Speciesism and basic moral principles

Abstract

Speciesism is the view that the species to which an individual belongs can be morally significant in itself, either because there are basic moral principles that involve reference to some particular species–such as Homo sapiens–or because there are basic moral principles that involve the general concept of belonging to a species. In this paper I argue that speciesism is false, and that basic moral principles, rather than being formulated in terms of biological categories, should be formulated instead in terms of psychological properties and relations.