Speciesism is rife in our society. People will eat these animals but not those; give some legal protection to these types of exploited creatures but none to others. The way we talk about animals also devalues the lives of some based solely on their belonging to a particular species. But could this kind of talk be considered hate speech, akin to that directed at people of a certain race, and should animals be protected from it?

A new open-access paper by philosopher Josh Milburn and political theorist Alasdair Cochrane argues that there is no justification for criminalising racist hate speech but not speciesist hate speech (with the caveat that they recognise the differences between animals and humans and the injustices they face).

As animals are routinely abused and exploited for human ends, one might wonder why it matters how we talk about animals when what counts is our actions towards them. How would protecting them from hate speech meaningfully improve their already difficult lives?

“We're not necessarily saying that we should institute laws against anti-animal hate speech tomorrow,” says Milburn. “Now, we could be saying that. It could be, for example, that laws against anti-animal hate speech will help us transition as societies to more respectful co-relationships with animals. But a more plausible reading of what we're suggesting is that we're thinking about this question for a future society. We're saying, in a future society where animals are offered the respect that they are owed, we're going to need to ask serious questions about including animals in hate speech law. And if in this future society we have laws protecting humans from hate speech, we should probably also have laws protecting animals from hate speech, or at least that's what we argue.”

So what could anti-animal hate speech look like? An example that springs easily to mind is the language used around non-native species, which has often been pointed out as bearing similarities to that used about migrants, as it can diminish the lives and potential suffering of members of those species compared to those of native species. Indeed, this is one of the examples given by Milburn and Cochrane as a potential form of speciesist hate speech. Another is literature or films produced by pro-animal agriculture organisations which encourage people to disregard or tolerate the suffering of farmed animals, and a third is content written by “avowedly speciesist critics of animal protectionism claiming that animals’ interests do not matter simply because they belong to animals.”

While it is certainly interesting to try finding real-world examples that would fit these broad categories or to puzzle out what exactly could count as “threatening, abusive or insulting” material (to reference the legislation of racist hate speech) when it comes to animals, the paper doesn’t try to give precise descriptions of anti-animal hate speech. Rather, it looks at the potential defences for criminalising racist hate speech but not speciesist hate speech and shows why they fail. There are two main types of defence. First, the non-consequentialist ones, which try to differentiate between speciesism and racism on grounds “unrelated to the impact that the speech has (or is likely to have).” Second, ones that focus on the harms caused by hate speech.

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The most interesting of the non-consequentialist defences is the one that claims the groups targeted by racist or speciesist hate speech - non-white people and nonhuman animals - are not analogous and do not warrant equal protection. So within the human species, some groups of humans deserve protection from hate speech but others do not, and this is usually on the basis of their minority status and vulnerability. Animal advocates will instantly see how these apply to animals.

Though just farm animals massively outnumber humans, “minority,” write Milburn and Cochrane, “does not refer to relative numbers; instead, the focus is on the structural inequalities faced by the group … if we define ‘minority’ relative to structural inequality, it is hard to see why animals should not be included.” Animals are also clearly vulnerable, facing “repeated violent abuse and discrimination at human hands because of their membership in that outgroup” and are “prone to stranger crimes” in that “they often face illegal violence at the hands of humans they have never met before—for example, cows abused by overworked slaughterpersons, wild animals poached, or companion animals poisoned by those who regard them as pests.” Being unaware of belonging to a vulnerable or minority group does not make animals less deserving of protection from hate crimes, otherwise, humans who lack the capacity to understand that they are vulnerable or a minority would not be protected.

When it comes to the actual or potential harms caused by hate speech, there is no reason to distinguish animals from various groups of humans either. Though people can clearly be psychologically wounded by hate speech, it is not totally obvious that this is true for animals. Companion animals, particularly dogs, are sensitive to how they are spoken to by humans, but this is generally more to do with tone (e.g. shouting) rather than what exactly is said. But Milburn and Cochrane argue that the victim of hate speech needn’t be wounded for it to count as hate speech.  Nor is it right to say that any speech that wounds should be considered hate speech. For this reason, “we are pushed towards making an identification of wrongful action not on the subjective feelings they produce, but on the wrongful content of the speech itself.” 

Some people recognise that using certain language about particular races is wrong, regardless of whether people belonging to those races hear it or are wounded by it, and this is of course recognised by the existence of hate speech law too. For animals, speciesism is so prevalent that it's generally accepted without question that many people believe animal lives are less important than human lives and that it is perfectly acceptable for them to say so (and act as such). But if animals were treated more equally or if we wanted to treat them more as equals, this would not go unchallenged; we would find material or language used to denigrate their worth based on their being a particular species to be wrong in itself.

Another harm again raises the similarities with migrants; the creation of a hostile environment. By expressing or encouraging attitudes against people based on their race, racists make the world a more dangerous place for those people. As acknowledged earlier, many animals already live in a hostile environment, but there are some who may live in relative peace for now only to have attitudes towards them change for reasons beyond their control - think of a non-native species suddenly appearing in a new country, or if humans decide to add some new species to the menu of animals deemed to be edible. 

Finally, following the theory of hate speech by philosopher Jeremy Waldron, hate speech against animals can be considered an “assault” on the dignity of animals as it is for humans. Again, this need not be predicated on the victim’s subjective experience of harm; the harm lies in denying their membership to a group as an equal, as occurs when some humans are talked about as being less-than-human or indeed, compared to animals. “No community truly regards its animal residents as members of society, and none recognises them as equals,” write Milburn and Cochrane. But what matters is that animals should be treated as members of society, with rights and dignity. Even if the rights and levels of membership granted were to vary between different kinds of animals, as Will Kymlicka and Sue Donaldson explore in their book Zoopolis, “it is plausible to think of some animals as members with rights to political status and membership as such. This plausibility opens their eligibility for protection via hate-speech laws under a Waldronian theory.”

Society clearly has a long way to go before most people would accept that animals are deserving of protection from hate speech. But for animal advocates, it’s useful to think about what a just world for animals looks like, and what laws can either help us get there or should be part of that hopeful future.

Claire Hamlett is a freelance journalist, writer and regular contributor at Surge. Based in Oxford, UK, Claire tells stories that challenge systemic exploitation of and disregard for animals and the environment and that point to a better way of doing things.

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