Speciesism as a Precondition to Justice

Author(s): Y. Michael Barilan

Source: Politics and the Life Sciences , Mar., 2004, Vol. 23, No. 1 (Mar., 2004), pp. 22-33
Published by: Cambridge University Press

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 Speciesism as a precondition to justice
Y. Michael Barilan, MD, MA
Department of Internal Medicine ?
Meir Hospital
Kfar Saba
bentovia@shani. net

Department of Behavioral Sciences

Sackler Faculty of Medicine
Tel Aviv University
Tel Aviv, Israel

Abstract. Over and above fairness, the concept of justice presupposes that in any community no one member's
wellbeing or life plan is inexorably dependent on the consumption or exploitation of other members.
Renunciation of such use of others constitutes moral sociability, without which moral considerability is useless
and possibly meaningless. To know if a creature is morally sociable, we must know it in its community; we
must know its ecological profile, its species. Justice can be blind to species no more than to circumstance.
Speciesism, the recognition of rights on the basis of group membership rather than solely on the basis of moral
considerations at the level of the individual creature, embodies this assertion but is often described as a variant
of Nazi racism. I consider this description and find it unwarranted, most obviously because Nazi racism
extolled the stronger and the abuser and condemned the weaker and the abused, be they species or individuals,
humans or animals. To the contrary, I present an argument for speciesism as a precondition to justice.

considerability.7 Dombrowski,8 Warren,9 Clarck,10

moral considerability must be based solely Wise,11 Sterba,12 and Varner13 offer updated, exten-
Many philosophers nowadays believe that
on a morally relevant trait or traits and that sively referenced, and thorough discussions of the
mere membership in a group cannot become such a trait. literature on the moral rights of nonpersons. My debt
Paying more respect to human interests and rights than to these scholars duly acknowledged, I have tried to keep
to animal interests and rights merely because member- notes and references from intruding excessively on the
ship in the human species is believed to grant superior exposition that follows.
moral standing is condemned as speciesism.1, 2 If we
wish to treat humans differently, claim these philoso-
phers, we must show a morally relevant difference Three creatures
between the human and the animal. Predictably,
opinions vary as to what may count as a morally Let M be the morally relevant attribute or set of
relevant difference. attributes which constitutes moral considerability.
In this paper I follow Warren,3 employing "moral According to non-speciesism, creatures that are M-
rights" and "moral considerability" interchangeably, positive are morally considerable; creatures that are M-
while methodologically relying on a distinction between negative are not. M stands for all possible degrees of
recipient-dependent ethics and agent-centered ethics. I moral considerability: Ml, M2, and so forth.14
rely to a certain extent on Miller's rendering of rights All living beings may be divided into three groups
and justice in Aristotle,4 on Ritchie's discussion of represented by three paradigmatic creatures, Brutti,
rights,5 on some points in McCloskey's discussion on Frutti, and Anonymi. Let Brutti be a creature about
moral rights,6 and Goodpaster's exposition of moral whom we know (1) that it is human and (2) that it is M-

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 Speciesism as a precondition to justice

