Like many other "isms," speciesism (coined by coined by British psychologist Richard Ryder in 1973) refers to an attitude of superiority or domination that is acted upon in a way that oppresses the members of a group--in this case, nonhuman animals. It would be considered speciesist, for example, to say that the desire for the taste of animal flesh is justification enough for humans to take the lives of others animals, whom are viewed as having no inherent worth or reason for being beyond their use to humans. Speciesism, as with racism and other such ism's, often involves a failure to recognize that others have a right to such things as respect, bodily integrity, and freedom from confinement.
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