Question I believe that speciesism is correct. However I am confused about how I should feel about campaigns to kill pests like possums, rats, stoats etc which destroy native and often endangered birds, animals and plants. I understand that speciesism doesn't say that you can never kill an animal, you merely have to give it equal consideration. In this sense killing the pest could be justified if doing so produced a better outcome. But then I arrive at the problem of humans, which (I assume) would in many situations be a greater threat to our native birds, animals and plants. I can't help but feel that the answer may lie in the fact that we can do something about humans which destroy the environment by convincing them we shouldn't, it's not as easy to reason with the average possum. However this seems inadequate given the fact that these people are very, very unlikely to ever be convinced. How can we justify killing pests in moral terms in light of speciesism?

Accepted:
February 3, 2009

Comments

Let usassume for the purposes of discussion the 'equal consideration'account of animal ethics. We could perhaps define a 'pest' as anycreature or group of creatures that is threatening the sustainablebalance of an ecosystem. So, a pest is not just something nibbling mylettuces, which I don't want nibbled, or biting my arm which I ratherprefer unbitten. Rather, a pest occurs only within a seriously out ofkilter environment (thus the original mean of the term: plague). Insuch a case, I imagine, action against the pest is morally warrantedbut only insofar as to restore a more sustainable situation. So, if aplague of beetles is depleting forests in the Rockies, then pesticideseems justified; if a lack of natural predators means that the deerpopulation is ballooning in an area, then perhaps culling (or betterreintroducing predators) is justified. Your question comes down to:are we prepared to define human beings as 'pests'?

Manyare, of course, and there is and has been for some time a 'militant'wing of environmental and animal activists. However, notice that pestis never (or very rarely) a singular noun. Individual human beingsare not the problem on this way of thinking; rather, it is the wayhumans behave as a sub-system of the whole. The behaviour of theindividual pest is a symptomand not the … plague itself. For example, one might point toaspects of the human sub-system such as an economic system thatencourages the use of cheap but dirty fossil fuels, or a politicalsystem that does not enforce land stewardship. So, though you areright that convincing all people to behave in this way or that isprobably impossible, nevertheless there may be system-wide actionsthat can be taken. For example, raising taxation on certain fuels, orenforcing existing legislation on land stewardship. We don't expectto convince the locust not to eat the wheat, nor will stopping thisor that locust do much good. We want to address the conditions behindthe plague.

I have nothing to add to Douglas Burnham's response, but can't resist a terminological quibble. "Speciesism" is the term Peter Singer (following Richard Ryder) uses to mean a prejudice against animals. So if you think animals should receive equal consideration, as Singer does, you're going to want to call yourself something other than a "speciesist." Unfortunately, there's no standard term for your view. Singer says "all animals are equal," as the animals say in the book Animal Farm. As I recall, the pigs who use that slogan call themselves "animalists," but it doesn't have much of a ring to it.