Speciesism and tribalism: embarrassing origins

Jaquet, François

doi:10.1007/s11098-021-01700-6

Cited by 9 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 84 publications

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“…We cannot rule out a priori the possibility that tribalism allows us to know what we owe to nonhuman animals. Nonetheless, there are two main reasons to doubt it (Jaquet, 2022). First, as mentioned earlier, tribalism seems to be a product of human evolution: not only does its emergence make perfect sense over a period of 500 to 1000 centuries during which our ancestors lived in tribes; more than that, just like other adaptations, tribalism is a universal trait that is present even in young children.…”

Section: Speciesism and Tribalismmentioning

confidence: 99%

Against Moorean Defences of Speciesism

Jaquet¹

2023

Experiments in Moral and Political Philosophy

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In a central variant, moral fictionalism is the view that we should replace our moral beliefs with make-beliefs, that is, be disposed to accept some moral propositions in everyday contexts and to reject all such propositions in more critical circumstances. It is said by its opponents to face three significant problems: in contrast with a real morality, a fictional morality would not allow for deductive inferences; moral make-beliefs would lack the motivational force that is typical of moral beliefs; and moral make-believers could not genuinely disagree with one another about ethical matters nor, consequently, articulate their practical conflicts in moral terms. This chapter argues that all three objections rest on a misconception of the kind of attitudes recommended by fictionalism. Once misleading analogies are dismissed and the nature of moral make-beliefs is clarified, it becomes clear that a fictional morality would preserve deductive inference, moral motivation, and ethical disagreement. Some philosophical issues are fairly remote from the concerns of ordinary people-few non-philosophers have an opinion on the existence of universals, a conception of numbers, or an account of personal identity. On other topics, however, laypeople have philosophical beliefs, to which they are sometimes deeply attached. And these beliefs happen to clash with views that are dominant among professional philosophers. A case in point is the moral status of animals. The common-sense view on this issue is that animals count less than humanssince this view is analogous to the racist claim that people of colour count less than white people, we can call it "speciesism." 1 While speciesism is popular among laypeople, many animal ethicists reject it. Not that these philosophers agree in all other respects: some think that certain humans count less than others (e.g. McMahan, 2002), while others believe that certain animals count as much as all 1 This is roughly how the term is defined by Peter Singer, who popularized it in his book Animal Liberation (1975). A more accurate definition would allow for nonanthropocentric forms of speciesism-one suggestion along these lines is to define speciesism as discrimination according to species (Horta, 2010). As I am going to focus on anthropocentric speciesism in what follows, I will stick to Singer's notion for the sake of presentation.

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Section: Speciesism and Tribalismmentioning

confidence: 99%

Against Moorean Defences of Speciesism

Jaquet¹

2023

Experiments in Moral and Political Philosophy

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“…A simple hypothesis to explain academic anthropocentrism is the bias we may have as humans. Indeed, we naturally have a bias in favour of our own species, and this may explain common speciesism and biased moral intuitions (Jacquet, 2021). In common thinking and colloquial discussions, we tend to keep our species distinctly separate from others, for instance, in our day-to-day language.…”

Section: Anthropocentrism In Academiamentioning

confidence: 99%

The Dasgupta Review and the Problem of Anthropocentrism

Treich

2022

Environ Resource Econ

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As is customary in economics, the Dasgupta Review on the economics of biodiversity adopts an anthropocentric approach: that is, among the millions of species on Earth, the Review accords a moral value to only one species; ours. Building on the literature in ethics, I explain why it is morally problematic to assume that other species -at least, sentient animals -only have an instrumental value for humans. The Review defends its approach, but I advance counter arguments. I highlight that preserving the diversity of life in ecosystems is not the same as taking care of the wellbeing of sentient species living in those ecosystems. Some biodiversity policies, such as protecting the blue whale or reducing meat consumption, largely satisfy both anthropocentric and non-anthropocentric objectives. Other policies, such as the reintroduction of wolves or the eradication of invasive species, induce conflicts between these objectives. I finally discuss why the anthropocentric view remains prevalent in the research on biodiversity and present some potential non-anthropocentric research directions

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Barriers to Achieving Invertebrate Justice

Durrant

2024

Invertebrate Justice

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Speciesism and tribalism: embarrassing origins

Cited by 9 publications

References 84 publications

Against Moorean Defences of Speciesism

Against Moorean Defences of Speciesism

The Dasgupta Review and the Problem of Anthropocentrism

Barriers to Achieving Invertebrate Justice

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