Are All Species Equal?

ARE ALL SPECIES EQUAL? 1 DAVID SCHMIDTZ and DAN C. SHAHAR

I. PAYING OUR RESPECTS Academic philosophy encourages authors to craft the kind of responses to critics that are so combative that they amount to an implicit claim that the author has little to learn from critics. Whatever the intent, the actual effect is to encourage readers to think readers have nothing to learn from the author. It is not easy to get past this. Still, it must be said, Paul Taylor’s responses to his critics, and to me in particular, were models of graciousness. Taylor (1923-2015) was encouraging, insightful, and helpful. He was willing to reflect in a nondefensive way about the philosophy, ideas, and attitudes underlying the passages in his work to which I was responding. When Taylor defended, he defended the ideas, not the passages. (And to be clear, Taylor was a marine from 1943 to 1946. In debate or anywhere else, he was no pushover! He was simply a gentleman of consummate grace.) He had the right idea. He was still learning, and by example still teaching. Taylor’s main idea was the idea of species egalitarianism, that is, that all living things have equal moral standing. To have moral standing is, at a minimum, to command respect, to be more than a mere thing.2 Is there reason to believe that all living things have moral standing in even this most minimal sense? If so—that is, if all living things command respect—is there reason to believe they all command equal respect? The first part of this essay is a rethinking of Schmidtz (1998). The second part is co- authored by Shahar and Schmidtz. In the first part, I (Schmidtz, that is) explain why members of other species command our respect but also why they do not command equal respect. The intuition that we should have respect for nature is one motive for embracing species egalitarianism, but we need not be species egalitarians to have respect for nature. I question whether species egalitarianism is even compatible with respect for nature. There is something right in the idea of species egalitarianism, but something wrong with the idea as so far presented and marketed. Taken literally, the words—the philosophical propositions—may not be defensible, but the attitude is. 5/29/18 Species Equality 2

II. RESPECT FOR NATURE According to Paul Taylor, anthropocentrism “gives either exclusive or primary consideration to human interests above the good of other species.”3 The alternative to anthropocentrism is biocentrism, and it is biocentrism that, in Taylor’s view, grounds species egalitarianism: Four beliefs form the core of Taylor’s biocentrism:

(a) Humans are members of the Earth’s community of life in the same sense and on the same terms in which other living things are members of that community. (b) All species, including humans, are integral parts of a system of interdependence. (c) All organisms are teleological centers of life. Each is a unique individual pursuing its own good in its own way. (d) Humans are not inherently superior to other living beings.4

Taylor concludes, “Rejecting the notion of human superiority entails its positive counterpart: the doctrine of species impartiality. One who accepts that doctrine regards all living things as possessing inherent worth—the same inherent worth, since no one species has been shown to be either higher or lower than any other.”5 Taylor does not call this a valid argument (he acknowledges that it is not), but he thinks that if we concede (a), (b), and (c), it would intuitively be unreasonable not to move to (d), and then to his egalitarian conclusion. Is Taylor right? For those who accept Taylor’s three premises, and who thus interpret those premises in terms innocuous enough to render them acceptable, there are two responses. First, we may go on to accept (d), following Taylor, yet deny that there is any warrant for moving from there to Taylor’s egalitarian conclusion. Having accepted that our form of life is not superior, we might instead regard it as inferior. More seriously, we might view our form of life as noncomparable. The question of how we compare to nonhumans has a simple (and plausible: stop and think about it) answer: we don’t. We are not equal. We are not superior. We are not inferior. We are simply different. Alternatively, we may reject (d) and say that humans are inherently superior, but then go on to say that our superiority is a moot point. Whether we are inherently superior —that is, superior as a form of life—does not matter much. (Personally, I think this comes closest to the intuitive heart of Taylor’s actual position.) Even if we are superior, the fact 5/29/18 Species Equality 3 remains that within the web of ecological interdependence mentioned in premises (a) and (b), it would be a mistake to ignore the needs and the telos of any species referred to in premise (c). Thus, there are two ways of rejecting Taylor’s argument for species egalitarianism. Neither alternative is committed to species equality, yet each, on its face, is compatible with the respect for nature that motivates the intuitive core of Taylor’s egalitarianism in the first place. These are preliminary worries about Taylor’s argument. Taylor’s critics have been harsh, perhaps overly harsh. After building on some of their criticisms and rejecting others, I explore some of our reasons to have respect for nature and ask whether they translate into reasons to be species egalitarians. I conclude that Taylor’s biocentrism has a point, but that biocentrism does not underwrite species egalitarianism.6

