Moral Inquiries on the Situation of Man and of Brutes
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Moral Inquiries on the Situation of Man and of Brutes is an 1824 book by Lewis Gompertz, an early animal rights advocate and vegan. In the book, Gompertz lays out a moral framework for the treatment of and obligations towards humans and other animals, arguing against the consumption of meat, milk, eggs, silk and leather, denouncing vivisection and arguing for aiding animals suffering in the wild.
Reception
One contemporary reviewer called the structuring of the book "puzzling", yet felt that Gompertz laid out "excellent principles, as applied to all points of a public nature" and that the "tendency of most of the author's proposals and observations is humane and laudable"; they concluded that despite certain faults in the book's judgements, that it deserved the "attention of magistrates and men in power".[1]
Legacy
In 1839, the astronomer and naturalist
Stephen Bostock draws attention to how Gompertz's investigation of ethics "attempts to argue rigorously from firm foundations with an elaborate apparatus of definitions, axioms and theorems". He also praises the fairness Gompertz gives to his opponents and his honesty about his doubts. Bostock also asserts that Gompertz's answers to a number of contemporary ethical questions are "well worth the attention of anyone tackling these questions today."[5]
Editions
In 1992,
References
- ^ "Monthly Catalogue, Miscellaneous". The Monthly Review, Or, Literary Journal. R. Griffiths. 1825. p. 109.
- ^ a b Salt, Henry Stephens (1894). Animals' Rights Considered in Relation to Social Progress. New York, London: Macmillan & Co. pp. 120–122.
- ISBN 978-0-19-992715-9.
- ^ ISBN 978-0-900001-37-6.
- ISSN 0264-3758.
- ISBN 978-0-7734-8722-2.