On the Origins of Speciesism

Note. None of the below discussion is novel or original; all of the ideas mentioned have been explicated at length by many other authors, such as Peter Singer and Richard Ryder. I write the following passage merely in order to develop the established argument for animal welfare with a slightly different emphasis.

Speciesism--discrimination on the basis of species--has been the dominant attitude of human beings ever since they developed thousands of years ago. Indeed, a disposition of apathy toward other animals is probably favorable from an evolutionary standpoint: those early human beings who cared for animals were probably not likely to survive easily, particularly before the advent of agriculture. Of course, that something is natural does not necessarily mean that it is ethical. It is natural for men to repress women, for the wealthy to exploit the poor, and for the strong to dominate the weak. But most people would agree that these practices are not moral. As Stephen Jay Gould points out in his "Nonmoral Nature": "The factual state of the world does not teach us how we, with our powers for good and evil, should alter or preserve it in the most ethical manner." Thus, it is also possible that our current treatment of animals is not moral--however natural it may be.

Concern only for members of one's own species seems generally favorable for survival in the wild. But speciesist attitudes have also been reinforced by prevailing cultural standards--particularly the Judeo-Christian ideas that God made man in His image and gave man dominion over the animals. Just as virtually every civilization throughout history has seen itself as the center of the universe, so too humanity has viewed itself as supreme and fundamentally different from every other living creature on the planet. It is this view that has caused humans throughout the centuries to care more about the welfare of their peers than their cows, and it is because of this view that we, for example, shudder at Abraham's determination to kill Isaac while thinking nothing of his actual slaughter of the lamb. (As Singer and I recognize, there may be morally relevant differences between killing a lamb and killing an acutely self-aware human being. The point of this statement was not to suggest that killing a lamb is necessarily as bad as killing a person but merely to convey the point that in hearing of the slaughter of the lamb, many of us give little consideration whatsoever to the suffering that it would experience.)

This Judeo-Christian view of humanity was slowly eroded by science--notably the discovery by Copernicus and Galileo that earth was not the center of the universe--before being completely shattered by Charles Darwin, whose 1871 Descent of Man proclaimed the following:

The main conclusion here arrived at, and now held by many naturalists who are well competent to form a sound judgment is that man is descended from some less highly organised form. The grounds upon which this conclusion rests will never be shaken, for the close similarity between man and the lower animals in embryonic development, as well as in innumerable points of structure and constitution, both of high and of the most trifling importance--the rudiments which he retains, and the abnormal reversions to which he is occasionally liable--are facts which cannot be disputed. [...] He who is not content to look, like a savage, at the phenomena of nature as disconnected, cannot any longer believe that man is the work of a separate act of creation. He will be forced to admit that the close resemblance of the embryo of man to that, for instance, of a dog--the construction of his skull, limbs, and whole frame on the same plan with that of other mammals, independently of the uses to which the parts may be put--the occasional re-appearance of various structures, for instance of several muscles, which man does not normally possess, but which are common to the Quadrumana--and a crowd of analogous facts--all point in the plainest manner to the conclusion that man is the co-descendant with other mammals of a common progenitor. (From Chapter 21)

In other words, Homo sapiens are simply biological entities like any other organism; they may possess unique capabilities--particularly writing, farming, and manufacturing, not to mention having the most intricate language of any species--but they are not, at a basic level, different from other advanced animals. Distinguishing members of the human species from members of the chimpanzee species represents not a fundamental division but merely one more arbitrary way to classify various organisms. And while this separation may be useful, it is not necessarily morally relevant. In the same way, it is helpful in many ways to distinguish between males and females, but such a distinction does not necessarily have moral significance.

This is where concern for the welfare of other species takes hold. When we stop viewing humans as members of one species and pigs as members of another, but instead view them both as biological entities fulfilling their own needs and desires, we remove the inveterate conceptual roadblock that inhibits tantamount concern for the feelings of the pig. We can then concentrate on the ethically relevant characteristics of each biological unit--to wit, the capacity to experience fear, stress, and pain, and the capacity to feel joy, satisfaction, and fulfillment. In short, the Darwinian approach allows us to understand that division on the basis of species is but one possible way of viewing animals, and--furthermore--it is not a morally important one. We might similarly classify organisms based on their ages, their colors, or the speeds at which their hearts beat; it is because we are so accustomed species-based division that we consider it more than one arbitrary way to arrange biological entities.

The day may come when the rest of the animal creation may acquire those rights which never could have been withholden from them but by the hand of tyranny. The French have already discovered that the blackness of the skin is no reason why a human being should be abandoned without redress to the caprice of a tormentor. It may one day come to be recognised that the number of the legs, the villosity of the skin, or the termination of the os sacrum, are reasons equally insufficient for abandoning a sensitive being to the same fate. What else is it that should trace the insuperable line? Is it the faculty of reason, or perhaps the faculty of discourse? But a full-grown horse or dog is beyond comparison a more rational, as well as a more conversable animal, than an infant of a day, or a week, or even a month, old. But suppose they were otherwise, what would it avail? The question is not, Can they reason? nor, Can they talk? but, Can they suffer?

--Jeremy Bentham, An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation, Chapter 17, Section 1, Note 2 (1789)

Are we to extend our concern to all the beings capable of pleasure and pain whose feelings are affected by our conduct? or are we to confine our view to human happiness? The former view is the one adopted by Bentham and Mill, and (I believe) by the Utilitarian school generally: and is obviously most in accordance with the universality that is characteristic of their principle. It is the Good Universal, interpreted and defined as 'happiness' or 'pleasure,' at which a Utilitarian considers it his duty to aim: and it seems arbitrary and unreasonable to exclude from the end, as so conceived, any pleasure of any sentient being.

--Henry Sidgwick, Methods of Ethics, Book IV, Chapter 1, Section 2 (1907)