III. IS SPECIES EGALITARIANISM HYPOCRITICAL? Taylor is among the most intransigent of species egalitarians, yet he allows that human needs override the needs of nonhumans. In response, Peter French argues that species egalitarians cannot have it both ways. French perceives a contradiction between the egalitarian principles that Taylor officially endorses and the unofficial principles Taylor offers as the real principles by which we should live. Having proclaimed that we are all equal, French asks, what licenses Taylor to say that, in cases of conflict, nonhuman interests can legitimately be sacrificed to vital human interests?7 Good question. Yet, somehow Taylor’s alleged inconsistency is too obvious. Perhaps Taylor’s position is not as blatantly inconsistent as it appears. Taylor could respond as follows: Suppose I find myself in a situation of mortal combat with an enemy soldier. If I kill my enemy to save my life, that does not entail that I regard my enemy as an inferior form of life. Likewise, if I kill a bear to save my life, that does not entail that I regard the bear as inherently inferior. Therefore, Taylor can, without hypocrisy, deny that species egalitarianism requires a radically self-effacing pacifism. (Again, for whatever it is worth, Taylor in his personal life was a warrior. None of the doubts some skeptics might harbor about pacifists have the remotest relevance to Taylor as a human being.) What, then, does species egalitarianism require? It requires us to avoid mortal combat whenever we can, not only with other humans but with living things in general. On this view, we ought to regret finding ourselves in kill-or-be-killed situations that we could have avoided. There is no point in regretting the fact that we must kill in order to eat, 5/29/18 Species Equality 4 though, for there is no avoiding that. Species egalitarianism is compatible with our having a limited license to kill. Many, including vegetarians, will say that it matters what we kill, and that even if we must kill to eat, we need not kill animals. Most vegetarians think it is worse to kill a cow than to kill a carrot. Are they wrong? Yes they are, according to species egalitarianism. Therein lies egalitarianism’s failure to respect nature. Egalitarianism, right or wrong, is a uniquely human construct that we choose to impose on nature. Nature is not egalitarian. The species that nature produces are not produced as equals.8 I agree with Taylor that we have reason to respect nature, but if we treat a chimpanzee no better than we would treat a carrot, that is a failure of respect, not a token of it.9 Failing to respect what makes living things different is not a way of respecting them. It is instead a way of being indiscriminate.

IV. IS SPECIES EGALITARIANISM ARBITRARY? According to premise (c) of Taylor’s argument for the biocentric outlook, as discussed in section I, a being has intrinsic worth if it has a good of its own. Taylor notes that even plants have a good of their own in the relevant sense. They seek their own good in their own way. Taylor defines anthropocentrism as giving exclusive or primary consideration to human interests above the good of other species. So, if we acknowledge that the ability to think is a valuable capacity and if we further acknowledge that some but not all living things possess this capacity, are we giving exclusive or primary consideration to human interests? Not at all. All we are doing is avoiding dogmatism. When aiming to avoid dogmatism, we entertain various ways in which living things could be valuable. We acknowledge that many living things, including humans, can be valuable in various ways, and that some living things may be more valuable than humans along some dimensions. We acknowledge that not all living things are equal along all dimensions. Some are faster, some are smarter, and so on. We consider the possibility that all values are commensurable. (If they are not commensurable, then neither can they be equal.) We note that if all values are commensurable, then in principle we can add up the values of all living things along all dimensions. If we do this, it might turn out that all living things have equal value. But that would be quite a fluke. If biocentrism ignores the fact that not all living things are equal along all dimensions (they aren’t equally able to think, for example), and resolves to attribute positive value only along dimensions where all living things come out equal, then 5/29/18 Species Equality 5 biocentrism is at least as arbitrary and as question-begging as biocentrists sometimes accuse anthropocentrism of being. It will not do to defend species egalitarianism by singling out a property that all living things possess, arguing that this property is morally important, then concluding that all living things are therefore of equal moral importance. Why not? Because where one property such as simply being alive provides a basis for moral standing, there might be others. Other properties such as sentience might be possessed by some but not all living things, and might provide bases for different kinds or degrees of moral standing. A Telling Concession Taylor realizes that not all living things can think, and never denies that the capacity for thought is valuable. What he would say is that it begs the question to rank the ability to think as more valuable than the characteristic traits of plants and other animals. Taylor assumes that human rationality is on a par with, for example, a cheetah’s foot-speed: no less valuable, but no more valuable either.10 In this case, though, perhaps it is Taylor who begs the question. The difference between the foot-speed of chimpanzees and cheetahs is arguably a difference of degree, while the difference between the intelligence of a chimpanzee and the intelligence of a carrot is arguably a difference in kind. Chimpanzees are very smart. Carrots, in contrast, are not merely a lot less smart. Carrots are not smart at all. They do not even make it into the same category. Here, though, is the more telling point. Let us concede to Taylor that the good associated with the ability to think is not superior to the good associated with a tree’s ability to grow and reproduce. The more telling point is: it doesn’t matter. Suppose we let a be the good of being able to grow and reproduce, let b be the good of sentience, and let c be the good of being rational. Contra Taylor, anthropocentrists need not assume that c has a higher value than a. All they need assume is that the value of a + c is higher than the value of a by itself. No matter how much value we accord the ability to grow and reproduce, the fact would remain that chimpanzees have what trees have, plus more. One valid response: it is a little odd to treat properties of living things as if a property called “able to grow and reproduce” were manifested in an identical way by all living things, or as if a property called “able to run” were manifested in an identical way by all animals that run, and so on. In truth, not all a’s are equal. Acknowledging this fact does not even begin to help the case for species equality, but it does complicate things. Perhaps 5/29/18 Species Equality 6 the vegetative good of a tree is greater than the vegetative good of chimpanzees. Conceivably, the additional animal good of chimpanzees exactly suffices to balance the vegetative superiority of trees. Although this response is interesting in its own right, I think it is unavailable to biocentric egalitarians such as Taylor. Taylor says that all living thing are equal in the sense that they all have lives of their own.11 As soon as Taylor acknowledges that there are other dimensions of value, he has to choose. On the one hand, he can arbitrarily assign different values to each living thing’s a so as to preserve an overall equality: atree = aanimal+b = ahuman+b+c. Alternatively, and more plausibly, Taylor can and should concede that equality is not the issue. It never was. There is a real issue, and there always was, but the real issue is this: Wouldn’t the world be a better place if we stopped thinking of ourselves as superior, and acknowledged that we live in a world of value extending far beyond the human realm? The plea implicit in this question is the intuition that drives biocentrism—nothing more, nothing less. This intuition is best grounded not in some tortured argument that everything is equal, but rather in the simple and plausible thought that the goods of trees and chimpanzees (and humans) are not comparable. They each have goods of their own, and their goods are incomparable. Period. In short, although both trees and chimpanzees are teleological centers of life, and we can agree that this status is valuable and that trees and chimpanzees share equally in this particular value, we cannot infer that trees and chimpanzees have equal value. We are entitled to conclude only that they are of equal value so far as being a teleological center of life is concerned. From that, we may infer that one alleged ground of our moral standing (that we grow and reproduce) is shared by all living things. Beyond that, nothing about equality even suggests itself. It begs no questions to notice that there are grounds for moral standing that humans do not share with all living things.

