Accustomed to centuries of mean discussions about how much animals can actually suffer, and how much suffering we may impose on them for human benefit, we may tend to think of nonhumans as second class beings. Although their condition deserves to be improved, in the end, they will always belong in a different moral category. This piece argues, however, that the inferior status to which animals are relegated is, like many other historical phenomena, really accidental. A different perception of animals could have prevailed had it not been defeated in some specific clash of views.
