Anti-Human Supremacy Animal Rights Argument
Abstract
This essay is intended to offer a stronger alternative argument in accessible language for extending ethical regard and rights to nonhuman life forms than the "speciesism equals racism" and sentience/suffering criteria approach that is widely used in the animal rights debate. It is an examination of what secular and spiritual beliefs motivate human discrimination against non humans, and the arguments employed to defend it. The approach is rooted in a variant of individualist ethical subjectivism, and uses the lack of an absolute, objective certainty in the claim of human supremacists and the reality of human discrimination against and predation upon other humans to force the observer into a choice, either extend rights to non humans, or accept that their belief allows humans to discriminate against anyone, including other humans, thus undermining their desire for an application of universal human rights.