Debate continues over whether crustaceans, such as lobsters, are sentient and can experience pain. A 2021 UK review reported that evidence for sentience in lobsters is "substantial but not strong".
Proposed responses in the literature include decision rules, with the precautionary principle most commonly invoked, alongside incautionary and expected-value approaches (including probabilistic variants); virtue-ethical arguments for attentiveness and caution toward possibly sentient animals; and assessment frameworks in animal welfare science.
Ongoing discussion considers evidential standards, potential regulatory
and economic costs, and the scope of moral consideration across diverse
biological taxa and computational substrates.
David Foster Wallace's 2004 essay "Consider the Lobster" describes the Maine Lobster Festival and poses the problem of inferring pain across species. It notes evidence of nociceptors in lobsters alongside uncertainty about endogenous opioids,
and reflects on the ethics of killing and cooking animals alive;
building on this, Robert C. Jones's chapter "The Lobster Considered"
engages Wallace's essay and argues that current evidence supports
treating lobsters as capable of pain and thus as morally considerable.
Jones reviews neurophysiological and behavioural work on nociception
and opioid systems, distinguishes moral considerability from degrees of
moral significance, and concludes that, given residual uncertainty, a precautionary approach is warranted toward practices that risk causing pain to crustaceans.
A 2021 UK government-commissioned review by the London School of Economics evaluated 300 studies and concluded that cephalopods and decapod crustaceans
should be treated as sentient, grading the evidence as "very strong"
for octopods, "strong" for most crabs, and "substantial but not strong"
for squid, cuttlefish, and lobsters; it recommended best-practice
transport, stunning, and slaughter and said lobsters and crabs should
not be boiled alive, informing debate on the Animal Welfare (Sentience) Act.
A modular cricket farm. The sentience of crickets is uncertain; commentators note that farming insects involves killing significant numbers of individuals.
In 2016, Shelley A. Adamo reviewed philosophical, neurobiological,
behavioural, robotic, and evolutionary lines of evidence on insect pain
and concluded that the question remains unsettled: insects clearly show
nociception and complex learning, but similar pain-like behaviours can
arise from simpler mechanisms and can be engineered in robots, so
argument-by-analogy to human pain is weak without a clear account of the
neural architecture needed for subjective experience. She contrasts Morgan's canon
with the precautionary principle, noting that they point to opposing
policy responses and that precaution has research and economic costs;
she nonetheless urges careful handling to avoid stress for
methodological and ethical reasons.
In an article for Vox, Dylan Matthews examines the question of insect sentience in proposals to scale entomophagy, reporting limited evidence on whether farmed insects
feel pain and on the welfare impact of common slaughter methods (e.g.
freezing and shredding). He cites estimates that around 1 trillion
insects are raised and killed annually, with about 79–94 billion alive
at any time, and argues that if insects can suffer the ethical
implications of expanding insect farming would be substantial.
Maximilian Padden Elder argues that contemporary evidence warrants treating fish as potential sufferers within animal ethics. He distinguishes nociception from conscious pain and contends that teleosts
possess nociceptors and display behaviours consistent with affective
states. Objections that fish cannot suffer because they lack a neocortex, or because they do not exhibit human-like pain displays, are described as anthropocentric;
Elder notes subcortical processing and behavioural data that weaken
neocortex-based dismissals and cautions against using human responses as
the standard for other species. He also discusses cultural and
psychological factors that reduce empathy for fish and thereby lower
concern for their welfare.
Given remaining uncertainty, Elder advocates a precautionary
approach that shifts the burden of proof to those whose actions risk
harm. He cites policy analogues (the U.S. Marine Mammal Protection Act,
UK protection of cephalopods, and EU uses of the precautionary
principle) and points to scale as a reason for priority, noting
estimates of roughly 1–2.7 trillion wild-caught fish annually and tens
of billions of farmed fish slaughtered in a single year. He draws out
implications for commercial and recreational fishing and questions the
coherence of moral pescetarianism in light of possible fish suffering.
Decision principles and frameworks
In the 2015 essay "Reconsider the Lobster", Jeff Sebo quotes Wallace's discussion of the difficulty of establishing whether an animal can experience pain. Sebo calls the question of how to treat individuals of uncertain
sentience, the "sentience problem" and argues that this problem which
"Wallace raises deserves much more philosophical attention than it
currently receives." Sebo asserts that there are two motivating assumptions behind the problem: "sentientism about moral status"—the idea that if an individual is
sentient, then they deserve moral consideration—and "uncertainty about
other minds", which refers to scientific and philosophical uncertainty
about which individuals are sentient.
In response to the problem, Sebo lays out three different
potential approaches: the incautionary principle, which postulates that
in cases of uncertainty about sentience it is morally permissible to
treat individuals as if they are not sentient; the precautionary
principle, which suggests that in such cases we have a moral obligation
to treat them as if they are sentient; and the expected value principle,
which asserts that we are "morally required to multiply our credence
that they are by the amount of moral value they would have if they were,
and to treat the product of this equation as the amount of moral value
that they actually have". Sebo advocates for the latter position.
Jonathan Birch
proposes a practical framework grounded in the precautionary principle
for assessing animal sentience and argues that it is consistent with
established practice in animal welfare science.
Simon Knutsson and Christian Munthe argue that from the perspective of virtue ethics,
that when it comes to animals of uncertain sentience, such as "fish,
invertebrates such as crustaceans, snails and insects", that it is a
"requirement of a morally decent (or virtuous) person that she at least
pays attention to and is cautious regarding the possibly morally
relevant aspects of such animals".
Kai Chan advocates for an environmental ethic, which is a form of ethical extensionism
applied to all living beings because "there is a non-zero probability
of sentience and consciousness" and that "we cannot justify excluding
beings from consideration on the basis of uncertainty of their
sentience".
Nick Bostrom and Eliezer Yudkowsky argue that if an artificial intelligence is sentient,
then it is wrong to inflict it unnecessary pain, in the same way that
it is wrong to inflict pain on an animal, unless there are "sufficiently
strong morally overriding reasons to do so". They also advocate for the "Principle of Substrate Non-Discrimination",
which asserts: "If two beings have the same functionality and the same
conscious experience, and differ only in the substrate of their
implementation, then they have the same moral status."