V. SPECIESISM AND SOCIAL POLICY Peter Singer and others talk as if speciesism—the idea that some species are superior to others—is necessarily a kind of bias in favor of humans and against nonhuman animals. (Singer has no problem with being “biased” against plants.) Not so. If we have more respect for chimpanzees than for mice, then we are speciesists, no matter what status we 5/29/18 Species Equality 7 accord to human beings.12 A speciesist is taking no stance with regard to humanity when she says to an egalitarian, we should respect chimpanzees more than we respect mice, shouldn’t we? Or if not, shouldn’t we at least respect chimpanzees more than carrots? Suppose we take an interest in how the moral standing of chimpanzees compares to that of mice and wonder what we would do in an emergency where we could save a drowning chimpanzee or a drowning mouse but not both. More practically and more realistically, suppose we conclude that we must do experiments involving animals. Perhaps animal experiments are the key to curing an otherwise catastrophic disease, in which case we have to choose which animals. Whichever we use, the animals we use will die. We decide to use mice. Then a species egalitarian says, “Why not use chimpanzees? They’re all the same anyway, morally speaking, and you’ll get more reliable data.” Would that sort of egalitarianism be monstrous? I think so. But suppose we believe all living things are equal, or only that all animals are equal. In that case, why not use the chimpanzee instead of the mouse? If chimpanzees are, morally speaking, the wrong kind of animal to experiment on when mice would serve nearly as well, then speciesism is to that extent closer to the moral truth than is species egalitarianism. In philosophy, we favor science fiction examples, but the situation just described is an everyday trade-off in the scientific community. Suppose researchers must choose between harvesting the organs of a chimpanzee or a severely brain-damaged human baby. Peter Singer says we cannot have it both ways. Singer says that if the ability to think is what alone makes the difference, then the brain-damaged infant commands no more respect than a chimpanzee, and should indeed command less. Singer concludes that if we need to use one or the other in a painful or lethal medical experiment, and if it does not matter which one we use so far as the experiment is concerned, then we ought to use the brain-damaged child, not the chimpanzee.13 It was Singer who popularized the term “speciesism,” using it to stigmatize those who would give priority to humanity by likening them to racists and sexists, but in truth Singer does not reject speciesism. Instead, he rejects what he deems the wrong kind of speciesism. If we were to claim that the rightness of eating beef has to be settled individual cow by individual cow, Singer would say cows are the wrong kind of thing for us to be eating, and that we need a policy governing our exploitation of cows as a species. He would say it should not be up to individual consumers to decide on a case by case basis 5/29/18 Species Equality 8 whether the cow they want to eat is sentient or brain-dead, or whether the benefits of eating this particular cow exceed the costs. Singer allows that the benefits sometimes do exceed the costs, but he would still favor laws governing how we treat cows in general. Again, Singer would insist that researchers cannot be trusted to decide on a case by case basis whether to use mice or chimpanzees or defective people in their experiments, when turnips would do just as well. Likewise, Singer wants to insist that individual consumers should not decide on a case by case basis whether to eat cows or turnips— rather, they ought to quit eating cows, period. In the medical research policy area, we rightly ignore Singer’s point (as would Singer himself) that some animals are smarter than some people, and instead formulate policy on the basis of characteristic features of species. We do not need to compare individual chimpanzees and fruit flies on a case by case basis in order to have a moral justification for prohibiting the use of chimpanzees in experiments. Some chimpanzees lack characteristic features in virtue of which chimpanzees command respect as a species, just as some humans do. For example, some humans are severely brain-damaged, as are some chimpanzees. Just as obviously, some chimpanzees have cognitive capacities superior to those of some humans. But when it comes to questions of practical policy, such as we face when trying to formulate policy regarding animal experimentation, whether every human being is superior in every respect to every chimpanzee is beside the point. The point is that we can, we do, and we must make policy decisions, based on our recognition that turnips, mice, chimpanzees, and humans are relevantly different types: similar along some dimensions, different along others. Brain-dead infants do not represent humanity as a species, any more than brain- dead cows represent cows as a species. In either case, unrepresentative individuals are not relevant as a basis for policies that we intend to apply to humans or cows in general. Think about it this way: suppose we give arguments that Americans should have a right to free speech. Imagine someone responding by calling us “Americanists,” and adding being an Americanist is just as reprehensible as being a racist. Suppose we ask why. Then imagine our being told that some Americans are brain-damaged; therefore, it is mere chauvinism to assert that Americans as a general class should have so special a right. We would reply that what matters is that it is compellingly good policy for every American to have that kind of legal protection as a default presumption. Whether every American has what it takes to exercise that right has nothing to do with the point at hand. Note that Peter 5/29/18 Species Equality 9

