CFP: MANCEPT Workshop - Speciesism, Power and Human Prejudice

Panel Abstract: Speciesism, Power and Human Prejudice

Speciesism has become a central concept in moral, social and political scholarship and movements concerning animals. Broadly understood, speciesism refers to discrimination based on species-membership and is often compared to racism and sexism. Nonetheless, unlike racism and sexism, speciesism is still frequently seen as an acceptable bias by the public and, also amongst philosophers, opinions diverge.

Nowadays, most philosophers reject forms of speciesism which rely merely on membership in the human species. However, human-centred approaches which are justified in more indirect terms are widespread. Indeed, these have received renewed defences recently – including accounts which rely on rationality or social categories, among others.

This raises pressing metaphysical, normative and epistemic concerns about what it means to be a human, whether human-centered approaches to moral and political theory can be successfully defended, and a wider question about why philosophers might be compelled to defend them at all. At the same time, there are a variety of related concerns that are more overtly political in character, which theorists of race and gender attend to, but which are under-addressed in the literature on speciesism and animals. These include issues regarding systems of power, structural injustice, social hierarchy, domination and oppression.

This panel is therefore broadly concerned with the following question: if speciesism is similar to racism and sexism, what lies behind the former’s largely unchecked dominance in our thinking, conduct and social structures? And how might we better understand its continued socio-political power, within and beyond analytic political and moral philosophy? The panel will consider a range of related sub-questions including, but not limited to, the following:

• How should we define and understand speciesism? What similarities with and differences to racism and sexism does it have?
• What are the psychological-philosophical roots of speciesism? And why has speciesism not experienced a similar widespread condemnation to racism and sexism?
• Must speciesism be morally wrong? Furthermore, must it constitute an injustice? If it does, is this for similar reasons to racism and sexism?
• In what ways does speciesism continue to impact political and moral philosophy, contemporary politics and beyond?
• How might speciesism be related to forms of social hierarchy and oppression seen in racism and sexism?
• How do social, institutional and political structures impact speciesism? And how might these need to be reformed?

Currently confirmed speakers: Hannah Battersby (KU Leuven), Catia Faria (Complutense University of Madrid), François Jacquet (Université de Strasbourg), Matthew Wray Perry (University of Sheffield) and Valérie G. Topf (Hebrew University of Jerusalem).

In addition to several invited speakers, the panel will include a call for abstracts: anonymised abstracts of 250–300 words should be emailed to [email protected] by 18 May 2026, allowing sufficient time to confirm further participants before the registration deadline (3rd of August).