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| 1779 || || Publication || {{w|David Hume}} || David Hume in his posthumous work ''{{w|Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion}}'' makes reference to the antagonism experienced and inflicted by wild animals upon each other.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Hume|first=David|url=https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/4583|title=Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion|date=|publisher=|year=1779|isbn=|location=|pages=|language=English|quote=Observe [...] the curious artifices of nature, in order to embitter the life of every living being. The stronger prey upon the weaker, and keep them in perpetual terror and anxiety. The weaker too, in their turn, often prey upon the stronger, and vex and molest them without relaxation. Consider that innumerable race of insects, which either are bred on the body of each animal, or flying about infix their stings in him. These insects have others still less than themselves, which torment them. And thus on each hand, before and behind, above and below, every animal is surrounded with enemies, which incessantly seek his misery and destruction.}}</ref>

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| 1822 || || Publication || {{w|Lewis Gompertz}} || Lewis Gompertz in ''Moral Inquiries on the Situation of Man and of Brutes'' explores predation as a moral issue and advocates intervening to prevent it in certain circumstances.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Gompertz|first=Lewis|url=https://archive.org/details/moralinquiriesonthesituationofmanandofbrutes-lewisgompertz|title=Moral Inquiries on the Situation of Man and of Brutes|date=|publisher=Centaur|year=1992|isbn=|editor1-last=Singer|editor1-first=Peter|location=Fontwell|pages=93–94|language=English|quote=Y: As you think it wrong for man to kill other animals for food, do you also think it wrong that animals should devour each other? As this is the general law of nature.<br>Z: It appears wrong, according to the rules by which we govern our own actions to each other; and should I witness the attempt in any animal of destroying another, I would endeavour to frustrate it; though this might probably be wrong.}}</ref>

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| 1824 || {{dts|May 30}} || Publication || {{w|Giacomo Leopardi}} || Giacomo Leopardi engages in a dialogue with Nature in "Dialogo della Natura e di un Islandese" ("Dialogue between Nature and an Icelander"), questioning why Nature brings humans and other animals into existence only to inflict suffering and death upon them.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Leopardi|first=Giacomo|url=https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/52356|title=Essays and Dialogues|date=|publisher=Trübner & Co.|year=1882|isbn=|editor1-last=Singer|editor1-first=Peter|location=Ludgate Hill|pages=78–79|language=English|translator-last=Edwardes|translator-first=Charles|quote=Thus I reply to you. I am well aware you did not make the world for the service of men. It were easier to believe that you made it expressly as a place of torment for them. But tell me: why am I here at all? Did I ask to come into the world? Or am I here unnaturally, contrary to your will? If however, you yourself have placed me here, without giving me the power of acceptance or refusal of this gift of life, ought you not as far as possible to try and make me happy, or at least preserve me from the evils and dangers, which render my sojourn a painful one? And what I say of myself, I say of the whole human race, and of every living creature.}}</ref>

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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 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>