On the Tail-Docking of Pigs, Human Circumcision, and their Implications for Prevailing Opinion Regarding Pain

Abstract In this paper, I argue for the modest claim that people's apparent indifference to animal pain may not be predicated upon speciesism. I defend that claim by developing an analogy between current attitudes toward at least some non-human animal pain — that which pigs endure while having their tails 'docked'— and our culture's indifference to the pain that male human infants experience while being circumcised. And I conclude that to convince more of their philosophical and social critics, 'animal liberationists' need to spend more time analyzing the pain that non-human animals experience and defending its moral significance, rather than assuming that such pain is significant and then simply arguing that unnecessary forms of it exist.