negative. Following non-speciesism, (1) is irrelevant to I suppose that although Brutti has no rights at all,
Brutti's moral standing. Brutti has no moral rights. many people would recoil from eating it, whereas neither
Let Frutti be a creature about which we know (1) the speciesist nor the non-speciesist would oppose to the
that it is not human and (2) that it is M-negative. Frutti eating of Frutti. For the time being, I assume that the
has no moral rights, either. aversion to eating Brutti is appropriate, that there is
Brutti and Frutti may bear value as, for example, something inherently wrong about eating human flesh,
aesthetic objects, but they have no moral rights. They that Dombrowski is right in asserting that "we shudder
are not morally considerable as individual recipients at the prospect of canning 'moron meat.'"20, 21
of justice. I wish to make the case that sparing Brutti from the
Let Anonymi be a creature that we know to be M- butcher entails no moral wrongdoing towards Frutti.
positive. Anonymi has moral rights according to its M. Frutti has no moral standing, so it cannot be discrim-
Now, let El be defined as that part of ethics that is inated against. Nor can Frutti be harmed morally in any
recipient-dependent. This is the domain of justice. other way. Hence, speciesism is not in every case morally
Someone is given equal consideration; someone has objectionable. It follows that the sparing of Brutti does
moral rights, which arguably guarantee even more than not violate the moral considerability of Anonymi either.
equal consideration; someone is treated justly. Injustice We must eat something. Since we can eat Frutti, the
always has a victim and an unjust event a cause. Injustice sparing of Brutti does not compel us to eat Anonymi and
often involves the moral failure of an agent; keeping thereby to violate its moral rights.
promises, for example, postulates both an agent and I will now ask whether it is moral to destroy Frutti
a recipient. Still, to understand why certain acts are just gratuitously. I suppose most of us would shrink back
or unjust, we must always focus on the recipient. Indeed, from wanton destruction in general and from the taking
we often refer to "agent-free" events, such as the of life in particular. We cannot express our disapproval
occurrence of good luck or bad disease, as being "just" of shredding Frutti wantonly in terms of justice, though.
or "unjust," "deserved" or "undeserved."15 Frutti has no moral standing, so it is impossible to do it
Recipients of justice need not be able to claim it or moral harm. The difference between processing Frutti
protest its refusal. Anybody, assuming M-positivity, through the meat grinder and throwing it into the office
may be a recipient of justice, assuming also that shredder is not related to the recipient of the action. Our
circumstances allow justice to be conceptualized. We disapproval belongs to E2. Sparing Brutti is a case of
owe moral duties to such recipients,16 and we feel guilty parsimonious speciesism. It is parsimonious because it
to them when we fail these duties.17, 18 overrides no moral claim. I also contend that parsimo-
Let E2 be all other moral considerations, such as nious preferential speciesism seems to be a condition to
agent-centered restrictions. Minimum requirements justice. If M-positive creatures do not have M-negative
for E2 are free moral agency and ethical options. For creatures to eat and to exploit, M-positive creatures will
example, by arguing that we must treat animals have to eat and to exploit other M-positive creatures?
mercifully for the sake of cultivating our own virtues, or starve. However, some M-positive creatures eat other
Kant19 cast our moral duties with regard to animals M-positive creatures. This fact justifies ambitious
purely within E2. speciesism, where human-Anonymi enjoys higher moral
Speciesism reflects an attitude towards the recipient standing than nonhuman Anonymi. In this paper I
of action; thus, arguments regarding speciesism fall will touch only upon the question of very ambitious
within El. speciesism, namely preferring Brutti over nonhuman
Anonymi.
Why parsimonious speciesism is compatible
with justice
How ambitious preferential speciesism
The discussion begins with the following question.
may be moral
Is it moral to eat Brutti, Frutti, or Anonymi? Put di-
rectly in terms of El, do Frutti, Brutti, and Anonymi Brutti and Frutti are not real creatures, but abstrac-
have a right not to be eaten? tions from a reality about which we have only rudi-

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 Barilan

mentary knowledge. According to Rawls, Brutti belongs but ecologically uninformative and, maybe as a conse-
within the contractarian domain behind the "veil of quence, morally unintuitive.
ignorance," whereas Frutti does not.22 Considering Humans rarely prey on each other for nutritional
the fact that Rawls's "veil of ignorance" is his primary
fulfillment. Even when dead, "a person is not something
mental apparatus for the formulation of justice and thatto eat,"32 but all animals, including humans, are food to
neither Brutti nor Frutti is M-positive, this discrimina- other animals, most immediately when dead. The
tion seems rather arbitrary. Rawls also excludes non-expansion of one group inevitably affects the wellbeing
human Anonymi from the contractarian domain, andof others, in some cases constraining them, even
this exclusion is not self-evidently just. Indeed, attemptseventually crowding them out of the biosphere. Such
have been made to reformulate Rawlsian ethics so as to competition often dominates individual relationships as
accommodate morally considerable nonhumans.23 I well: for example, in societies in which only one male
will now try to show why this task is doomed to failure. enjoys mating privileges other than surreptitiously.
I will argue that contractarian justice dependent upon People abuse and exploit each other, as none would
a device such as the "veil of ignorance" renders species- deny, yet justice is valued. I contend that the valuing of
identity morally relevant. In other words, I will show justice is based on an implicit postulation that there
that even though Anonymi stands for all creatures that could indeed be a just society, one in which every
have moral rights, a contractarian justice among all morally considerable individual might find happiness
Anonymi-like creatures is inconceivable. My argument and fulfillment in a way not dependent on subversion or
will also show that utilitarianism likewise cannot escape on the consumption of other morally considerable
speciesism, nor can other schools of ethics. individuals. I contend further that justice itself presup-
M is usually taken as a sort of individual pro- poses the possibility of social life without one society
perty,24, 25 and philosophers of justice and rights focus member's life plan or wellbeing being inexorably
on individual claimants to justice. Justice, however, is dependent on frustrating another's. In such circum-
a social concept. Often do we tend to ignore "the stances, existential collisions among members are rare
circumstances of social justice,"26, 27, 28' 29 a "social accidents, which we try to avoid and to stop by all
nexus in which individuals interact" and within which means.33 Such moral-managerial interventions by hu-
"the language of rights" is meaningful and practical.30 mans into human communities or by humans into the
I do not have in mind political or otherwise practical affairs of husbanded or protected animals may seem
circumstances of justice. After all, if a particular society prudential enough; analogous interventions to correct
cannot administer justice, let that society be reformed. individual fates within wildlife communities, though,
I address substantial issues of justice, namely the logi- may be contrasted as morally quixotic and may be
cal constraints on conceptualizing justice as a publicly feared as ecologically ruinous. Put in other words,
intelligible agenda of interpersonal conduct.31 I will consumption or subjugation of any member of any
show that the problem with nonhuman Anonymi is that community of justice can never be classed as an "en-
vironmental good,"34 a "basic good,"35 a "vital in-
laying claim to justice on the grounds of their M may be
incompatible with the concept of justice. Their in- terest,"36 or a "primary good"37 for any other member.
dividual M is useless. In order to have a coherent and
Human societies meet or pretend to meet this criterion,
consistent concept of justice, we must know somethinghowever manifested culturally, and they are character-
about Anonymi in addition to knowing that it is M- ized by their success in doing so or their sincerity in
positive. We need to know that it can participate in trying to do so.
a society of justice. This additional piece of knowledge Hirsch makes a more ambitious claim, to the effect
relates to Anonymi's ecological profile, its species. that wellbeing based on obtaining positional goods ?
Moral speciesism has nothing to do with meta- those goods whose possession by more than a few soci-
physical essentialism. Species identity is our best and etal members would be illogical ? is immoral.39 This
easiest indicator of ecological profile, but even this formulation is open to exceptions, though, such as in the
identity is in more-or-less obvious ways culturallycase of a person afflicted with an extremely rare disease
assigned, rather than being biologically discovered. whose cure costs millions. The desire for that cure is not
Cladistics offers identities that are genomically assigned immoral, even if only a few can possess millions and only

