animals

First Reason: Humans matter more than animals because only humans are intelligent (or have the potential for intelligence).

Second Reason: Humans matter more than animals because only humans are self-aware (or have the potential for self-awareness).

The fact that the human being can have the representation “I” raises him infinitely above all the other beings on earth. By this he is a person....that is, a being altogether different in rank and dignity from things, such as irrational animals, with which one may deal and dispose at one's discretion. Immanuel Kant Lectures on Anthropology

Second Reason: Humans matter more than animals because only humans are self-aware (or have the potential for self-awareness).

In a series of experiments, the elephants first explored the mirror -- reaching behind it with their trunks, kneeling before it and even trying to climb it -- gathering clues that the mirror image was just that, an image. That was followed by an eerie sequence in which the animals made slow, rhythmic movements while tracking their reflections. Then, like teenagers, they got hooked...

…all three conducted oral self-exams. Maxine, a 35-year-old female, even used the tip of her trunk to get a better look inside her mouth. She also used her trunk to slowly pull her ear in front of the mirror so she could examine it -- "self- directed" behaviors the zookeepers had never seen before… Moreover, one elephant, Happy, 34, passed the most difficult measure of self-recognition: the mark test. The researchers painted a white X on her left cheek, visible only in the mirror. Later, after moving in and out of view of the mirror, Happy stood directly before the reflective surface and touched the tip of her trunk to the mark repeatedly -- an act that, among other insights, requires an understanding that the mark is not on the mirror but on her body. The Seattle Times October 31st 2006

Second Reason: Humans matter more than animals because only humans are self-aware (or have the potential for self-awareness).

Third Reason: Humans matter more than animals because only humans have a soul.

Fourth Reason: Humans matter more than animals because only humans are moral agents.

A moral patient is something whose interests should be taken into account. A moral agent is something whose actions can be morally evaluated (e.g., praised or blamed).

In 1959, Russell Church demonstrated that rats would not push a lever that delivered food if doing so caused other rats to receive an electric shock. In a similar vein, in 1962, George Rice and Priscilla Gainer showed that rats would help other rats in distress. In their experiment, one rat was suspended by a harness, which would cause it distress that it manifested by squeaking and wriggling. Another rat could lower the suspended rat by pressing a lever, and this is what it, in fact, did. Mark Rowlands Can Animals be Moral?

Fourth Reason: Humans matter more than animals because only humans are moral agents.

Fifth Reason: Humans matter more than animals because only humans have intrinsic value.

This kind of rhetoric is popular and meets with little opposition. After all, why should we not attribute “intrinsic dignity” or “intrinsic worth” to ourselves? Why should we not say that we are the only things in the universe that have value? Our fellow human beings are unlikely to reject the accolades we so generously bestow upon them, and the other species to whom we deny the honor are unable to object…

I use the term ‘speciesism’ to make the analogy between this attitude of preference for members of our own species, simply because they are members of our own species, and better-known attitudes like racism… and sexism… Once the parallel between these attitudes has been recognized, it is easy to see why we cannot say that membership in our species alone is enough to give a being special worth. If we are prepared to say that a being has less worth because it is not a member of our own species, how can we object to the racist… If species is a morally significant criterion, why isn’t race? Peter Singer “Animals and the Value of Life”