If any creature, by its very nature, causes terrible suffering, albeit unwittingly, is it morally wrong to change that nature? If a civilised human were to come to believe s/he had been committing acts that caused grievous pain for no good reason, then s/he would stop - and want other moral agents to prevent the recurrence of such behaviour. May we assume that the same would be true of a lion, if the lion were morally and cognitively "uplifted" so as to understand the ramifications of what (s)he was doing? Or a house cat tormenting a mouse? Or indeed a human sociopath?
" Reprogramming Predators https://www.hedweb.com/abolitionist-project/reprogramming-predators.html", BLTC Research, 2009
Interview in Only Angels Have Wings (April 2004)
1990s, Speech to the Council for National Policy (1997)
Appendix: "On Intellectual Craftsmanship"
The Sociological Imagination (1959)
“With a higher moral nature will come a restriction on the multiplication of the inferior.”
The Principles of Biology, Vol. II (1867), Part VI: Laws of Multiplication, ch. 8: Human Population in the Future
Principles of Biology (1864)
Section 9 : Ethical Outlook
Founding Address (1876), Life and Destiny (1913)
Context: Theologians often say that faith must come first, and that morality must be deduced from faith. We say that morality must come first, and faith, to those whose nature fits them to entertain it, will come out of the experience of a deepened moral life as its richest, choicest fruit.
Precisely because moral culture is the aim, we cannot be content merely to lift the mass of mankind above the grosser forms of evil. We must try to advance the cause of humanity by developing in ourselves, as well as in others, a higher type of manhood and womanhood than the past has known.
To aid in the evolution of a new conscience, to inject living streams of moral force into the dry veins of materialistic communities is our aim.
We seek to come into touch with the ultimate power in things, the ultimate peace in things, which yet, in any literal sense, we know well that we cannot know. We seek to become morally certain — that is, certain for moral purposes — of what is beyond the reach of demonstration. But our moral optimism must include the darkest facts that pessimism can point to, include them and transcend them.
"Art Meets Science in The Heart of the Andes", p. 109
I Have Landed (2002)
About how government can function
1990s and later, "The Age of Social Transformation." 1994