Soenke Ziesche and Roman Yampolskiy coined the term "AI welfare" and outlined the new field of AI welfare science, which is derived from animal welfare science.
Adam J. Shriver argues for "precise, precautionary, and probabilistic
approaches to sentience" and asserts that the evidence provided by
neuroscience has differing relevance to each; he concludes that basic
protections for animals should be guided by the precautionary principle
and that although neuroscientific evidence in certain instances is not
necessary to indicate that individuals of certain species require
protections, "ongoing search for the neural correlates of sentience must
be pursued in order to avoid harms that occur from mistaken accounts."
Polish sociologist Ludwig Gumplowicz is believed to have coined the term "ethnocentrism" in the 19th century, although he may have merely popularized it
Ethnocentrism in social science and anthropology—as well as in colloquial English discourse—is the application of one's own culture or ethnicity as a frame of reference to judge other cultures, practices, behaviors, beliefs,
and people, instead of using the standards of the particular culture
involved. Since this judgment is often negative, some people also use
the term to refer to the belief that one's culture is superior to, or
more correct or normal than, all others—especially regarding the
distinctions that define each ethnicity's cultural identity, such as language, behavior, customs, and religion. In common usage, it can also simply mean any culturally biased judgment. For example, ethnocentrism can be seen in the common portrayals of the Global South and the Global North.
Ethnocentrism is sometimes related to racism, stereotyping, discrimination, or xenophobia.
However, the term "ethnocentrism" does not necessarily involve a
negative view of the others' race or indicate a negative connotation. The opposite of ethnocentrism is cultural relativism,
a guiding philosophy stating that the best way to understand a
different culture is through their perspective rather than judging them
from the subjective viewpoints shaped by one's own cultural standards.
The term "ethnocentrism" was first applied in the social sciences by American sociologist William G. Sumner. In his 1906 book, Folkways,
Sumner describes ethnocentrism as "the technical name for the view of
things in which one's own group is the center of everything, and all
others are scaled and rated with reference to it." He further
characterized ethnocentrism as often leading to pride, vanity, the belief in one's own group's superiority, and contempt for outsiders.
Over time, ethnocentrism developed alongside the progression of social understandings by people such as social theorist Theodor W. Adorno. In Adorno's The Authoritarian Personality, he and his colleagues of the Frankfurt School
established a broader definition of the term as a result of "in
group-out group differentiation", stating that ethnocentrism "combines a
positive attitude toward one's own ethnic/cultural group (the in-group)
with a negative attitude toward the other ethnic/cultural group (the
out-group)." Both of these juxtaposing attitudes are also a result of a
process known as social identification and social counter-identification.
Origins and development
The term ethnocentrism derives from two Greek words: "ethnos", meaning nation, and "kentron", meaning center. Scholars believe this term was coined by Polish sociologist Ludwig Gumplowicz in the 19th century, although alternate theories suggest that he only popularized the concept as opposed to inventing it. He saw ethnocentrism as a phenomenon similar to the delusions of geocentrism and anthropocentrism,
defining Ethnocentrism as "the reasons by virtue of which each group of
people believed it had always occupied the highest point, not only
among contemporaneous peoples and nations, but also in relation to all
peoples of the historical past."
Subsequently, in the 20th century, American social scientist William G. Sumner proposed two different definitions in his 1906 book Folkways.
Sumner stated that "Ethnocentrism is the technical name for this view
of things in which one's own group is the center of everything, and all
others are scaled and rated with reference to it." In the War and Other Essays (1911),
he wrote that "the sentiment of cohesion, internal comradeship, and
devotion to the in-group, which carries with it a sense of superiority
to any out-group and readiness to defend the interests of the in-group
against the out-group, is technically known as ethnocentrism." According to Boris Bizumic, it is a popular misunderstanding that
Sumner originated the term ethnocentrism, stating that in actuality, he
brought ethnocentrism into the mainstreams of anthropology, social science, and psychology through his English publications.
In social sciences, ethnocentrism means to judge another culture
based on the standard of one's own culture instead of the standard of
the other particular culture. When people use their own culture as a parameter to measure other
cultures, they often tend to think that their culture is superior and
see other cultures as inferior and bizarre. Ethnocentrism can be
explained at different levels of analysis. For example, at an intergroup
level, this term is seen as a consequence of a conflict between groups;
while at the individual level, in-group cohesion and out-group
hostility can explain personality traits. Also, ethnocentrism can help us to explain the construction of
identity. Ethnocentrism can explain the basis of one's identity by
excluding the outgroup that is the target of ethnocentric sentiments and
used as a way of distinguishing oneself from other groups that can be
more or less tolerant. This practice in social interactions creates social boundaries, such boundaries define and draw symbolic boundaries of the group that one wants to be associated with or belong to. In this way, ethnocentrism is a term not only limited to anthropology
but also can be applied to other fields of social sciences like
sociology or psychology. Ethnocentrism may be particularly enhanced in the presence of interethnic competition, hostility and violence. On the other hand, ethnocentrism may negatively influence expatriate worker's performance.
A more recent interpretation of ethnocentrism, which expands upon
the work of Claude Lévi-Strauss, highlights its positive dimension.
Political sociologist Audrey Alejandro of the London School of Economics
argues that, while ethnocentrism does produce social hierarchies, it
also produces diversity by maintaining the different dispositions,
practices, and knowledge of identity groups. Diversity is both fostered
and undermined by ethnocentrism. Ethnocentrism, for Alejandro, is
therefore neither something to be suppressed nor celebrated
uncritically. Rather, observers can cultivate a 'balanced
ethnocentrism', (individual self worth) allowing themselves to be
challenged and transformed by difference whilst still protecting
difference.
Anthropology
The classifications of ethnocentrism originate from the studies of anthropology.
With its omnipresence throughout history, ethnocentrism has always been
a factor in how different cultures and groups related to one another. Examples including how historically, foreigners would be characterized
as "Barbarians". These trends exist in complex societies, e.g., "the
Jews consider themselves to be the 'chosen people', and the Greeks
defend all foreigners as 'barbarians'", and how China believed their
country to be "the centre of the world". However, the anthropocentric interpretations initially took place most
notably in the 19th century when anthropologists began to describe and
rank various cultures according to the degree to which they had
developed significant milestones, such as monotheistic religions,
technological advancements, and other historical progressions.
