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

Animal Ethics

So while it is generally agreed that it is wrong to experiment on human beings without their consent in the expectation of making scientific discoveries, there is no such general opposition to animal vivisection. Biological warfare against human beings is generally condemned but not biological warfare against animals.

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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.

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