Speciesism/Talk

chauvinism -> sexism

Duh. :-) Thanks AxelBoldt

---

Article said:

, but radical anti-speciesism is extremely rare and probably unworkable in practice.

What is radical anti-speciesism? If Peter Singer isn't a radical anti-speciesist, what is one? -- SJK

Ok, by analogy: We'll define racist as someone who advocates discriminatory treatment for different races, and we'll assume that the cultural milieu under discussion is actually somewhat racist (say South Africa under apartheid or a bad area of the US south in the first half of the 20th century).

An "anti-racist" would be someone who advocates more-equal treatment for persons of all races (in a racist culture, we'd expect this to be an unpopular idea).

A "radical anti-racist" might be someone who actually attempted to practice these views (very unpopular move).

So - the default in our culture is "speciesism"; that nonhuman animals <> humans. Singer I would call an anti-speciesist (says that humans and nonhumans should have more-equal rights under the law). I'd say a radical anti-speciesist would be someone who strongly practiced what he/she preached on this.

In the real world, we do see "anti-speciesists", but as I said we don't see many radical "anti-speciesists" as defined here.

(Or; if all animals were equal to humans, would you want your sister to marry one?)

---

Singer argues that animals should be treated equally to humans, in themselves. Of course, humans and animals have different needs -- it would be stupid to provide college education to animals, just as it is stupid to provide hay to humans. Humans may even in some circumstances be worth more than animals, due to their higher intelligence, etc. But Singer insists that, in themselves, animals are of equal moral importance as human beings. Singer would define himself as a 'radical anti-speciesist'.

And, as a matter of fact, Singer practices what he preaches to a great extent (he is a vegetarian.) He also might not mind his sister marrying one. (He has argued that there is nothing wrong with human-animal sexual relations.) -- SJK

Okay, then Peter Singer is a radical anti-speciesist, and, as I originally wrote, (the position of) "anti-speciesism is extremely rare and probably unworkable in practice." Do you disagree with this last statement? If not, I'm going to put it back into the Speciesism entry.