SYMPOSIUM PAPER ABSTRACT SLANDERING SPECIESISM Animal liberationists have taken speciesism to be their enemy, but while people have thought that being human is sufficient for having our moral status, no one has thought it necessary. Throughout history, people have imagined alter-specifics, like the crowd at a Star Wars cantina, whom they'd recognize as their moral equals. Speciesism, perspicuously specified, says nothing about whether we have reason to protect the well being of other known animals. Further, speciesism's alleged lack of articulated justification is no argument for protecting animals, nor a reason for doubting speciesism. Speciesism's popularity justifies presuming it true, a presumption buttressed by the absence of sound objections to it. Its rationality comes into focus by combining two ideas. First, universalizations of our reasons for acting (believing, etc.) must operate with some category of self-identification. Second, our primary category of self-identification must be the key concept for understanding us biologically, metaphysically, psychologically and socially, namely our species concept. What rationally binds us to other humans is not their having some nifty inherent property but rather an indexical one, the relational "accident" of their essence being our own. We still need a species-neutral notion of persons, and would be obliged to recognize the moral equality of all members of a species, some of whom could contract with and make claims on us. No nonhuman earthly animals can do that, but this leaves wide open a great range of possibilities short of moral equality. 1 SLANDERING SPECIESISM For thirty years and more, slandering speciesism has been something of a polemical sport for philosophers theorizing about the proper rank and status of things within an ethically ordered world. The idea of the moral brotherhood of man – the idea that we should recognize and respect our kindredness with our fellow human beings – that idea gets discussed by most theorists only to be peremptorily and derisively dismissed as a blatant a priori absurdity rigorous thinkers deign mention at all only because of its prominence in the popular culture. The untutored may suppose that the centrality of the idea within the constellation of most morally serious people's (philosophically uncorrupted) moral convictions would entitle it to respectful consideration by theorists, the kind of cautious assessment accorded the pronouncements of Aristotle or Kant by scholars competing to make the best sense they can of their subject before daring to pass judgment on it. Instead, the topic gets treated with a reckless disregard of not only the stature of the idea but the plainest facts about just what is popularly thought. Anti-speciesist routinely characterize their target with some ludicrous caricature, readily ridiculed and lightly resembling actual beliefs. Bad enough that the degradation of public discourse is institutionalized when misrepresentations appear in sober scholarly trappings to be enshrined in intro ethics texts. More, the maligning is misdirected, for the popular conception does not oppose the (perhaps legitimate) concerns motivating most critics' assault. 2 Peter Singer, long the lead basher of speciesism, has recently decared last year that fully thirty years after his first salvo, speciesists have had world enough and time to defend themselves and they've plainly failed to produce a plausible apologia. Singer's verdict is that speciesism is now a dead horse among the discerning: speciesists have shown by their silence (interrupted only by dialectical ineptitude) that there is simply nothing to be said for the arbitrary, atavistic ideology behind their brutalizing brutes.1 Actually, speciesism's alleged lack of theoretical legitimation has always been irrelevant and immaterial for any rationale for reforming our treatment of animals. Besides, the allegation was becoming false as Singer first made it, and has since evidenced some inattention to the scholarly literature. Thirty years ago, whilst Singer wrote "Animal Liberation", I wrote _________,2 an essay with similar topics and starting points, and some shared suppositions and critical targets. We agreed that human beings have been disposed to suppose that each of us is the proper object of a certain minimal level of moral concern by all of us just because each of us is a human being, a fellow member of our basic biological kind. He termed this "speciesism"; I dubbed it the "Standard Belief". We both noted that moral theorists had been effectively, if not willfully, blind to this conspicuous feature of common morality. Despite their claiming concordance with common basic moral principles, theorists had not given or even taken any account of the Standard Belief, but instead fobbed off one or another ersatz principle and derived our moral status from some psychological property of normally developed humans, like sentience, self-consciousness, rationality, free will, or whatever. But (Aristotle notwithstanding) we don't define biological species by their ancestry and morphology, not their psychological capacities. Members of our species possess no 3 psychological property necessarily, universally or exclusively, so the theorists' surrogate rules depart from common belief in their sense, and sanction significantly different practices and attitudes. They differ extensionally and intensionally. Singer and I considered this situation scandalous since ethical theory's need for some accounting of the Standard Belief was glaring, for