Speciesism

When a dog attacks a person, the state intervenes. In England, a series of attacks by the Bully XL, a powerful and muscular dog breed, led to a nationwide ban. Newspapers reported torn children, pierced throats, desperate parents. One breed, one guilt. And so the ban followed. Collective guilt was applied without hesitation.

But when people repeatedly commit crimes, suddenly a different standard applies. In Rotherham, South England, hundreds of young girls were systematically abused and exploited for years by a network of men, predominantly Muslims from the Pakistani community. Police and authorities remained silent out of fear of being labeled racist or Islamophobic. No ban, no general condemnation, no structural cleansing. Only the cautious, measured: "We must not generalize." The perpetrator is approached individually, his religion and culture spared.

This problem is not isolated. In Germany, during New Year's Eve 2015, hundreds of women were harassed and even raped in Cologne and other cities. The vast majority of the perpetrators came from North African and Middle Eastern migrant backgrounds, mostly Muslims. The reaction was careful, almost hesitant, emphasizing preventing generalizations and protecting migrants' rights.

Animals are judged collectively, humans individually protected. Even among animals, this inequality exists: a wolf that bites once is hunted down, captured, and often shot as a dangerous threat. But dogs, which bite thousands of people every year - including children - are tolerated as 'pets,' even when their aggression is life-threatening. The same action, a very different response. The wolf is wild, a symbol of nature that we must control; the dog is bred, social, and accepted, no matter how dangerous sometimes. This shows how deeply speciesism is rooted in our morality: we judge by species and role, not by deed.

The core of this accusation points to a deeply rooted illusion: that humans have the right to dominance over other species simply because we can reason, build, and speak. But those abilities are no guarantee of moral superiority. Often humans use their complexity precisely to conceal, rationalize, or even legalize cruelty.

Animals are daily victims of laws that reduce them to property, while they feel, are loyal, and experience pain. They are quickly condemned and killed after one attack, without consideration of circumstances. They endure systematic exploitation: factory farming, animal testing, hunting for sport. Humans look down on animals and call them primitive - but who is truly primitive if empathy is lacking?

And then there is human history. In 1977 - the year Star Wars lit up movie screens and humans already dreamed of Mars - someone was still executed by guillotine in France. No secret execution chamber, no jungle tribunal, but an official, legal state act in Marseille. While disco balls spun and Concordes cut through the sky, the blade fell. Not in 1277, but 1977. One year later France abolished it — only then. And even that was not driven by moral enlightenment, but shame over Europe's image.

We humans call ourselves morally superior. We think, we build, we create. But animals do not lie. A dog does not wage war, torture its own kind, or sacrifice itself for an economic agenda. It is loyal, direct, sincere. It does not hide behind ideology or bureaucracy. A dog does not bite out of revenge. It does not poison the planet. It does not fly in a private jet to a climate summit to discuss the seriousness of CO₂ emissions.

Yet humans continue to see themselves as the crown of creation. We create laws that reduce animals to property but recoil when we ourselves are collectively held accountable. We call the dog dangerous but tolerate it when people systematically break each other - as long as it is neatly wrapped in diplomacy, religion, or culture.

Speciesism is not a philosophical concept for connoisseurs. It is daily practice. It lives in our law books, our judges, our reflexes. It is why a dog is put down after one attack, and a human only quietly reprimanded after their tenth victim. It is the hypocrisy that says: "We are rational, and precisely because of that, we may judge other species." As if the gift of reflection excuses us from reflecting ourselves.

Maybe it is time to abandon the idea of hierarchy. Of higher and lower species. Maybe we should recognize that the measure of moral worth does not lie in language or technology, but in loyalty, honesty, empathy. Qualities animals often possess more than we do.

Maybe it is time to stop looking down on animals and start looking up.