There are the same reasons for the recognition by human beings of
ethical relations to non-human beings as there are for the
recognition by human beings of ethical relations among themselves
Analyse the reasons for being considerate toward men, any variety of
men, and you will find the same reasons to exist for being
considerate toward all men. And analyse the reasons for being
altruistic toward men—for being kind and sympathetic toward
them—and you will find the same reasons to exist for being
altruistic toward those who are not men. The doctrine that we human
beings may perform upon the other inhabitants of the earth all sorts
of injurious acts, and that these acts when so performed by us are
perfectly right and proper, but that these same things when done by
others to us are crimes, is the logic of pure brutalitarianism. It
is a doctrine utterly without intelligence, at variance with every
sentiment of justice and humanity, and has no legitimate existence
outside the fibrous brains of ruffians.
_Right_ and _wrong_ are qualities belonging to two diverse kinds of
conduct. They are the qualities which render conduct respectively
proper and improper. All terrestrial races (unless the very lowest)
have the power of experiencing two kinds of conscious states—the
desirable (pleasurable) and the undesirable (painful). Now, if
beings were indifferent as to what sort of conscious states entered
into and made up their experiences, there would manifestly be no
such thing as propriety and impropriety in the causing of these
states. But they are not indifferent. The pleasurable experiences
are the experiences all beings are seeking, and the painful ones are
the ones they are all seeking to avoid. Those acts which help or
tend to help beings to those experiences for which they are striving
are, therefore, right and proper, and are, they and their authors,
called _good_. While those acts which compel beings to undergo that
which they are striving to avoid are improper and wrong, and are,
they and their authors, called _bad_. Kindness, courtesy, justice,
mercy, generosity, sympathy, love, and the like, are good, and
selfishness, cruelty, deceit, pillage, injustice, and murder, are
bad, because they are respectively the promoters and destroyers of
wellbeing and happiness in the world.
But these two kinds of conduct produce the same respective effects
upon non-human beings as they do upon human beings. The emotion of a
mangled sensory—is it not the same terrible thing whether the
sensory hang to the brain of a quadruped or a man? Do shelter and
food not affect shivering and empty cattle, horses, and fowls,
precisely as they do human beings? Thunder harsh words at your dog.
Will he not shrink and suffer, just as your child or hired hand will
under like acts of terrorisation? Speak kindly to him, love him, and
accord to him a quarter of the consideration you claim for yourself.
Is he not caused to be one of the happiest and most devoted of
associates? To take squirrels or song-birds, the most active of
animals, and shut them up in narrow cages, and keep them there shut
off from their companions and their own green world their whole
lives long; to take an animal as sensitive and high-minded as the
horse and put a pack on his back and a bit in his mouth, and then
strike him dozens of times a day with a lash whose touch is like
fire; to shoot off the legs and wings of birds and fill their vitals
with lead, and leave them to flounder out a lingering death in the
reeds and grasses—do these things not cause misery and desolation
in the world? To place temptations in the way of fur-bearing animals
and induce them to enter carefully concealed traps, and then allow
them to remain in the villainous clutches of these devices, not
minutes, but hours, perhaps days, until it suits the convenience of
the ensnarer to knock out their brains, or until, crazed by pain,
the poor wretches eat off their own limbs and escape—is not this a
_monstrous_ thing to do?
Oh that men everywhere were moved by the deep tenderness and the
all-embracing sympathy of poor Robert Burns, who could apologise
with real feeling to a frightened field-mouse whom he had
accidentally upturned with his plough.
‘Wee, sleekit, cow’rin’, tim’rous beastie,
O, what a panic’s in thy breastie!
Thou needna start awa’ sae hasty,
Wi’ bick’ring brattle!
I had be laith to rin and chase thee,
Wi’ murd’rous pattle!
‘I’m truly sorry man’s dominion
Has broken nature’s social union,
And justifies that ill opinion
Which makes thee startle
At me, thy poor, earth-born companion,
And fellow-mortal.’
Long ago it was said, and truthfully, that the merciful man is
merciful to his ox. The truly kind man, the truly honest and the
truly humane man, is not kind and honest and humane to men only, but
to _all_ beings—to the humble and lowly as well as to the proud
and powerful—_to all that have the misfortune to feel and mourn_.
Benevolence is the same beautiful thing whether it pour sunshine
into the dark and saddened souls of men or into the dark and
saddened souls of other beings. John Howard never hearkened to a
nobler duty when he lifted the darkness that hung over English gaols
than will some inflamed soul some day who hears the cry of the
lonely captives who to-day languish in menagerial dungeons to
satisfy human curiosity. He who will emancipate horses from the hell
in which they pass their lives—make them the associates of men
instead of their slaves—will deserve to stand in the constellation
of the world’s redeemers beside Garrison and Garibaldi. Is there
he who holds in his heart-cups the love and compassion of Buddha?
Let him go where the dagger drips and the heartless pole-axe
crashes, and the meek-eyed millions of the meadows pour out their
innocent existences in the soulless houses of slaughter. Let him
lift from off the races the hounding incubus of fear, give back to
them their birthright—the right to a free, unhunted life—and
make the great monster (man) to be their high-priest and friend.
‘Among the noblest in the land,
Though he may count himself the least,
That man I honour and revere
Who, without favour, without fear,
In the great city dares to stand
The friend of every friendless beast,
And tames with his unflinching hand
The brutes that wear our form and face,
The were-wolves of the human race.’
If to do good is to generate welfare, then to cause welfare to a
horse, a bird, a butterfly, or a fish, is to do good just as truly
as to cause welfare to men. And if to do evil is to cause
unhappiness and illfare, then to cause these things to one
individual or race is evil just as certainly as to cause them to any
other individual or race. And if to put one’s self in the place of
others, and to act toward them as one would wish them to act toward
him, is the one great rule—the Golden Rule—by which men are to
gauge their conduct when acting toward each other, then this is also
the one great rule—the Golden Rule—by which men are to regulate
their conduct toward all beings. There is no escape from these
conclusions, except for the savage and the fool.[1]
1. The deliberate causing of misery and death to criminals, whether
they be human or non-human beings, individuals or species, is not,
as is sometimes supposed, a violation or reversal of the general
theory of ethics. When they are prompted by a spirit of tenderness
and universal goodness rather than by a spirit of revenge, penalties
are justifiable by the everyday assumption that it is sometimes wise
to inflict or undergo a certain amount of illfare in order to avoid
or forestall a larger amount. The problems of universal penology are
not different from those of human penology, practically the same
cases and perplexities being presented by all delinquents. See
‘Better-World Philosophy,’ by the author, pp. 218-227, for a
discussion of the function of punishment.