Speciesism

Speciesism (/ˈspiːʃiːˌzɪzəm, -siːˌzɪz-/) involves the assignment of different values, rights, or special consideration to individuals solely on the basis of their species membership. The term is sometimes used by animal rights advocates, who argue that speciesism is a prejudice similar to racism or sexism, in that the treatment of individuals is predicated on group membership and morally irrelevant physical differences. Their claim is that species membership has no moral significance.

The term is not used consistently, but broadly embraces two ideas. It usually refers to "human speciesism" (human supremacism), the exclusion of all nonhuman animals from the rights, freedoms, and protections afforded to humans. It can also refer to the more general idea of assigning value to a being on the basis of species membership alone, so that "human-chimpanzee speciesism" would involve human beings favouring rights for chimpanzees over rights for dogs, because of human-chimpanzee similarities.

Throughout human history, every society has considered non-human animal life forms different from humans and has used them in ways that benefit humans, including milk, eggs, meat, wool, transport, power, guarding, entertainment, etc. Activities such as these, that were standard human behaviors across the millennia and across the globe, are now pejoratively labeled by some as "speciesism".

The term speciesism, and the argument that it is simply a prejudice, first appeared in 1970 in a privately printed pamphlet written by British psychologist Richard D. Ryder. Ryder was a member of a group of intellectuals in Oxford, England, the nascent animal rights community, now known as the Oxford Group. One of the group's activities was distributing pamphlets about areas of concern; the pamphlet titled "Speciesism" was written to protest against animal experimentation.

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