Conor Purcelli in Aeon:
Across northern Europe and Canada during the 19th and 20th centuries, workers roamed coastlines and pack ice, beating infant seals to death with clubs. White ice was smeared red. Annual kill rates for seals are estimated in the hundreds of thousands, all done with the purpose of turning them into raw industrial materials for the production of clothing, oil, and meat. Even if their suffering was real, many considered it inconsequential. Seals, like many other creatures, were seen as little more than tools or resources.
However, views of animal suffering and pain soon shifted. In 1881, Henry Wood Elliott reported on the ‘wholesale destruction’ of seals in Alaska, leading to international outcry and the establishment of new treaties. And in ‘The White Seal’ (1893), Rudyard Kipling told a sympathetic story from the perspective of the hunted animals themselves. If someone killed a seal pup today, they would likely be charged in a court of law.
This widening of the so-called moral circle – the slow extension of empathy and rights beyond the boundaries we once took for granted – has changed many of our relationships with other species. It is why factory-farmed animals, who often lead short and painful lives, are killed in ways that tend to minimise suffering. It is why cosmetic companies offer ‘cruelty free’ products, and why vegetarianism and veganism have become more popular in many countries. However, it is not always clear what truly counts as ‘suffering’ and therefore not always clear just how wide the moral circle should expand. Are there limits to whom, or what, our empathy should extend?
More here.
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