Singer would, and does, endorse some applications of this form of argument. For example, Singer would insist that there is a compellingly good policy for every cow to have certain kinds of legal protection, regardless of whether each and every cow has what it takes to benefit from it. None of this is meant as a criticism of Singer. I aim only to interpret his writings in the most charitable way. Note that while some of Singer’s arguments might seem to commit him to a rather radical egalitarianism, Singer does when pressed decline to bite that bullet. Singer asserts that many species are broadly equal to humans in terms of their characteristic capacities to feel pleasure and pain, but at the same time acknowledges that the characteristic cognitive capacities of normal humans are such that they tend to have more at stake than would other animals otherwise similarly situated. If Singer objects to a policy, it won’t be because the policy is based on features of the species. His objection will be that the policy is based on the wrong feature. He will say the feature we ought to have privileged is the ability to feel pain. That’s why he would feed starving humans before feeding starving animals.14

VI. TOWARD A MORE BIOCENTRIC PERSPECTIVE Even if speciesists are right to see a nonarbitrary distinction between humans and cows as types, the fact remains that claims of superiority do not easily translate into justifications of domination.15 We can have reasons to treat nonhuman species with respect, regardless of whether we consider them to be on a moral par with Homo sapiens. What reasons do we have for treating members of other species with respect? We might have respect for chimpanzees or mice on the grounds that they are sentient. Even mice have a rudimentary point of view and rudimentary hopes and dreams, and we might well respect them for that. But what about plants? Plants, unlike mice and chimpanzees, do not care what happens to them. They could not care less. So, why should we care? Is it even possible for us to have any good reason to care what happens to plants beyond caring instrumentally about how plants can benefit us? When we are alone in a forest and wondering whether it would be fine to chop down a tree for fun, our perspective on what happens to the tree is, so far as we know, the only perspective there is. The tree does not have its own. Thus, explaining why we have reason to care about trees requires us to explain caring from our point of view, since that (we are supposing) is all there is. We do not have to satisfy trees that we are treating them 5/29/18 Species Equality 10 properly; rather, we have to satisfy ourselves. Again, can we have reasons for caring about trees separate from their instrumental value as lumber and such? One reason to care (not the only one) is that gratuitous destruction is a failure of self-respect. It is a repudiation of the kind of self-awareness and self-respect that we can achieve by repudiating wanton vandalism. So far as I know, no one finds anything puzzling in the idea that we have reason to treat our lawns or living rooms with respect. Lawns and living rooms have instrumental value, but there is more to it than that. Most of us have the sense that taking reasonable care of our lawns and living rooms is somehow a matter of self-respect, not merely a matter of preserving their instrumental value. Do we have similar reasons to treat forests with respect? I think we do. There is an aesthetic involved, the repudiation of which would be a failure of self-respect. Obviously, not everyone feels the same way about forests. Not everyone feels the same way about lawns and living rooms, either. However, our objective here is to make sense of respect for nature, not to argue that respect for nature is universal or that failing to respect nature is irrational. If and when we identify with a Redwood, in the sense of being inspired by it, having respect for its size and age and so on, then as a psychological fact, we face questions about how we ought to treat it. When we come to see a Redwood in that light, subsequently turning our backs on it becomes a kind of self-effacement, because the values we thereby fail to take seriously are our values, not the tree’s. So, the attitude we take toward gazelles, for example, raises issues of self-respect insofar as we see ourselves as relevantly like gazelles. Here is a different and complementary way of looking at the issue. Consider that lions owe nothing to gazelles. Therefore, if we owe it to gazelles not to hunt them, it must be because we are unlike lions, not—or not only—because we are like gazelles. Unlike lions, we have a choice about whether to hunt gazelles, and we are capable of deliberating about that choice in a reflective way. We are capable of caring about the gazelle’s pain, the gazelle’s beauty, the gazelle’s hopes and dreams, such as they are. If we do not care, then in a more or less literal way, something is wrong with us—we are less than fully, magnificently, human—if we cannot adjust our behavior in light of what we care about. If we do not care, then we are missing something. For a human being, to lack a broad respect for living things and beautiful things and well-functioning things is to be stunted in a way. 5/29/18 Species Equality 11