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 Speciesism as a precondition to justice

a few need millions in order to survive. Therefore, we can justice or in the name of benevolence or other
imagine a world in which an unfortunate person gets principle.47 Justice that denies the possibility of a good
cured and no one is harmed: Pareto's optimality. Now, life is a seriously deficient concept, probably even an
suppose that the cure ofthat patient involves the removal incoherent one.
of another living person's heart.40 In contrast to money, I contend, therefore, that an ethics of rights and
the human body, self, and life are indeed positional justice depends on unconditional disavowal of exploi-
goods no one else can have or even share.41 tation of other members as a component of one's life
Full maximization of one's wellbeing might always plan or one's wellbeing. Such renunciation constitutes
collide with full maximization of others'.42 But collision moral sociability. Rawls insists that fruitful deliberation
would be less likely with less ambitiously realized life behind the "veil of ignorance" requires knowledge of
plans. Partly for this reason, one guesses, not being fully "whatever general facts affect the principle of justice."48
satisfied in each and every desire has proverbially been I contend that among these "general facts" is this:
thought more conducive to a good life than has rapacious life-plans drive out justice itself.
unending satiety.43 Sterba shows that delineating human Although our ethical intuitions largely accommodate
goods is not dependent on essentialist accounts of them, these assertions can be established a priori by
human nature.44 In the same vein we may say that arguments of coherence and consistency. This would be
although human goods are heterogeneous and some- true for "special" rights and "general" or "natural"
times even exclusive of each other, they are never rights alike.49
established on antagonism against other members of The lion and the lamb cannot move in behind the
society ? not even against pets! As McCloskey points "veil of ignorance" because the former cannot realize its
out, moral rights are "rights to," not "rights against."45 own good without eating the latter. An animal-rights
Humans sometimes find themselves in "lifeboat" dilem- advocate would never know how to negotiate behind
mas, in which many people occupy an environment that such a veil. A would-be lion must participate in the
can sustain only a few. Demonstrably, a human society deliberations in ways that would undermine the welfare
may fail to resolve survival conflicts or may blandly of a would-be lamb, and vice versa. Deliberation would
tolerate them without thinking itself unjust. But I argue become even more hopelessly intricate when factoring in
that real justice, justice in the full sense of the word, not all life-forms sharing the ecosystem within which justice
simply commutative justice, is inconceivable in societies is due to be realized. A veiled animal advocate would
where survival conflicts are either too frequent or have to stay mute to avoid self-contradiction. If the only
morally tolerated. If justice is only a system of fairness, problem with animals were their inability to abide by the
fair methods may be construed to determine who will be Golden Rule, one would imagine an impartial bystander
thrown out of a lifeboat, as, for example, described in policing and restraining transgression. That said, in
the book of Jonah. But beyond fairness, Rawls and many a world of lions and lambs an impartial bystander is
other philosophers of justice also require that everybody hard to imagine under any circumstances.50 With whom
gets something. Obviously, death and exploitation are would he or she sympathize? The hungry lion or the fat
far below the minimum share envisioned by Rawls, who lamb? This is a problem of trusteeship for animals51 not
so much emphasizes the centrality of "primary goods." found with guardianship of incompetent people. Contra
I think it is safe to say that all the philosophers cited Scanlon, I think we owe to animals a relationship of
would agree that a system that principally mandates the "justifiability," but this debt, I contend, we can hardly
death of some of its members is incompatible with the even conceptualize, let alone pay.
circumstances of justice, wherein is presupposed, among We may have a clear concept of how the life of
other things, that life in general is not an expanded a particular animal can go well. We cannot, however,
version of a lifeboat situation. have a clear concept of justice within nonhuman
If welfare is the currency of ethics, as many utilitarian ecosystems. Dworkin in 1984 described moral rights
philosophers, such as Summer, believe,46 it seems as "trump cards," as nearly absolute safeguards against
implausible to construe justice as bringing so much other considerations, even of great weight. According to
zero-welfare to so many relevant creatures. Nobody is Warren's milder phrasing, moral status "prohibits
requested to sacrifice life or basic rights for the sake of harming them [status bearers] in certain ways without

