I don’t buy the argument that we only favour humans because of ‘speciesism.’ There’s a qualitative difference between humans and other animals and that difference is due to language. Consider:
A doctor tells you that he’s going to do something that will cause you pain but that the pain will pass and it will improve your health.
You’re locked in a room and told you’ll never be allowed to leave. You’re told that your family will be killed and there’s nothing you can do to stop it.
These scenarios are not available to other animals because they don’t have language. The quality and type of suffering in each scenario is dependent on what is said. We can’t reassure an animal that a pain will be short or for its own good but equally we can’t convince it that a pain will be prolonged or inform it of a harm that is not immediately apparent. These distinctions are simply not available to non-human animals. Morally, they are therefore in a qualitatively separate category from us.
There’s a qualitative difference between humans and other animals and that difference is due to language.
It isn’t due to language. The difference you describe is based on imagination and the ability to understand future consequences. We wouldn’t consider a moral difference between those examples and cases where the subject was able to arrive at the same understanding based off observation, reasoning or memories of past experiences. Language is relevant in only in as much as it is one of the ways that people can arrive at the models of reality and understanding of the future that we consider important.
I don’t buy the argument that we only favour humans because of ‘speciesism.’ There’s a qualitative difference between humans and other animals and that difference is due to language. Consider:
A doctor tells you that he’s going to do something that will cause you pain but that the pain will pass and it will improve your health.
You’re locked in a room and told you’ll never be allowed to leave. You’re told that your family will be killed and there’s nothing you can do to stop it.
These scenarios are not available to other animals because they don’t have language. The quality and type of suffering in each scenario is dependent on what is said. We can’t reassure an animal that a pain will be short or for its own good but equally we can’t convince it that a pain will be prolonged or inform it of a harm that is not immediately apparent. These distinctions are simply not available to non-human animals. Morally, they are therefore in a qualitatively separate category from us.
It isn’t due to language. The difference you describe is based on imagination and the ability to understand future consequences. We wouldn’t consider a moral difference between those examples and cases where the subject was able to arrive at the same understanding based off observation, reasoning or memories of past experiences. Language is relevant in only in as much as it is one of the ways that people can arrive at the models of reality and understanding of the future that we consider important.