Taylor could agree with this argument. He says that all living things are equal because they all have lives of their own, but then concedes that we can systematically privilege animals over plants because animals are sentient, and sentience gives animals, in effect, a superior kind of life.16 Where does this leave us? What Taylor is rightly conceding here is that when it is time actually to live our lives, we give up on saying all living things are equal, and we acknowledge that the moral point is to treat all living things with respect. Taylor, moreover, sees a basic connection between self-respect and respect for the world in which one lives.17 Our coming to see members of other species as commanding respect is a way of transcending our animal natures. It is ennobling. It is part of our natures unthinkingly to see ourselves as superior and to try to dominate accordingly; as noted, our capacity to see ourselves as equal is one of the things that makes humans unique. It may be one of the things that makes us superior. Aldo Leopold expressed a related thought. When the Cincinnati Zoo erected a monument to the passenger pigeon, Leopold wrote, “We have erected a monument to commemorate the funeral of a species. . . . For one species to mourn the death of another is a new thing under the sun. . . . In this fact . . . lies objective evidence of our superiority over the beasts.”18 Trying to see all living things as equal may not be the best way of transcending our animal natures, but it is one way. Another way of transcending our animal natures and expressing due respect for nature is simply to not bother with keeping score. This way is more respectful of our own reflective natures. It does not dwell on rankings. It does not insist on seeing equality where a more reflective being simply would see what is there to be seen and would not shy away from respecting what is unique as well as what is common. Someone might say that we need to rank animals as our equals to be fair, but that appears to be false: consider that I can be fair to my friends without ranking them. Imagine a friend saying, “I disagree! In fact, failing to rank us is insulting! You have to rank us as equals!” What would be the point? Perhaps my friends are each other’s equals in some respect? Even so, we are left with no need to rank them as equal. For most purposes, it is better for them to remain the unique and priceless friends that they are. Sometimes, respect is simply respect. It need not be based on a pecking order. 5/29/18 Species Equality 12

Children rank their friends. It is one of the things children do before they are old enough to understand friendship. Sometimes, the idea of ranking things, even as equals, is a child’s game. It is beneath us.

VII. RESPECT FOR EVERYTHING Therefore, a broad respect for living or beautiful or well-functioning things need not translate into equal respect. It need not translate into universal respect, either. Part of our responsibility as moral agents is to be somewhat choosy about what we respect and how we respect it. I can see why people shy away from openly accepting that responsibility, but they still have it. We might suppose speciesism is as arbitrary as racism unless we can show that the differences are morally relevant. This is a popular sentiment among animal liberationists such as Peter Singer and Tom Regan. However, are we really like racists when we think it is worse to kill a dolphin than to kill a tuna? The person who asserts that there is a relevant similarity between speciesism and racism has the burden of proof: identify the similarity. Is seeing moral significance in biological differences between chimpanzees and mice anything like seeing moral significance in biological differences between races? I think not. I see the difference between chimpanzees and mice as like the difference between animals and plants. Regardless, the fact remains that most people intuitively see a morally important difference between chimpanzees and mice, and various moral theories (more widely held than Singer’s) would support their intuition. Singer’s hedonistic value theory is consistent with his intuition that the difference between animals and plants is morally significant, but if he wants to convert his readers, he can’t settle for this intuitions. If he wants readers to believe that the difference between mice and plants is morally significant but the difference between mice and chimpanzees is not, he needs to give his readers a reason, as he tries to do in his arguments privileging starving humans in the developing world.19 Burden of proof, crucial to many philosophical arguments, is a slippery notion. Do we need good reason to exclude plants and animals from the realm of things we regard as commanding respect? Or do we need reason to include them? The latter seems more natural to me, so I am left supposing the burden of proof lies with those who claim we should have respect for all living things. I could be wrong.20 But suppose Alf says oatmeal commands respect, Betty asks Alf why he thinks that, and Alf responds by saying, “I don’t 5/29/18 Species Equality 13 need an argument. It’s up to you to prove that oatmeal doesn’t command respect.” Something has gone wrong. Alf has mislocated the burden of proof. Alf fails to see that he said oatmeal commands respect, which implies that he believes it for some reason. Taking the obvious implication of Alf’s statement at face value, Betty asked Alf to state his reason. Alf’s response suggests that he does not have one. The discourse has failed. After the positive side of a debate implies there is a reason for believing X and the negative side asks to see it it, it is always up to the positive side to go ahead and state the reason.21 Even so, I am not saying that the positive side’s burden here is unbearable. One reason to have regard for other living things has to do with self-respect. As I said earlier, when we mistreat a tree that we admire, the values we fail to respect are our values, not the tree’s. A second reason has to do with self-realization. As I said, exercising our capacity for moral regard is a form of self-realization. Finally, some species share with human beings, to varying degrees, precisely those moral and intellectual characteristics that lead us to see human life as especially worthy of esteem. For example, Lawrence Johnson describes experiments in which rhesus monkeys show extreme reluctance to obtain food by means that would subject monkeys in neighboring cages to electric shock. He describes the case of Washoe, a chimpanzee who learned sign language.22 Anyone who has tried to learn a foreign language ought to appreciate how astonishing an intellectual feat it is that an essentially nonlinguistic creature could learn a language—a language that is not merely foreign but the language of another species.23 Although he believes Washoe has moral standing, Johnson does not believe that the moral standing of chimpanzees, and indeed of all living creatures, implies that we must resolve never to kill. Johnson, an Australian, supports killing introduced animal species such as feral dogs, rabbits, and so forth to protect Australia’s native species, including native plant species.24 Is Johnson advocating a speciesist version of the Holocaust? Has Johnson shown himself to be no better than a racist? I think not. Johnson is right to want to take drastic measures to protect Australia’s natural flora, and the idea of respecting trees is intelligible. One thing I feel in the presence of California Redwoods or Australia’s incredible eucalyptus forests is a feeling of respect. However, I doubt that what underlies Johnson’s willingness to kill feral dogs is mere respect for Australia’s native plants. I suspect that his approval of such killings turns to some extent on needs and aesthetic 5/29/18 Species Equality 14 sensibilities of human beings, not just interests of plants. So, if the endangered native species happened to be a malaria-carrying mosquito, I hope Johnson would not advocate wiping out an exotic amphibian simply to protect the mosquitoes. Aldo Leopold urged us to see ourselves as plain citizens of, rather than conquerors of, the biotic community,25 but there are species with whom we can never be fellow citizens. The rabbits that once ate flowers in my back yard in Ohio and the cardinals currently eating my cherry tomatoes in Arizona are neighbors, and I cherish their company, minor frictions notwithstanding. However, I feel no sense of community with mosquitoes and not merely because they are not warm and fuzzy.26 Some mosquito species are so adapted to making human beings miserable that mortal combat is not accidental; rather, combat is a natural state. It is how such creatures live. It is fair to say human beings are not equipped to respond to malaria-carrying mosquitoes in a caring manner. At least, most of us would think less of a person who did respond to them in a caring manner. We would regard the person’s caring as a parody of respect for nature. The conclusion that all living things have moral standing is unmotivated. There is no evidence for it, and (perhaps more to the point) believing it would serve no purpose. By contrast, for human beings, viewing apes as having moral standing is motivated, for the reasons just described. One further conjecture: Like redwoods and dolphins, apes capture our imagination. We identify with some animals, perhaps even some plants. We feel gripped by their stories. Now, this is a flimsy thing to say, in a way. If we were talking about reasons to see charismatic species as rights-bearers rather than about reasons simply to cherish them, it might be too flimsy. I offer this remark in a tentative way. It is not the kind of consideration that moral philosophers are taught to take seriously, but for all that it may be closer to our real reasons for valuing charismatic species than are abstract philosophical arguments.27 Our finding a species inspiring, or our identifying with beings of a given kind, implies that if we fail to care about how their stories turn out, the failure is a failure of self-respect, a failure to care about our values.28 Viewing viruses as having moral standing is not the same thing. It is good to have a sense of how amazing living things are, but being able to marvel at living things is not the same as thinking that all living things have moral standing. Life as such commands respect only in the limited but important sense that for self-aware and reflective creatures who want to act in ways that make sense, deliberately killing something is an act that does not 5/29/18 Species Equality 15 make sense unless we have good reason to do it. Destroying something for no good reason is, at best, the moral equivalent of vandalism.

