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Tom Regan on Cruelty

Animal Ethics

Cruelty is manifested in different ways. The central case of cruelty appears to be the case where, in Locke's apt phrase, one takes "a seeming kind of Pleasure" in causing another to suffer. Let us term this sadistic cruelty. Cruelty of either kind, sadistic or brutal, can be manifested in active or passive behavior.

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H. J. McCloskey on Punishment of Cruelty to Animals

Animal Ethics

[T]here is another class of cases where the state is accorded the right to interfere with the individual when he is not interfering with any other person, namely, where cruelty to animals is involved. Yet it is legislation that few of us should wish to condemn as lacking in justification. (It who cannot protect their interests.

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From Today's New York Times

Animal Ethics

To the Editor: Re “ Animal Abuse as Clue to Additional Cruelties ” (news article, March 18): As someone who deals with dozens of cruelty-to-animals cases every week, I applaud states that are imposing stricter penalties on people who hurt animals and that are working to establish online registries of animal abusers.

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John Passmore (1914-2004) on the History of Animal Cruelty

Animal Ethics

Once a definite social movement got under way in the West with its objective the restricting of man's treatment of animals, it moved with relative rapidity. Moral philosophers began to regard it as an obvious truth that it is wrong to treat animals cruelly.

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From Today's New York Times

Animal Ethics

2): We disagree with your contention that the First Amendment protects animal “crush” videos. Stevens , the Supreme Court last year overturned a 1999 law banning depictions of animal cruelty on the grounds of overbreadth. To the Editor: Re “ Disgusting but Not Illegal ” (editorial, Aug. In United States v.

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Freedom of Speech

Animal Ethics

The United States Supreme Court has ruled that the First Amendment protects depictions of animal cruelty. This does not mean that it protects animal cruelty, which is (and ought to be) illegal in every state.

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Make This the Year You Do Right by Animals

Animal Ethics

Stop supporting unnecessary animal cruelty in all of its forms. Now that 2008 has arrived, I'd like once again to encourage new and old readers alike to make this the year that they stop supporting animal cruelty in all of its forms. Stop supporting unnecessary animal cruelty in all of its forms.