Most rankings were strongly influenced by colonization and the
belief to improve societies they colonized, ranking the cultures based
on the progression of their western societies and what they classified
as milestones. Comparisons were mostly based on what the colonists
believed as superior and what their western societies have accomplished.
Victorian era politician and historian Thomas Macaulay once claimed that "one shelf of a Western library" had more knowledge than the centuries of text and literature written by Asian cultures. Ideas developed by Western scientists such as Herbert Spencer, including the concept of the "survival of the fittest",
contained ethnocentric ideals; influencing the belief that societies
which were 'superior' were most likely to survive and prosper. Edward Said's concept of Orientalism represented how Western reactions to non-Western societies were based on an "unequal power relationship" that the Western world developed due to its history of colonialism and the influence it held over non-Western societies.
The ethnocentric classification of "primitive" were also used by
19th and 20th century anthropologists and represented how unawareness in
cultural and religious understanding changed overall reactions to
non-Western societies. 19th-century anthropologist Edward Burnett Tylor wrote about "primitive" societies in Primitive Culture (1871), creating a "civilization" scale where it was implied that ethnic cultures preceded civilized societies. The use of "savage" as a classification is modernly known as "tribal"
or "pre-literate" where it was usually referred as a derogatory term as
the "civilization" scale became more common. Examples that demonstrate a lack of understanding include when European
travelers judged different languages based on the fact that they could
not understand it and displayed a negative reaction, or the intolerance
displayed by Westerners when exposed to unknown religions and
symbolisms. Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, a German philosopher, justified Western imperialism
by reasoning that since the non-Western societies were "primitive" and
"uncivilized", their culture and history was not worth conserving and
thus should welcome Westernization.
Franz Boas
Anthropologist Franz Boas
saw the flaws in this formulaic approach to ranking and interpreting
cultural development and committed himself to overthrowing this
inaccurate reasoning due to many factors involving their individual
characteristics. With his methodological innovations, Boas sought to
show the error of the proposition that race determined cultural
capacity. In his 1911 book The Mind of Primitive Man, Boas wrote that:
It
is somewhat difficult for us to recognize that the value which we
attribute to our own civilization is due to the fact that we participate
in this civilization, and that it has been controlling all our actions
from the time of our birth; but it is certainly conceivable that there
may be other civilizations, based perhaps on different traditions and on
a different equilibrium of emotion and reason, which are of no less
value than ours, although it may be impossible for us to appreciate
their values without having grown up under their influence.
Together,
Boas and his colleagues propagated the certainty that there are no
inferior races or cultures. This egalitarian approach introduced the
concept of cultural relativism
to anthropology, a methodological principle for investigating and
comparing societies in as unprejudiced a way as possible and without
using a developmental scale as anthropologists at the time were
implementing. Boas and anthropologist Bronisław Malinowski argued that any human science had to transcend the ethnocentric views that could blind any scientist's ultimate conclusions.
Both had also urged anthropologists to conduct ethnographic fieldwork to overcome their ethnocentrism. To help, Malinowski would develop the theory of functionalism
as guides for producing non-ethnocentric studies of different cultures.
Classic examples of anti-ethnocentric anthropology include Margaret Mead's Coming of Age in Samoa (1928), which in time has met with severe criticism for its incorrect data and generalisations, Malinowski's The Sexual Life of Savages in North-Western Melanesia (1929), and Ruth Benedict's Patterns of Culture (1934). Mead and Benedict were two of Boas's students.
Scholars generally agree that Boas developed his ideas under the influence of the German philosopher Immanuel Kant. Legend has it that, on a field trip to the Baffin Islands in 1883, Boas would pass the frigid nights reading Kant's Critique of Pure Reason.
In that work, Kant argued that human understanding could not be
described according to the laws that applied to the operations of
nature, and that its operations were therefore free, not determined, and
that ideas regulated human action, sometimes independent of material
interests. Following Kant, Boas pointed out the starving Eskimos who,
because of their religious beliefs, would not hunt seals to feed
themselves, thus showing that no pragmatic or material calculus
determined their values.
Causes
Ethnocentrism is believed to be a learned behavior embedded into a variety of beliefs and values of an individual or group.
Due to enculturation,
individuals in in-groups have a deeper sense of loyalty and are more
likely to follow the norms and develop relationships with associated
members. Within relation to enculturation, ethnocentrism is said to be a
transgenerational problem since stereotypes and similar perspectives can
be enforced and encouraged as time progresses. Although loyalty can increase better in-grouper approval, limited
interactions with other cultures can prevent individuals to have an
understanding and appreciation towards cultural differences resulting in
greater ethnocentrism.
The social identity approach
suggests that ethnocentric beliefs are caused by a strong
identification with one's own culture that directly creates a positive
view of that culture. It is theorized by Henri Tajfel and John C. Turner that to maintain that positive view, people make social comparisons that cast competing cultural groups in an unfavorable light.
Alternative or opposite perspectives could cause individuals to develop naïve realism and be subject to limitations in understandings. These characteristics can also lead to individuals to become subject to ethnocentrism, when referencing out-groups, and black sheep effect, where personal perspectives contradict those from fellow in-groupers.
Realistic conflict theory
assumes that ethnocentrism happens due to "real or perceived conflict"
between groups. This also happens when a dominant group may perceive the
new members as a threat. Scholars have recently demonstrated that individuals are more likely to
develop in-group identification and out-group negatively in response to
intergroup competition, conflict, or threat.[4]
Although the causes of ethnocentric beliefs and actions can have
varying roots of context and reason, the effects of ethnocentrism has
had both negative and positive effects throughout history. The most
detrimental effects of ethnocentrism resulting into genocide, apartheid, slavery, and many violent conflicts. Historical examples of these negative effects of ethnocentrism are The Holocaust, the Crusades, the Trail of Tears, and the internment of Japanese Americans.
These events were a result of cultural differences reinforced
inhumanely by a majority group who thought of themselves as superior. In
his 1976 book on evolution, The Selfish Gene, evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins writes that "blood-feuds and inter-clan warfare are easily interpretative in terms of Hamilton's genetic theory." Simulation-based experiments in evolutionary game theory have attempted to provide an explanation for the selection of ethnocentric-strategy phenotypes.