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 Barilan

exceptionally good reasons."52 Thus, rights prevailthe lamb to the lion would constitute an act of care and
upon us to act against good reasons, such as promotion a betrayal of care-relationship simultaneously.
of wellbeing and happiness. Rights often prevail in ? Virtue ethics will not help us either. Justice cannot tell
and even against ? human societies, and analogues of the lion to become a vegetarian or the lamb to submit
rights may affect nonhuman societies in ways teachingitself to the lion. Such instructions would not make the
us much about the evolution of our own moral sense. lion or the lamb act justly or virtuously but demand that
Environmental ethicists such as Ellul and Jonas speak they change their nature. Ethics that undercuts one's
of ethics of "no power" and restraint. Similarly, Leopold self, one's telos, and one's survivability is a hopeless
defined ethics as "limitation on freedom of action in the contradiction, biting more deeply than Williams'
struggle for existence."53 Apparently, animals have no argument from integrity.57, 58 On the other hand,
freedom to set limits on their struggle for existence. humans who alter their ways of life on moral grounds
When environmentalists talk about justice within an fulfill their human nature. They do not distort or deviate
animal context they usually mean "enlargement of one's from human virtues but exercise them. A vegan lion
sphere of identification" and adoption of an attitude of would not excel in leonine virtue but in polygenetic
care.54 These ideas are inspiring. But they do not bear expression-intensity variation so extreme as to require
upon justice and rights. a distinctive gut flora for the digestion of its first post-
I wish to stress that by no means do I claim that weaning meal. It would be no more real than a griffin.
animals are incapable of moral reasoning, moral or self- Rights sometimes collide with each other. On pain of
sacrificial behavior, or moral tutelage of offspring; self-contradiction, an ethics of rights cannot acknowl-
nonhuman primates especially show us we are not alone edge rights that always and by necessity violate other
on our moral plateau. rights.59 Granting lambs a right to life would necessitate
I will now illustrate how utilitarianism, "care ethics," the violation of the rights of lions, which in compensa-
and "virtue ethics" cannot construe meaningful systems tion would then just eat more gazelles. Rights are
of justice. Consider the following worlds: recipient-dependent; if lambs do not have a right not to
be preyed upon by lions, then lambs do not have a right
Wl: 500 lions starve, 500 lambs range happily. to life at all.60
W2: 500 lions are satiated, 500 lambs are mangled.
A right to life calls upon us to save every endangered
W3: 250 lions starve, 250 lions are satiated, 250 lambs
child, here or in the jungle. If justice does not require the
range freely, 250 lambs are mangled by the 250
saving of a lamb in the jungle, why should we save
satiated lions, and so forth.
a lamb from the butcher? The jungle is remote and
From a utilitarian perspective, worlds Wl, W2, and dangerous; the abattoir is nearby and already under
W3 are equivalent. Even if lions and lambs were inspection. Alas, these are practical and not morally
reasoned to value pain and pleasure differently, equiv- relevant differences.
alence could still be maintained simply by adjusting Critics of speciesism envision a system of justice that
the numbers starving, ranging, satiated, and mangled. encompasses all Anonymi. I have shown that such
Therefore, utilitarians finds themselves committed a system is not possible. Each Anonymi must disclose the
equally to a world in which all lions suffer and to inner workings of its life plan or its conception of
a world in which all lions are happy. Such an outcome ? wellbeing in order to be admitted behind the "veil of
if meaningful at all ? cannot guide action. W2 appears ignorance" or to have its rights, pains, or preferences
balanced or even fair, but only in the eyes of an outsider considered. It must show first that its happiness, life
and only after species is factored in and individual rights plan, and well-being do not require the abuse of any
are ignored. Even if ecological harmony were somehow other morally significant individuals. It must tell us
optimized, individual points of view would not be certain things about its ecological disposition. And it
reconciled.55 Besides, ecological harmony is itself an will have to reveal its species.
elusive concept. Some Anonymi we cannot invite into the community
Care ethics faces an even more serious problem. If I of justice simply because their way of living is
keep a lion in my front yard and a lamb in my back yard incompatible with the circumstances of justice. The
and if I have bonded with both equally, then handing lion, the lamb, and the gorilla may count as such

