Encyclopedia of animal rights and animal 570

Speciesism | 527 ture shared by most is any real defect Realizing this may have moral as well as scientific benefits; we no longer need to think that unusual specimens are defective On the contrary, diversity within a population is an evolutionary advantage Some groups, closed off from others, will be highly uniform, others will not, yet the differences not grow into true species differences unless the group happens to split up Sometimes one species will turn into two only because some crucial, intermediate population has perished, without any change in any other population It is not even entirely true that genetic information cannot pass between real species Occasional hybrids aside, viral infection transfers genetic material New species are also formed by symbiosis, collaboration between organisms originally of very different species With respect to the human species, it turns out not to be a natural kind; it is just the relevant set of interbreeding populations There may have been and there may yet be more than one such human species What the individuals concerned were or will be like, and what our duties might be toward them, cannot be settled by deciding on their species See also Evolutionary Continuity Further Reading Clark, S.R.L 1994 Is humanity a natural kind? In T Ingold, ed., What is an animal? London: Routledge, Douglas, Mary 1973 Natural symbols Harmondsworth: Penguin Ellis, Brian Scientific essentialism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 2007) Gotthelf, A., and Lennox, J G., eds 1987 Philosophical issues in Aristotle’s biology Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Margulis, Lynn 2002 Acquiring genomes: A theory of the origins of species New York: Perseus Books Mayr, Ernst 1963 Animal species and evolution Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press Oderberg, David 2007 Real essentialism London: Routledge Sober, Elliott 1994 From a biological point of view Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Stephen R L Clark SPECIESISM The term speciesism was first coined by Richard Ryder in 1970 In 1985, the Oxford English Dictionary defined speciesism as “discrimination against or exploitation of certain animal species by human beings, based on an assumption of mankind’s superiority.” This definition marked the official acceptance of speciesism into the language Peter Singer did much to establish its use Speciesism became a useful campaigning term from 1970 onwards Ryder was a member of the Oxford Group of antispeciesist thinkers of the period, which included Ros and Stanley Godlovitch, John Harris, Andrew Linzey and, a little later, Peter Singer and Stephen Clark The term first appeared in Ryder’s leaflets and then in Godlovitch and Harris’s seminal Animals, Men and Morals (1971), to which Ryder contributed a chapter Ryder turned down Singer’s invitation to coauthor Animal Liberation, which emerged in 1975, but the term was employed here by Singer Ryder helped popularize the term on British radio and television, arguing that treating the suffering of different species equally follows logically from Darwinism Richard Dawkins, too, in his classic The Selfish Gene (1976), used the term speciesism in supporting those who campaign for animals The RSPCA’s Declaration Against Speciesism was signed by 150 delegates at