that principle appears conceptually anomalous to our professionally respected secular ethical theories. Whereas psychological capacities like sentience, rationality, and free will have obvious linkage with moral concepts, our theories have not noticed any internal relation of biological properties with rational moral principles. Moreover, the structural parallel of speciesism to core racist belief seems transparent, and that analogy appears morally appalling. Finally, Singer and I reject any resolution of these problems requiring attribution of nonempirical properties to all humans (e.g., inherent worth, dignity, sacredness, sanctity, natural (moral) rights). Such predications and their religious translations (being besouled, the image of God, His children) could at best only express, and not explain, our moral equality. Notwithstanding my abundant agreements with Singer, our conclusions are poles apart. As they say in our trade, one philosopher's modus ponens is another's modus tollens. Now, the first big, simple fact that must be recognized is that our alleged ignorance of any justification for speciesism is irrelevant to the animal liberationists' agenda. They have gone after a straw man whose justifiability is a red herring. Their critique conflates two questions: (1) Is the bare fact of an individual's being a human in itself a reason for us to consider and protect its well-being? (2) Is there some reason (apart from human well-being) to consider and protect the well-being of other animals? Speciesism, perspicuously specified, says 'yes' to (1) and nothing about (2). Most folks 4 have supposed that being human is sufficient for having our moral status, but not that it's necessary. No society I know of has lacked our current culture's inclination to imagine alter-specific personalities – like the crowd at a Star Wars cantina – whom we'd all recognize as our moral equals. (That's consistent with our triumphantly exterminating the congenitally homicidal, and shunning any persons, however harmless, incarnated in revolting globs of hermaphroditic pus.) I've seen a doctrinal speciesist happily cohabit with a devout vegan. And I'll bet some rabid animal liberationists are equally rabidly fetal liberationists: they condemn abortion because they consider embryos human beings, and they condemn factory farming, and animal experminentation for the pain the animals endure. True, speciesism doesn't entail vegetarianism, and most speciesists have not been principled vegetarians, but many have been. Actually, once we properly understand the real nature and naturalness of speciesism, we can presume that vegetarians have been speciesists at near the rate the rest of us are. Although their rationale for solicitude toward animals almost always applies to humans as well, the converse rarely holds. Rarely does the quality and quantity of anyone's moral concern for animals match their concern for humans with lesser mental capacities. For vegetarians and butchers alike, for most people and even for most philosophers, some kind of speciesism explains their distinctive concern for their conspecifics with greater elegance and less strain than any philosophical invention like Singer's utilitarianism or Tom Regan's rights theory. Such theories directly entail both an embrace of animal liberation and opposition to speciesism, but those are independent entailments. Although a reason for rejecting speciesism might also be a reason for regard 5 for animals, rejecting speciesism is no reason for regard for animals and accepting speciesism is no reason for disregard for animals.3 This simple point may prompt a complaint that the newly minted terms, 'speciesism'/'speciesist', have been meant to model the established terms, 'racism'/'racist', whose main meanings have implied some kind of favoritism of one race over (some) others, so the odious comparison prominent in the parent concepts should pass on to their progeny. There is some truth in this, but not enough. A fair look at the literature sees critics of speciesism constantly slip-sliding between (at least) two conceptions: a comparative one asserting the moral superiority of humans over animals, and the noncomparative notion that being human is reason enough for our moral concern. Vegetarians vacillate from missing the distinction between independent ideas. Actually, anti-speciesists of every stripe lump together a great range of conceptions. In the space of fourteen paragraphs in his recent essay Singer's target is described indifferently as: (1) "we ignore or discount [animal] interests, simply on the grounds that they are not members of our species"; (2) "it is justifiable to give preference to beings simply on the grounds that they are members of the species Homo sapiens"; (3) "we have a special obligation to other members of our species in preference to members of other species"; (4) "species is ... morally important in itself"; (5) "species alone is both necessary and sufficient for being a member of our moral community". Not uncommonly an antispeciest's confusion is exposed by his criticisms, not his characterizations. David Boonin, in his recent book, A Defense of Abortion,4 first characterizes his target as "the claim that 'If an individual is a human being then that individual has a right to life'" and 6 then he attacks it on the next two pages by noting that we don't think being human is necessary for having a right to life. On his own characterization, that's no criticism. Once the distinction is noted, if we want our terminology determined, not by