Summary
This article is behind a paywall. It has been included in the database and summarized below solely based on the content of the abstract.
Speciesism holds that human interests matter more than the interests of animals. This paper develops a debunking argument against speciesism. The author argues it is unjustified because its appeal can be explained by meat-eaters’ desire to reduce cognitive dissonance. Recent research shows meat-eaters experience cognitive dissonance due to the conflict of eating meat while believing unnecessary animal suffering is wrong. Speciesism alleviates this dissonance by assuring them that eating meat isn’t wrong because animals matter less than humans. The author argues that since the motivation for speciesism does not follow from moral truth, the view has no justification.
Abstract cannot be posted