Throughout history humanity has struggled with various forms of unjust discrimination – racism, sexism, ageism, classism, ableism, homophobism etc. In the struggle to overcome these prejudices we have invoked the ideal that all human beings are equal by nature of being human. This is a lofty and attractive ideal employed by many religious and civil rights leaders.
Yet this ideal falls short in helping us overcome a new type of prejudice known as speciesism – the discrimination of one species by another species (i.e. human discrimination on animals). Speciesism assumes that all species have rights; but on what basis do they have rights? To tackle speciesism we need a new standard for rights. Secular philosophers have already taken on the task. Peter Singer, the eminent bioethics professor at Princeton, claims the standard for rights is a combination of sentience, self-awareness and rationality; sounds good except this invites a whole host of new problems.
By adopting this new progressive standard we diminish the old standard of equality. If rights are granted on the basis of sentience instead of humanity than the handicapped, the elderly, and the newborn are losing rights. Sure enough Peter Singer has argued that certain animals have a higher moral position than infants. Furthermore Singer has defended the right for parents to euthanize their infants. Is this a slippery slope of ethics we are approaching? Can you imagine how Helen Keller would respond? Yikes.
In the insatiable quest for progress let’s be careful to not progress humanity off a cliff. In fact why don’t we leave humanity on the pedestal for now. And if we discover aliens – we can revisit the standard.
Sublime Thoughts 