Richard Ryder created the term ‘speciesism’ while working in Oxford in early 1970 and explained it to Peter Singer in the following year.  As a key figure in the modern animal rights revival Ryder appeared in December 1970 on the first ever televised discussion of animal rights (The Lion’s Share, Scottish Television).  Together with Brigid Brophy, Ryder then recorded several philosophical discussions for the Open University, again emphasising the idea of speciesism. 

He outlined this in his contribution to the seminal philosophical work Animals Men and Morals edited by the Oxford philosophers Stanley and Roslind Godlovitch and John Harris in 1971.  From 1969 Ryder organised protests against animal experiments and bloodsports.  He continued to promote his ideas around speciesism in leaflets and broadcasts in the early 1970s, culminating in the publication of his Victims of Science in 1975 - a book that provoked debates in Parliament and on television, and was described by The Spectator at the time as “a morally and historically important book”.  Ryder declined Singer’s invitation to be co-author of Animal Liberation (1975) because he was too busy campaigning for animal protection, but lent Singer material for this classic work.

Dr Ryder was elected to the RSPCA Council in 1971, first becoming Chairman in 1977.  In 1980 he founded the Liberal Democrat Animal Protection Group, ran for Parliament, then was Director of the Political Animal Lobby and later became Mellon Professor in the Department of Philosophy at Tulane University.  Ryder coined the term ‘painism’ to describe his wider moral theory in 1990.  He now lives in Exeter.