2615. PMC 6940905. PMID 31805715. Some authors treat speciesism as an unjustified position by definition. This is problematic, however, since the defensibility of speciesism is subject to substantive debate. A more fruitful approach is to distinguish the descriptive concept of speciesism from its normative evaluation. Here, and in what follows, I will adopt Singer's definition, according to which speciesism involves the preferential consideration of the interests of members of one's own species.
^Singer, 1990, pp. 6, 9.
^Cite error: The named reference Fitzgerald_Taylor_2014 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
^Dhont, Kristof; Hodson, Gordon; Leite, Ana C.; Salmen, Alina (2019). "The Psychology of Speciesism". In Kristof Dhont; Gordon Hodson (eds.). Why We Love and Exploit Animals: Bridging Insights from Academia and Advocacy (1 ed.). London: Routledge. doi:10.4324/9781351181440. ISBN 9781351181440. S2CID 203058733.
^Cite error: The named reference Weitzenfeld2015 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
^Cite error: The named reference Jackson2019 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
^Boscardin, Livia (12 July 2016). "Greenwashing the Animal-Industrial Complex: Sustainable Intensification and Happy Meat". 3rd ISA Forum of Sociology, Vienna, Austria. ISAConf.confex.com. Retrieved 10 August 2021.
^Beirne, Piers (May 2021). "Wildlife Trade and COVID-19: Towards a Criminology of Anthropogenic Pathogen Spillover". The British Journal of Criminology. 61 (3). Oxford University Press: 607–626. doi:10.1093/bjc/azaa084. ISSN 1464-3529. PMC 7953978. Retrieved 19 September 2021.
^"Speciesism". Animal Ethics. 7 January 2014. Retrieved 3 December 2018.
^Cameron, Janet (11 April 2014). "Peter Singer on Suffering and the Consequences of 'Speciesism'". Decoded Past. Archived from the original on 28 March 2019. Retrieved 3 December 2018.
^Almiron, Núria; Khazaal, Natalie (2016). "Lobbying against compassion: Speciesist Discourse in the Vivisection Industrial Complex". American Behavioral Scientist. 60 (3). SAGE Journals: 256–275. doi:10.1177/0002764215613402. ISSN 0002-7642. S2CID 147298407. Retrieved 10 August 2021.
^Faria, Catia; Paez, Eze (2015). "Animals in Need: The Problem of Wild Animal Suffering and Intervention in Nature". Relations: Beyond Anthropocentrism. 3: 7.
^Horta, Oscar (5 July 2016). "Changing attitudes towards animals in the wild and speciesism". Animal Sentience. 1 (7). doi:10.51291/2377-7478.1109. ISSN 2377-7478.
^Abbate, C. E.; Fischer, Bob (November 2019). "Don't Demean "Invasives": Conservation and Wrongful Species Discrimination". Animals. 9 (11): 871. doi:10.3390/ani9110871. PMC 6912556. PMID 31717868.
^Hopster, Jeroen (1 December 2019). "The Speciesism Debate: Intuition, Method, and Empirical Advances". Animals. 9 (12): 1054. doi:10.3390/ani9121054. ISSN 2076-2615. PMC 6940905. PMID 31805715. There are various definitions of speciesism in circulation in the academic literature and beyond. Some authors treat speciesism as an unjustified position by definition. This is problematic, however, since the defensibility of speciesism is subject to substantive debate. A more fruitful approach is to distinguish the descriptive concept of speciesism from its normative evaluation. Here, and in what follows, I will adopt Singer's definition, according to which speciesism involves the preferential consideration of the interests of members of one's own species.
^Gruen, Lori (2017), "The Moral Status of Animals", in Zalta, Edward N. (ed.), The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2017 ed.), Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University, retrieved 6 March 2021
^Jaworska, Agnieszka; Tannenbaum, Julie (2021), "The Grounds of Moral Status", in Zalta, Edward N. (ed.), The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2021 ed.), Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University, retrieved 6 March 2021
^Pointing, Charlotte (19 February 2020). "What Is Speciesism? The Animal Rights Issue Explained". LiveKindly. Retrieved 9 August 2021.
^Best, Steven (2014). The Politics of Total Liberation: Revolution for the 21st Century. Palgrave Macmillan. pp. 6–11, 30–4. doi:10.1057/9781137440723 (inactive 3 May 2024). ISBN 978-1137471116.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: DOI inactive as of May 2024 (link)
speciesism first appeared during a protest against animal experimentation in 1970. Philosophers and animal rights advocates state that speciesism plays...
A species (pl.: species) is often defined as the largest group of organisms in which any two individuals of the appropriate sexes or mating types can...
of a new species of organism and explain how it differs from species that have been previously described or related species. For a species to be considered...
The World Day for the End of Speciesism (WoDES) is an international event aimed at denouncing speciesism, which is discrimination against non-human animals...
An endangered species is a species that is very likely to become extinct in the near future, either worldwide or in a particular political jurisdiction...
International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species, also known as the IUCN Red List or Red Data Book, founded in 1964, is...
An invasive species is an introduced species to an environment that becomes overpopulated and harms its new environment. Invasive species adversely affect...
the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species identified 5220 (2754 animals, 1 fungus, 2464 plant, 1 protist) endangered species, subspecies and varieties, stocks...
In zoological nomenclature, a type species (species typica) is the species name with which the name of a genus or subgenus is considered to be permanently...
last member if it loses the capacity to reproduce and recover. Because a species' potential range may be very large, determining this moment is difficult...
"From Speciesism to Equality" The Vegan (Summer 2005) "Animal Rights "Welfarists": An Oxymoron" Satya Magazine (March 2005) "English and Speciesism" English...
system"), also called binary nomenclature, is a formal system of naming species of living things by giving each a name composed of two parts, both of which...
On the Origin of Species (or, more completely, On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle...
precise meanings are cryptic species for two or more species hidden under one species name, sibling species for two (or more) species that are each other's closest...
Version 2014.2 of the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species identified 4574 Critically Endangered species, subspecies and varieties, stocks and subpopulations...
A rare species is a group of organisms that are very uncommon, scarce, or infrequently encountered. This designation may be applied to either a plant...
number of lists of fictional species: List of fictional extraterrestrials (by media type) Lists of fictional alien species: A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I,...
Foundation. Its aim is to create a comprehensive open content catalogue of all species; the project is directed at scientists, rather than at the general public...
A keystone species is a species that has a disproportionately large effect on its natural environment relative to its abundance, a concept introduced in...
Species richness is the number of different species represented in an ecological community, landscape or region. Species richness is simply a count of...
nonhuman animals is only one instance of speciesism, which can be referred to as anthropocentric speciesism, because it is also possible to discriminate...
A vulnerable species is a species which has been categorized by the International Union for Conservation of Nature as being threatened with extinction...
The Endangered Species Act of 1973 (ESA or "The Act"; 16 U.S.C. § 1531 et seq.) is the primary law in the United States for protecting and conserving...