"Speciesism" is the name of a form of bias or discrimination that is much discussed in the contemporary debates over the moral status of animals. It amounts to discriminating on the basis of species; that is, it takes the fact that, say, baboons and humans belong to different species as a reason in itself to draw moral differences between them and on several counts.

First, speciesism sometimes manifests itself in consideration of who or what may be members of the moral community, of who or what is morally considerable (see Clark, Frey, Regan, Singer). For example, it is sometimes said that creatures who have experiences or are sentient count morally; to go on to affirm that (some) animals have experiences and are sentient but to deny that they count morally solely because they are not of the right species is a form of speciesism. If it really is...