Scott Tibbs
blog post
August 9th, 2005

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Pass the weed, man!

Here's a rant from a hippie.
The word speciesism came to me while I was lying in a bath in Oxford some 35 years ago. It was like racism or sexism - a prejudice based upon morally irrelevant physical differences. Since Darwin we have known we are human animals related to all the other animals through evolution; how, then, can we justify our almost total oppression of all the other species? All animal species can suffer pain and distress. Animals scream and writhe like us; their nervous systems are similar and contain the same biochemicals that we know are associated with the experience of pain in ourselves.
Yep. Let's all sit around in a circle wearing our hemp shirts, bang on some drums and sing kumbayah.



To answer the hippie's question, we can "justify our almost total oppression of all the other species" one of two ways.
  • "And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth." Genesis 1:28
  • Natural law mandates "speciesism". Do lions have "moral concerns" when they attack their prey, rip the poor animal to shreds, and eat it? Do other predators? No? If you insist we are the same as animals, why are we on a higher moral plane than they are?
The hippie then goes on an idiotic rant about how utilitarianism justifies gang rape. But the issue is not utilitarianism, it is that humans, who are made in the image of God, are infinitely more valuable than animals. Furthermore, each human being is given rights by God; those rights are moral constants. I think our hippie author is so educated he can't think. For more: Now I am in the mood to get a chicken dinner (from chickens no doubt raised in factory farms) at KFC.