Speciesism: Nonhuman Animals Vs. Human Beings

Throughout history, every society has believed nonhuman animals to be different from human beings. Humans have benefitted from using animals to provide them with food, transport, entertainment, etc. Nowadays, these activities that have been going on for centuries are now being labeled by some people as speciesism. Speciesism is a term mostly used by animal rights advocates. Originally, speciesism means the prejudice or discrimination based on species. However, this definition is not used consistently. Now, speciesism usually refers to human speciesism, which is the belief that human beings are the more significant and central species on the planet. It is the idea that being human being allows them to have greater moral rights, freedoms, and

A human being’s environment and culture are surrounded by other human beings. Unless a human being is raised in a nonhuman animal environment, there is a low possibility of a human being not favoring their own species. Essentially, even nonhuman animals treat members of their own species better than those of other species. For example, lions would treat each other better than they would treat hyenas. Even though lions and hyenas live in the same environment, they treat each other with animosity. Both these animals are territorial and extremely aggressive towards each other. Also, since they consume the same prey, they are each other’s most common competitors. They both frequently steal each other’s prey from each other. When the animals cross each others’ paths they react with hostility, sometimes for no apparent

Animal advocates complain about how these animals are not being raised humanely, especially when it comes to factory farming. This has been an ongoing argument for quite some time. However, it is unlikely for things to change because the market for meat is in such a high demand. Factory farming is meant for supporting this high demand by fast producing and distributing meat. The workers at the factories do not have the time to be caring for each individual animal. It is all a fast moving cycle, which gives people the impression that factory farms are based on the concept that animals are machines and are just humans’ food supply. Speciesism may be unavoidable, but we, as human beings, need to learn to respect nonhuman animals. Both share a capacity to suffer, which means human beings are indeed hurting animals. In regards to the inhumane ways of the factory farms, the logical way to stop them would be to just become a vegetarian. However, not everyone wants to give up eating meat. I would say the best way is to just teach the younger generation about where our meats come from. Hopefully, once they learn about the inhumane ways, they will learn to respect animals more and even help to stop the ways of factory