The positive examples of ethnocentrism throughout history have
aimed to prohibit the callousness of ethnocentrism and reverse the
perspectives of living in a single culture. These organizations can
include the formation of the United Nations; aimed to maintain
international relations, and the Olympic Games; a celebration of sports and friendly competition between cultures.
Effects
A
study in New Zealand was used to compare how individuals associate with
in-groups and out-groupers and has a connotation to discrimination. Strong in-group favoritism benefits the dominant groups and is different from out-group hostility and/or punishment. A suggested solution is to limit the perceived threat from the
out-group that also decreases the likeliness for those supporting the
in-groups to negatively react.
Ethnocentrism also influences consumer preference over which
goods they purchase. A study that used several in-group and out-group
orientations have shown a correlation between national identity, consumer cosmopolitanism, consumer ethnocentrism, and the methods consumers choose their products, whether imported or domestic. Countries with high levels of nationalism and isolationism are more likely to demonstrate consumer ethnocentrism, and have a significant preference for domestically-produced goods.
Ethnocentrism and racism
Ethnocentrism
is usually associated with racism. However, as mentioned before,
ethnocentrism does not necessarily implicate a negative connotation. In
European research, the term racism is not linked to ethnocentrism
because Europeans avoid applying the concept of race to humans;
meanwhile, using this term is not a problem for American researchers. Since ethnocentrism implicated a strong identification with one's
in-group, it mostly automatically leads to negative feelings and
stereotyping to the members of the outgroup, which can be confused with
racism. Finally, scholars agree that avoiding stereotypes is an indispensable
prerequisite to overcome ethnocentrism; and mass media play a key role
regarding this issue. The differences that each culture possess causes
could hinder one another leading to ethnocentrism and racism. A Canadian
study established the differences among French Canadian and English
Canadian respondents based on products that would be purchased due to
ethnocentrism and racism. Due to how diverse the world has become, society has begun to
misinterpret the term cultural diversity, by using ethnocentrism to
create controversy among all cultures.
Effects of ethnocentrism in the media
Film
As
the United States leads the film industry in worldwide revenue,
ethnocentric views can be transmitted through character tropes and
underlying themes. The 2003 film "The Last Samurai,"
was analyzed to have strong ethnocentric themes, such as in-group
preference and the tendency to show judgement towards those in the
out-group. Similarly, the film received criticism for historical inaccuracies and perpetuating a "white savior narrative," showing a tendency for ethnocentrism centered around the United States.
Social media
Approximately 67.1% of the global population use the internet regularly, with 63.7% of the population being social media users. In a 2023 study, researchers found that social media can enable its
users to become more tolerant of other people, bridging the gap between
cultures, and contributing to global knowledge. In a similar study done regarding social media use by Kenyan teens,
researchers found that when social media is limited to a certain group,
it can increase ethnocentric views and ideologies.
The
differential treatment of cows and dogs is an example of speciesism.
Philosophers argue that members of the two species share similar
interests and should be given equal consideration as a result, yet in
many cultures cows are used as livestock and killed for food, while dogs
are treated as companion animals.
Speciesism (/ˈspiːʃiːˌzɪzəm,-siːˌzɪz-/)
is a term used in philosophy regarding the treatment of individuals of
different species. The term has several different definitions. Some specifically define speciesism as discrimination or unjustified treatment based on an individual's species membership, while others define it as differential treatment without regard to whether the treatment is justified or not. Richard D. Ryder,
who coined the term, defined it as "a prejudice or attitude of bias in
favour of the interests of members of one's own species and against
those of members of other species". Speciesism results in the belief that humans have the right to use non-human animals in exploitative ways which is pervasive in the modern society. Studies from 2015 and 2019 suggest that people who support animal
exploitation also tend to have intersectional bias that encapsulates and
endorses racist, sexist, and other prejudicial views, which furthers
the beliefs in human supremacy and group dominance to justify systems of
inequality and oppression.
Early perspectives on animal sensation and kinship
Buffon, a French naturalist, writing in Histoire Naturelle
in 1753, questioned whether it could be doubted that animals "whose
organization is similar to ours, must experience similar sensations",
and that "those sensations must be proportioned to the activity and
perfection of their senses". Despite these assertions, he also maintained that there exists a gap between humans and other animals. In the poem "Poème sur le désastre de Lisbonne", Voltaire
described a kinship between sentient beings, humans and animals alike,
writing: "All sentient things, born by the same stern law, / Suffer like
me, and like me also die."
The day may come, when the rest of the animal creation
may acquire those rights which never could have been withheld from them
but by the hand of tyranny. … [T]he question is not, Can they reason?
nor, Can they talk? but, Can they suffer?
Bentham also supported animal welfare laws. At the same time, he
accepted the killing and use of animals, provided that what he regarded
as unnecessary cruelty was avoided.
Lewis Gompertz
Lewis Gompertz stressed shared human–animal feelings, sensations, needs and physiological characteristics.
In his 1824 work Moral Inquiries on the Situation of Man and of Brutes, English writer and early animal rights advocate Lewis Gompertz argued for egalitarianism, extending it to nonhuman animals. He stated that humans and animals have highly similar feelings and
sensations, noting that experiences such as hunger, desire, fear and
anger affect both in similar ways. Gompertz also pointed to shared
physiological characteristics between humans and animals, suggesting a
similarity in sensation. He criticized human use of animals, drawing attention to what he saw as a disregard for their feelings, needs and desires.
Charles Darwin
English naturalist Charles Darwin,
writing in his notebook in 1838, observed that humans tend to regard
themselves as masterpieces produced by a deity, but recorded his own
view that it was "truer to consider him created from animals". In his 1871 book The Descent of Man, Darwin argued:
There is no fundamental difference between man and the
higher mammals in their mental faculties … [t]he difference in mind
between man and the higher animals, great as it is, certainly is one of
degree and not of kind. We have seen that the senses and intuitions, the
various emotions and faculties, such as love, memory, attention,
curiosity, imitation, reason, etc., of which man boasts, may be found in
an incipient, or even sometimes in a well-developed condition, in the
lower animals.
