Human rights v animal rights: seamless expressions of empathy?

All campaigners, whether they be advocating on behalf of animals or humans, must struggle against the above psychological truth. In the 2010 Blackburn Lecture, Julian Burnside invoked the idea that people care more about animals than their fellow humans. Mr Burnside was comparing the upsurge of public outrage in response to the treatment of animals exported to the Middle East to the apparent lack of public concern about the treatment of asylum seekers who make it to Australian shores.

The difference in public response may be more apparent than real. More than 500 million animals live and die each year in factory farms in Australia, without noticeable outbursts of concern by the Australian public.

Throughout the history of human learning, there have been people who have been able to combine working to advance human rights with the promotion of kindness and tolerance towards animals.

The two causes are not mutually exclusive. We should not be surprised by this. They each flow from the ability to care about the interests of others.

There should not be arbitrary bounds to the empathy we feel for others.

Pythagoras

Pythagoras is best known for his contribution to mathematics and western philosophy. However, he also practised a Buddhist-like notion of kindness towards animals and was a strict vegetarian.

His greatest mathematical discovery was the infamous theorem concerning right-angled triangles. Pythagoras was at home in geometry which commences with things that are self-evident and leads, by way of deductive reasoning, to conclusions that are not only not self-evident but not at all obvious.

Pythagoras' methodology is reflected in the famous words of the 1776 Declaration of Independence of the American colonies, one of the foundation human rights instruments: "We hold these truths to be self-evident".

Pythagoras also founded a religion based on the transmigration of souls, making him one of the first Western thinkers to advance the idea of reincarnation. His ideas promoted equality between men and women – a view that was very progressive for his time. His emphasis on equality led him to practise an early form of communism.

The same font of ideas, however, also led to a strong belief in taking steps to advance animal welfare. Pythagoras did not eat the flesh of animals. Nor did he allow his followers to kill animals in sacrifice. His concern for the welfare of humans and animals was inter-connected. Pythagoras: '[A]s long as men massacre animals, they will kill each other. Indeed, he who sows the seeds of murder and pain cannot reap joy and love'.

Pythagoras was influential in widening the moral compass of future great thinkers to include animals among the beings worthy of human empathy.

Mary Wollstonecraft and the Romantics

Mary Wollstonecraft was one of the earliest feminists and is famous for championing the women's rights movement. However, her views, in an interesting cascade, led to others close to her advancing the cause of animal rights.