Every Tuesday, The duty offers a space to the creators of a periodical. This week, we offer you a text published in the magazine Possiblevolume 48, number 1.
It is no longer rare today to meet people openly claiming anti-speciesism, and many militant actions in favor of animals are carried out in its name.
A philosophical idea as well as a political struggle, anti-speciesism is now part of the public debate. For many citizens, what is inflicted on non-humans is no longer necessary or acceptable.
This is because antispeciesism is fundamentally opposed to an anthropocentric conception of the universe which considers animals of other species as inferior beings, things or natural resources at our disposal. It is a challenge to human supremacy, that humans are inherently different from other animals and that this difference justifies our domination over them.
Certainly, such direct speciesism is rarely defended. People will instead argue that it is not species membership that serves as the criterion for excluding animals, but abilities that only human beings possess.
If animals do not count morally, it is because they are not rational, not intelligent enough, not gifted with language, not self-aware or even because they only act by instinct.
However, what we call “human characteristics” are questionable in light of what science teaches us about animals. Every day, we are a little more surprised by their unsuspected abilities and the richness of their psychological and social life.
sentient beings
Contrary to what some caricatures suggest, anti-speciesism does not deny that there are certain distinctly human characteristics. In contrast, anti-speciesism rejects the idea that the absence of these abilities justifies the oppression of animals.
One of the central concepts on which antispeciesist theories are based is sentience, or the capacity to experience pleasure, pain, emotions and affects: in short, to be subjectively affected by the world.
From this perspective, it is the simple fact of being a “vulnerable self,” an individual who cares about what happens to him or her, that should count morally. If an individual is sentient, we must avoid harming them, killing them, harming their physical and psychological integrity, depriving them of their freedom — regardless of their level of intelligence, their species or its social utility.
However, if the law prohibits cruel treatment towards animals, it does not contest the very principle of the exploitation of animals, which involves causing immense harm to more than a thousand billion sentient individuals each year, if we counts aquatic animals.
Thinking and acting against speciesism
What can we do to transform such a system, which is increasingly contested and morally indefensible? How can we rethink our relationships with animals, both domesticated and wild?
This issue of the magazine Possible, entitled “Anti-speciesism. Thinking and acting for animals”, offers avenues for reflection to create a world free from human domination. The authors gathered for the occasion are philosophers, political scientists, activists, lawyers, journalists. They reflect on the possibility of a world where the sentience of all animals, including that of fish, would be taken into account. A world where spaces for interspecies cohabitation would replace farms. A world in which feminists and animalists are united and in which algorithms are not speciesist. A world where animals living in cities would no longer be considered pests.
This issue also explores the question of animal sexuality; it features aliens who love human flesh, reviews the history of animalism in Quebec and that of direct actions, questions accusations of anthropomorphism and challenges the myth of predatory humans. Together, these texts weave a common thread: questioning, even in unsuspected corners, what it means to fight against speciesism.
Will the future be anti-speciesist?
If humanity continues on its trajectory, it is heading towards a future where there will be more and more domesticated animals exploited for food and fewer and fewer wild animals. It’s a future that few people want. Today, many of us suffer from seeing animals suffer and love to see them happy, free and alive.
Most of us have difficulty watching news stories about the livestock industry and laboratories. This compassion towards animals, long rejected as childish, feminine sentimentality, or as a form of anthropomorphism, is increasingly accepted, politically, socially and philosophically.
As our knowledge of the mental and social abilities of other animals grows, we can no longer pretend to believe that we are the only conscious beings on Earth.
It is this idea that anti-speciesism invites us to abandon.
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