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Speciesism: Ethics, Law, and Policy | 531 forms For example, speciesist attitudes promote justifications that even the minor interests of humans, such as cosmetic appearance, recreation, or convenience, outweigh the major interests of other animals, such as keeping their lives, and remaining free from captivity and experimentation This is one reason that even though many people feel that it is immoral for humans to be cruel to other animals, severe cruelties and deprivations are nonetheless tolerated in many industrial practices, such as factory farming, slaughterhouses, circuses, and even zoos Captivity and its deprivations and cruelties are often rationalized as acceptable because some humans own and generate income from harsh uses of particular nonhuman animals or because our society as a whole still goes forward on the belief that public exhibition of captive animals is educational in some way or another When such reasoning prevails, the minor interests of the humans involved, namely making money, or enjoying the limited educational benefits that captivity might offer, prevail over the major interests of the captive nonhumans Overriding the interests of other animals has traditionally been supported by assertions that other animals exist for humans Aristotle made such a claim (Politics, Book I, Section 8) in the fourth century bce, and three centuries later Cicero made similar human-centered or anthropocentric claims (De Natura Deorum, II, p 14) Such claims are still made in great earnestness not only by the food production and entertainment industries, but also by some religious institutions For example, the revised 1994 Catholic Catechism claimed, “Animals, like plants and inanimate things, are by nature destined for the common good of past, present and future humanity.” (Paragraph 2415) There are, however, many in religious circles who, following the lead of exemplary figures like Francis of Assisi or Albert Schweitzer, dispute claims that other animals are by nature destined for our use Asserting that humans have a moral obligation to other living beings, many have challenged justifications that invoke speciesist reasoning, that is, that humans deserve the privilege of using other animals merely by virtue of being members of the human species Such challenges question justifications which assume that there is no moral problem when basic moral or legal protections, such as the protection of life, liberty, and freedom from intentional infliction of avoidable harm, are denied to any and all nonhumans The exclusions that speciesist claims require are sometimes framed as morally justified because the focus is solely on the human side of the issue Inclusion of all humans is, of course, a highly respected position today, especially because everyone is painfully aware that there have been long stretches of human history in which exclusion of many humans was not only tolerated, but even promoted as morally acceptable But speciesist attitudes entail more than an affirmation of all humans because, by definition, they also require the all-important exclusion of any and all nonhumans from moral and legal protections whenever doing so benefits humans in even a minor way Exclusion is as fully a core feature of speciesism as is the inclusivist feature that honors humans It is precisely this exclusion, not the inclusion of all humans, which is the target of anti-speciesism advocates Such challenges focus on ways in which it is unfair to exclude all other animals solely because those other beings are not members of the human species Challenges to
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