I share your impression that it’s often used differently in broader society and mainstream animal rights groups than it is by technical philosophers and in the EA space. I think the average person would still hear the word as akin to racism or sexism or some other -ism. By criticizing those isms, we DO in fact mean to imply that individual human beings are of equal moral value regardless of their race or sex. And by that standard, I’d be a proud speciesist, because I do think individual beings of some species are innately more valuable than others.
We can split hairs about why that is—capacity for love or pain or knowledge or neuron count or whatever else we find valuable about a life—but it will still require you to come out with a multiplier for how much more valuable a healthy “normal” human is relative to a healthy normal member of other species, which would be absolutely anathema in the racial or sexual context.
I share your impression that it’s often used differently in broader society and mainstream animal rights groups than it is by technical philosophers and in the EA space. I think the average person would still hear the word as akin to racism or sexism or some other -ism. By criticizing those isms, we DO in fact mean to imply that individual human beings are of equal moral value regardless of their race or sex. And by that standard, I’d be a proud speciesist, because I do think individual beings of some species are innately more valuable than others.
We can split hairs about why that is—capacity for love or pain or knowledge or neuron count or whatever else we find valuable about a life—but it will still require you to come out with a multiplier for how much more valuable a healthy “normal” human is relative to a healthy normal member of other species, which would be absolutely anathema in the racial or sexual context.