etymological or polemical purposes, but by analytical ones, we'll mark logically and morally distinct ideas with distinct terms, and "speciesism" is a natural enough name for the noncomparative notion. If animal libbers have too much invested in their branding a conflated foil, so be it: then call the historically key noncomparative idea "ilkism" or "the Standard Belief" and get on with the reasoned discussion of the substantive issues; there the comparative term will likely disappear from disuse. For now, since the critics sometimes (albeit fitfully) mean the useful, noncomparative sense, I'll continue using it that way. That normal, developed human beings tend to be speciesists is an empirical thesis that many competent students of human culture understandably, question or confidently deny. Singer recognizes more evidence of speciesism than most philosophers, yet far less than I. Over the years, I have frequently been amused by colleagues familiar with my writings who report discovering, with astonishment and dismay, the prevalence of speciesism among their students. However, the full complexity of the empirical issue would escape most non-philosophers (and too many philosophers) who have never been dragged down the depths of the Socratic paradox, and made the unnerving discovery that they don't really understand what their own moral beliefs are. Identifying people's basic principles is a dialectical process, not performable by polls and non-confrontational interviews, however well scrubbed the questions. Among other things, it's to be expected that, here as elsewhere, many people have not been models of consistency in their beliefs 7 and behavior. Also to be expected is that speciesism cannot be specified with even the little precision possible for isms like utilitarianism and empiricism, which have the advantage of classical, authoritative texts to anchor the central idea. In particular, "species" is as theory-laden as any term could be, and while it would be surprising to find any but the most primitive culture without some concept of animal species, it would be daunting to specify a core concept of species common both throughout our cultural history from Aristotle to post-Darwinian taxonomists (some of whom deny the coherence or applicability of any such idea) and also throughout the vast array of cultures outside that history. The notion of species pertinent to speciesism may well be specifiable only by identifying the rationality of speciesist beliefs and finding a notion that fits that role. Most likely the notion needs adjustment to work with the shifting background beliefs within which it has operated. Another matter I'll explain later is that much racism and tribalism is best explained as at root a species of speciesism (a sub-, ancestral, or sibling species.) Philosophers fixated on species-neutral notions, like sentience and optimalization, may miss the compatibility of speciesism and animal liberation – and, likely, their own speciesism. Once one appreciates the sources of speciesism and tosses cheap conspiracy theories – like Singer's flippant accusation that speciesism is "a prejudice that survives because it is convenient for the dominant group"-one may realize that, although managing one's personal relations on a utilitarian calculus might not be morally abhorrent, it sure would be creepy. Morally or otherwise, there's something wrong with someone indifferent between eating humans and eating other animals, phagically or carnally. 8 Differing definitions of speciesism may be more a consequence than cause of my quarrel with Singer. We start parting company methodologically. I am a "methodological conservative". So is Singer, but to a lesser extent, or less consistently. He cannot but be one to some extent, since, in the realm of inquiry, we are all always in media res: to make any progress, we cannot but rely on what we already believe. My earlier essay explains what it calls (clumsily) the Factunorm Principle: viz., what and how we do think is evidence for what and how we ought to think. A corollary of this is that, ceteris paribus, among people having similar relevant epistemic competence (expertise, intelligence, sobriety, etc.), the more commonly a belief is accepted the more likely it is to be true. However, evidence is not explanation or proof. What everyone has always believed might be false. Still, speciesism's overwhelming popularity creates a correspondingly overwhelming (but still defeasible) presumption favoring it. So, for example, if that belief seems incompatible with other well and widely accepted beliefs, that is best regarded as an apparent paradox properly prompting us to look long and hard for some other resolution before trashing the moral brotherhood of man. At minimum, if we know of no plausible rationale for speciesism, that poses a challenge for theorists, but presents no due cause for doubting it. After all, any fairminded philosopher recognizes that we don't really know any justification for any comparably basic principle, ethical or otherwise, precisely because the very structure of any such justification has always been problematic. In the nature of the case, no empirical data, induction, introspection, or derivation from more general principles can do the job. Most likely, here justification must take the form of elaborate explanations that make sense of the principle by exhibiting its mesh with masses of our other generally accepted 9 beliefs – as John Rawls' 600 page A Theory of Justice might as a whole constitute a plausible justification