by Richard Ryder

About the author: Richard Ryder is a psychologist and the author of Victims of Science and Animal Revolution. He has served in the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals since 1972, and is a political consultant with the Political Animal Lobby.

Speciesism means hurting others because they are members of another species. In 1970 I invented the word partly in order to draw the parallel with racism and sexism. All of these forms of discrimination, based as they are upon physical appearances, are irrational. They overlook the one great similarity between all races, sexes and species: our capacity to suffer pain and distress. For me, pain (in its broadest sense) is the only evil and therefore forms the foundation for all morality.

Ibelieve that morality is, by definition, about how we behave toward...