Paradox & Prejudice

The paradox that shows how anthropocentrism is reprehensibly prejudicial.

Evolution. Image created by Midjourney and Chat GPT

There seems to be something of an impasse between two groups who disagree about the direct moral relevance of species.¹ There are those who think that what happens to human beings matters more than what happens to non-human animals, in virtue of them 'being human' (anthropocentrists), and those who don’t (anti-speciesists).² The debate largely concerns whether anthropocentrism amounts to speciesism–a reprehensible prejudice relevantly alike to racism and sexism.

There is an important discussion to be had around how speciesism should be understood and defined. For instance, should it be definitionally prejudicial, or should it merits be an open question?³ In this article, I recognise speciesism as something prejudicial and wrong by definition. It provides the anti-speciesist with an important tool that can be utilised to level criticism, and as one proponent of anthropocentrism puts it, it’s rather unlovely.⁴ As I will refer to it then, speciesism is: the prejudicial view that humans are more important than non-humans, in virtue of being human. This of course isn’t meant to solve the dispute between anthropocentrists and anti-speciesists, but it does emphasise that anthropocentrists must avoid the charge of speciesism if they are to retain that their view isn’t reprehensibly prejudicial.

The crux of the matter then, is whether anthropocentrism is prejudicial as described. Perhaps paradoxically, I’ll begin to explore this by examining how anthropocentrism is claimed to be different from prejudices like racism and sexism.

In his paper, The Human Prejudice, Bernard Williams–a proponent of anthropocentrism–posits that anthropocentrism is importantly different from racism and sexism provided that proponents of these prejudices don’t typically claim that race or sex is morally relevant in itself. Rather, racists and sexists claim (and mistakenly so) that something supposedly morally relevant correlates with one’s race and sex.⁵ For instance, the racist mistakenly thinks that some quality, be it intelligence, violent tendencies, and so forth, correlate with one’s race, and that this "warrants" differential treatment. But this racist is mistaken, and thus, what they believe to be "warranted" discrimination, is anything but.

William’s notes that this needn’t entail that anthropocentrism cannot be a prejudice, only that it would be structurally different.⁶ I think Williams may be right about this in a surface level sense–it does seem to me that racists don’t typically appeal to race on its own. However, if anthropocentrism were prejudicial, I still think it would turn out to be structurally identical to racism and sexism, despite appearances.

What we can learn about considering examples of racism where some morally relevant feature is claimed to correlate with one’s race, is that they’re reprehensibly prejudicial because they’re mistaken in being able to justify things such as differential treatment. A racist view aims to justify treating one race (or more) better than other races–however, it fails provided that their view is mistaken. Contra racists, individuals of all races are moral equals. The fact that their views are relevantly mistaken in doing what they sought to justify (e.g. partial treatment towards whites) explains–at least a crucial component of–their prejudicial nature.

With this point in mind, we can come to appreciate how views like anthropocentrism–despite claiming that being human/being a member of a species is morally relevant in itself–can be prejudicial. Anthropocentrism is prejudicial if it’s mistaken about being able to justify the differential treatment it claims to warrant and/or require. Compare an analogised case of racism. Consider how the position that ‘white people are more important compared to non-whites, in virtue of being white’, is still racially prejudicial–it’s still racist and relevantly alike to other cases of racism discussed thus far. The view is mistaken about race being morally relevant in itself, and in such a way as to leave the differential treatment it claims to justify as unjustly discriminatory.

Anthropocentrism, if it is prejudicial, can very much be structurally identical to bigotries like racism and sexism. But is it prejudicial? I think there is a lot that can said here. But for the remainder of this article, I’ll only focus on one line of argument that attempts to answer this question. It all begins by considering what anthropocentrism is tied to. Anthropocentrism is explicitly tied to conceptions of ‘being human’ and ‘humankind’ in terms of species membership. But it is precisely this dependence on species membership that ultimately reveals it to be prejudicial and speciesist.

There is a paradox inherent to grouping individuals into species that, upon reflection, seems to reveal inconsistencies in anthropocentrism. The inconsistency is that those who are excluded from humankind are just as deserving of being members as anyone else. Consider a hypothetical 'first human'–the first member of humankind who lived in ancient times. Provided that I’m also human, it follows that we’re both of the same species. But since they’re the first human, it must mean their parents were not human. But this would be especially odd provided that the first human is much more closely alike/related to their parents in comparison to me.⁷ It seems that if me and this first human are of the same species, despite how different we are compared to their parents, then their parents are just as deserving of being included as members of humankind.