for his basic principle of justice, despite being riddled with all sorts of defects and implausiblities. If that won't satisfy Singer, he might, to be consistent, first concede that now, 200 years after Bentham "[t]he continuing failure of philosophers to produce a plausible" [justification for recognizing an obligation to maximize the good] "indicates, with increasing probability, that there can be no such thing"5 – and then abandon his utilitarianism and political agenda. Singer seriously contends that the failure to find a justification for speciesism in the last 30 years of debate is reason to think it unjustifable. Even if its premise were true, resorting to reasoning may be the best of all possible evidence of an impoverished arsenal. Politically and theoretically, speciesism has less need of defense than does its arrogant dismissal by academic ethicists, who have persisted for decades in instructing their unsuspecting pupils and the general public, unaccompanied by any hint of argument beyond their dogmatic a priori intuition that discrimination based on biological properties is morally arbitrary. Throughout the burgeoning literature, that intuition is thought buttressed by ritual declarations of the theorist's incapacity to imagine any justification of speciesism − as though the confession followed years of frustrated searching for a rationale rather than the intuition being the reason that no attempt is ever made − and, in any case, as though such admission of deficient creativity were somehow probative. What passes for argument here is a sorry analogy with racism, as though any trace of that tar silenced all discussion. Always unnoted is that the racism strictly analogous to unalloyed speciesism is the innocuous conviction that being a member of one's race is 10 enough – but not essential – for being one's moral equal. That's like speciesism, for it's entailed by it, and is no more objectionable or needful of apologia. Also unobjectionable are various forms of racial favoritism, like my supporting the UJA while my stepsons donate to the NAACP. Such circumspect racism becomes noxious only when blended with, as has been too common, the logically extraneous persuasion that one has little reason to extend much regard to individuals of another race. That pernicious additional thought is rationally unsustainable because, as we'll shortly see, the rationality of the innocuous, logically purified racism (and tribalism, and other larger or smaller lineage groupings) is basically the rationality of speciesism. The core reason for recognizing intraracial equality is the reason for recognizing intraspecific equality, and thus interracial equality. That's why the corrupt racist creeds have notably tended to pose as speciesist doctrines supplemented by some myth that another race is an inferior (degraded or daemonic) breed of humans. Consider also the repeated anthropological observation that many tribes, especially if relatively isolated, name themselves with a term translated by our generic 'man' or 'human'. After unloading their bogus analogy with toxic types of racism, the quiver of speciesism's critics is empty. Their ammo is out. Expectably, no instance of divergence from well and widely accepted moral judgment is around when speciesism is the source of those judgments. Turning Singer's reasoning on himself, one might surmise that "the continuing failure of philosophers to produce a plausible [objection to speciesism] indicates, with increasing probability, that there can be no such thing." Meanwhile, expectably, anti-speciesists have no shortage of devastating objections to the competing justifications other anti-speciesists accept for their shared political platform. Internecine 11 warfare amongst anti-speciesists is to be expected, because all the alternatives to speciesism favored by theorists are more or less alien to philosophically uncorrupted moral thought. Absent any objection to speciesism, no onus of proof lies upon it. A good thing that, since a "proof" worthy of the name must be or presume, among other things, a refutation of egoism, and last I looked none is yet generally recognized. What I'll offer here is more modest, aspiring only to provide some pointers on how to begin making sense of the reasonableness of an idea theorists dismiss as hopelessly implausible and arbitrary. My sketch of a promising rationale relies on broadly familiar notions whose development and interpretation are liable to misconstruals. One premise works off the idea that rational agency (somehow) requires self regulation by rules, generalization and universalization. This vague notion has been variously understood and elaborated, sometimes appearing as versions of utilitarianism, sometimes as principled critiques of utilitarianism. My own still inchoate conception is that when reasoning reaches self-consciousness its articulation is egocentric. The reasons we reason about are, first and foremost, our own. Primarily what I decide is what I am to do (to think, feel, and want), and how I decide is by considering my reasons, the reasons I have. So the generalizations and universalizations of our primary principles must operate with some category of self-identification. Take the idea that every mature culture comes to recognize, that we (I and the rest of us) should do unto others as we would have them do unto us. More narrowly and stringently, we (individually and collectively) reasonably demand of each of us that we refrain from doing to others what others reasonably wish us to not do to them. Any