Speciesism and Speciescentrism

AbstractThe term ‘speciesism’ was once coined to name discrimination against nonhuman animals (Ryder1975) as well as the bias that such discrimination expresses (Singer2009 [1975]). 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 (e.g., Cohen1986, Kagan2016). 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 ty pes 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 redef...

Source: Ethical Theory and Moral Practice - March 15, 2021 Category: Medical Ethics Source Type: research