Lewis H. Morgan
In 1843 Lewis H. Morgan published "Mind or Instinct: An Inquiry Concerning the Manifestation of Mind by the Lower Orders of Animals" in The Knickerbocker,
where he used anecdotes such as dogs returning to surgeons, beavers
building dams, ants storing grain and marmots posting lookouts to argue
that animals display memory, foresight and reasoning. He rejected
appeals to "instinct" as an explanation, suggesting instead that humans
and other species share a common mental principle differing only in
degree, and he questioned claims of human moral superiority while
criticizing practices such as hunting for sport and killing animals for
food. He developed these arguments in 1857 in an unpublished paper, "Animal
Psychology", read to the Pundit Club in Rochester, New York, which again
rejected instinct and attributed animal behavior to perception, memory,
reflection, volition and reason. Morgan also speculated that animals
might possess moral capacities and immortal souls, and he placed species
on a "scale of gradation" of intelligence while remaining a
creationist. Although little noticed at the time, the essay has been
described in later scholarship as an unusually early critique of
instinct within American comparative psychology.
German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer criticized anthropocentrism as, in his view, a fundamental defect of Christianity and Judaism.
He argued that these religions contributed to the suffering of sentient
beings by separating humans from other animals and encouraging their
treatment as mere things. By contrast, Schopenhauer praised Brahmanism and Buddhism for their focus on kinship between humans and other animals and for their teaching about a connection between them through metempsychosis.
Secular and utilitarian animal advocacy
Henry S. Salt criticized the idea that there exists a "great gulf" between humans and other animals.
According to historian Chien-Hui Li, some secularist thinkers in the late 19th and early 20th centuries argued for animals on utilitarian
grounds and on the basis of evolutionary kinship, linking their views
to a broader critique of Christian doctrines about suffering and social
order. These secularists sought a morality independent of religious
authority. Some initially supported vivisection for human benefit but
later questioned its necessity. Figures such as G. W. Foote
argued for broader utility, focusing on long-term moral principles
rather than immediate gains. Drawing on evolutionary theories, they
described common origins and similarities between humans and animals and
argued that morality should extend to animals as beings capable of
experiencing pain and pleasure. They rejected the idea of a theological
gulf separating humans from animals and used contemporary scientific
theories to support various proposals for animal rights and welfare.
British writer and animal rights advocate Henry S. Salt, in his 1892 book Animals' Rights,
argued that for humans to do justice to other animals they must look
beyond the conception of a "great gulf" between them, claiming instead
that people should recognize the "common bond of humanity that unites
all living beings in one universal brotherhood".
Edward Payson Evans, an American scholar and animal rights advocate, criticized anthropocentric psychology and ethics in his 1897 work Evolutional Ethics and Animal Psychology.
He argued that such views treat humans as fundamentally different from
other sentient beings, and he denied that this distinction removes all
moral obligations toward animals. Evans held that Darwin's theory of evolution
implies moral duties not only toward enslaved humans but also toward
nonhuman animals. He asserted that beyond kind treatment, animals need
enforceable rights to protect them from cruelty.
Evans contended that recognizing kinship between humans and other
sentient beings would make it impossible, in his view, to mistreat them.
An 1898 article in The Zoophilist,
titled "Anthropocentric Ethics", argued that some early civilizations,
prior to Christianity, regarded tenderness and mercy toward sentient
beings as a moral requirement. It discussed Zarathustra, Buddha and early Greek philosophers, who practiced vegetarianism,
as exemplifying this outlook. The article claimed that this
understanding of human–animal kinship persisted into early Christianity
but was challenged by figures such as Origen, who saw animals as mere automata for human use. It concluded that the relationship between animal psychology and evolutionary ethics was gaining scientific and moral attention and could no longer be ignored.
In 1895, American zoologist, philosopher and animal rights advocate J. Howard Moore described vegetarianism
as the ethical result of recognizing the evolutionary kinship of all
creatures, connecting his position with Darwin's insights. He criticized
what he called the "pre-Darwinian delusion" that nonhuman animals were
created for human use. In his 1899 book Better-World Philosophy,
Moore argued that human ethics were still anthropocentric, having
developed to include various human groups but not animals. He proposed
"zoocentricism" as a further development, extending ethical concern to
the entire sentient universe. In his 1906 book The Universal Kinship,
Moore criticized what he described as a "provincialist" attitude
leading to animal mistreatment, comparing it to denying ethical
relations among human groups. He rejected what he saw as a human-centric perspective and urged consideration of the standpoint of animal victims. Moore concluded that the Golden Rule should apply to all sentient beings, advocating equal ethical consideration for animals and humans:
[D]o as you would be done by, and not to the dark man and the white woman alone, but to the sorrel horse and the gray squirrel as well; not to creatures of your own anatomy only, but to all creatures.
The term speciesism, and the argument that it is 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 academics 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. The term was intended by its proponents to create a rhetorical and categorical link to racism and sexism.
Ryder stated in the pamphlet that "[s]ince Darwin, scientists
have agreed that there is no 'magical' essential difference between
humans and other animals, biologically-speaking. Why then do we make an
almost total distinction morally? If all organisms are on one physical
continuum, then we should also be on the same moral continuum." He wrote
that, at that time in the United Kingdom, 5,000,000 animals were being
used each year in experiments, and that attempting to gain benefits for
our own species through the mistreatment of others was "just
'speciesism' and as such it is a selfish emotional argument rather than a
reasoned one". Ryder used the term again in an essay, "Experiments on Animals", in Animals, Men and Morals
(1971), a collection of essays on animal rights edited by philosophy
graduate students Stanley and Roslind Godlovitch and John Harris, who
were also members of the Oxford Group. Ryder wrote:
In as much as both "race" and "species" are vague terms
used in the classification of living creatures according, largely, to
physical appearance, an analogy can be made between them. Discrimination
on grounds of race, although most universally condoned two centuries
ago, is now widely condemned. Similarly, it may come to pass that
enlightened minds may one day abhor "speciesism" as much as they now
detest "racism." The illogicality in both forms of prejudice is of an
identical sort. If it is accepted as morally wrong to deliberately
inflict suffering upon innocent human creatures, then it is only logical
to also regard it as wrong to inflict suffering on innocent individuals
of other species. ... The time has come to act upon this logic.
