Speciesism

Abstract

Speciesism, coined in the 1970s, means the implicit superiority of one species, usually humans, over all others. Sociologist Lisa Jean Moore discusses this term and how sociologists are primed to use the concept in teaching and research.

This summer I joined several people in a living room in Brooklyn to witness a pregnancy test using a Xenopus frog. The inseminated woman had peed into a jar, and her urine was injected into the lymph-node sac of female Xenopus in the hope that the frog would produce eggs. Over the next day, we watched via webcam as the frog, Loretta, swam around her tank. The Xenopus had replaced the rabbit and the mouse in human pregnancy testing. Human use of Xenopus has changed the frogs’ habitat, made them laboratory test subjects, radically altered many ecosystems, and created a host of biopolitical questions.

Sociologists produce theories and methods to determine, measure, and interpret social stratification and human inequity. But how can we determine the relative status, rights, or power of non-human animals? We tend to rank our companion animals, such as dogs, cats, fish, birds, or snakes, more highly than the pesky pigeon, rat, or roach. We value animals “scientifically-proven” to be “closer” to us, such as gorillas, chimps, and other primates, more highly than those deemed more strange and distant, such as crickets, rattlesnakes, or eels. The domination of humans over all other beings leads us to assume that our species has more value and therefore has the right to act upon other species as we please, as feminist scholar Donna Haraway argues in her ground-breaking work, Primate Visions.

The domination of humans over all other beings leads us to assume that our species has more value and therefore has the right to act upon other species as we please.

Speciesism, the belief in the inherent superiority of one species over others, is a term coined by British psychologist Richard Ryder and used in his 1975 book Victims of Science: The Use of Animals in Research. The concept comes from animal studies, an interdisciplinary area of inquiry that emerged in the late 1970s. Scholars of anthropology, sociology, cinema studies, history, psychology, and feminist and queer theory, among other fields, have increasingly explored the complex relationships between human and non-human animals. Multidisciplinary and diverse, animal studies partially developed out of the Animal Liberation Movement of the 1970s, which emphasized our moral relationship to animals and questioned the ethics of human/animal interactions. Scholars in animal studies focus not only on how we conceptualize non-humans, but also on what we do to certain animals as a matter of course: like cage, slaughter, and eat them.

The Australian philosopher Peter Singer used the term speciesism in his germinal book, Animal Liberation, one of the most influential texts on the ethical treatment of animals. The book includes graphic descriptions of animal testing, including psychological experiments ranging from monkeys being raped to chemicals dropped into the eyes of conscious rabbits. Singer argues that animals are sentient, suffering beings affected by torture and physical pain, and reasons that the ability to suffer is what confers basic rights for all living things, regardless of species. Some philosophers and animal right activists assert that evidence of animal intelligence should be the measurement for sentience, rather than the ability to feel pleasure or pain. In arguing for animal rights on the basis of suffering, Singer challenged human-centered speciesism, or the assumption that one species has more value and thus, the right, to act upon other species.

Animal studies scholars have mainly focused on domestic animals and pets, rather than on species we consider to be exotic or wild. The absence of scholarly work on alligators or zebras is more pragmatic than discriminatory, as humans typically share their daily lives with dogs and cats. Much attention has been paid to the psychosocial aspects of companion animals, and the ways they can aid human well-being. Even though pets may be an economic drain and consume much of our time, studies suggest that, from an emotional standpoint, they are well worth the effort. For example, anthropologist Joel Savishinsky has researched the therapeutic benefits of pets within Western institutionalized settings like nursing homes. He suggests that pets function as “transitional objects” and can enable great personal growth in interspecies social interaction and integration. Similarly, psychologist Judith Siegel asserts that companion animals provide humans with both comfort and stress reduction. Scholars have also explored how pets can function as a type of cultural capital and as an extension of the owner’s sense of self-identity.

We love our pets much as we love human significant others: we name them, celebrate their birthdays, and buy them special gifts. But humans do not treat all animals within the same species as beloved companion animals. Humans can regard the same animal as both a companion and an object, as is the case with hunting dogs or dogs bred for fighting. As sociologists Arnold Arluke and Clinton Sanders argue, the animal/human divide is not a simple dichotomy. Some non-human animals, such as cows or horses, are at times seen as functional objects, while others, such as dogs and cats, are seen as sentient creatures with personalities.

We love our pets much as we love human significant others: we name them, celebrate their birthdays, and buy them special gifts. But we do not treat all animals as beloved companion animals.

Jennifer Johnson

Within the field of animal studies there is a division between mainstream and critical animal studies. Those who consider themselves in the latter camp are wary of those who objectify animals, and see them merely as things to study from a distance. Philosopher and animal rights activist Steven Best, noting the surge of scholarship on non-human animals, urges scholars to aid in ending animal suffering by pursuing animal liberation, animal activism, and veganism. He and others who are involved in critical animal studies critically interrogate the production of academic knowledge, emphasizing the politics of how certain frameworks become taken for granted, and examining sites of oppression where animals and humans intersect.

Speciesism is closely aligned with post-humanism. Just as critical animal studies challenges a human-centered approach to theory and research, so too does the area of “post-human studies,” which emerges out of science and technology studies, feminism, philosophy, and animal studies. Traditional humanism is predicated on the idea of humanity or humankind as a starting point for scholarly inquiry. But humanism leaves little space for other species or human/technological hybridization in the form of cyborgs. Humanism and speciesism consider human positionality as central and see it as the basis of social justice. Some would say these approaches are anthropocentric. Critical interpretations of interspecies entanglements require us to see non-human species as having inherent value.

Sociologists keenly trained to examine stratified workings of everyday life are well situated to take on examining species as another strata. In many ways, beginning with species as a classification that has lead to social injustice offers opportunities for dialogue in the classroom whereby all humans can confront their own social location. And from the rabbit, the monkey, the frog, the dog and all other non-human animals, we can begin to see how our human life is made possible through our ongoing interconnection with all species.