In Defense of Speciesism

Speciesism Revisited

Do human non-persons have basic rights simply because they are members of a species characterized by personhood? Are we justified if we give IIDral preference to human non-persons over non-human non-persons with equivalent mental capacities, provided that the latter do not belong to a species characterized by personhood? Michael Wreen has argued for this speciesist view in his recent, important...

What Is Speciesism?

In spite of the considerable literature nowadays existing on the issue of the moral exclusion of nonhuman animals, there is still work to be done concerning the characterization of the conceptual framework with which this question can be appraised. This paper intends to tackle this task. It starts by defining speciesism as the unjustified disadvantageous consideration or treatment of those who ...

Egalitarianism and Animals

The moral consideration of nonhuman animals and the critique of speciesism have been defended by appeal to a variety of ethical theories. One of the main approaches in moral and political philosophy today from which to launch such a defense is egalitarianism, which is the view that we should aim at favoring the worse off by reducing inequality. This paper explains what egalitarianism is and sho...

Can speciesism be a moral illusion?

The Müller-Lyer figure is a famous optical illusion where we think two line segments have different lengths, although the lengths are in fact equal. If our brains generate optical illusions, we might ask ourselves the question whether moral illusions can exist, how we can detect them and what we can learn from them. In this article we argue that speciesism – the difference in moral status betwe...

To the Dogs: Companion speciesism and the new feminist materialism