VIII. THE HISTORY OF THE DEBATE There is an odd project in the history of philosophy that equates what seem to be three distinct projects:

1. determining the essence of human beings; 2. specifying how humans are different from all other species; 3. specifying what makes humans morally important.

Equating these three projects has important ramifications. Suppose for the sake of argument that what makes humans morally important is that we can suffer. If what makes us morally important is necessarily the same property that constitutes our essence, then our essence is that we can suffer. And if our essence necessarily is what makes us different from all other species, then we can straightforwardly deduce that dogs cannot suffer. (I wish this were merely a tasteless joke.) Likewise with rationality. If rationality is our essence, then it is what makes us morally important and also what makes us unique. Therefore, we can deduce that chimpanzees are not rational. Alternatively, if some other animal becomes rational, does that mean our essence will change? Could this sort of reasoning account for why some people find Washoe, the talking chimpanzee, threatening? The three projects should not be conflated in the way philosophy historically has conflated them, but we can reject species equality without conflation. As noted, we can select a property with respect to which all living things are the same—being teleological centers of life—without ignoring the possibility that there are other morally important properties, such as sentience, with respect to which not all living things are equal. There is room to wonder whether species egalitarianism is even compatible with respect for nature. Is the moral standing of dolphins truly no higher than that of tuna? Is the standing of chimpanzees truly no higher than that of mice? Undoubtedly some people embrace species egalitarianism on the assumption that endorsing species egalitarianism is a way of giving dolphins and chimpanzees the respect they deserve. It is not. Species egalitarianism not only takes humans down a notch. It takes down dolphins, chimpanzees, and redwoods, too. It takes down whatever we regard as special. But we 5/29/18 Species Equality 16 have good reason to regard some species as special—especially intelligent, especially beautiful, especially long-lived, especially beneficial to humans, especially complex, or even especially fast on its feet. Only someone frozen in the headlights of a theory, asserting for no reason that there is exactly one morally important dimension—and stipulating for no reason that everything is in exactly the same location along that dimension—would deny it. Dolphins and chimpanzees command more respect than species egalitarianism allows. There is no denying that it demeans us to destroy living things we find beautiful or otherwise beneficial. What about living things in which we find neither beauty nor benefit? It is, upon reflection, obviously in our interest to enrich our lives by discovering in them something beautiful or beneficial, if we can. By and large, we must agree with Leopold that it is too late for conquering the biotic community. Our task now is to find ways of fitting in. Species egalitarianism is one way of trying to understand how we fit in, but all things considered it is not an acceptable way. Having respect for nature and being a species egalitarian are different things.

