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Timeline of wild-animal suffering

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| 1899 || || Publication || {{w|J. Howard Moore}} || J. Howard Moore in ''Better World Philosophy'' laments the existence of carnivorous animals,<ref>{{Cite book|last=Moore|first=John Howard|url=http://archive.org/details/betterworldphilo00mooruoft|title=Better-World Philosophy: A Sociological Synthesis|date=|publisher=The Ward Waugh Company|others=|year=1899|isbn=|location=Chicago|pages=[https://archive.org/details/betterworldphilo00mooruoft/page/162/mode/2up 123–125]|quote=The chief activities of beings, both human and non-human, are put forth, directly or indirectly, for the purpose of procuring food. The suppression, entire or partial, of one being by another for nutritive purposes is, therefore, the form of the most frequent and excessive egoism. The lowly forms of life—the worms, echinoderms, mollusks, and the like—are, for the most part, vegetarians. So, also, are prevalently the insects, birds, rodents, and ungulates. These creatures are not, as a rule, aggressively harmful to each other, chiefly indifferent. But upon these inoffensive races feed with remorseless maw the reptilia, the insectivora, and the carnivora. These being-eaters cause to the earth-world its bloodiest experiences. It is their nature (established organically by long selection, or, as in the case of man, acquired tentatively) to subsist, not on the kingdom of the plant, the natural and primal storehouse of animal energy, but on the skeletons and sensibilities of their neighbors and friends. The serpent dines on the sparrow and the sparrow ingulfs the gnat; the tiger slays the jungle-fowl and the coyote plunders the lamb; the seal subsists on fish and the ''ursus maritimus'' subsists on seal; the ant enslaves the aphidae and man eats and enslaves what can not get away from him. Life riots on life—tooth and talon, beak and paw. It is a sickening contemplation, but life everywhere, in its aspect of activity, is largely made up of the struggle by one being against another for existence—of the effort by one being to circumvent, subjugate, or destroy another, and of the counter effort to reciprocate or escape.}}</ref> he argues for a "Confederation of the Consciousnesses", as an ideal arrangement of the living universe, where sentient individuals of all species—excluding the irredeemable carnivora—bring together their individual talents and collaborate for the benefit of all.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Moore|first=John Howard|url=http://archive.org/details/betterworldphilo00mooruoft|title=Better-World Philosophy: A Sociological Synthesis|date=|publisher=The Ward Waugh Company|others=|year=1899|isbn=|location=Chicago|pages=[https://archive.org/details/betterworldphilo00mooruoft/page/162/mode/2up 162–163]|quote= It is not possible, and it never will be possible, to organize all the beings occupying space into one immense confederacy. This would be ideal, but from the inexorable nature of things it can never be. The denizens of the sea depths can not correlate with the inhabitants of the clouds. The lion can not fraternize with the lamb, nor the hawk with the sparrow. The natures of beings have been evolved thru war, and they are in large part irredeemably antagonistic. But the approximation, if honest, may be more successful than is supposed, and may include many species not human. The bird may contribute his song and plumage, the sheep his fleece, the horse, the ox, the elephant, and the camel their strength or speed, the cow and the fowl their secretions, the dog his fidelity, and man his art. The ultimate and ideal aggregation of the living universe will not be a pan-American union nor a Euro-American league, nor even an aggregation whose spirit is embodied in a parliament of man, but the widest and most consummate possible ''Confederation of the Consciousnesses''.]}}</ref>
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| 1906 || || Publication || J. Howard Moore || In his book ''{{w|The Universal Kinship}}'', J. Howard Moore argues that the egoism of sentient beings—a product of natural selection—which leads them to exploit their sentient fellows, was is the most mournful fact of existence, and speculates whether a sufficiently sympathetic human could significantly improve this situation if given the chance.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Moore|first=J. Howard (John Howard)|url=http://archive.org/details/universalkinship00moor|title=The Universal Kinship|publisher=Charles H. Kerr & Co.|year=1906|isbn=|location=Chicago|pages=249–250|quote= The preponderance of egoism in the natures of living beings is the most mournful and immense fact in the phenomena of conscious life. It has made the world the kind of world it would have been had the gods actually emptied their wrath vials upon it. Brotherhood is anomalous, and, even in its highest manifestations, is but the expression of a veiled and calculating egoism. Inhumanity is everywhere. The whole planet is steeped in it. Every creature faces an inhospitable universeful, and every life is a campaign. It has all come about as a result of the mindless and inhuman manner in which life has been developed on the earth. It has been said that an individual of unlimited faculties and infinite goodness and power made this world and endowed it with ways of acting, and that this individual, as the world's executive, continues to determine its phenomena by inspiring the order of its events. But one cannot help thinking sometimes, when, in his more daring and vivid moments, he comes to comprehend the real character and condition of the world, what a discrepancy exists between the reputation of this builder and his works, and cannot help wondering whether an ordinary human being with only common-sense and insight and an average concern for the welfare of the world would not make a great improvement in terrestrial affairs if he only had the opportunity for a while.}}</ref>
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| 1973 || {{dts|June 14}} || Publication || {{w|Peter Singer}} || Peter Singer responds to a question about predation, arguing against interference in practice because the long-term consequences of intervention cannot be predicted. However, he accepts that intervention to reduce wild-animal suffering would be morally justified if one could be reasonably confident that the long-term effects would be positive.<ref>{{cite journal|last1=Singer|first1=Peter|title=Food for Thought|url=https://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/1973/jun/14/food-for-thought/|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20180509205824/https://www.nybooks.com/articles/1973/06/14/food-for-thought/<!--https://archive.fo/WkUXS-->|archivedate=2018-05-09|deadurl=no|journal=The New York Review of Books|date=June 14, 1973}}</ref>
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