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John Passmore (1914-2004) on the Moral Status of Animals

Animal Ethics

And by this they mean not only that it is wrong to enjoy torturing animals—which few moralists would ever have wished explicitly to deny, however little emphasis they might have placed on cruelty to animals in their moral teaching—but that it is wrong to cause them to suffer unnecessarily. Controversies no doubt remain.

Morals 40
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John Passmore (1914-2004) on the History of Animal Cruelty

Animal Ethics

Whereas it once used to be argued, as by Newman , that the least human good compensates for any possible amount of animal suffering, the current doctrine is that it requires a considerable good to compensate for such suffering. The degree of restriction placed on human behavior, furthermore, is relatively slight.

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From Today's New York Times

Animal Ethics

While cruelty to animals is a serious matter that should elicit widespread public outrage, efforts to reach the public through more serious means often fall on deaf ears in a world in which sex sells and there are both a war and an economic downturn. Animal suffering and human suffering are undeniably interconnected.