RECOMMENDED READING

Attfield, Robin, “Schmidtz on Species Egalitarianism,” Ethics, Policy, and Environment, 14 (2011): 139-41. Bognar, Greg, “Respect for Nature,” Ethics, Policy, and Environment, 14 (2011): 147-49. Brooks, Thom, “Respect for Nature: The Capabilities Approach,” Ethics, Policy, & Environment, 14 (2011): 143-46. Ferkany, Matt, “In What Sense of ‘Respect’ Should We Respect Nature? A Comment on David Schmidtz’s 'Respect for Everything'” Ethics, Policy, and Environment, 14 (2011): 155-57. Brennan, Jason, “Dominating Nature,” Environmental Values 16 (2007): 513-28. Callicott, J. Baird, “Animal Liberation: A Triangular Affair,” Environmental Ethics 2 (1980) 311-38. Darwall, Stephen L. “Two Kinds of Respect,” Ethics, 88 (1977): 36–49. Drenthin, Martin, “Ecocentrism as Anthropocentrism,” Ethics, Policy, and Environment, 14 (2011): 151-54. Freiman, Chris, “Goodwill Toward Nature,” Environmental Values 18 (2009) in press. Hess, Kendy, “Shifting the Burden,” Ethics, Policy, and Environment, 14 (2011): 159-62. Hill, Thomas E. Jr., “Ideals of Human Excellence and Preserving Natural Environments,” Environmental Ethics 5 (1983) 211-224. Jamieson, Dale, ed., A Companion to Environmental Philosophy (Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 2001). Regan, Tom, “How to Worry About Endangered Species, Environmental Ethics: What Really Matters, What Really Works, ed. David Schmidtz and Elizabeth Willott (New York: Oxford University Press, 2002) 105-108. Rolston, Holmes III, “Values in and Duties to the Natural World,” Ecology, Economics, Ethics: The Broken Circle, ed. Francis Bormann & Stephen Kellert (New Haven: Yale U. Press, 1991): 73-96. Russow, Lilly-Marlene, “Why Do Species Matter?” Environmental Ethics 3 (1981):101-112. 5/29/18 Species Equality 17

Sandler, Ronald and Cafaro, Philip, eds., Environmental Virtue Ethics (Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 2005). Sagoff, Mark, “Animal Liberation and Environmental Ethics: Bad Marriage, Quick Divorce,” Osgoode Hall Law Journal 22 (1984): 297-307. Schmidtz, David, Person, Polis, Planet (New York: Oxford University Press, 2008). Schmidtz, David, “When Preservationism Doesn’t Preserve,” Environmental Values 6 (1997) 324-39. Schmidtz, David, and Dan C. Shahar, ed., Environmental Ethics: What Really Matters, What Really Works (New York: Oxford University Press, 2017, forthcoming). Sober, Elliott, “Philosophical Problems for Environmentalism,” The Preservation of Species, ed. Bryan Norton (Princeton University Press, 1986): 173-194. Sterba, James P. “Biocentrism Defended,” Ethics, Policy, and Environment, 14 (2011): 167-69. Varner, Gary, “Speciesism and Reverse Speciesism,” Ethics, Policy, and Environment, 14 (2011): 171-73.

NOTES 1 This essay revises, and adds a running commentary on critical responses to Schmidtz, “Are All Species Equal?” Journal of Applied Philosophy 15 (1998): 57-67. Reprinted by permission of Blackwell Publishers. 2 I think I may have misled some commentators. Ferkany, for example, sees me as arguing that things can command respect while having unequal degrees of moral standing (2011, 156). This is my fault, not Ferkany’s. Indeed, I see now that I am setting up readers for misinterpretation when I say that to have moral standing is at a minimum to command respect. I should have added: commanding respect is not the same thing as having moral standing, and it is not a sufficient condition for having moral standing either.

3 Paul W. Taylor, “In Defense of Biocentrism,” Environmental Ethics 5 (1983): 237-43, at 240.

4 Paul Taylor, Respect for Nature (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1986). 99ff. See also Paul W. Taylor, “The Ethics of Respect for Nature,” Environmental Ethics 5 (1981): 197-218, at 217.

5 Taylor “The Ethics of Respect,” 217. 6 Bognar (2011) thoughtfully and plausibly suggests that the real grounding of an attitude of respect for nature is done by our sense of relatedness to nature, as set out in propositions (a) and (b). The formal implications of (a) and (b) as logical premises, that is, inferences such as (c) and (d), will not be where the action is. Bognar also gently suggests that we need further work to distinguish between our concerns for individual animals and our concern for species per se. I agree. For a good start, I recommend Russow (1981) and Sober (1986, reprinted in Schmidtz and Shahar, 2017, forthcoming).

7 William C. French, “Against Biospherical Egalitarianism,” Environmental Ethics 17 (1995): 39-57, esp. 44ff. See also James C. Anderson, “Species Equality and the Foundations of Moral Theory,” Environmental Values 2 (1993): 347-65, at 350. 8 Thus, I sympathize with Drenthin (2011): what we call ecocentrism is, in a sense, a fairly radical attempt to impose our egalitarian values on a nature to which such values are foreign. The humility mandated by ecocentrism when it comes to imposing on nature is mandated when imposing on humanity as much as any other keystone species. Let me add just one sentence in defense: not of myself but of Taylor. Namely, I found Taylor to be acutely aware of how easy it is to cross the line into imposing on nature in a hypocritically arrogant way. 9 See also Varner (2011) for an analysis of this failure that distinguishes speciesism as favoring one species over another, and speciesism differentially weighting the similar interests of different species.

