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John Passmore (1914-2004) on Animal Suffering

Animal Ethics

Neither Aquinas nor Kant nor Newman denied, however, that animals could suffer: Descartes and Malebranche thought differently. To suppose that animals could feel would be to suggest that there could be pain and suffering where there has been no sin. For animals did not eat of the Forbidden Tree.

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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. Biological warfare against human beings is generally condemned but not biological warfare against animals.

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Deconstructing Slate's "Pepper" Series

Animal Person

This one addresses the decreasing number of dogs and cats being experimented on and, without mentioning it, discusses speciesism and our affection for dogs--pet dogs particularly (and especially purebreds)--which leads to our revulsion with the idea of snatching, vivisecting and killing them. But that's now what happened. Or mute babies?