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 Speciesism as a precondition to justice

Anonymi. Each seems morally considerable, but none is entertainment. Chicken are allowed to range in the
morally sociable, and those not morally sociable cannot garden for the sake of their eggs and flesh. If we cannot
truly be morally considerable, since moral rights cannot use and enjoy domestic animals and pets, we would
be exercised in isolation from a society of justice. never care for them in the first place. The sociability of
However, the exclusion of animals from a system of pets is constructed on a relationship of property with
justice does not render our behavior toward them humans. Pets and domestic animals are socialized for
morally negligible. Human maltreatment of animals a purpose. Their sociability has not yet transcended that
sometimes reaches spectacular hideousness. We must all purpose. Humans are morally sociable as such.
shun cruelty, yet the moral issue here is not a question of Membership in a society of justice is the primary
justice or rights.61 Problems arise when suffering or good all humans distribute to one another.67 Justice is
deprivation is inflicted in the name of "utility" or some about the distribution of goods among humans, not the
particular value. When the recipient of suffering is distribution of some humans as goods for the re-
a non-member, such as an animal, we cannot judge the alization of the good life of other human beings. The
justice of suffering. consumer and the consumed cannot share the same
system of justice. Hunting and pr?dation belong to the
animal, not the human, sphere.
Mixed communities and hybrids
The circumstances of justice require that its ecosys-
Let R-Anonymi be rejected from moral consider- tem contains both M-positive and M-negative objects.
ability on the grounds of moral sociability despite being The M-positive creatures will have relationships of
M-positive, and let S-Anonymi be sociable. exploitation, ownership, and consumption only with
Can humans bond with other Anonymi and create M-negative objects, and this pattern will suffice for the
a society in which members do not consume or displace sustenance of all M-positive creatures. It follows that
each other? This would be a non-speciesist community clear separation between the consumers and the things
of justice encompassing all S-Anonymi. consumed is a prerequisite to the conceptualization of
Hume62 wrote that the imbalance of power would justice. Elsewhere I discuss the significance of this
render such an enterprise only partially possible. "We separation for the use of human remains.68
should be bound by laws of humanity to give gentle Only agents that do not harbor life plans that
usage to these creatures, but should not, properly unequivocally impose suffering or exploitation on
speaking, lie under any restraint of justice with regard others can conceive of ethics based on the avoidance
to them." Hume says, E2 but not El. of suffering and on respect. If my life plan and moral
Leahy63 goes further, arguing that animals do not fit identity were dependent on the infliction of suffering ?
within the thick web which is the language game of suppose I was a vampire who could not survive without
ethics. Nevertheless, Diamond64' 65' 66 shows at length biting humans for their blood ? an ethics of non-
how pets have become socialized animals. Many people suffering would undermine my moral and physical
feel that pets have rights, and many countries have laws existence.

protecting the putative rights of pets and other domestic No human's good life is inescapably conditional on
animals. Possibly, some breeds of dogs and cattle have the exploitation of another human. Vampires, no
been altered by humanity so as to become morally matter how intelligent, sentient, compassionate, and
sociable and completely dependent on human ambience, even innocent, cannot participate in a just society. They
just like Brutti. Do they have moral rights? Are we may even contribute to ethical theory, but they cannot
bound to prefer them over Brutti? Perhaps. My point have moral rights. Luckily, they do not exist.69
in this paper is that speciesism is a precondition to Is it possible for Dracula to give up on his "life" plan
justice. I do not claim that everything which is human to be included in the system of justice? Is it possible that
always takes moral precedence over everything which some people are born with a disposition so evil as to
is nonhuman. compel them to choose between self-denial and
Besides, following Hume, people might say that membership in society? If Dracula can mend his ways
domestic animals have been socialized for the purpose and hold to his identity and self, vampirism ceases to be
of using them. Pets are kept for company andhis essence. In that case, no objection bars his in-

