The argument from impartiality states that speciesism is incompatible with fairness. It can be presented against any kind of position that maintains that it’s justified to treat nonhuman animals worse than human beings. According to the argument from impartiality, maintaining such
The argument from impartiality states that speciesism is incompatible with fairness. It can be presented against any kind of position that maintains that it’s justified to treat nonhuman animals worse than human beings. According to the argument from impartiality, maintaining such a position is a form of discrimination.1
The argument shows that the following three ideas cannot be defended at the same time:
(1) A decision can only be just if it’s decided in an impartial manner.
(2) If we were discriminated against as nonhuman animals are, we would find it unacceptable.
(3) Discrimination against nonhuman animals is acceptable.
It is very difficult to reject the first position. The consequences would be enormous, as it goes against what most people consider a basic concept of ethics and justice.
The second position is also very hard to deny. There may be those who, with the intention of denying that we should respect nonhuman animals, would defend the claim that we should not be respected if we were in their place. But this is really hard to believe. If we’re being sincere, it’s difficult to reject the idea that we would not want others to behave towards us in the way that humans normally behave towards nonhuman animals (for example, in exploiting them, or in refusing to help them.)
If we accept the first two ideas above, we can’t defend the third position – we can’t say that discrimination against nonhuman animals is acceptable, because it causes a contradiction between what we think fair in some cases and what we think fair in other cases (depending only on whether we are the one suffering that discrimination or not).
However, many people want to hold all three of these positions. To try to avoid the contradiction this entails, some try to claim that there are reasons why they should not be treated the way animals are if they were in the animals’ place. For example, they say they would have to be respected because they belong to the human species, or because they have certain capacities that other animals lack.
However, such a response is not valid. Someone who was truly putting themselves in the place of others would not make such a claim.
Another way to examine this is to imagine a hypothetical situation to help us think about what is just. Imagine that we knew we were about to be born into the world but we didn’t know what place we would occupy. Suppose that we didn’t know what sex or species we would be, what our intellectual capacities would be, etc. And suppose that we were able to decide, in that pre-embodied state, what the moral and political principles of the world would be.2
This imaginary scenario is useful for thinking about this because it deals with the fairness of conditions. And, in a case like this, if we acted according to how we might be affected, we would defend the position that nobody should suffer any type of discrimination. We would oppose anything that might result in discrimination against us because we didn’t have certain capacities. We would also reject the position that some should receive more benefits than others simply because they belong to a particular group.
Membership in a certain group is merely a matter of chance. (And it’s for this reason, as is explained in Begging the question, that defending speciesism on such an arbitrary basis has no justification.) If those who defend speciesism belonged to a different species, they would suffer the same harms that nonhuman animals do now.
Therefore, in the situation described above, if we were truly being impartial, the possibility that we could be born as a nonhuman animal means that we would choose a situation in which the interests of nonhuman animals were adequately protected.3
All of this means, in short, that if we consider it impartially, we would not accept treating nonhuman animals worse than humans. Therefore the position that nonhuman animals should be treated worse than humans is unfair. It is a form of discrimination.
Most of us assume that situations in which others would benefit fro