Last time I posted, I included a piece on speciesism, arguing that other species should be subject to the rules of a civilised society, the same as human beings are. The following week's handout picked up on that theme. Here it is. My aim in proposing that the criminal law should be applied to non-human higher animals was to call into question the distinction that Singer makes between persons and other forms of sentient life, including human beings who are not persons. He elevates to personhood those humans who are rational, self-conscious and contributing to a pension fund or otherwise exhibiting awareness of the future.There is, however, another criterion of being a person, namely that one should be morally responsible for one’s actions, on which basis it seems to me that the big cats are to be held accountable for their murderous easting habits. If to this it is objected that lions, tigers and others have no moral sense, then surely the same is true of human beings who comm