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 Barilan

corporation into a society of justice, since his wellbeing I believe that postulate (1) was the most nefarious of
and autonomy are no longer tied to drinking human the three. Had Hitler thought that the earth could
blood. A society of justice is not open to the possibility accommodate all peoples, he would not have felt the
that there can be a member who is sane and healthy and urge to exterminate and subjugate non-Aryans in search
his or her genuine calling in life is rape and mayhem. of Lebensraum. Nazism considered the subjugation
Maybe there is a man somewhere who is hopelessly and annihilation of some people indispensable for the
miserable unless he commits rape, but we are not survival and happiness of other people. The doctrine of
willing to accept this as a fact. We would call him either racism was wrong, but postulate (1) undermined the
mad or criminal and would try to treat, to reform, or to very foundations of justice.
restrain him. Wasserstrom71 argues that racism denies or ignores
It follows that what we really care about is the moral the fact that all humans have the same capability for
sociability of creatures, not their metaphysical or suffering. Yet, if we accept postulate (1), acknowledg-
biological traits. Species serves only as an indicator of ment of equal capacity for suffering cannot stop us from
moral sociability, as borne out repeatedly by science- deciding who should suffer. Similarly, if "care" ethicists
fiction literature and cinema. Benign aliens like E.T. mix face a choice between their sons and any stranger, they
easily with humans, while rapacious creatures are would save their sons at the expense of the stranger,
ruthlessly fought no matter how human-like they are: if not at the expense of all strangers at once.72 But Nazis
evil androids, for example. The moral self may rely on believed that the human condition was a constant
a species identity too weak to justify speciesism, as many struggle between the wellbeing of one's kin and the
philosophers believe and as stories such as E.T. suggest, wellbeing of all others. According to Nazism, "[a]
yet species identity, I will show, most reliably predicts healthy community thus became, by definition, one in
the treatment of Brutti. which the death of some was decisively tied to the life
of the remainder."73 Holding to the belief that life itself
is a life-boat dilemma is, in my view, the root of evil;
Speciesism is not Nazism
indeed, human society is built on a bedrock assurance
Critics often compare speciesism to Nazism and that the world at large is not a lifeboat.
human treatment of animals to Nazi persecution of the Recent research by Boria Sax74 suggests that Nazi
Jews.70 These analogies deserve special attention. concerns were rather remote from those of environ-
Let me say right away that I strongly believe in the mentalists and animal-rights activists. The Nazis wor-
moral equality of all humans. Nonetheless, I do not shiped the predator, be it human or nonhuman, and
think the thrust of Nazi evil was national or religious ignored the sufferings of weak or "undeserving"
aggrandizement. As a matter of fact, many nations and creatures. Sax shows that humans and animals in
religions promote beliefs in their own superiority over Nazi Germany were treated similarly. Both groups were
the rest of humanity. Jews consider themselves "the divided between the strong and the weak, the predator
chosen people," a title self-applied as well by Christians and its prey. Nazi ideology did not care for animals or
and others. Yet, comparison of Judaism or Christianity people as such but for certain patterns of behavior and
to Nazism is preposterous: conceits of superiority do not survival. Nazism encouraged pr?dation and cultivated
necessarily imply abuse of the supposedly inferior. ferocity, courage, and virility, even among pets and farm
Nazi ideology made three postulates: animals. The Nazis even tried to purge "Jewish" oxen
and dogs?not those owned by Jews but those manifest-
( 1 ) Not all humans could find happiness and fulfillment
ing "inferior" traits rhetorically associated with Jews.
in the world. One race had to enslave, expel, and
Once denounced, these racially incorrect animals,
exterminate other ethnic groups in order to survive
some of them anyway, were sterilized or even shot.75
and flourish.
Nazism stood out against most ? maybe all ?
(2) Since only one race could find happiness on earth, it
ideologies, faiths, and systems of ethics for it explicitly
should be the best of all races.
rejected the idea of justice, reducing relationships of
(3) The best of all races was the Aryan race.
justice to relationships of power. Nazis found the
Postulates (2) and (3) were racist, obviously, but distinction berween strong and weak more relevant