The term was popularized by the Australian philosopher Peter Singer in his book Animal Liberation (1975). Singer had known Ryder from his own time as a graduate philosophy student at Oxford. He credited Ryder with having coined the term and used it in the title of his book's fifth chapter: "Man's Dominion ... a short history of speciesism", defining it as "a prejudice or attitude of bias in favour of the interests of members of one's own species and against those of members of other species":
Racists violate the principle of equality by giving
greater weight to the interests of members of their own race when there
is a clash between their interests and the interests of those of another
race. Sexists violate the principle of equality by favouring the
interests of their own sex. Similarly, speciesists allow the interests
of their own species to override the greater interests of members of
other species. The pattern is identical in each case.
Singer stated from a preference-utilitarian perspective, writing that speciesism violates the principle of equal consideration of interests, the idea based on Jeremy Bentham's
principle: "each to count for one, and none for more than one." Singer
stated that, although there may be differences between humans and
nonhumans, they share the capacity to suffer, and we must give equal
consideration to that suffering. Any position that allows similar cases
to be treated in a dissimilar fashion fails to qualify as an acceptable
moral theory. The term caught on; Singer wrote that it was an awkward
word but that he could not think of a better one. It became an entry in
the Oxford English Dictionary
in 1985, defined as "discrimination against or exploitation of animal
species by human beings, based on an assumption of mankind's
superiority." In 1994 the Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy
offered a wider definition: "By analogy with racism and sexism, the
improper stance of refusing respect to the lives, dignity, or needs of
animals of other than the human species."
The French-language journal Cahiers antispécistes ("Antispeciesist notebooks") was founded in 1991, by David Olivier, Yves Bonnardel and Françoise Blanchon, who were the first French activists to speak out against speciesism. The aim of the journal was to disseminate anti-speciesist ideas in France and to encourage debate on the topic of animal ethics, specifically on the difference between animal liberation and ecology. Estela Díaz and Oscar Horta assert that in Spanish-speaking countries,
unlike English-speaking countries, anti-speciesism has become the
dominant approach for animal advocacy. In Italy, the contemporary anti-speciesist movement has two main
approaches: one that takes a strong, radical stance against the dominant
societal norms represented by authors such as Adriano Fragano, author
of the "Antispeciesist Manifesto", and another that aligns more with
mainstream, neoliberal views.
Social psychology and relationship with other prejudices
Scholars including philosopher Peter Singer and botanist Brent Mishler have argued that speciesism is analogous to racism, the belief that some human races are superior to others.
In the 2019 book Why We Love and Exploit Animals, Kristof
Dhont, Gordon Hodson, Ana C. Leite, and Alina Salmen reveal the
psychological connections between speciesism and other prejudices such
as racism and sexism. Marjetka Golež Kaučič connects racism and speciesism saying that
discriminations based on race and species are strongly interrelated,
with human rights providing the legal ground for the development of the
animal rights. Kaučič further argues that racism and speciesism are further connected to issues of freedom, both collective and individual.
In one study, 242 participants responded to questions on the
Speciesism Scale, and those who scored higher on this scale scored
higher on racism, sexism, and homophobia scales. Other studies suggest that those who support animal exploitation also tend to endorse racist and sexist views furthering the beliefs in human supremacy and group dominance in order to justify systems of inequality and oppression. It is suggested that the connection rests in the ideology of social dominance.
Psychologists have also considered examining speciesism as a
specific psychological construct or attitude (as opposed to speciesism
as a philosophy), which was achieved using a specifically designed Likert scale.
Studies have found that speciesism is a stable construct that differs
amongst personalities and correlates with other variables. For example, speciesism has been found to have a weak positive correlation with homophobia and right-wing authoritarianism, as well as slightly stronger correlations with political conservatism, racism and system justification. Moderate positive correlations were found with social dominance orientation
and sexism. Social dominance orientation was theorised to be
underpinning most of the correlations; controlling for social dominance
orientation reduces all correlations substantially and renders many
statistically insignificant. Speciesism likewise predicts levels of prosociality toward animals and behavioural food choices.
Those who state that speciesism is unfair to individuals of
nonhuman species have often invoked mammals and chickens in the context
of research or farming.There is not yet a clear definition or line agreed upon by a
significant segment of the movement as to which species are to be
treated equally with humans or in some ways additionally protected:
mammals, birds, reptiles, arthropods, insects, bacteria, etc. This
question is all the more complex since a study by Miralles et al. (2019)
has brought to light the evolutionary component of human empathic and
compassionate reactions and the influence of anthropomorphic mechanisms
in our affective relationship with the living world as a whole: the more
an organism is evolutionarily distant from us, the less we recognize
ourselves in it and the less we are moved by its fate.
Some researchers have suggested that since speciesism could be considered, in terms of social psychology, a prejudice
(defined as "any attitude, emotion, or behaviour toward members of a
group, which directly or indirectly implies some negativity or antipathy
toward that group"), then laypeople may be aware of a connection
between it and other forms of "traditional" prejudice. Research suggests
laypeople do indeed tend to infer similar personality traits and
beliefs from a speciesist that they would from a racist, sexist or
homophobe. However, it is not clear if there is a link between
speciesism and non-traditional forms of prejudice such as negative attitudes towards the overweight or towards Christians.
Psychological studies have furthermore argued that people tend to
"morally value individuals of certain species less than others even
when beliefs about intelligence and sentience are accounted for." One study identified that there are age-related differences in moral
views of animal worth, with children holding less speciesist beliefs
than adults; the authors argue that such findings indicate that the
development of speciesist beliefs is socially constructed over an
individual's lifetime.
Piers Beirne considers speciesism as the ideological anchor of the intersecting networks of the animal–industrial complex, such as factory farms, vivisection, hunting and fishing, zoos and aquaria, and wildlife trade. Amy Fitzgerald and Nik Taylor argue that the animal-industrial complex
is both a consequence and cause of speciesism, which according to them
is a form of discrimination similar to racism or sexism. They also argue that the obfuscation of meat's animal origins is a critical part of the animal–industrial complex under capitalist and neoliberal regimes. Speciesism results in the belief that humans have the right to use non-human animals, which is pervasive in the modern society.
The profound cultural devaluation
of other animals that permits the violence that underlies the animal
industrial complex is produced by far-reaching speciesist socialization.
