meet baxter the dog baxter lives in a
loving home
where he gets to go out on walks every
day and play with other dogs
he gets lots of cuddles and scratches
and the humans who look after him
view him as a member of the family in
fact
they love him so much that they are
currently planning to celebrate him
being
six months old
[Music]
now meet this pig this pig doesn't have
a name
this pig will never be in a loving home
never be allowed to play
or have cuddles and scratches whilst
baxter gets to run around freely
she can only pace around endlessly in
circles in the concrete pen
that she is forced to spend her life in
the humans in this pig's life
view her as if she is purely a product
whose body exists for the farmer to
profit off
this is why when she turns six months
old she will be forced into a
slaughterhouse
and killed in a gas chamber however
outside of their physical form
there is nothing that separates these
two animals morally
like baxter she too would love a belly
rub
while baxter plays fetch she can solve
puzzles
if she was given a name and a loving
home she too would respond to her name
as well as show happiness
and excitement and like baxter she too
can suffer and feel pain in the same way
that he can
so why is it then that these two animals
will live such different lives and be
viewed so differently
too well to understand why we need to
take a look at what speciesism
is the word speciesism which was
popularized by peter singer in his 1975
book animal liberation
refers to a prejudice or attitude of
bias in favor of the interests of
members of one's own species and against
those of members of other species
as well as viewing the moral worth of
animals as being different
simply because of their species in other
words a prejudice that says it's okay to
favor a human's desire to eat a bacon
sandwich
over a pig's desire to not be killed in
a gas chamber or to treat a dog like a
family member
but a pig like a disposable object now
favoring one's own species in a
situation where you had to choose
between saving a member of your own
species
or a different one for example choosing
to save a human child
over a dog from a fire could be morally
justified because of specific
identifiable qualities
the human has however this doesn't
justify the existence of speciesism
in the same way faced with an
unavoidable decision between allowing a
young child or a 95 year old human to
live
favoring the child in this circumstance
does not justify ageism
or allowing the elderly to suffer or die
needlessly
but the issue of a speciesist mentality
is that it creates arbitrary
distinctions between different species
of animals such as baxter
and the pig however it also creates a
mindset of discrimination
that in turn can facilitate exploitation
it carries the idea of human superiority
to the extreme of believing that trivial
and needless human desires
are morally permissible such as skinning
animals for a fur or leather jacket
forcing pigs into gas chambers for a
bacon sandwich or separating newborn
calves from their mothers
so that we can drink their mother's milk
speciesism has allowed us to create a
world
where trillions of animals are killed
every single year
with tens of billions of them living an
abject and horrific life
their bodies mutilated their
reproductive systems abused and their
babies stolen
their individuality and desire to avoid
suffering ignored and their lives
ultimately taken from them by force it
is important to note that
anti-speciesists recognize that humans
and non-humans are vastly different
in many ways including our physical form
intelligence and sociability among
others
however it is not the differences that
are relevant when deciding whether
non-humans matter morally but instead
the similarities
fundamentally sentience meaning the
capacity to feel
and experience subjectively if it is
sentient that makes human animals
worthy of moral consideration then in
the same way
it is sentience that makes non-human
animals worthy of moral consideration
as well however many people strongly
believe that there must be a discernible
difference
that justifies the exploitation of
non-human animals
those who argue in favor of speciesism
will often say that because
animals are less intelligent lack the
cognitive capabilities of humans and are
unable to display the same level of
agency
responsibility or engage in social
contracts
this is why it is acceptable to exploit
them however this line of thinking could
also be used
to justify harming human infants however
not only do we still think that human
infants deserve moral consideration
we often give them special consideration
because of their lower cognition
and agency while simultaneously
justifying giving animals less
consideration
because of the same reasons furthermore
if we truly believed that these traits
justified what we do to animals
then baxter the dog wouldn't be given
preferential treatment
and we wouldn't have laws and moral
injunctions protecting baxter
from the very same actions that are
viewed as legally and morally
permissible
when applied to the pig meaning the only
discernible differentiation we use to
harm animals
is their species the body they were born
into
this is why people will often justify
harming animals by saying
it's just a chicken or who cares they're
only pigs
whilst at the same time we wouldn't say
to the family morning baxter's death
it's just a dog the position of
anti-speciesists is that it's not
morally justifiable to discriminate
against an animal
simply because of their body in the same
way that it is not morally justified to
discriminate against a human
simply because of the body they were
born into furthermore believing that
humans deserve moral consideration
simply because we are human as is often
claimed
overlooks the real reason why killing a
human is wrong
the reason it is wrong is because it
causes suffering and pain
and even in the absence of suffering
taking life needlessly robs the
individual of
their life and ability to experience the
same is true of non-human animals as
well
it is wrong because it causes them
suffering and pain and even in the
absence of suffering
killing them is still robbing them of
their life and ability to have
subjective experiences
and even if we were to believe that
morally there is a distinction between a
human
and a non-human that distinction is
surely not so significant
that it justifies the unnecessary
torture and slaughter
of hundreds of billions of animals every
single year
after all even if we deem someone to be
worth less
that does not mean that they have no
worth at all and
any amount of moral worth should
prohibit the act of slaughter
especially as the mere objective reality
that animals can suffer
and have subjective experiences
immediately withdraws any notion of
acceptability
when it comes to exploiting them
ultimately speciesism is so ingrained
and normalized within society
that we don't even consider it a problem
many humans view non-human animals with
such little regard
that the very concept of animals
deserving moral consideration
is seen as offensive as they believe
that recognizing that other animals
also deserve basic rights is somehow
demeaning to our own species
but in the words of oscar-winning actor
and animal rights activist
joaquin phoenix it takes nothing away
from a human
to be kind to an animal and let's be
honest
no longer needlessly torturing and
killing trillions of sentient beings
is not even an act of kindness it's
simply a matter of basic
justice and moral integrity
you