The gap between me and the first human is vast. But the gap between this 'first human' and their parents is minimal–or at the very least, no way near as vast as between me and the first human. Consider the graph below for a visual example. The amount of difference between individuals is represented by colour.

There would clearly be something confused in believing that the first human and me are alike enough to count as being members of humankind, but that the first human’s parents are not alike enough to their own human child to count as being members of humankind. If I’m alike enough to the first human to count as the same species, then so are their parents, since they’re more alike to each other in comparison to me and the first human.

It’s important to note that this will have a regress effect. If the parents of the 'first human' are also human, then so are their immediate relatives, and so are their immediate relatives, and so on. This doesn’t entail denying that notable differences between populations of individuals don’t exist, but it does entail that we’re being inconsistent in grouping individual into different species.⁸

To make it pithy: the inconsistency is located in the notion that two individuals are alike enough to be grouped into the same species, but that someone more alike to one of those individuals is not alike enough to either of them to count as a member of that species. But clearly they are if the first two individuals are alike enough to count as being members in the same species.⁹

The problem for anthropocentrism however, concerns what this inconsistency amounts to. Anthropocentrism claims–in so many words–that species membership is what matters. But provided that classifying individuals into species requires being inconsistent, anthropocentrism must admit to unfairly excluding individuals from the 'more important group'. According to anthropocentrism’s own standards, these unfairly excluded individuals are just as deserving of inclusion in the 'more important group'. But if this is right, then not only is anthropocentrism self-refuting, but it is prejudicial provided that it’s mistaken about being able to justify the differential treatment it claims to warrant and/or require.

The Paradoxical Prejudice Argument

1. If anthropocentrism inconsistently excludes non-human animals out of the more important moral group (where humans reside), then anthropocentrism unfairly excludes non-human animals from this group.

2. If anthropocentrism unfairly excludes non-human animals from this group, then anthropocentrism is speciesist.

3. Anthropocentrism inconsistently excludes non-human animals out of the more important moral group (where humans reside).

4. So, anthropocentrism is speciesist.

If this argument is sound, then anthropocentrism is speciesist (prejudicial), and deserving of our reproach. 'Non-human' animals would be–by the anthropocentrist’s own lights–unfairly excluded from the privileged moral status enjoyed by humans.

References

1. Albermeier, F. (2021). Speciesism and Speciescentrism. Ethical Theory and Moral Practice. 24, pp. 511-527

2. Diamond, C. (2018). Bernard Williams on the Human Prejudice. Philosophical Investigations. 41, pp. 379-398

3. Williams, B. (2006). The Human Prejudice. Philosophy as a Humanistic Discipline. NJ: Princeton University Press, pp. 135-152

1. It seems like an impasse provided that it’s not clear what else can be said by one side to the other to convince them. The argument I develop in this article aims to get over this impasse.

2. 'Anthropocentrists' include Bernard Williams (2006), Christopher Grau (2016), Sophie-Grace Chappell (1997), Cora Diamond (2018), and so forth. The label ‘anthropocentrism’ is one I have tentatively given this view–some describe themselves as ‘speciesists’, but they don’t take themselves to be admitting they’re prejudicial. Given how I recognise speciesism as something prejudicial by definition, I’ve put them under this new label.

'Anti-speciesists' include Peter Singer (1975), Jeff McMahan (2008), Tom Regan (1983), Rachels (1990), Pluhar (1988) and so forth.

3. See Albersmeier (2021)

4. Williams (2006) 139

5. Williams also has a handful of other things to say, e.g. that these oppressed groups ‘came of age’ and spoke up for themselves. However I continue to fail to see the relevance of his point.

6. Williams (2006) 141

7. In this article I presume that similarity between individuals (and ancestral relation) is ultimately what determines whether one deserves to be in a species or not. I think this can acceptable to those who favour other sorts of criteria, for instance, the typical ability to successfully interbreed. That’s because, things like the ability to successfully interbreed are influenced by things like the similarity between individuals.

8. I think the same goes for views that might suggest that there are ‘intermediates’ between each 'distinct' species that are in one species to the same extent that they’re also in the other species. This is because this will still determine that there is a single immediate relative who will be cut off. The paradox still applies.

9. The paradox I have in mind for species here is similar to–but not an actual instantiation of–a sorites problem.