For instance, the system of primary and secondary education under the
capitalist system largely indoctrinates young people into the dominant
societal beliefs and values, including a great deal of procapitalist and
speciesist ideology. The devalued status of other animals is deeply
ingrained; animals appear in schools merely as caged "pets," as
dissection and vivisection subjects, and as lunch. On television and in
movies, the unworthiness of other animals is evidenced by their virtual
invisibility; when they do appear, they generally are marginalized,
vilified, or objectified. Not surprisingly, these and numerous other
sources of speciesism are so ideologically profound that those who raise
compelling moral objections to animal oppression largely are dismissed,
if not ridiculed.
Some scholars have argued that all kinds of animal production are rooted in speciesism, reducing animals to mere economic resources.
Built on the production and slaughter of animals, the animal–industrial
complex is perceived as the materialization of the institution of
speciesism, with speciesism becoming "a mode of production". In his 2011 book Critical Theory and Animal Liberation,
J. Sanbonmatsu argues that speciesism is not ignorance or the absence
of a moral code towards animals, but is a mode of production and
material system imbricated with capitalism.
Arguments in favor
Defenders of speciesism such as Carl Cohen argue that speciesism is essential for right conduct.
Philosopher Carl Cohen
stated in 1986: "Speciesism is not merely plausible; it is essential
for right conduct, because those who will not make the morally relevant
distinctions among species are almost certain, in consequence, to
misapprehend their true obligations." Cohen writes that racism and sexism are wrong because there are no
relevant differences between the sexes or races. Between people and
animals, he states, there are significant differences; his view is that
animals do not qualify for Kantianpersonhood, and as such have no rights.
Nel Noddings,
the American feminist, has criticized Singer's concept of speciesism
for being simplistic, and for failing to take into account the context
of species preference, as concepts of racism and sexism have taken into
account the context of discrimination against humans. Peter Staudenmaier has stated that comparisons between speciesism and racism or sexism are trivializing:
The central analogy to the civil rights movement and the
women's movement is trivializing and ahistorical. Both of those social
movements were initiated and driven by members of the dispossessed and
excluded groups themselves, not by benevolent men or white people acting
on their behalf. Both movements were built precisely around the idea of
reclaiming and reasserting a shared humanity in the face of a society
that had deprived it and denied it. No civil rights activist or feminist
ever argued, "We're sentient beings too!" They argued, "We're fully
human too!" Animal liberation doctrine, far from extending this humanist
impulse, directly undermines it.
A similar argument was made by Bernard Williams,
who observed that a difference between speciesism versus racism and
sexism is that racists and sexists deny any input from those of a
different race or sex when it comes to questioning how they should be
treated. Conversely, when it comes to how animals should be treated by
humans, Williams observed that it is only possible for humans to discuss
that question. Williams observed that being a human being is often used
as an argument against discrimination on the grounds of race or sex,
whereas racism and sexism are seldom deployed to counter discrimination.
Williams also stated in favour of speciesism (which he termed
'humanism'), arguing that "Why are fancy properties which are grouped
under the label of personhood "morally relevant" to issues of destroying
a certain kind of animal, while the property of being a human being is
not?" Williams states that to respond by arguing that it is because
these are properties considered valuable by human beings does not
undermine speciesism as humans also consider human beings to be
valuable, thus justifying speciesism. Williams then states that the only
way to resolve this would be by arguing that these properties are
"simply better" but in that case, one would need to justify why these
properties are better if not because of human attachment to them. Christopher Grau supported Williams, arguing that if one used properties like rationality, sentience
and moral agency as criteria for moral status as an alternative to
species-based moral status, then it would need to be shown why these
particular properties are to be used instead of others; there must be
something that gives them special status. Grau states that to claim
these are simply better properties would require the existence of an
impartial observer, an "enchanted picture of the universe", to state
them to be so. Thus, Grau states that such properties have no greater
justification as criteria for moral status than being a member of a
species does. Grau also states that even if such an impartial
perspective existed, it still would not necessarily be against
speciesism, since it is entirely possible that there could be reasons
given by an impartial observer for humans to care about humanity. Grau
then further observes that if an impartial observer existed and valued
only minimalizing suffering, it would likely be overcome with horror at
the suffering of all individuals and would rather have humanity
annihilate the planet than allow it to continue. Grau thus concludes
that those endorsing the idea of deriving values from an impartial
observer do not seem to have seriously considered the conclusions of
such an idea.
Douglas Maclean agreed that Singer raised important questions and
challenges, particularly with his argument from marginal cases.
However, Maclean questioned if different species can be fitted with
human morality, observing that animals were generally held exempt from
morality; Maclean notes that most people would try to stop a man
kidnapping and killing a woman but would regard a hawk capturing and
killing a marmot with awe and criticise anyone who tried to intervene.
Maclean thus suggests that morality only makes sense under human
relations, with the further one gets from it, the less it can be
applied.
The British philosopher Roger Scruton
regards the emergence of the animal rights and anti-speciesism movement
as "the strangest cultural shift within the liberal worldview", because
the idea of rights and responsibilities is, he states, distinctive to
the human condition, and it makes no sense to spread them beyond our own
species. Scruton argues that if animals have rights, then they also
have duties, which animals would routinely violate, such as by breaking
laws or killing other animals. He accuses anti-speciesism advocates of
"pre-scientific" anthropomorphism, attributing traits to animals that are, he says, Beatrix Potter-like, where "only man is vile." It is, he states, a fantasy, a world of escape.
Thomas Wells states that Singer's call for ending animal
suffering would justify simply exterminating every animal on the planet
in order to prevent the numerous ways in which they suffer, as they
could no longer feel any pain. Wells also stated that by focusing on the
suffering humans inflict on animals and ignoring suffering animals
inflict upon themselves or that inflicted by nature, Singer is creating a
hierarchy where some suffering is more important than others, despite
claiming to be committed to equality of suffering. Wells also states
that the capacity to suffer, Singer's criteria for moral status, is one
of degree rather than absolute categories; Wells observes that Singer
denies moral status to plants on the grounds they cannot subjectively
feel anything (even though they react to stimuli), yet Wells alleges
there is no indication that nonhuman animals feel pain and suffering the
way humans do.
