Quotes About Suffering

The perspective on ourselves that we get when we take the point of view of the universe also yields as much objectivity as we need if we are to find a cause that is worthwhile in a way that is independent of our own desires. The most obvious such cause is the reduction of pain and suffering, wherever it is to be found.

The perspective on ourselves that we get when we take the point of view of the universe also yields as much objectivity as we need if we are to find a cause that is worthwhile... independent of our own desires. The most obvious such cause is the reduction of pain and suffering, wherever it is to be found.

Everything we get from whales can be obtained without cruelty. Causing suffering to innocent beings without an extremely weighty reason for doing so is wrong, and hence whaling is unethical.

Whaling should stop because it brings needless suffering to social, intelligent animals capable of enjoying their own lives. But against the Japanese charge of cultural bias, Western nations will have little defense until they do much more about the needless animal suffering in their own countries.

Factory farm animals cannot walk, run, stretch freely, or be part of a family or herd. True, many wild animals die from adverse conditions or are killed by predators; but animals kept in farms do not live for more than a fraction of their normal life span either. [The factory farm] deprives animals of their most basic natural activity, the search for food. The result is a life of utter boredom, with nothing at all to do but lie in a stall and eat.

Whatever the theoretical possibilities of rearing animals without suffering may be, the fact is that the meat available from butchers and supermarkets comes from animals who were not treated with any real consideration at all while being reared. So we must ask ourselves, not: Is it ever right to eat meat? but: Is it right to eat this meat?

Bentham señala la capacidad de sufrimiento como la característica básica que le torga a un ser el derecho a una consideración igual

In this passage Bentham points to the capacity for suffering as the vital characteristic that gives a being the right to equal consideration.

The capacity for suffering and enjoyment is a prerequisite for having interests at all, a condition that must be satisfied before we can speak of interests in a meaningful way.

The capacity for suffering and enjoyment is, however, not only necessary, but also sufficient for us to say that a being has interests—at an absolute minimum, an interest in not suffering. A mouse, for example, does have an interest in not being kicked along the road, because it will suffer if it is.

If a being suffers there can be no moral justification for refusing to take that suffering into consideration. No matter what the nature of the being, the principle of equality requires that its suffering be counted equally with the like suffering—insofar as rough comparisons can be made—of any other being.

So the limit of sentience (using the term as a convenient if not strictly accurate shorthand for the capacity to suffer and/or experience enjoyment) is the only defensible boundary of concern for the interests of others. To mark this boundary by some other characteristic like intelligence or rationality would be to mark it in an arbitrary manner. Why not choose some other characteristic, like skin color?

Suomi had, over three decades and with funding from the NIH, deprived hundreds of infant monkeys of contact with their mothers, isolated them in small metal cages, and deliberately caused them to suffer anxiety, depression, diarrhea, hair loss, and to engage in forms of self-mutilation such as biting themselves and pulling out their own hair—social, emotional, and physical harm that lasted through their lives.

In the Netherlands, a nationwide government-commissioned study found that 'many patients want an assurance that their doctor will assist them to die should suffering become unbearable'. Often, having received this assurance, no request for euthanasia eventuated. The availability of euthanasia brought comfort without euthanasia having to be provided.

If a flock of chickens is without water on a hot day, and all you have to do to prevent them from dying slowly and painfully is turn on a tap, you ought to turn it on. If to do so you have to walk a few extra steps in shoes that pinch your little toe, you ought to walk those few extra steps.

We have an obligation to help those in absolute poverty that is no less strong than our obligation to rescue a drowning child from a pond.

I couldn't care less about politics, the culture wars. My only interest is to get people to care about Darfurs and Rwandas.

As this chapter has shown, we are in the midst of an emergency in which appalling suffering is being inflicted on millions of animals for purposes that on any impartial view are obviously inadequate to justify the suffering.

the misery and pain inflicted on animals that I described in the original 1975 edition of this book has not ceased.

Why should people be dying from an invariably fatal disease while a potential cure is tested on animals who do not normally develop AIDS anyway? The

They then blocked the passage between the compartments with a piece of plate glass and tested the dog again. The dog "jumped forward and smashed his head against the glass." The dogs began by showing symptoms such as "defecation, urination, yelping and shrieking, trembling, attacking the apparatus, and so on; but after ten or twelve days of trials dogs who were prevented from escaping shock ceased to resist.

The real ethical issue about factory farming's treatment of animals isn't whether the producers are good or bad guys, but that the system seems to recognize animal suffering only when it interferes with profitability.

In Classical Greek the word pathos was the same for both suffering and experience. Those Greeks knew a good joke when they heard one.

To negate the pain, men and gods forget, pretend to forget, then forget to pretend.