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 Speciesism as a precondition to justice

morally than the distinction between morally sociable bodies,78, 79 objects of our affection,80 and so forth.
and morally nonsociable. Brutti qualifies as such an object in the sense of being
The life of animals is open to becoming predator or immune to consumption merely for another's personal
prey, superior or inferior. I contend that the fundamen- fulfillment, assuming principles of justice hold.
tal ethos of human morals is the rejection of predatory The reader may be reminded that Brutti is a concep-
relationships, of openness to extinction and of similar tual creature, but some philosophers think the pro-
cosmic or Darwinian processes within our society.76 foundly retarded, irreversibly comatose, and other
Justice is the rejection of the Darwinian pecking order "marginal humans" are M-negative and, thus, Brutti.
in human society. Note that the rejection here is not Terms such as "marginal humans" or "nested commu-
of evolutionary theory. Evolution and justice simply nities" in which proximity to "the center" grants higher
operate on different scales and in different dimensions. moral standing81, 82 are free from speciesism, but they
smack of "normalism." Moral sociability requires no
Care for humans positive attributes that can make up such a scale.
Sociability requires only the absence of certain forms of
Our profound repulsion from the very idea of wellbeing and of ecological dispositions. Sociability is
"canned moron meat" conveys moral sensibilities based on negative reciprocity, on attitudes members do
beyond the technicalities of justice. We care about not have towards each other. Consequently, this
Brutti. One of the meanings of the word "care" is apparently pejorative term "marginal" is completely
"charge, oversight, a view of protection and preserva- misplaced. Brutti is morally sociable. His or her
tion" (Oxford English Dictionary, second edition). In sociability is not peripheral or residual. Rather, so-
this sense, "care" implies the possibility of loss or called "marginal humans," such as the profoundly
destruction and the impossibility of caring for some- retarded and the demented, exemplify innocence. They
thing that cannot be lost or destroyed. Saying that A do not share human vice and malice.
does not care about ? means either (1) ? is indestruc- Since Brutti is not morally considerable, we do not
tible77 or (2) A is indifferent to the fate of B. have an El duty to include it within our system of justice.
Option (1) is inapplicable to Brutti. Option (2) means However, membership in a community is not a sortal
that indifference to Brutti exemplifies indifference to issue, but a practical one. Brutti belongs to the society of
harming human life. All we know about Brutti is that justice as a matter of fact. It is human. We can conceive of
Brutti is (1) human and (2) M-negative. Non-speciesism a human-free ecosystem of lambs and lions, but we
dictates that (1) is completely contingent with regard to cannot conceive of Brutti in a human-free ecosystem.
(2). Therefore, (2) positions Brutti on neutral ground. Brutti is morally sociable even though not morally
Brutti has no moral standing, but neither is it objection- considerable. If we believe that moral sociability always
able. If being human does not carry with it M, a state of carries with it moral considerability, Brutti is an
M-negativity cannot erode a creature's human status. illogical concept.
All we know of Brutti is its M-negativity and its
humanity. If M-negativity cannot justify carelessness Care for the natural world and a weak
or malice, then a careless or malicious attitude towards
version of justice
Brutti is simply misanthropic.
Since we know that Brutti is human, it is of little We care for the natural world, and we deeply care for
wonder that we care and love Brutti; that we identify many animals as well. Our sense of care posits us
ourselves with it; that when Brutti is abused, we feel as against destruction. All things being equal, we would
if we were personally ill-treated as well. opt for preservation, construction, and pleasure.
We do not love every human being. Maybe we We may express our care for animals by formulating
should, but we do not. When we do not love people we the morality of treating R-Anonymi in terms of agent-
know well, we may have reasons to hate, fear, or despise dependent (E2), rather than recipient-dependent (El),
them. We do never hate, fear, or despise people merely ethics. We might say, for example, that a virtuous dis-
because they are human. position does not permit the abuse of R-Anonymi. We
We identify with what we care about: our own would not exploit R-Anonymi without good reasons or