Robert Nozick notes that if species membership is irrelevant,
then this would mean that endangered animals have no special claim.
The Rev. John Tuohey, founder of the Providence Center for Health
Care Ethics, writes that the logic behind the anti-speciesism critique
is flawed, and that, although the animal rights movement in the United
States has been influential in slowing animal experimentation, and in
some cases halting particular studies, no one has offered a compelling
argument for species equality.
Arguments against
Moral community, argument from marginal cases
The Trial of Bill Burns (1838) in London showing Richard Martin (MP for Galway) in court with a donkey beaten by his owner, leading to Europe's first known conviction for animal cruelty
Paola Cavalieri writes that the current humanist
paradigm is that only human beings are members of the moral community
and that all are worthy of equal protection. Species membership, she
writes, is ipso facto moral membership. The paradigm has an
inclusive side (all human beings deserve equal protection) and an
exclusive one (only human beings have that status).
Nonhumans do possess some moral status in many societies, but it
generally extends only to protection against what Cavalieri calls
"wanton cruelty". Anti-speciesists state that the extension of moral membership to all
humanity, regardless of individual properties such as intelligence,
while denying it to nonhumans, also regardless of individual properties,
is internally inconsistent. According to the argument from marginal cases,
if infants, the senile, the comatose, and the cognitively disabled
(marginal-case human beings) have a certain moral status, then nonhuman
animals must be awarded that status too since there is no morally
relevant ability that the marginal-case humans have that nonhumans lack.
American legal scholar Steven M. Wise states that speciesism is a bias as arbitrary as any other. He cites the philosopher R.G. Frey
(1941–2012), a leading animal rights critic, who wrote in 1983 that, if
forced to choose between abandoning experiments on animals and allowing
experiments on "marginal-case" humans, he would choose the latter, "not
because I begin a monster and end up choosing the monstrous, but
because I cannot think of anything at all compelling that cedes all
human life of any quality greater value than animal life of any
quality."
"Discontinuous mind"
Richard Dawkins argues that speciesism is an example of the "discontinuous mind".
Richard Dawkins, the evolutionary biologist, wrote against speciesism in The Blind Watchmaker (1986), The Great Ape Project (1993), and The God Delusion (2006), elucidating the connection with evolutionary theory.
He compares former racist attitudes and assumptions to their
present-day speciesist counterparts. In the chapter "The one true tree
of life" in The Blind Watchmaker, he states that it is not only zoological taxonomy
that is saved from awkward ambiguity by the extinction of intermediate
forms but also human ethics and law. Dawkins states that what he calls
the "discontinuous mind" is ubiquitous, dividing the world into units
that reflect nothing but our use of language, and animals into
discontinuous species:
The director of a zoo is entitled to "put down" a chimpanzee
that is surplus to requirements, while any suggestion that he might
"put down" a redundant keeper or ticket-seller would be greeted with
howls of incredulous outrage. The chimpanzee is the property of the zoo.
Humans are nowadays not supposed to be anybody's property, yet the
rationale for discriminating against chimpanzees is seldom spelled out,
and I doubt if there is a defensible rationale at all. Such is the
breathtaking speciesism of our Christian-inspired attitudes, the
abortion of a single human zygote
(most of them are destined to be spontaneously aborted anyway) can
arouse more moral solicitude and righteous indignation than the
vivisection of any number of intelligent adult chimpanzees! ... The only
reason we can be comfortable with such a double standard is that the
intermediates between humans and chimps are all dead.
Dawkins elaborated in a discussion with Singer at The Center for Inquiry
in 2007 when asked whether he continues to eat meat: "It's a little bit
like the position which many people would have held a couple of hundred
years ago over slavery. Where lots of people felt morally uneasy about slavery but went along with it because the whole economy of the South depended upon slavery."
"Libertarian extension" is the idea that the intrinsic value of nature can be extended beyond sentient beings. This seeks to apply the principle of individual rights not only to all
animals but also to objects without a nervous system such as trees,
plants, and rocks. Ryder rejects this argument, writing that "value cannot exist in the
absence of consciousness or potential consciousness. Thus, rocks and
rivers and houses have no interests and no rights of their own. This
does not mean, of course, that they are not of value to us, and to many
other [beings who experience pain], including those who need them as
habitats and who would suffer without them."
David Sztybel states in his paper, "Can the Treatment of Animals Be Compared to the Holocaust?" (2006), that the racism of the Nazis
is comparable to the speciesism inherent in eating meat or using animal
by-products, particularly those produced on factory farms. Y. Michael Barilan, an Israeli physician, states that speciesism is not
the same thing as Nazi racism, because the latter extolled the abuser
and condemned the weaker and the abused. He describes speciesism as the
recognition of rights on the basis of group membership, rather than
solely on the basis of moral considerations.
The first major statute addressing animal protection in the United
States, titled "An Act for the More Effectual Prevention of Cruelty to
Animals", was enacted in 1867. It provided the right to incriminate and
enforce protection with regards to animal cruelty.
The act, which has since been revised to suit modern cases state by
state, originally addressed such things as animal neglect, abandonment,
torture, fighting, transport, impound standards and licensing standards. Although an animal rights movement had already started as early as the
late 1800s, some of the laws that would shape the way animals would be
treated as industry grew, were enacted around the same time that Richard
Ryder was bringing the notion of Speciesism to the conversation. Legislation was being proposed and passed in the U.S. that would reshape animal welfare in industry and science. Bills such as Humane Slaughter Act, which was created to alleviate some of the suffering felt by livestock during slaughter, was passed in 1958. Later the Animal Welfare Act of 1966, passed by the 89th United States Congress and signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson,
was designed to put much stricter regulations and supervisions on the
handling of animals used in laboratory experimentation and exhibition
but has since been amended and expanded. These groundbreaking laws foreshadowed and influenced the shifting
attitudes toward nonhuman animals in their rights to humane treatment
which Richard D. Ryder and Peter Singer would later popularize in the
1970s and 1980s.
Great ape personhood is the idea that the attributes of non-human great apes
are such that their sentience and personhood should be recognized by
the law, rather than simply protecting them as a group under animal cruelty legislation. Awarding personhood to nonhuman primates would require that their individual interests be taken into account.
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