I define speciesism as unequal treatment based on species and argue that this definition fares better than extant accounts insofar as it satisfies these two conditions.

A good definition of speciesism must therefore satisfy two conditions: it must match a good definition of racism, and it must make the concept speciesism useful to debate the way we treat animals.

I argue that the word ‘speciesism’ has as its main function to designate a phenomenon analogous to racism, and thereby allow us to draw instructive parallels between this phenomenon and racism, parallels that we can then use to investigate and debate the morality of this phenomenon.

Up to a point, this variety is unobjectionable. We are at liberty to stipulate the sense in which we use words. But this is true only within limits. Some definitions are good and some bad, depending on whether or not they meet certain conditions.

In the animal ethics literature, speciesism is defined in all sorts of manners: as a behaviour or a philosophical view, as necessarily anthropocentric or possibly centred on other species, as necessarily based on species or possibly not, as necessarily immoral or possibly ethically acceptable.

"Rédigé dans un style sans verbiage, l’ouvrage se distingue par sa clarté et la rigueur de son argumentation. Il offre une introduction incontournable au débat contemporain sur l’éthique du véganisme." Ce n'est pas moi qui le dis; c'est la quatrième de couverture.

Après avoir défini le véganisme, comme le mode de vie consistant à ne pas produire, acheter et utiliser des biens d'origine animale, Malou et moi examinons les arguments le plus souvent mobilisés en faveur et à l’encontre de ces trois pratiques.

By the way, while I reject Timmerman’s and Kagan’s definitions of speciesism, I don’t provide a positive account here. I do that in another paper that’s forthcoming in the 𝐽𝑜𝑢𝑟𝑛𝑎𝑙 𝑜𝑓 𝐸𝑡ℎ𝑖𝑐𝑠.

In response, I argue that two of these arguments rest on bad accounts of speciesism and that all three generate implausible empirical predictions. Until proved otherwise, it very much seems that speciesism exists.

Stijn Bruers does not deny the existence of speciesism, but he defends a claim that seems to entail that speciesism doesn’t exist - namely, the claim that most people use species only as a proxy for personhood. See link.springer.com/article/10.1...

Shelly Kagan argues that most people are actually not speciesists on the grounds that they do not believe that the interests of humans would count more than the like interests of intelligent aliens. See onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Travis Timmerman argues that most people are actually not speciesists on the grounds that they would reject some implications of the claim that humans possess a moral status higher than that of all non-humans. See onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1...

The speciesism debate focuses on an ethical question: Can speciesism be justified, or is it immoral? Another question has received much less attention: Does speciesism exist? Animal ethicists have largely assumed that speciesism is pervasive. But this assumption has been challenged recently.