I became once very intimate with a colony of mice. They used to run up my legs, and eat crumbs from my lap. I love everything that has four legs: so did George Wilson. We were fond of mice, and fond of cats; but it was difficult to reconcile the two affections.
Jeremy Bentham, The Works of Jeremy Bentham, vol. 11, Edinburgh, 1843, p. 81
What difference does it make, if there is not, and never will be, a conscious being to whom it can make a difference?
Katarzyna de Lazari-Radek & Peter Singer, Utilitarianism: A Very Short Introduction, Oxford, 2017, p. 57
DEDICATED TO
Siang, Aline, Eve and thewelfare of all sentients
Yew-Kwang Ng, Welfare Economics: Introduction and Development of Basic Concepts, London, 1979, p. v
We have next to consider who the “all” are, whose happiness is to be taken into account. Are we to extend our concern to all the beings capable of pleasure and pain whose feelings are affected by our conduct? or are we to confine our view to human happiness? The former view is the one adopted by Bentham and Mill, and (I believe) by the Utilitarian school generally: and is obviously most in accordance with the universality that is characteristic of their principle. It is the Good Universal, interpreted and defined as ‘happiness’ or ‘pleasure,’ at which a Utilitarian considers it his duty to aim: and it seems arbitrary and unreasonable to exclude from the end, as so conceived, any pleasure of any sentient being.
Henry Sidgwick, The Methods of Ethics, 7th ed., London, 1907, bk. 4, chap. 1, sect. 1
Never to blend our pleasure or our pride
With sorrow of the meanest thing that feels.
William Wordsworth, ‘Hart-Leap Well’, 1800
Par ce moyen, on termine aussi les anciennes disputes sur la participation des animaux à la loi naturelle ; car il est clair que, dépourvus de lumières et de liberté, ils ne peuvent reconnoître cette loi ; mais, tenant en quelque chose à notre nature par la sensibilité dont ils sont doués, on jugera qu’ils doivent aussi participer au droit naturel, et que l’homme est assujetti envers eux à quelque espèce de devoirs. Il semble en effet que si je suis obligé de ne faire aucun mal à mon semblable, c’est moins parce qu il est un être raisonnable que parce qu’il est un être sensible, qualité qui, étant commune à la bête et à l’homme, doit au moins donner à l’une le droit de n’être point maltraitée inutilement par l’autre.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Discours sur l’origine de l’inégalité parmi les hommes, 1755, préface