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 Barilan

even without exceptionally good reasons. The destruc- (2) a worse fate than those animals would have met,
tion and loss incurred by scientific experiments, factory had humans not acted at all; or
farming, bull fighting, and the like would have to be (3) no change in wellbeing.
balanced against their benefits. We might feel obliged to
Our sense of justice finds only the second option
subsist on the simplest possible forms of life and satisfy
our needs always by the least destructive means atobjectionable. Indeed, as long as we treat an animal at
hand.83, 84 We might also express our care for the least as well as nonhuman nature does, we are not likely
natural world by desiring less ruinous life plans or even to do it wrong. Moreover, trying to improve the natural
by developing life plans centered on unbounded lot of animals by means of ethics seems to bring about
benevolence, humility, and pity. absurdity rather than justice.
All this being said and done, R-Anonymi still leaves The "Great Ape Project" (GAP), which is arguably
us in a quandary. On the one hand we feel a duty to the most ambitious animal-rights effort extant, demon-
respect the moral considerability entailed by M. On the strates this point ? as well as the moral unsociability of
other hand, we find any attempts to do so frustrated even the most "human-like" animals. GAP campaigns
by the problem of sociability. for sanctuaries "where the needs, interests and rights of
I think it is possible partially to resolve the dilemma the apes come first."86 This vision implicitly admits to
by making a case for a weak contractarian-like justice our inability to mix morally with apes. The project
that will encompass R-Anonymi. Possibly this is what actually protects individual apes only from humanity,
Callicott refers to as an "evolved and unspoken social not from each other, not even from disease, whereas
contract between man and beast."85 a truly recipient-dependent justice (El) would be blind
The "unspoken" contract would decree that we shall to the sources of misfortune. Besides, GAP does not
never exceed nature's ambit of pain and suffering; we reckon with the welfare of other life forms, which the
shall not visit R-Anonymi with levels of destruction and apes might abuse in the sanctuary or which might be
suffering that reach beyond the fate of R-Anonymi in disadvantaged by GAP on the apes' behalf. GAP is
a human-free nature. a speciesist project whose benefactors are apes, who
Thus excluded on grounds of injustice would be are believed to be human-like. Ironically, if, indeed,
factory farming systematically and irremediably frus- proximity to being human is measured on a scale of
trating natural animal behavior; genetic manipulations moral sociability rather than on that of intelligence or
much more radical than naturally occurring mutations;physical characteristics, apes are not the most "human-
disfiguring and unusually painful experiments; and like" animals.
grandiose projects altering whole ecosystems, along Advocates of GAP compare it to antislavery move-
with the lives of creatures therein contained. Consump- ments.87 But the latter sought to bring about some mea-
tion as food, experimentation no worse than falling sure of assimilation of freed slaves into an improved
prey to predators or succumbing to another natural human society. And, similarly, the civil-rights move-
calamity, and gradual alteration of habitat or genetic ment in the United States and the anti-Apartheid move-
make-up??these may be taken as human-made imi-ment in South Africa sought to end the segregation of
tations of natural processes and as criteria limiting our humans into racially separate societies. GAP could not
action. E2 attitudes?stewardship, cruelty avoidance, help separating ape society from human society.
mercy, love? would set the actual limit higher still. The realization of individual moral rights is de-
We realize that some actions that befall R-Anonymi pendent on artificial constructs of civilization such as
are unjust qua its M. In the absence of a coherent and healthcare and police. But GAP does not campaign for
consistent way of formulating justice for R-Anonymi, establishing oncological services in the jungle in the
we cannot tell which action is just and which is not. benefit of apes sick with cancer, and it is explicitly
We may say, however, that any of our actions leads the opposed to "policing" wild animals. Is it better for
animals involved to one of three possible outcomes: a gorilla to go about with untreated cancer or to be
moved to a modern hospital? Is it better for a chimpan-
(1) a better fate than those animals would have met, zee to be sexually molested by a superior or to live on its
had humans not acted at all; own in a psychology lab? We have no answers. We,

30 Politics and the Life Sciences ? 3 March 2005 ? vol. 23, no. i

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 Speciesism as a precondition to justice

humans, no matter how well intentioned, do not know one. Plainly, the sheep and the wolf are not agreed upon
how to incorporate animals into a rational system of a definition of the word liberty.92
justice.88 This is one more reason why the weak
This paper has focused on the relationship between
contract I propose is "unspoken"; it cannot be clearly
a community of moral persons ("us") and nonperson
articulated. The only justice-like gesture we can render
candidate-claimants for moral rights and justice. I have
animals is "simply to leave them alone,"89, ? to provide
not asked directly whether the community of justice can
them with sanctuaries where they can prey on each
be left or whether it can expel a member from its midst,
other to the beat of the blind watchmaker of the
as ancient Greek communities could do by pronouncing
evolution. Therefore, Steinbock advocates granting
atymia, complete and irreversible banishment. Nor
animals a "separate but not equal status."91
have I explored the possibility of dividing all morally
Coming back to my notion of a "weak justice"
sociable creatures into separate and even alienated
based on a "silent contract," we humans are its only
communities of justice, thus constructing a "tribal
agents and it accepts no explicit responsibility and
morality."93 A weaker version of the same question
promises no direct action. It calls upon us to stay aside
inquires into the possibility of a "limited right of
or to act as if we were an absent presence in the animal
closure" within the human race in general.
kingdom, as human action would seamlessly merge
The reader might have guessed by now that I believe
with the natural lot of animals. We are far less
the answer to those question is no, but this topic must
positively committed to apes than to people, be much
left for further work.
less willing to leave people to the mercy of natural
forces and not at all interested in making them feel as if
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