78 • Alternatives to Animal Use in Research, Testing, and Education 
The consistency argument nevertheless succeeds 
to the extent that it shows that the genera./ reason 
for moral concern in the cases discussed cannot 
be limited to humans. Other things being equal, 
the fact that a condition is harmful or threatens 
harm to an individual— human or animal— creates 
a moral reason to intervene. That reason need not 
take the form of a duty owed to the victim, with 
a correlative right that this would entail. It need 
not always be a duty of any sort. The highest ap- 
proval is often reserved for the good deed that, 
like the good Samaritan’s, goes beyond what duty 
strictly requires. 
There is a spectrum of possible positions, be- 
ginning at one end with a strict prohibition against 
the cruel infliction of suffering, moving to a still 
powerful requirement to lend help when the indi- 
vidual alone is in a position to provide it for someone 
in great need, and then to the milder requirements 
of charity and generosity when the individual can 
provide them without great personal sacrifice 
(even if others can do the same), and finally, at 
the other extreme, to the highly praised but not 
binding act of genuine self-sacrifice that distin- 
guishes the moral saint. The moral vernacular cov- 
ers this spectrum with a single term. The act in 
question is called the “humane” thing to do, and 
sometimes failure to perform it is labeled in- 
humane. 
The term itself refers to the actor, not the recip- 
ient. Humane treatment, following the Oxford Eng- 
lish Dictionary, is "characterized by such behavior 
or disposition toward others as befits a man.” This 
meaning, which dates back to the 18th century, 
applies to conduct marked by empathy with and 
consideration for the needs and distresses of 
others, which can include both human beings and 
animals. 
This does not mean that animals will generally 
command the same degree of affection and atten- 
tion as humans. The attitude of empathy, which 
is the psychological spring for humane treatment, 
consists in "feeling like" the object of sympathy, 
and the basis for this response must be a certain 
understanding of what it is like to be in the other's 
position. Other human beings are much more ac- 
cessible in this respect, not only because they are 
structurally and functionally like each other, but 
because they can communicate their feelings in 
ways that animals can scarcely approach. In such 
areas as the capacity for experiencing pain, how- 
ever, the differences across species are by no 
means so great as to make empathetic identifica- 
tion impossible. Here the mark of the humane in- 
dividual will be the extent to which sympathy 
jumps the barrier between species (11). 
There are differences among animals, too, in the 
capacities they have, the things they do, and the 
relations they have with humans, all of which af- 
fect the moral weight that humane considerations 
will have. A gorilla will gather more sympathy than 
a trout, not so much because it is more intelligent 
as because it exhibits a range of needs and emo- 
tional responses to those needs that is missing al- 
together in the trout, in which evidence of pain 
can barely be detected. Predatory animals and wild 
rodents rarely elicit affection because their char- 
acteristic activities do not mark them as helpless 
and in need. Even within one species, the regard 
an animal may receive will rise with the social ties 
and responsibilities that human beings have de- 
veloped with it. As a possible recipient of humane 
treatment, the garden-pest rabbit will stand to the 
pet rabbit much as the stranger does to an ac- 
quaintance. 
Each of the morally significant differences 
among animal recipients of humane treatment 
builds on an analogy to the human case. Thus, 
whatever the merits of the consistency argument 
on the score of rights, it applies here because the 
humane treatment principle crosses the species 
border . Mary Midgeley has put the point eloquently 
in another context (33): 
[Animals] can be in terrible need, and they can 
be brought into that need by human action. When 
they are, it is not obvious why the absence of close 
kinship, acquaintance or the admiration which 
is due to human rationality should entirely can- 
cel the claim. Nor do we behave as if they obvi- 
ously did so. Someone who sees an injured dog 
lying writhing in the road after being hit by a car 
may well think, not just that he will do something 
about it, but that he ought to. If he has hit it him- 
self, the grounds for this will seem stronger. It 
is not obvious that his reasons for thinking like 
this are of a different kind from those that would 
arise if (like the Samaritan) he saw an injured hu- 