such directive about what to do to others is elliptical; it is 12 indeterminate without specifying the category of others we conceive ourselves belonging to. The next step of the speciesist's rationale is noting that our primary category of self-identification must be our species concept. The kind whose membership most profoundly defines our nature is our biological species, homo sapiens. Our physical mutability and socio-psychological plasticity leave little else essential to our individual natures. We do perforce belong to both wider and narrower categories of lineage (family, tribe, race, genus, phylum, etc.) but the species category is, for Aristotelians and Darwinians alike, the central concept of biological explanation of the attributes and actions of natural agents and other organisms. The scant biological reality that race may have has marginal explanatory import. We readily interbreed and interact inter-racially and inter-tribally, just as we do intra-racially and intra-tribally, but cannot do interspecifically. All of our psychology (rationality, personality, etc.) is consequent upon our biology, not vice-versa. (This says nothing about biological determinism or the dominance of nature over nurture, but only that our nurture and learning are structured by features of our species.) Our native conceptualization is species-centric: e.g., our concept of being red is, roughly, that of looking red, in normal circumstances to a normal human, not to a normal primate, person, or perceiver. (The notion of a normal primate, person or perceiver seems indeterminable.) Our cognition, and even more our affect and motivation are shaped and ordered by the history of our species and its sexuality and sociality. The species' biologically essential sexual and social concerns and sympathies are keyed specifically at our conspecifics. Our species category is our key concept for 13 understanding ourselves metaphysically, scientifically, biologically, psychologically, socially. So it is naturally inevitably our principal and principled category of selfidentification and public identification, politically, legally and morally. Observe that our speciesist recognition of moral equality derives not from humans having some nifty intrinsic or inherent attribute. What other humans have is a valueneutral indexical feature, the relational "accident" of their essence being our own. The "derivation" of the speciesist principle is not a deduction. If it were deducible from some more general principle – if being a conspecific were morally significant by instantiating some other property – then it could not function as a foundational principle of practical reason. What rationally binds us to other humans and obliges us to regard their interests like our own is that our own reasoning requires self-identification in its justifications of our actions and attitudes.6 This rationale may be clarified by its contrasts with the more recent, similar seeming ideas of Christine Korsgaard's The Sources of Normativity.7 For Korsgaard, the self-identifications "most important to us" that generate "unconditional obligations" are not "theoretical" views "about what as a matter of inescapable scientific fact you are." They should be understood as "description[s] under which you value yourself." "To violate [such self-conceptions] is to lose your integrity and so your identity, and to no longer be who you are" (101-02). As I see it, such remarks best fit self-identifications and obligations deriving from the roles, projects, and contingent peculiarities of individual circumstances and choices. Those obligations lack the unconditionality of our bonds to our kind bound by the inescapable facts of our common nature. Further, our selfidentification as human fixes the individuals to whom we are bound, not the content of 14 the obligation, Moreover, disregard for our fellows violates, not the self-identification, but our relation to our fellows; what is lost is not integrity but solidarity and community. And finally, our valuation of being human is a consequence of the self-identification and its inescapability, not a ground for them. Our morality needs a species notion, but we alsohave need of a species-neutral notion of persons. The traits requisite for moral agency are not species-specific. We (often all too readily) attribute them to other beings, real and imagined. The day may come when we commerce with a tribe of ET's and are compelled to acknowledge that their normal adults are accountable for their agency and capable of contracting with us and being equally responsible. Then our principles will commit us to recognizing that they have claims on our concerns as any human contractor does. We can't but realize that they have such claims on us when and because they literally make such claims. And if, as is probable, their concerns for their conspecifics, whose capacities for contractual responsibility are undeveloped, deformed, or defunct, are like our concerns for our contractually incompetent conspecifics, then our principles will also require our acknowledging that moral equality should be extended to their contractually incompetent conspecifics as well as the contractually competent ET's. Most likely, this equality with ET's (competent and noncompetent alike) would be confined to the Scanlonian moral realm of "what we owe to each other".8 The great gulf in species-being − the divergences in our sexual, familial, social, perceptual, affective and aesthetic natures − would severely limit the domains in which we could reasonably