2011/06/01 by David Schmidtz · 23 citations
Arts and Humanities · Environmental Science · Social Sciences · #Philosophical Ethics and Theory #Environmental Philosophy and Ethics #Political Philosophy and Ethics #Egalitarianism #Intuition #Epistemology #Philosophy #Sociology #Law #Political science #Politics
paper · doi:10.1080/21550085.2011.578359
published in Ethics Policy & Environment 14(2), 127-138 (Taylor & Francis)
openalex publication_date 2011/06/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/29
Species egalitarianism is the view that all living things have equal moral standing. To have moral standing is, at a minimum, to command respect, to be more than a mere thing. Is there reason to believe that all living things have moral standing in even this most minimal sense? If so—that is, if all living things command respect—is there reason to believe they all command equal respect?1 1. This essay revises David Schmidtz (1998 Schmidtz, D. 1998. Are all species equal?. Journal of Applied Philosophy, 15: 57–67. [Crossref] , [Google Scholar]). Reprinted by permission of Blackwell Publishers. I explain why members of other species command our respect but also why they do not command equal respect. The intuition that we should have respect for nature is one motive for embracing species egalitarianism, but we need not be species egalitarians to have respect for nature. This paper questions whether species egalitarianism is even compatible with respect for nature.