Peter Singer on Speciesism

Quote

"Speciesism — 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."

— Peter Singer, Animal Liberation, Chapter 1 (1975)

Historical Context

Peter Singer coined the term "speciesism" in Animal Liberation, first published in 1975. The book grew out of the animal liberation movement and Singer's engagement with arguments about animal suffering, and it became the founding text of the modern animal ethics debate. The term was deliberately modeled on "racism" and "sexism": just as racism is a bias in favor of one race and against others, and sexism a bias in favor of one sex, speciesism is a bias in favor of the human species and against all others. The coinage was a rhetorical masterstroke, because it reframed the treatment of animals not as a matter of sentiment or taste but as a question of justice, on a par with the great liberation movements of the twentieth century.

The intellectual context included the development of intensive factory farming, which subjected millions of animals to lives of confinement and suffering, and the growth of the animal welfare movement, which Singer found insufficient because it accepted the basic framework of animal use and sought only to reduce cruelty within it. Singer demanded more: if the interests of animals are morally significant, then the practice of using animals for food, experimentation, and entertainment stands in need of justification, and much of it cannot be justified. The definition of speciesism quoted here is the hinge of the entire argument, because once the bias is named and diagnosed, the question becomes whether it can survive the same scrutiny that dismantled racism and sexism.

Philosophical Interpretation

The definition makes speciesism a charge against the way we weigh interests. The prejudice in question is not merely a feeling of affection for our own kind; it is the systematic giving of greater weight to the interests of members of our own species than to the interests of members of other species, when the interests are comparable. Singer's argument is that this weighting is unjustifiable. He grounds the claim in the principle of equal consideration of interests: the interests of every being affected by an action are to be counted, and counted equally. The principle does not require that animals be treated identically to humans — it requires that their equal interests count equally. Where a pig and a human both have an interest in avoiding pain, that interest weighs the same; where a human has an interest in education and a pig does not, the comparison simply does not arise.

Singer's criterion for having interests is sentience: the capacity for suffering and enjoyment. On this criterion, most nonhuman animals have interests, because they can suffer, and their suffering is as real as ours. The failure to count it is therefore not a difference of fact but a prejudice — precisely the structure of racism and sexism, which also deny the reality or the weight of the suffering of the excluded group. The argument is utilitarian in form: Singer is not claiming that animals have rights in the traditional sense but that the calculation of consequences must include their suffering. The conclusion is stark: if we would not be willing to inflict comparable suffering on a human being for the same benefit, consistency demands that we not inflict it on an animal either. Speciesism, on this account, is a failure of moral consistency — a defense of privilege that cannot survive the application of its own standards to others.

Related Concepts

The quote defines speciesism, the central concept of animal ethics. It rests on the principle of equal consideration of interests, which Singer takes from the utilitarian tradition and applies across species boundaries. The argument connects to sentience as the ground of moral standing, to animal rights as the practical conclusion drawn by many of Singer's successors, and to the expansion of the moral circle — the historical widening of moral concern from kin to tribe to nation to all humanity and, Singer argues, to animals. The term also bears on the ethics of factory farming and animal experimentation, and it challenges the boundaries of moral responsibility in everyday consumption.

Learning Path

Begin with the site's answer on what speciesism is, which analyzes the term in detail. Then explore the site's answer on animal rights and the site's answer on what utilitarianism is, to see the framework from which Singer argues. Read the discussion of the expanding circle of moral concern, and continue with Singer's systematic ethics in Practical Ethics. To engage the objections, compare Singer's sentience-based view with rights-based approaches to animals and with the tradition that confines moral standing to rational agents.