10 Taylor “The Ethics of Respect,” 211.

11 For a similar critique of Taylor from an Aristotelian perspective, see Anderson “Species Equality” 348. See also Louis G. Lombardi, “Inherent Worth, Respect, and Rights,” Environmental Ethics 5 (1993): 257-70. 12 Varner (2011) sees Peter Singer as favoring some species over others (because they really are different in morally relevant ways) while consistently repudiating the hypocrisy of differentially weighting the similar interests of different species. Varner also sees this passage, unaltered from my original essay, as confusing the two kind of speciesism. Let me just say that what matters here is that Varner’s distinction clarifies my thesis that specieism is not necessarily a bias in favor of humans. Favoring humans insofar as they really are different is not a bias. Favoring humans over animals because humans can feel pain or because humans are teleological centers of life would be both a bias and a confusion. Of course, I was trying here to argue against that confusion rather than to exemplify it. The important thing is to stress, in agreement with Varner, that the two kinds of speciesism are indeed crucially different. 13 Peter Singer, Animal Liberation, 2nd ed. (New York: Random House, 1990): 1-23. See also Lawrence Johnson, A Morally Deep World (New York: Cambridge Press, 1991) at 52.

14 Peter Singer, “Reply to Schmidtz,” Singer Under Fire, ed. Schaler (NY: Open Court, 2009): 455-62, at 461.

15 This is effectively argued by Anderson “Species Equality,” 362. 16 Sterba (2011) agrees.

17 Taylor, Respect, 42-43. Note: I have not discussed rights in this essay, but on Taylor’s theory it is impossible for nonhumans to have rights, because to have rights, on Taylor’s view, a being has to be capable of self-conscious self- respect. Interestingly, although Taylor denies that nonhumans can have moral rights, he grants that there can be reason to treat trees and animals as having legal rights (Taylor, Respect, 246). It is not exactly called for on metaphysical grounds, but it would be a way of treating them with respect. I thank Dan Shahar for the citation and for helpful discussion.

18 Aldo Leopold, A Sand County Almanac (New York: Oxford University Press, 1966; 1st pub. 1949): 116-17.

19 See his path-breaking article: Peter Singer, “Famine Affluence, and Morality,” Philosophy and Public Affairs, 1 (1972): 229-43.

20 For a discussion of what it takes to deserve respect, see Part II of David Schmidtz, Elements of Justice (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006). 21 Hess (2011) says that I am assuming here that we should never accept a positive claim until is has been adequately supported. I agree that such an assumption would be unwarranted. (I would not accept it without adequate support.) My claim in this passage is, in any case, less aggressive. Namely, when I make a positive claim and someone asks whether I have adequate support, it is not good enough to respond by saying, “I don’t need adequate support.” When I realize, upon being challenged, that I lack adequate support, I should be interested. I might not feel humiliated, but I should at least realize I have something to ponder.

22 Johnson, Morally Deep World, 64n.

23 This is what I wrote in the original article. I since have heard that families of lowland gorillas have their own language of hand signals, so I would no longer call chimpanzees essentially nonlinguistic, except insofar as they lack the vocal cords and descended larynx that enabled homo sapiens to articulate the elements of spoken language. The more deflating news, I have also been told by Tom Bever, who participated in the original language experiments, is that recently developed statistical sampling methods now suggest that what the original experimenters wanted to believe were cases of sign language were probably cases of primates simply learning that the way to induce experimenters to feed them was to make hand gestures.

24 Johnson (1991) 174.

25 Leopold (1966) 240. 26 Robin Attfield (2011) interprets these sentences as saying, “there are species with whom we can never be fellow citizens. The three examples given are rabbits that once ate flowers in my back yard in Ohio, Cardinals now eating my cherry tomatoes in Arizona, and mosquitoes, some species of which are so adapted to making human beings miserable that mortal combat is a natural state. … These remarks about moral standing reflect some degree of confusion” (139). I do not want to perpetuate what is indeed a confusion, so let me emphasize: first, this passage contrasts rabbits and cardinals with mosquitoes. These sentences say rabbits and cardinals are neighbors, not that they can never be. Second, these are not remarks about what has moral standing. They are remarks about what commands respect. I can cherish a painting, and think it commands my respect, and commands a certain kind of treatment, without thinking it has moral standing. To have moral standing is to command respect by virtue of bearing rights. 27 Ferkany (2011) applies Darwall’s helpful (1977) distinction between appraisal-respect and recognition-respect here. Although I do not use and am not familiar with this terminology, Ferkany’s point is interesting and probably correct. He sees me as arguing that the grounds for appraisal-respect track all kinds of features that we don’t think of as having anything to do with moral standing. Yet we do see them as commanding respect. Other features, such as sentience, command recognition respect. Even though they come in degrees, they nevertheless are the kinds of features that we see as grounding moral standing. 28 See Brooks (2011) for a creative, plausible, and generalizable “capabilities” account of grounds for respect. Borrowing Darwall’s terms, with thanks again to Ferkany for drawing them to my attention, it is intriguing to sort various capabilities into those that ground appraisal-respect (capacity to soar) and those that ground recognition- respect (capacity to reciprocate).