Differences are not deficiencies

Moral consideration

In many situations in which we act we try to make sure our actions don’t harm others, or are actually beneficial to them. This means that we are taking others into account. We consider how they would be affected by our actions. This is moral consideration.  Moral consideration has to do both with other individuals [...]

Discrimination

Those with discriminatory attitudes think about others not as who they are but as what they are not. Many people have prejudices against other individuals. These prejudices lead them to treat those they have prejudices against worse than they would treat other individuals whom they don’t have prejudices against. We recognize these as cases of [...]

A Class Divided

In 1968, 3rd grade teacher Jane Elliott taught her students about discrimination by dividing them into two groups by eye color. On the first day, the blue eyed students were treated as if they were superior and were encouraged to discriminate against the brown eyed students. On the second day, they switched places. The experiment [...]

Animals as Resources

An activist on trial in Hawaii for rescuing and releasing dolphins who were in captivity tried to defend himself by claiming that he committed the lesser crime of “stealing” the dolphins in order to prevent the greater crime of animal cruelty. The judge laughed at his defense and pointed out that theft is a felony [...]

What is speciesism?

The term speciesism was first used in the 1970′s to describe discrimination against nonhuman animals. Many different definitions have been proposed since then. Speciesism is complex, and it can be useful to look at it from different perspectives — psychological, philosophical, and sociological. Discrimination is based on judging others not for who they are but for what they [...]