Abstract: Despite bioethical discussions of its moral irrelevance, membership in the species Homo sapiens is still appealed to as a criterion for access to superior moral status. Along the lines of the authors who have equated ”speciesism” with racism and sexism, I challenge this view on several grounds. I claim that biological characteristics cannot carry direct moral weight. I maintain that species membership cannot be referred to as a mark of a more complex mental endowment because some nonparadigmatic human beings are not so endowed. Finally, I argue that relational defenses of the moral relevance of species membership are either prejudiced or circular.

Keywords: Homo sapiens, human beings, humans, moral significance, species, speciesism,