Animals aren't rational.
Rationality isn't what makes suffering matter, and the criterion would exclude humans who lack it
Full chapterA2Humans are superior, so we can use the inferior.
Superior abilities give no right to dominate
Full chapterA3Animals don't have language.
An irrelevant criterion for pain; it excludes babies and non-verbal people
Full chapterA4Animals don't have souls.
An unfalsifiable premise used as a public criterion
Full chapterA5Animals aren't conscious and don't feel pain like we do.
Contradicts the neuroscientific evidence (Cambridge Declaration, 2012; New York Declaration, 2024)
Full chapterA6Fish and invertebrates don't feel pain.
Growing evidence of sentience in fish, cephalopods and decapods
Full chapterA7No duties, no rights.
Confuses moral agents with moral patients; it would exclude children
Full chapterA8Animals aren't persons.
A persuasive definition: pick the concept that excludes them, then conclude they are excluded
Full chapterA9Rights are a human invention, only for humans.
Genetic fallacy: where a norm came from doesn't set how far it reaches
Full chapterA10They're just animals.
Explicit speciesism: species membership as a moral criterion, like race in racism
Full chapterA11It's normal for humans to be rational.
Treats individuals by what others have, not by what they have
Full chapterA12Human babies have the potential to be rational.
Potential doesn't confer the rights of the actual, and it doesn't cover humans without potential
Full chapterA13It's natural to put our own first.
Partiality lets us prefer our own; it does not let us exploit others
Full chapterA14Plants feel too.
No nervous system and no evidence of experience; and if they did feel, animal farming kills more plants
Full chapterA15Where do you draw the line? Insects? Bacteria?
Continuum fallacy: a fuzzy boundary doesn't erase clear cases
Full chapterA16Killing without pain isn't harm.
Death takes away good future experiences; the same holds for humans with no sense of time
Full chapterA17Animals are property.
Describes a legal status; doesn't justify it (as with slavery)
Full chapterA18What matters is the species, not the individual.
Species don't feel; individuals do
Full chapterA19Vegans anthropomorphize animals.
Denying similar mental states is also an error (anthropodenial), and the evidence contradicts it
Full chapterA20Humans have intrinsic value; animals have instrumental value.
Circular: it assumes the conclusion
Full chapterA21I respect animals, but humans come first
A special status no one explains and that wouldn't pass the veil of ignorance: the weight should depend on the size of the harm, not on species
Full chapterA22Humans suffer more than animals
Suffering more in some cases doesn't license ignoring those who suffer less; and less cognition often means more suffering and more vulnerability
Full chapterA23Morality exists to protect us from each other
It would also exclude babies and vulnerable people; and explaining where a practice came from does not justify it
Full chapterA24Species is biology, race is a social construct
A biological criterion can be as unjust as a social one: what makes discrimination unjust is giving someone's interests biased weight
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