regulate ourselves by the same laws. As things are, treating the other animals around us as morally responsible agents would be unfair, so the proprieties of our relations with them have to be understood some 15 other way. While I'd grieve if any of my dogs seriously suffered or died, and I make sacrifices to prevent it, I simply cannot respect them, or try with a straight face. Matters are not much different for the brighter beasts around. While having reasons enough for considerable circumspection, I doubt that we're obliged to assign civil rights to any primates, however voluminous their lexicon, till some learn how to say and mean "I promise" in some language. However, denying them full equality decides very little. Between being treated like us and treated like dirt lie great plots of possibilities. Singer's animal liberationism is akin to the fetal liberationism of a John Noonan. No opprobrium attends this comparison. These are both respectable stances, intellectually and morally. Each has numerous allies, advancing similar political agendas with competing and often irreconcilable ideologies. Their concrete conclusions are not morally bizarre or uninformed by the best scientific findings. Their moral passions are authentic and decent, deserving some respect and not mere grudging tolerance. Still, their arguments are not rationally compelling – as the cogent criticisms from their allies demonstrate. (Their bedfellows are their best critics.) The rest of us are not being unreasonable, indecent or shameful if we lack their sense of connection to the objects of their concerns, and resist coerced sacrifices for those objects, and resent public insults for such resistance. Most of us reject the animal and fetal liberationist agendas, not per se because beasts and pre-babies aren't human (enough), but rather because their well being has no other substantial enough basis for a claim on our concern, or at least no basis yet articulated sufficient to legitimate our coercing anyone to endure hardships for their sake. It won't do just to note the sentience of the beasts and their interest in avoiding suffering, 16 no more than it's enough to note that a human embryo's life, health and well-being (like that of a nonsentient animal or plant) are goods for itself not dependent on anyone else's interests. Sustained close confinement is bad for our livestock; premature cessation of close confinement is bad for our fetuses; being trod upon is bad for ants and asters. Our unsympathetically shrugging and carrying on compunctionlessly is cold-hearted, but cool reason might well be powerless to persuade us to care. We might admire others' willingness to sacrifice for the goods they unselfishly care about, and respect their efforts to convince others to follow suit − all without feeling obliged to make even modest sacrifices for those goods. We may deplore their selfrighteous incivility: we ought not esteem perfervid protesters discomfiting clients at abortion office entrances or impassioned PETAists humiliating fur wearing women on the street. But we cannot condemn their campaigning for legislation of their pet prescriptions, for not only are such activities properly protected, our arguments against their proposals might be no stronger than theirs. The sole difference might be that the onus is on those who would limit the liberty and reduce the well being of the unconverted; it is for them to show that the unconverted are unreasonably resisting those results. Until we have reason to suppose something is wrong with someone who is unmoved by their appeals, we may condemn legislators and officials who accede to their demands, however popular they may become. Here, animal liberationists are notably less burdened than fetal liberationists, since their goals, such as constraints on factory farming, generally do not severely discommode anyone as criminalization of abortion does a woman carrying an unwanted fetus. In any case, the aim of this essay is not to 17 settle such issues, but rather to show that they are not settled by any attacks on speciesism.9 18 19 1NOTES "Animal Liberation at 30," New York Review, (L, 8) May 15, 2003, 23-26. 2 Lengthy endnote giving citations of my various presentations of the themes, and of citations of this work and criticisms of it that judge that I may be only philosopher "to have attempted a reasonably sustained defense of the view that basic moral principles may properly incorporate reference to particular biological species, such as Homo sapiens." 3 Regrettably, my original essay muddied matters by specifying the Standard Belief as including, along with the principle that being human is sufficient but not necessary for moral equality with us, the additional thought that the interests of currently known nonhuman animals have a lesser claim on us. While that combination is common and consistent, bundling these beliefs as a package can only cause confusion. They should be clearly marked as logically and morally independent beliefs. 4 (Cambridge, 2003), p. 21. 5Ibid. 6 My original essay's account of speciesism operatee with a quasi-contractualist conception of universalization as reciprocity and thus it stressed self-interest. I now think contractualist reasoning more appropriate for understanding the extension of our moral status to alter-specifics. The shift to selfidentification as the key to speciesism first appeared in _________,1988. 7 Cambridge, 1996. 8 Thomas Scanlon, What We Owe to Each Other, (Harvard, 1988). 9My thanks to_____________ for their helpful comments.