“Ethics in our Western world has hitherto been largely limited to the relations of man to man. But that is a limited ethics. We need a boundless ethics which will include the animals also.”

Kulturphilosophie (1923), Vol. 2 : Civilization and Ethics
Context: I must interpret the life about me as I interpret the life that is my own. My life is full of meaning to me. The life around me must be full of significance to itself. If I am to expect others to respect my life, then I must respect the other life I see, however strange it may be to mine. And not only other human life, but all kinds of life: life above mine, if there be such life; life below mine, as I know it to exist. Ethics in our Western world has hitherto been largely limited to the relations of man to man. But that is a limited ethics. We need a boundless ethics which will include the animals also.

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Albert Schweitzer 126
French-German physician, theologian, musician and philosoph… 1875–1965

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Source: Out of My Life and Thought : An Autobiography (1933), Ch. 13, p. 188
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