Single Idea 21424

[catalogued under 25. Social Practice / F. Life Issues / 6. Animal Rights]

Full Idea

Cruel treatment of animals is intimately opposed to man's duty to himself; ...for it dulls his shared feeling of their pain and so weakens and gradually uproots a natural predisposition that is very serviceable to morality in relations with other men.

Gist of Idea

Cruelty to animals is bad because it dulls our empathy for pain in humans

Source

Immanuel Kant (Metaphysics of Morals II:Doctrine of Virtue [1797], 443 I.I)

Book Reference

Kant,Immanuel: 'The Metaphysics of Morals', ed/tr. Gregor,Mary [CUP 1991], p.238


A Reaction

This idea is quite shocking. Kant's rough contemporary Bentham was far more enlightened. If we could be certain that our feelings of empathy for pain were not dulled by cruelty to animals, then it would be fine.